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Intel - Religion
Christianity - Pagan Influences

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• Solar symbolism was popular with early Christian writers. This is also apparent in the prayers and hymns of the Church, such as the Eastern Orthodox Troparion of the Nativity:

  Your birth, O Christ our God,
  dawned the light of knowledge upon the earth.
  For by Your birth those who adored stars
  were taught by a star
  to worship You, the Sun of Justice,
  and to know You, Orient from on High.
  O Lord, glory to You.

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• Modern scholars such as Martin Hengel, Barry Powell, and Peter Wick, among others, argue that Dionysian religion and Christianity have significant parallels.
• They point to the symbolism of wine and the importance it held in the mythology surrounding both Dionysus and Jesus; though, Peter Wick argues that the use of wine symbolism in the Gospel of John, including the story of the Marriage at Cana at which Jesus turns water into wine, was intended to show Jesus as superior to Dionysus.
• Additionally, both Dionysus and Jesus are argued to represent the dying-god mythological archetype, and share numerous characteristics common to Osiris-Dionysus deities worshipped around the Mediterranean, most notably being male, partly-human, and born of virgins; among other similarities.

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• Other elements, such as the celebration by a ritual meal of bread and wine, also have parallels.
• Powell, in particular argues precursors to the Christian notion of transubstantiation can be found in Dionysian religion.
• Even though there are suggested parallels between Christianity and Dionysiac mystery-cult worship, the two were seen as rivaling religious groups.

• The modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Eastre, which itself developed prior to 899.
• Bede states that the name refers to a goddess named Eostre, who was celebrated at the Spring equinox.
• Bede solely mentions Eostre in his 8th century work De temporum ratione, where he states that E-ostur-monath was the equivalent to the month of April, and that feasts held her in honor during E-ostur-monath had died out by the time of his writing, replacing the "Paschal month."
• The possibility of a Common Germanic goddess called *Austro-n-, reflecting the name of the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, was examined in detail in 19th century Germanic philology, by Jacob Grimm and others, without coming to a definite conclusion.

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• Apollo was depicted as the Sun God in Greek mythology

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• The Yule log has frequently been associated with having its origins in the historical Germanic paganism which was practiced across northern Europe prior to Christianisation.
• One of the first people to do so was the British Henry Bourne, who, writing in the 1720s, described the practice occurring in the Tyne valley.
• Bourne theorised that the practice originated from Anglo-Saxon paganism, which is a form of Germanic paganism that was practiced in England during the early medieval period.

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• Robert Chambers, in his 1832 work, Book of Days notes that "two popular observances belonging to Christmas are more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors—the hanging up of the mistletoe and the burning of the Yule log."
• James George Frazer in his work on anthropology, The Golden Bough (p. 736) holds that "the ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice appears to survive" in the Yule log custom.
• Frazer records traditions from England, France, among the South Slavs, in Central Germany (Meiningen) and western Switzerland (the Bernese Jura).