MOTHER-GODDESS CULTS, ROME, AND MYSTERY BABYLON, MOTHER OF ALL HARLOTS ~ EXPOSING HYPOCRISY ~ Part 32

There are only two religions. One is the only true religion. It is based upon the Truth of the Almighty as expressed in His Word, the Bible. Every other ‘religion’ or belief system is false. No false religion can be mixed with true religion. Babylon is the source of all false religion.

 

When John wrote the Revelation of Jesus Christ, Babylon, as a city, had already been destroyed and left in ruins just like the Old Testament prophets had foretold in Isaiah 13:19-22 and Jeremiah 51-52. However, the religious concepts and customs of Babylon spread around the world. All false religions have their origin in ancient Babylon.

 

Tracing its origins back to the Tower of Babel we saw a religion of mother and child worship developed there still prevalent and widely accepted today. We’ve looked at many of the symbols that were used to develop a “mystery” religion. We saw how ancient Israel often followed after the idolatrous religious customs and practices of her pagan neighbors with disastrous results. We saw in Ephesus how Semiramis from ancient Babylonian ‘legends’ was still worshipped as the great mother Diana, the many-breasted goddess. Acts 19:27 refers to the fact that this form of mother-child worship was followed throughout all Asia “and the world”.

 

The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that in the first centuries A.D., there are no traces of the worship of Mary. Not until the fourth century during the rule of Emperor Constantine did worshipping Mary (disguised as the ‘Mother of God’ (in actuality the goddess of old), and offering cakes at her shrines begin to come into the professing Church. It wasn’t until A.D. 431, at the Council of Ephesus, that Mary worship became official. To bring more pagan ‘converts’ into a church made up of nominal Christianity necessitates lowering God’s standards found in His Word. This purportedly leads to a ‘better form of religion’ which is more acceptable and popular to the masses. God, however, calls it an abomination—an abomination that will surely be judged once for all at the end of history as we know it.

 

Little concerning the practices and rituals of today’s Catholic Church can be supported by Scripture, specifically as seen in the New Testament laid down by the Apostles. Where did they come from? Any serious student of history can only trace the history of these practices in the church back to the fourth century. There is a gap of nearly three centuries for which there is no accounting. As F.F. Bruce has said: “Far from our being able to find Scriptural authority for these practices, all the available evidence on their provenance goes to show that they were taken over into the [Catholic] Church from the various Mystery cults which were so popular throughout the Roman Empire in the early centuries of our era.” He goes on to explain that appealing to the early church Fathers over the Apostles has no foundation upon which to stand. “The most honoured of the Fathers were men whose minds were impregnated by the superstitions of Pagan religion, or the subtleties of Pagan philosophy…They were ‘near the fountain’ of Christianity, forsooth; yes, but they were nearer still to the cesspool of Paganism. And inquiry will show that it is to the cesspool that we should attribute every perversion of the truth which today defaces what is called the Christian religion.” Not every early church father lent himself to these perversions, but we must, however, bring every teaching up against the sure and clear teaching of Scripture to discern truth from error.

 

According to Bruce, the progress of Mithraism “can be traced from Persia to Anatolia. According to Plutarch (Pompey, 24), it was introduced to the Roman Empire by the pirates whom Pompey settled in Cilicia in 67 B.C. after clearing them from the Mediterranean. Mithraism, with its offer of eternal regeneration by the shedding of blood in the *taurobolium, became very popular throughout the Empire, and of all the cults current in the early centuries of our era was the most formidable rival to Christianity. Mithraism had its Mysteries, with seven stage of initiation (evidently connected with the seven planets, and of Babylonian origin), its love-feasts, its supreme pontiff, its celibate priests and consecrated virgins. Another of its legacies was the date of Christmas, for December 25 was observed as the birthday of Mithras (Dies Natalis Inuicti Solis) long before it was adopted as the conventional date of our Savior’s birth. It was essentially a man’s religion and was carried by soldiers to the farthest bounds of the Empire.”

 

*taurobolium=According to Wikipedia: In the Roman Empire of the second to fourth centuries, taurobolium referred to practices involving the sacrifice of a bull, which after mid-second century became connected with the worship of the Great Mother of the Gods (Cybele); though not previously limited to her cult, after AD 159 all private taurobolia inscriptions mention the Magna Mater. Suovetaurilia was one of the most sacred and traditional rites of Roman religion: the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep and a bull to the deity Mars to bless and purify the land. As a nation of conquest and war, gods such as Mars were important to Rome. He was a military deity as Rome conquered its neighbors and a protector in times of peace. In Rome, Cybele became known as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle in 205 BC recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome’s second war against Carthage (218 to 201 BC). Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince. Aeneas. As Rome eventually established hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele’s cults spread throughout Rome’s empire.

 

In his paper entitled “Babylon and Rome”, Bruce shows how pagan rituals are tied to Mysteries of the ancient mystery cults. He says that their close contact with each other produced a considerable degree of syncretism due to the basic similarity between them all, which is not surprising when one understands that they can all be traced back to a common origin. “The primal Mother-goddess who came to be worshipped under so many differing forms and names resumed in this syncretism her pristine unity. The words are famous in which Isis reveals herself to her devotee Lucius (Apuleius, Metamorphoses xi. 4):—

 

“I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the powers divine, queen of all that are in hell, the principal of them that dwell in heaven, manifested alone and under one form of all the gods and goddesses. At my will the planets of the sky, the wholesome winds of the seas, and the lamentable silences of hell are disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world, in diverse manners, in variable customs, and by many names. For by the Phrygians, the first of all men, I am called Pessinuntica, the mother of the gods; by the autochthonous Athenians, Cecropian Minerva; by the sea-girt Cyprians, Paphian Venus; by the arrow-bearing Cretans, Dictynnian, Diana; by the trilingual Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; by the Eleusinians, their ancient goddess Ceres; by some Juno, by other Bellona; by some Hecate, by others Rhamnusia; and principally both sort of the Ethiopians which dwell in the east and are lightened by the sun’s morning rays, and the Egyptians, who excel in, all manner of ancient doctrine and worship me in their proper ceremonies, call me by my true name, Queen Isis.”

 

F.F. Bruce, “Babylon and Rome,” The Evangelical Quarterly 13 (October 15th, 1941): 241-261.

 

The Mother-goddess worship gained a stronghold in the peoples of the Empire. When the Roman state was Christianized, though the Goddess ceased to be worshipped as Cybele or Isis, her worship continued, nonetheless. No one can seriously dispute the fact that the worship (hyperdulia) of the Virgin Mary is the continuation of the Mother-goddess cult under a different name. And this is just one aspect of rituals adopted from the ancient mystery religions by Rome.

From E.W. Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion, p. 631, comes this quote: ”The truth that Catholicism arose from a transformation of primitive Christianity in the atmosphere of the pagan mysteries is often denied”, says the Bishop of Birmingham, “but the known facts are decisive. It is to be regretted that detailed evidence is not as full as we could wish, inasmuch as documents describing the mystery-beliefs have largely perished. Their destruction was probably deliberate. Yet enough remains to show that the beliefs of Catholicism repudiated by a sound instinct at the Reformation were precisely those mystery-religion accretions which were alien from the moral and spiritual simplicity of Christ’s teaching.”

 

The difference between true and false religion is clearly delineated in Scripture. Jesus calls Himself “THE truth” and calls Satan “the father of lies”. He has been a liar from the beginning and the great deceiver. False prophets and false teachers do Satan’s bidding and are continually warned about in Scripture, even described as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Chapter 17 of Revelation looks forward to the climax of all false beliefs in the form of “Mystery Babylon.” This false religious system is also identified as a woman.

 

In the New Testament, the Church was referred to as a ‘mystery’. A ‘mystery’ from the Greek “mysterion” refers to something hidden or secret not known to man but becomes known in time by the revelation of God. Without this revelation of God, we would never come to understand the mystery. In Revelation 17, the apostate harlot “church” is also referred to as a mystery. The origin of ‘Mystery Babylon’ is Babel. There, Satan organized the first idolatrous religion, the beginning of all mystery religions that eventually permeated the world. At its heart is the worship of ‘self’, based upon the first lie Satan uttered to Eve, ‘ye shall be as gods’ (Genesis 3:5). Babylon is the devil’s world kingdom—religiously, politically, and commercially.

 

Babylon or “Babel” was founded by Nimrod whose name means ‘rebellion’. He is, no doubt a prototype of the antichrist spirit. Babylon is the birthplace of astrology—the practice of using horoscopes and the zodiac. It is also the birthplace of idolatry. Some scholars believe that there will be a revived Babylon of old in the future based on passages such as Zechariah 5:5-11. Zechariah 5:5-11 In this passage, the woman (“Wickedness”) in the basket will be taken to the land of Shinar where a temple will be built for her, one in which she will be set on her own pedestal. This prophecy was written after the Jewish return from exile and has never been clearly fulfilled.

 

We see in the ecumenical movement of our own day a worldwide longing for the union of all faiths into one. Throughout the history of the Church, many have put Rome at the center of this movement to unify all faiths and religions. Does it seem unlikely to the reader that the unifying factor just might be a renewed interest in goddess worship? After seeing this very long thread throughout Scripture and what is seen even today, this writer has little doubt that is a very real possibility. A rapture of the Church makes it easier for one to envisage a speedy return to paganism, especially one that is facilitated by goddess worship or the mother-child cult of old. One can easily imagine what will happen when all true Christians are taken out of the church and the world.

 

In Revelation, John sees what is to come. ‘Babylon the Great’ is Satan’s last-ditch attempt at setting up his kingdom around a one-world religion and government. What is already taking shape will come together for a short time in the period known as the Tribulation. This short-lived kingdom will be destroyed before Christ returns (Revelation 19:1-3).

 

Revelation 17:3-5—And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

 

John sees a woman in a wilderness while in the Spirit. ‘Wilderness’ is a deserted, desolate wasteland. Previously, he saw a woman in Revelation 12 (Israel) as a great sign in heaven. According to Revelation 12:6, it is at the half-way point in the Tribulation that she will flee into the wilderness where a place of protection and nourishment will have been prepared for her by God for the duration of the Tribulation period. Ironically, her first wilderness experience of wandering around for 40 years in search of the promised land began with idolatry and led to a long history of idolatry. This woman of Revelation 17 is that same idolatrous woman Israel got involved with in ancient days. In verse 18, she is identified as that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. We know that great city is Babylon. She is contrasted with the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God in Revelation 21, which we will look at in the end of our study.

 

This ‘woman’ has great influence and authority, as previously noted. Just as ancient Babylon in Jeremiah 51:13 was described as “you who dwell by many waters”, this is the harlot city of the future. In verse 15 of Revelation 17, we see that the ‘many waters’ does not refer to her geographical location but to peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. This shows the harlot’s universal dominance. “The entire world is going to be committed to the false worship of the Babylonian system rather than the true God,” as John MacArthur says. By this time, she is no longer confined to the plain of Shinar. Her influence extends throughout the whole world. Not only does she have influence, but she has worldwide support.

 

The woman sits on a scarlet beast. This beast who supports her is the same beast of Revelation 13:1 who arose from these same waters. This is antichrist (cf. 13:1, 4; 14:9; 16:10), the man of lawlessness. What unifies antichrist’s kingdom at the beginning? Religion. God’s fury has been unleashed upon the world, and the people in desperation will turn to ‘religion’ for answers. Revelation 13:1;  2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 ;  Daniel 9:27

The antichrist’s color is scarlet. He is a ferocious beast set out to deceive and to destroy while, at the same time, demanding ultimate allegiance from the whole world. The harlot is dressed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

 

In Daniel 10:5-6, the prophet records a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ. I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen (white linen), whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult. Ezekiel 9:2 talks about six men (apparently angels) who appeared on the earth. One of them was dressed in linen. Apparently, linen indicated high rank. This One, like that One of Daniel 10, was no doubt also the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ. In Revelation 1:12-20, Revelation 1:12-20,  John records his encounter with one like a son of man. He was clothed in a robe reaching to the feet and girded across His chest with a golden sash. MacArthur says ‘robe’ in the Septuagint most often refers to the garment of the High Priest. With the golden sash, this is Christ serving in His priestly role. The passage goes on to describe Christ with His voice like the sound of many waters. Out of His mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword. John has the same reaction to this One as Daniel in Daniel 10. The blazing glory of Christ seen here is a picture of His holiness.

 

Revelation 6:11 describes those martyrs of the Tribulation who were slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained. They are seen crying out to God in prayer: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” The Lord’s answer is to see that they are each given a white robe and to know that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. These are Christians who get saved after the rapture and then are martyred for their faith in Christ.

 

Christ is seen in His Second Coming to earth in Revelation 19. Revelation 19:13-16—He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

 

Isaiah 63:2-3—Why is Your apparel red; and Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? “I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment.” Vs. 6—“I trod down the peoples in My anger and made them drunk in My wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” The splattered “grape juice” staining the Lord’s clothing is really the ‘blood’ from the multitude of those who will be destroyed in judgment. This is our great Warrior-King who alone brings future salvation to Israel and sets up His Kingdom on earth.

 

In Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah sees a vision of the Lord sitting on His throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Isaiah is struck down by the magnificent holiness of His Lord. Isaiah 61:10 is a picture of what happens when a sinner repents of his sin recognizing the fact that he can never achieve his own righteousness by works. Calling upon the mercy of God, that one is covered by the Lord with His own divine righteousness by grace through his faith. “He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness…”

 

Matthew 27:28—They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (cf. John 19:2, 5)

 

Scarlet, purple, and gold were the priestly colors of Judaism. They were also the same colors of the tapestry in the temple. Those colors were hand-picked by God to represent Himself. Counterfeit religion had always attempted to adopt the things of God for its own distorted purposes. This brings to mind Matthew 23:35 when the Lord contrasts the beauty of the outside of the cup with the impurity found inside. In Jeremiah 3:3 God told apostate Judah that she had the forehead of a harlot in that she refused to be ashamed. She told everyone that she belonged to the Lord even while she played the harlot with every passerby.

Purple and scarlet were colors of royalty. Mystery Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, thought of herself as a queen (the queen of heaven was even her title). While on earth, she lived like a queen indulging in all fleshly and sensual delights leading others to do the same. Associated with material wealth and excess, she withheld nothing from herself. She saw herself as royalty. God, however, saw her as the greatest prostitute of all time! Her appearance was in stark contrast to that of the fine white linen of the overcomers, the saints, in Revelation 3:5, 18; 19:8, 14.

 

Stay tuned for much more to come!