THIS word occurs in Acts xii. 4, relative to Peter’s apprehension, Herod “intending after Easter [pascha, passover] to bring him forth to the people,” but the word thus rendered is elsewhere translated the passover (Luke ii. 41; John ii. 13). The word Easter is the same as Astarte, the Phoenician Venus, and the same as Aphrodite, and is identical with Ashtaroth, “the abomination of the Zidonians” (I. Kings xviii. 13). Her worship was connected with that of Baal, and her emblem was a tree, with its branches, but without roots, planted upright in the ground. Hence, this explains the word “groves” in the Old Testament, which God strictly forbade being planted near His altar (see Deut. xvi. 21-22; the Baal and Astarte worship would be in the groves). Baal was the sun-god (the producing principle in nature), while Astarte was the Moon-goddess (the receptive principle in nature). It is supposed that the cult of Astarte was brought into Egypt from Assyria as early as the period of the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty. The licentious worship of the devotees of Astarte, in her temples in Tyre and Sidon, rendered the names of these cities, in the utterances of Christ, synonymous with all that was wicked (Matt. xi. 22).
From an early date the worship of Astarte was introduced into Britain by the Druids, “those priests of the grove,” and, from this, the religious ceremonies of April are called by the name of Easter! Hislop gives the following: “The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire, said that every year at Beltane (the first of May) a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones, and light a fire in the centre, each person placing a piece of oat cake into a shepherd’s bonnet; they draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet, and whoever gets the piece that has been blackened has to jump through the fire and pay a forfeit; the passing through the fire represents the sacrifice, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.”
Let the reader carefully compare this with Jer. vii. 35. This looks very like Baal worship, and if Baal was worshipped in our country we may be sure
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that his consort Astarte was also, for the two were joined together. For this we have evidence from the Bible: “They (Israel—what is man?) forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth” (Judges ii. 13). Ashtaroth is the plural of Ashtoreth—the Astarte of the Greeks. It is remarkable indeed that very early in the Word of God we read of this vile goddess: “And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim,” that is, “The star-goddess of the horns,” alluding to the quarter of the moon (Gen. xiv. 5). Jezebel had four hundred prophets of this goddess at her table, in addition to the four hundred and fifty of Baal (I. Kings xviii. 19), so it is certain that these two were worshipped together. Lent—the forty days of abstinence—savours of Paganism also. “Such a Lent of forty days,” in the spring of the year, “is still observed by the Pagan devil-worshippers of Koordistan. It was preliminary to the festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by weeping and rejoicing, and was observed in Palestine and Assyria in June; in Egypt, middle of May; and in Britain, some time in April.” Well might the Lord say, “Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here?” for “at the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz” (Ezek. viii. 14).
One cannot avoid saying, as we pass on, to what depths of infamy the human heart is capable of sinking—yea, has already sunk—when God reveals His national people as performing rites so debasing as to be unnameable. To speak of divinity in human nature is to speak utter nonsense. There is no good thing in the flesh of any of us, and happy the man who knows it and owns it to God. To resume our subject: we have said this festival to Tammuz was observed at different dates in varied places, and it must be kept in mind that the early Christians kept the Passover feast (though not of apostolical institution) in remembrance of the death and resurrection of Christ. Rome succeeded in uniting the Christian one with the Pagan by throwing the Christian one later and advancing the Pagan one. This is said to have been done about A.D. 525; and this is the so-called church that has the true apostolic succession! How little like good Gideon of old, who took “ten men of his servants, and did as the Lord had said unto him. He threw down the altar of Baal, and the grove (the Asherah—the vile symbol of the vile service of Astarte) was cut down that was by it” (Judges vi. 25). He made clean work of all such Paganism, no mixing it up with so-called Christianity. Rome could not do such straightforward work as that; a house divided against itself could not stand; she is a good blender, so she blended the passover feast with the Pagan one. Another thing must not be forgotten: at the first, in the Roman community, the fast was for seven days; then came the Nicene Council, and, after that, the fast lasted for three weeks; and in due course, when the worship of Astarte was making progress, they made the Chaldean Lent of forty days imperative on all within the Empire of the West. Thus Lent comes of a bad source, and has been mixed up by unholy hands with the passover feast. A month’s time separated the passover feast as observed in Britain and the Pagan Easter as enforced by Rome, but that was got over by very un-Christ-like methods—by violence and bloodshed the festival of the Chaldean goddess took the place of that which had been held in honour of Jesus Christ! Very different this to what Asa did. His grandmother had made an idol in a grove. The “idol” is called in the margin “an horror.” This was an horrible representation of the vile Astarte. Did Asa, King of Judah, trifle with this? No: “He removed her from being queen,” and “he cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron” (II. Chron. xv. 16-18); and this is what any person with a saving knowledge of the true God would do, whereas Rome, as ever, prefers to burn the true worshippers of God instead of her gods. Idolatry is bound to lead to moral evil. Idolatry debases the mind (and that requires no further debasing); and the debasing of the body quickly follows. See II. Kings xxiii. for proof of this. Josiah brought forth “out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove. . . . and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them into Bethel.” Here is the worship of Baal and Astarte joined together again. The debasing of the body is next seen: “And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.” Here were rooms where the idolatrous priests committed the unnatural sin with one another (compare this with Rom. i. 28-32). The “grove” here again means the worship of Astarte, and the women, that is the priestesses, wove garments for the goddess. Unholy Sodomites and unholy priestesses—what a comment on idolatry debased both mind and body! God has poured down His heavy judgments upon idolaters. Let all take warning from the death of Ahab, that wicked King of Israel, who had established the worship of Baal and Astarte in Israel. “And the dogs licked up his blood; and they washed his armour; according unto the word of the Lord which He spake” (I. Kings xxii. 38). Dr Edersheim says: “The words mean, ‘And the harlots bathed themselves,’ and the terrible significance of the event lies in this: that the blood of Ahab, who had erected altars in Israel to Baal and Astarte, was not only licked by dogs, which would remind of the prophecy of Elijah (xxi. 19), but that it also mingled with that pool which served for lustration to those abandoned women whose life of debauchery was part of the worship of Astarte, introduced by Ahab and Jezebel.” And the growth of immorality in our land to-day, from the desecration of the Lord’s Day to the shameless debasing of the body, is in perfect keeping with the growth of idolatry. Cause and effect is the relation between these two things. And we appear to be fast going back to those things named in Romans i. 24-32, where let it be noted, “God also gave them up to uncleanness,” “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections.” If these be the fruits of idolatry, well may the godly tremble for the sure judgments of the Almighty which are bound to come upon the land.
(To be continued.)