Is there a connection between the worship of the Virgin Mary and the ancient goddess named Astarte?

Blessed Virgin, Holy Mother, Mother of God, Bride of Christ, Bride of the Spirit, and Queen of Heaven.

Who is this iconic figure who has attained such exalted titles as well as a unique heavenly position? Where did she come from, and how did she progress from human to near-divine? What are the foundations of the dogmas pertaining to her, and how can we understand the fervent devotion she has been accorded over the centuries?

The Mary of popular piety—of countless prayers, statues, paintings and churches—appears far removed from the favored yet very human woman rooted in the Jewish milieu of the biblical narrative. How, when and why did the transformation take place?

There are, quite literally, countless studies on the subject of Mariology (or Mariolatry, depending on point of view): “without end” in the words of one scholar, “nearly unmanageable” in the words of another. This article can do little more than touch on a few of the key themes that outline the movement’s development.

ANCIENT ROOTS

In order to understand the phenomenon of Mary as the Virgin, it is important that we establish what the Catholic Church used as a base and then examine the imagery that developed.

Stephen Benko specializes in early Christianity in its pagan environment. In The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, he traces the development of the cult of Mary from Greek and Roman mythology through to recent times. Benko avoids anti-Catholic polemics and is sympathetic to the place of the “queen of heaven” in Christianity. That said, he unerringly traces Mary’s roots to the pagan, pre-Christian heavenly queens of Greece, Rome and the wider Mediterranean—those mutable goddesses whose ranks include ARTEMIS, ASTARTE, CELESTE, CERES, CYBELE, DEMETER, DIANA, ISHTAR, ISIS and SELENE.

“Christianity,” he notes, “did not add a new element to religion when it introduced into its theology such concepts as ‘virgin’ and ‘mother’; rather, it sharpened and refined images that already existed in numerous forms in pagan mythology.”

The combining of beliefs from different traditions, called syncretism, was not new but a recurring theme in religions of the Mediterranean area. As with the transmission of pagan-to-pagan images and ideas, so pagan-to-Christian shifts began to occur in what Benko calls “functional equivalency.” The first centuries of the current era, during which the early Christian religion was embraced and modified by the cultures of the Hellenistic world, constituted a period of particularly rapid syncretism. The images of various distinct goddesses merged to become indistinguishable from each other.

But the cult with the greatest influence on early Christianity, according to Benko, was that of the Great Mother (MAGNA MATER). Known in western Asia Minor as CYBELE, she was to become the model for Mariology. Throughout the region, many priests of the new Christian religion were recruited from among the pagan educated classes, and they naturally took their Greek philosophical ideas with them. Thus Stoic and neo-Platonic concepts of mythological earth-mother goddesses were projected onto Mary with little adaptation: Cybele’s devotees saw her primarily as a chaste, beautiful and kind goddess; her worship centered on salvation, and her cult advocated baptism, not in water but in the blood of a freshly sacrificed bull. The cult also enlisted celibate (sometimes self-castrated) priests, as well as virgin priestesses. Similar views relating to celibacy and the evils of sex soon entered the orthodox church and subsequently congealed as official teaching.

Benko describes the process whereby Mary became “the female face of God,” or the spiritualized image of the church. He writes: “Mary was eventually declared to be ‘Mother of God,’ which is a wholly pagan term filled with new Christian meaning. Did Mary become a goddess when this declaration was made? The answer of Christians was, and still is, an indignant No!—but in fact Mary assumed the functions of pagan female divinities and for many pious Christian folk she did, and does, everything the ancient goddesses used to do.”

By the mid-third century, Hellenized forms of Christianity had been granted a level of recognition in the Roman Empire. Sixty years later the emperor Constantine reaffirmed that freedom, and soon the forced conversion of pagans began. Their temples were demolished or “Christianized,” along with the congregations. By the end of the fourth century, pagan cults seemed to have been all but eradicated. But this should not be confused with the end of their influence. As we have seen, syncretism leaves its mark.

DAVID F. LLOYD

The Virgin Mary was a reappearance of the Asian European concept of the Great Mother, who was clothed in blue and had a crescent moon somewhere in her iconography (The Great Goddess could be a Moon goddess or an Earth goddess).

However, she didn't reappear as the Virgin Mary until about the 12th century c.e. (common era). Some scholars think that Jesus had become the judge of the dead, and this frightened too many people. The Virgin Mary was all mercy and could intercede with Jesus on your behalf.

Google the Great Mother in images too.

CF tells you.

BTW, Astarte is the Greek form of the Hebrew and Phoenician Ashataroth, as in the place name Ashtaroth-Karnaim. This in turn seems (to me) to be an honorific plural of Ishtar, the Babylonian equivalent. Compare the honorific Elohim, standard OT term for God, plural form of Eloah but taking a singular verb and clearly referring to a single entity.

But that's enough erudition for one day.

jer. 44:17.

I don't worship either.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL, God loves you.

Jesus is the way

No.