[TruthTalk] Truth on Lent

[Marlin Halverson]

From: WWW.TRUTHONTHEWEB.ORG   Truth on Lent "The word Lent is of Anglo-Saxon origin, meaning spring." (Marguerite Ickis, The Book of Religious Holidays and Celebrations, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1966, p.114) Compare Baal Worship: 40 days of fasting for Tammuz; with Catholicism: 40 days of Lent; - COMPARE ALSO WITH Scripture: Eze 8:13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." "The celebration of Lent has no basis in Scripture, but rather developed from the pagan celebration of Semiramis's mourning for 40 days over the death of Tammuz (cf. Ezek 8:14) before his alleged resurrection---another of Satan's mythical counterfeits." (John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1 Corinthians, Chicago: Moody, 1984) "As long as the perfection of the primitive church (the New Testament Church) remained inviolable," wrote Cassian in the 5th century, "there was no observance of Lent; but when men began to decline from the apostolic fervour of devotion ... then the priests in general agreed to recall them from secular cares by canonical indiction or fasting" (Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book 21, chapter 1). "Tammuz, later linked to Adonis and Aphrodite by name, was a god of fertility and rain . . . In the seasonal mythological cycle, he died early in the fall when vegetation withered. His revival, by the wailing of Ishtar, was marked by the buds of spring and the fertility of the land. Such renewal was encouraged and celebrated by licentious fertility festivals . . . The women would have been lamenting Tammuz's death. They perhaps were also following the ritual of Ishtar, wailing for the revival of Tammuz" (The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. VI, 1986, pp. 783-784). "Shortly before the vernal [spring] equinox . . . the members of this cult [of Tammuz-Ishtar, Attis-Cybele and Adonis-Aphrodite] began a fast as Christians also have the fast of Lent, beginning forty days before Easter."..."Here, for the remaining days of the fast, the worshipers gathered to sing hymns of mourning for the dead Attis . . .There, "upon its central stem [trunk], was hung the figure of the young god [Tammuz]."  And to this day, on Good Friday at the Veneration of the Cross, Christians sing their hymn of mourning for another and greater one who died on a Tree. " ~ (Easter: Its Story and Meaning, Alan Watts 1950, p. 59). Dr. H.A. Ironside's Lectures on the Book of Revelation (1920: p. 301): "It is a lamentable fact that Babylon'sprinciples and practices are rapidly but surely pervading the churches that escaped from Rome at the time of the Reformation. We may see evidences of it in the wide use of high-sounding ecclesiastical titles, once unknown in the reformed churches, in the revival of holy days and church feasts such as Lent, Good Friday, Easter, and Christ's Mass, or, as it is generally written, Christmas. ...  some of these festivals ... when they are turned into church festivals, they certainly come under the condemnation of Galatians 4:9-11, where the Holy Spirit warns against the observance of days and months and times and seasons. All of them, and many more that might be added, are Babylonish in their origin, and were at one time linked with the Ashtoreth and Tammuz mystery-worship. It is through Rome that they have come down to us; and we do well to remember that Babylon is a mother, with daughters who are likely to partake of their mother's characteristics ..." "Nor was the forty-day fast period used by the heathen omitted in this work of amalgamating Christianity and paganism. This was made the Lenten period preceding the Easter festival, the same as it was the period of fasting preceding the festival in honour of the sun god's son Tammuz. Of this work of moulding the church after pagan models, Hislop, in "Two Babylons," speaks as follows:-- To conciliate the pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and pagan festivals amalgamated, and by a complicated, but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter in general, to get paganism and Christianity, now far sunk in idolatry, in this as in many other things, to shake hands." ~ Taken from Review & Herald, April 8, 1909. "'It ought to be known,' said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, 'that the observance of forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.' Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess." [The Two Babylons (Or The Papal Worship), Alexander Hislop, 1916, Neptune, NJ, Loizeaux Brothers, Inc., p.104] Unfortunately, the youthful Tammuz (also known as Adonis, meaning "lord," in classical mythology) met an untimely death at the tusk of a wild boar. Here legend overtakes history altogether. Some accounts say that after three days Tammuz miraculously resurrected himself; others say that the grief-stricken Ishtar journeyed far into the netherworld to find him. After many days she succeeded, but during her absence the passion of love ceased to operate and all of life on earth languished in mourning. By all accounts, when the lamenting was over, Tammuz was firmly ensconced as the new god of the sun, and his renown eventually exceeded even Nimrod's. Every year following Tammuz' tragic death and presumed ascension to the sun, the forty days preceding Ishtar's festival were set aside for fasting and self-affliction to commemorate his suffering and death. (It was this practice, "weeping for Tammuz," that God called an abomination in Ezekiel 8:13, 14.) At the end of this period of mourning the people would waken early on the first day of the week and travel to the highest hills near their homes. There they would present their offerings of wine, meat, and incense and prostrate themselves before the rising sun, exclaiming "Our lord is risen!" Then would commence the festivities of Ishtar, queen of heaven and goddess of fertility. ~(Baptized Paganism, Dennis Crews)