Brother AACOOLDRE : History of Black Madonnas

AACOOLDRE

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History of the Black Madonnas
By J.A. Rogers

The first historical contact of Italy with Egypt was about 1400 BC. Later came the Phoenicians who were also worshippers of the Black Goddess and who traded as far to the northwest as Britain.

In 58 B.C the Roman Senate ordered the statues of Isis in the Capitol to be destroyed. But in 48 B.C her worshiped returned with accelerated vigor when Cleopatra came to Rome as the wife of Julius Caesar. After the battle of Actium in which Cleopatra and Antony were defeated Isis was again ordered banished. Agrippa’s efforts to enforce this order caused riots at Rome, and served but to increase the zeal of the Egyptian missionaries. The persecution continued until the time of Tiberius; but the Black Virgin came back into power under Caligula. Suetonius tells of Egyptians and Ethiopians at Rome playing a scene in which Isis is represented. Under Nero the power of the black virgin and son increased, and the Emperor Domitian in escaping from the Capitol wore the robe of a priest of Isis. Isis was especially adored by the woman, and it was the custom of her devotees to break the ice of the Tiber and go into bathe for which they were mocked by Juvenal in his Sixth satire.

The mystical religion of Isis with its beautiful liturgies and ceremonies; its rich ornaments; its sacred emblems; its initations, together with the sarrows of Isis for her crucified son. Osiris affected deeply all those who had been struck by similar misfortunes , says Plutarch. At the same times her holy life offered a lesson of piety and encouragement for all, especially women.

The worship of Isis, as the black virgin, lasted centuries after the introduction of Christianity. As late as 394AD her [Isis] processions marched through the streets of Rome. Isis is made to say by Apuleius, African philosopher and romancer (125Ad): “The Phrygians call me Pessinus, the Mother of the Gods; the Athenians call me Cecropian Minerva; in Cyprus, I’am Paphian Venus; I’am Diana Dictynna to the archers of Crete; I’am the ancient Ceres; to some I’am Juno to others Hecate. It is only to the Ethiopians and the Arians, illumined by the dawning light of the sun, and Egypt powerful in her ancient lore, who honor me with the rites that are really mine, call me by my true name, the Queen Isis”. The Arians were a religious sect of Africa.

The worship of Isis spread through the remainder of Europe and into Asiatic Russia. Ancient statuettes of her have been found in Northern France, in the Rhineland and on the moselle. Her temples were in all that region, as well as in Britain. She is believed to have had a temple in Paris, and another nearby at Melum. By certain archaeologists the word “Paris”, is supposed to be a corruption of “Bari-Isis”, becoming through Roman pronunciation “Parisii”, the name of the tribe that inhabited the site on which Paris now stands. The boat in the coat-of-arms of the city of Paris is supposed to be the bark of the Negro goddess. Isis was the goddess of navigation, as will be seen later on. According to De Breuil, a statue of Isis existed in the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres, Paris, as late as 1514, when it was ordered broken by Cardinal Briconnet.
Isis, says Encyclopedia Britannica, was worshipped in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul. Almost all the remainder of Europe, and England

Larousse Universal Dictionary says: One of the most ancient of the divinities of Egypt, she formed with Osiris, at the same time her son and husband, a mythical trinity in which is to be found the holy trinity of the Christian religion. Isis was the force of life (water) itself which gathered all the scattered forces of life from death and decay, warmed them in her bosom, and perpetually gave them new life”.

When the Christians came into power after the edict of Constantine they were powerless against the great hold of the black Madonna on the people so they ending by compounding her religion with theirs, changing her name to Mary.

According to Madame Blavatsky: “It was none other than Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, who openly embraced the cause of Isis and anthropomorphized her into Mary.

Grant Showerman says of the transformation of the pagan religions of Rome into the Christian one:

What was true of pagan literature was true of other arts. It was especially true of painting. So far were the Roman Christians from resisting the seductions of pagan form that their painting not only shows the same characteristics and the same changes period by period; but it borrows pagan motives and pagan figures. The good shepherd in the Catacombs is not the bearded Christ of late time but a smooth-shaven and shapely figure of pagan art.

Christian civilization was indebted to paganism not only for arts but culture in general. The new religion, itself, was not unmixed with the old. In both doctrines and ceremonial, it came to have much in common with the pagan religion. The resemblance between the doctrines of Christianity and those of the oriental religions especially was striking .

St. Augustine himself says:

“What is now called the Christian religion has existed among the ancients and was not absent from the beginning of the human race until Christ came in the flesh from which time the true religion which existed already began to be called Christianity (Retract I, 13)

Conclusive proof that the Black [Isis] Madonna is contained in the fact that Isis was the goddess of navigation. The greatest feast of the cult of Isis was that of the ship. On a great number of the coins of Asia. Isis is represented standing on a galley, holding a veil inflated by the wind.

In the romance of Apuleius there is a long description of the ceremonies held at kenchrees, the port of Corinth. This feast marked the end of the bad season and was the signal for navigation to begin again.

To this day in several sea-ports of Europe, sailors hold these ceremonies, and as their patron saint they a black virgin called Marry exactly as their fellows of 2,000 years ago carried a black virgin called Isis in their processions.

Today, the majority of the Black Madonnas have Caucasian features. The reason is that nearly all the original ones were destroyed by fire or by mobs during revolts against the church. When re-erected they were made black, but with the facial type of the predominant population. During the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars there was a general destruction of black Madonnas in Europe, two notable instances occurring at montserrat, Spain, and at Le Puy, France. The former is the patron saint of Catalonia: the later, the principal Madonna of France.

Two of the oldest black Madonnas of Europe are those of Loretto, Italy, and of Nuria, Spain. The first is said to be the original of all the black virgins. It was destroyed by fire about 1930 and was restored by Pope Pius XI, who according to father Ledit, ordered “The color preserved”. The Black virgin of Nuria, which is called “The queen of the Pyrenees” is distinctly Negro.

Thus, from this mass of evidence, we have undoubted proof that it was the Negro who originated not only religion but Christianity as well. The fact is significant, because no matter what some may think about religion, it was the source from which came all our learning, art, science, and culture in general”
 

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