Question by God’s Deserted Orphan 🙁: Why did Christians build Churches over existing Pagan temples? And was the original Vatican a Temple of Mithra?
Best answer:
Answer by No Chance Without Jesus
Dirt is dirt
If Mothra had a problem He should have got his buddy GODzilla to come and raise a stink
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Most Pagan temples and holy sites were just that, holy sites. The Christians understood the power of the Pagan magic and the temples or sites were usually cultural focal points. To obliterate the previous faith and establish themselves as dominant, they used what was already there. AS far as the Vatican, I don’t know.
.. building foundations and installations already present..
.. same place, different cult, worshipper friendly attitude..
.. “Look i can uproot the temples of your pagan gods”..
Christianity is based on Paganism. The Christian cross is, itself, a Pagan symbol.
And the “Jesus fish” actually represents the age of Pisces. . .
*facepalm*
I believe: The pagan temples were built on the crossing of lay lines, very powerful place to use for spiritual purposes. The church built over them to 1) use that power, or 2) to stop the pagans from worshiping there.
It is similar to the reason we are writing in English instead of making up our own words.
Is there a difference between the two faiths? after all they all believe in image worship
Because they wanted to wipe out the Pagan beliefs for theirs. The vatican was rumored to be the temple of Mithra, and it is very possible it was.
Let’s see:
1. It is convenient to build over a pre-existing structure.
2. They wanted to destroy all signs of other religions to strengthen their grasp on their followers.
3. Because they had to authority to do whatever they wished (since the Church after Constantin was basically in control of the Roman Empire).
I think that explains it pretty well.
There was a pagan shrine and the necropolis (cemetary). Even the Vatican admits it to being a pagan burial ground (which was just as sacred to pagans as the vatican is to the catholics)
Because the Roman`s morphed the Mithraic Sol Invicta cult into Christianity in the early 4thC.
It was basically the same.
St. John Lateran was indeed built over a Mithraeum as were very many other Christian churches.
They wanted to absorb the supernatural power of the earlier god(dess).
They wanted to build a temple smack dab over the temple for the god(dess) so that temple could not be rebuilt on that spot.
After they destroyed the pagan temple, there was a nice wide level piece of ground.
“Hey, Zeke! Wha’ we gonna do wi’ this har nice big wide pieca groun’ whar the tem-pole use-tar be?”
“I dunno, Irv. Maybe we should put a Walmarts on it?”
“Nahhh, that ain’ been ‘nvented yet… Dang it! Sheeee-yooot! I’ve got it! We’ll build us onea them thar churches!!”
“Dang it all, Irv if yo don’ come wi’ the bestest idees!!”
[note: that thar con-vur-say-shun was iriginally in koine Greek]
the fatiacn was atemple of father satan
I hadn’t heard the part about the Temple of Mithra. But for the first part, the rational for building Christian churches over Pagan temples is that it made the transition to Christianity easier if people were going to pray at the same places they were praying before. In much of northern Europe people became Christian because the local ruler converted and ordered everyone else to become Christian. Often, the ordinary people barely knew the difference. They prayed to whomever the guy with all the soldiers told them to pray to. In some cases, the earliest churches in an area were simple Pagan temples which had been redecorated as churches.
I’m sure that there are many reasons… some thoughts:
1) If the gods of the pagans were Truly powerful then they would be able to prevent the destruction of their temples or their conversion to Christian worship (i.e. to the pagans this was an enduring and powerful symbol of the Christian God’s supremacy)
2) Pagan temples would in many circumstances be incredible beautiful and wonderfully adorned – it makes sense to use these beautiful facilities for the worship of the True God!
Note: Worship as a concept is not wrong, it was the worship of the pagan idols/gods that deprived people of knowing the True God that was the problem, as their worship was misplaced. Worshipping the creation (universe) instead of the Creator (God).
3) Having replaced a pagan location with a Christian Temple any residual pagans that haven’t converted to Christianity would have been forced to create new facilities if they wanted to keep their traditions. That effort alone, for the worship of lifeless statues would have been prohibitive especially in ancient times (no modern machinery back then).
Also according to some pagan practices certain locations themselves were considered sacred (sacred groves, Stonehenge, etc.), so when Christians occupied that spot, then the pagans would be UNABLE to move to another place of pagan practice. Further aiding them in relinquishing their pagan beliefs and enabling them to see the supremacy of the Christian Divinity.
Because they wanted to replace paganism, so they needed to
1. Build Christian Churches
2. Take down Pagan temples
turning temples into Churches killed two birds with one stone. It’s a common tactic for new religions which replace old, the turning of the Hagia Sophia into a Mosque being a very obvious example.
As for the vatican, it’s not built on a temple of mithra as such, since Mithraism didn’t have temples, instead it had underground chambers, one of which is underneath the vatican. I’m not sure I would read too much into that though, mithraism was a popular cult at one point and the vatican is pretty big.
Some of the Pagan temples were changed to Christian Churches.
And also then. the muslims came in & took land & tore the Churches down and rebuilt Mosques over or near over them. Recent archeology digs have found the foundations of early Christian Churches near around old Mosques.
When people turned to faith in Jesus Christ, they wouldn’t want to let Jesus down by worshiping pagan gods again. No! They forsake their false gods & believed in the Savior Who shed His Blood for remission of our sins!
And interesting find was at the St. George Temple. There was the Church of the 70 [or 50] Elders of the Early Church found underneath it.
Friend,
I am an Indian and i dont know about Vatican, but what you said may be true…Its because Christian missionaries have always taught the common man to hate and destroy all others whose beliefs, traditions and cultures are much different from what the missionaries follow,and in order to do this the best thing they could do was to destroy their places of worship and since they were backed by the rulers of most of these places ( such things happened in colonial times ) they faced little opposition…
in most cases, it was done to prevent the site from returning to its previous use; muslims are especially fond of this practice, as you can see in jerusalem and all over india. sometimes they were merely convenient buildings to use instead of building a new one. many of the early churches were built in basilicas [public meeting halls], a few in abandoned baths.
i believe the vatican hill was outside of the city proper at the time, and i’m not aware that there was a mithraeum there. the first st peter’s church was built in the basilica style, but i’m fairly certain it was built as a church in the first place. it was supposedly the site of peter’s execution, but since he never existed, it was probably a crucifixion site for common criminals.
edit: ooh, fire’s link is fascinating. there’s one error, tho. constantine never converted. he only converted the empire.
You seem to be talking as if the Christians were a new or different set of people. They weren’t. The pagan people converted to Christianity so what would be more natural than using their old building as a church – after, naturally, removing all vestiges of the old faith.
To your second question, there is no evidence. The Vatican is an enormous building, Saint Peter’s is vast. A Mithraeum is relatively tiny and there were hundreds in Rome so it is possible there is one buried under the Vatican somewhere, but that statistical fact is of no religious significance whatsoever
After they destroyed the above-ground structures, and
some time passed, they realized it was easier to make
use of the existing foundations than build from scratch.
The Vatican is partly built over a temple of Cybele. The
Mithraic meetings were held in underground chambers.