Stolen symbols: the cross and Christianity

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Christian ideologists not only unceremoniously appropriated the cross - the sacred pagan sign of fire, but also turned it into a symbol of torment and suffering, grief and death, meek humility and patience, i.e. put into it a meaning absolutely opposite to the pagan one.

In ancient times, any adornments on the human body - from tattoos among southern peoples to ornamental embroidery on fabrics among northern peoples - served as magical amulets against evil spirits. This should also include all the ancient "jewelry": pendants, bracelets, brooches, rings, earrings, rings, necklaces, etc.

The aesthetic functions of these objects were undoubtedly secondary. It is not by chance that among the numerous archaeological finds, it is female jewelry that predominates: a man, as a stronger and more enduring creature, needed such amulets much less.

One of the most common magic symbols used by almost all peoples of our planet for many millennia is the cross. The veneration of him was initially directly associated with the "living" sacred fire, or rather, with the method of obtaining it: by rubbing two sticks folded across (crosswise). Considering the great importance that was attached to "living" fire in that remote epoch, it is not surprising that the tool for obtaining it became an object of universal veneration, a kind of "gift from God." It was from that time that the cross began to be used as a talisman, a talisman, protecting against all kinds of disasters, diseases and witchcraft.

The worship of fire as a powerful element in ancient times took place among all the peoples of our land. The fire warmed, gave hot food, scared away wild animals, dispersed the darkness. On the other hand, he destroyed forests and entire settlements. In the eyes of primitive man, fire seemed to be a living being, falling into anger, now into mercy. Hence - the desire to "appease" the fire by making sacrifices and the strictest prohibitions on actions that can generate anger in it. So, almost everywhere it was forbidden to urinate and spit on the fire, step over it, throw filth at it, touch it with a knife, arrange quarrels and squabbles in front of it. In many places it was forbidden even to put out fires, since over the fire at. this was violent, and he could take revenge on the offender.

Remnants of the past worship of fire in one form or another have survived in all world cultures. On the European continent, such remnants: were the "festivals of fire", described in detail by the famous researcher of magic and religion D. Fraser. Torchlight processions, kindling bonfires on heights, rolling a burning wheel off the mountains, cleansing jumps through flames, burning straw effigies, using extinct smut as amulets, driving cattle between fires have been recorded literally in all corners of Europe. Similar ritual actions were performed on the first Sunday of Great Lent, on the eve of Easter (Holy Saturday), on the first May day (Beltane lights), on the eve of the summer solstice, on the eve of All Saints' Day and on the eve of the winter solstice. In addition, the ritual lighting of fires was arranged in days of disasters - epidemics, plague, death of livestock, etc.

In ancient Russia, fire was called Svarozhich, i.e. the son of Svarog - the god of heavenly fire, personifying the sky and the Universe. According to legends, Fire-Svarozhich was born from sparks carved by Svarog, who hit the Alatyr-stone with his hammer. The ancient Russian pagans treated fire with trepidation and reverence: in their sanctuaries they supported an unquenchable fire, which was kept under pain of death by special priests. The bodies of the dead were given over to fire, and their souls ascended to Vyri with the smoke of funeral pyres. A huge number of Russian beliefs, rituals, signs, superstitions, customs, conspiracies and spells were associated with fire. “Fire is the king, water is the queen, the air is the master,” the Russian proverb said. Of course, special importance was attached to "living" fire, i.e. fire produced by friction.

“The oldest method of obtaining fires from Indians, Persians, Greeks, Germans and Lithuanian-Slavic tribes,” writes A. N. Afanasyev, - was the following: they took a stump of soft wood, made a hole in it and. inserting there a hard branch, entwined with dry herbs, rope or tow, rotated until a flame appeared from friction”2. There are also known other methods of obtaining "live fire": with the help of a spindle rotating in the slit of the stove column; when rubbing the rope against a stick, etc. The Vologda peasants removed the grates (poles) from the barn, chopped them into pieces and rubbed them against each other, they did not catch fire in the rolling. In the Novgorod province, for the "wiping" of live fire, they used a special device known as a "turntable".

A detailed description of it is given by the famous ethnographer S. V. Maximov: “Two pillars are dug into the ground and at the top are fastened with a crossbar. In the middle of it lies a bar, the ends of which are pushed into the upper holes of the pillars in such a way that they can rotate freely without changing the fulcrum. Two handles are attached to the cross-beam, one opposite the other, and strong ropes are tied to them. The whole world grabbed onto the ropes and, amidst the general stubborn silence (which is an indispensable condition for the purity and accuracy of the ceremony), they twirl the bar until a fire breaks out in the holes of the pillars. Twigs are lit from it and the fire is set on fire with them."

Russian peasants resorted to the help of "live fire" during the death of animals, epidemics (pestilence), with various diseases, as well as during the great national holidays. In the case of animal deaths, the animals were driven through the fire, they invited a priest, lit a censer and candles in front of the icons in the church from the "live fire". From the latter, the fire was carried around the huts and protected as a reliable remedy against cattle diseases. It is noteworthy that at the same time the old fire was extinguished everywhere, and the whole village used only the "living fire" that had been obtained. There is no doubt that during the ancient pagan rituals of corpse burning, “living fire” was also initially used, driving away the dark force and cleansing the souls of the departed from everything sinful, evil, unclean. The cleansing properties of fire, by the way, underlie the Old Believer dogma of self-immolation, or, as they themselves called it, "the second fiery baptism."

The very act of obtaining "living fire" through friction, the pagans compared with the process of sexual intercourse, which led to the birth of a new person. It is not surprising that both of these processes were considered sacred and revered in every possible way by almost all the peoples of our planet. The fact that only men have always been engaged in obtaining "living fire", but most likely, is explained by the fact that the wand with which the friction was carried out personified the masculine principle, and it was the man who had to use it.

It is curious that up to the 4th century A. D. Christians not only did not treat the cross with reverence, but even despised it as a pagan symbol. “As for the crosses,” noted the third century AD Christian writer Felix Manucius. - then we do not honor them at all: we Christians don't need them; it is you, pagans, you, for whom wooden idols are sacred, you worship wooden crosses."

N. M. Galkovsky cites even more curious testimony from the Chudovsky list of "Words about Idols", compiled in the XIV century: "And this is another malice in the peasants - they baptize bread with a knife, and they baptize beer with something else - and they make a shitty thing." As you can see, the author of the medieval teachings decisively opposed the cross-shaped sign on ritual bread-koloboks and over a ladle of beer, considering it a pagan relic. “The author of the lecture obviously knew. - rightly notes B. A. Rybakov, - that the application of the cross on bread was at least a thousand years old by that time " disgusting"Tradition".

It is well known that the execution of especially dangerous criminals in ancient Rome was carried out not at all on the cross in its modern form, but on a pillar with a crossbar at the top, which had the shape of the Greek letter "T" ("tau cross"). This fact is also recognized by modern church ideologists. It turns out that for 16 centuries the main symbol of the Christian religion is the cross, which has nothing to do with the martyrdom of the Christian "son of God" himself.

Until the 8th century, Christians did not depict Jesus Christ crucified on the cross: at that time this was considered a terrible blasphemy. However, later the cross turned into a symbol of the torment endured by Christ. From a modern point of view, worship of the instrument of execution seems somewhat strange, if not ridiculous. You involuntarily ask yourself a "heretical" question: what if Christ were executed on the guillotine or on the same gallows? It is difficult to imagine the necks of today's Christians with little guillotines or gallows …

And yet the fact remains: it is precisely instrument of execution.

The cross is the oldest sacred sign used by almost all peoples of our land, at least a thousand years before the adoption of Christianity. Christian ideologists not only unceremoniously appropriated this sacred pagan sign of fire, but also turned it into a symbol of torment and suffering, grief and death, meek humility and patience, i.e. put into it a meaning absolutely opposite to the pagan one. The pagans saw in the cross a sign of strength, power, love of life, heavenly and earthly "living fire". “The cross was carved from wood, stone, cast from copper, bronze, gold, forged from iron. - writes I. K. Kuzmichev, - painted on the forehead, body, clothes, household utensils; cut down on the border trees, pillars … they marked boundary pillars, tombstones, stones; staffs, wands, headdresses, crowns were crowned with a cross; put them at crossroads, on passes, at springs; they marked the paths to burial places, for example, the road to the top of Sobutka, an ancient ritual cemetery of the Western Slavs. In a word, the cross was in all parts of the world the oldest and most widespread sacred symbol of goodness, goodness, beauty and strength."

In the Indo-European tradition, the cross often served as a model of a person or an anthropomorphic deity with outstretched hands. He was also perceived in the role of the world tree with its main coordinates and seven-membered system of cosmological orientation. It is curious that in most languages that distinguish between grammatical gender, the names of the cross refer to the masculine gender. In some cultures, the cross is directly related to the phallus. The cross, as a sign of abolition, destruction, death, began to be used exclusively thanks to Christian innovations.

A classic Russian cross is a cross with three crossbeams, the lower of which - the foot - is inclined to the right of the looking person. In the Russian tradition, this slanting crossbar has several interpretations, two of which are the most famous: the raised end indicates the way to heaven, the lowered end - to hell; the first points to the prudent robber, the second to the unrepentant.

On church domes, the raised end of the oblique crossbar always points north, acting as a compass needle.

It is curious that starting from the 12th century, the Western Church introduced the custom of placing Christ's feet on the crucifixion one on top of the other and nailing them with one nail, while Russian Orthodoxy has always adhered to the tradition of Byzantium, in the monuments of which Christ was depicted crucified with four nails, one in each hand and foot …

Church ideologists and even compilers of etymological dictionaries argue that the word "peasant" comes from the word "Christian", and the word "cross" comes from its own name - Christ (German Christ, Krist). As you can see, here we are talking about "borrowing", this time - from the Germanic language. Faced with such interpretations, one involuntarily asks the question: to what degree of ignorance must one reach in order to assert such things ?!

We all know the word “ flint »In the meaning of a hard stone-mineral for carving fire, used in modern lighters.

In the old days, before the appearance of sulfur matches, fire was carved with flint from flint using tinder.

The second name of the flint was “ armchair"Or" hard ". By the word "to whip" was meant to carve sparks out of flint. It is curious that from the same root the word "to baptize" was formed in the meaning of resurrect or revive (strike a spark of life): "Igor the brave regiment cannot be killed (that is, not resurrected)" ("The Lay of Igor's Regiment").

Hence the proverbs; "Stubbornly sit down, but he climbs into the grave", "He should not be on the chair (ie, not come to life)", etc. Hence, "kresienie" is the old name of the seventh day of the week (nowadays - Sunday) and "kressen" (kresnik) is the pagan designation of the month of June.

All the above words come from the Old Russian "kres" - fire. Indeed, the artificial sacrificial fire-cross obtained by carving in the eyes of our distant ancestors seemed to be resurrected anew, revived, revived, therefore, it was treated with such respect.

It is not hard to guess that the ancient Russian words "kres" (fire) and "cross" (the device with which it was obtained) are in the closest etymological relationship and in the steppes and their archaism are far superior to any Christian interpretation.

Abundantly decorating clothes with crosses, Russian embroiderers did not at all think about glorifying the symbol of the Christian faith, and even more so - the instrument of Jesus' execution: in their view it remained an ancient pagan sign of fire and the Sun.

The assertion of churchmen and atheist etymologists about the origin of the word "peasant" from the word "Christian" is also untenable: in this case, too, we are dealing with an elementary juggling of concepts.

Against this version, first of all, it is said that in Russia at all times they called “peasants” exclusively the farmers and never the representatives of the nobility, although both of them adhered to the same Christian faith.

There is no doubt about the etymological, lexical and semantic relationship of the layers "cress", "cross" and "peasant". Like the "fireman" (farmer), the "peasant" was closely associated with the fire-"cross" and, naturally, with the weapon of obtaining it - the cross. It is possible that this was due to the fire (slash) farming system used then, in which the peasants had to burn out and uproot forest plots for arable land. The forest cut down and burned in this way was called "fire", hence - "fire", i.e. farmer.

IN AND. Dahl in his dictionary quite rightly identifies the words “ peasants" and " firemen", Because their semantic meaning is absolutely the same and goes back to the same word -" fire-kres ".