Isis, Horus, Serapis - IHS - a Pagan Trinity?

I have to wonder when the Mary cult thing in the RC church got started.  It definitely was after Constantine hijacked the faith to suit his military and personal ambitions. 

In a way the mother child icon is thousands of years old.  One has to speculate that maybe all this Mary stuff comes out of Egypt.

There was that church father Cyril of Alexandria who insisted that his coinage of the phrase “Mother of God” was the perfect antidote of whatever flavor of the month heresy was spreading in the young church throughout the superstitious middle east of the time.

“Mother of God” in a way ended the – which came first, the chicken or the egg – Gnostic conundrum of the early church.  It does make Mary an equal of Jesus.  Worthy of equal worship?

A product of a virgin birth has the same DNA as the parent from which it was cloned, though apparently the sex is different.  The spiritual end of the equation or the father or the scientist involved in an experiment of the creation of a child so to speak gets as complicated then in the past, the same as similar real scenarios that exist now in science.  It’s all a matter of labeling and marketing the product, is it not?

But let’s put aside whatever religion bashing you might think that this is.  In terms of modern reality, if Isis was still a viable goddess worthy of worship by the majority of the population, a modern translation would sell better than the ancient myth. 

The modern translation of some future society that will worship Isis again after an atomic apocalypse goes something like this.  The last woman on earth went to a still operating sperm bank and obtained the frozen semen of her dead five star general husband, inseminated herself, and the human race was reborn. 

In terms of ancestor worship alone, a thousand years down the road, the Isis figure would stand out in all human culture and the story with its plausible historical sequences would be accepted as truth. 

“Mother of God” was a term the Egyptians felt comfortable with and in terms of a visual, you have the Isis Horus statue that existed all over the Roman empire from Britain to Alexandria.

In a way I am not sure there was a trinity thing in Egyptian mythology and or religion. 

The assertion by some that I.H.S., a Christogram, really represents the pagan trinity of Isis, Horus and Serapis is probably not true. 

I do find Serapis to be a fascinating god.  He was totally molded by the new Greek rulers of Egypt, the Ptolemies, descendant from Alexander’s conquest of Egypt.  The Greeks did not like the mix of animal with humans in the pantheon of Egyptian gods.  So, they invented the creature known as Serapis, mixing the name Osiris with the name of a bull god Apis.  Serapis was the dominate Egyptian male god for hundreds of years until the last days of paganism at the end of the fourth century.

No doubt when Cyril and his Christian mob took over the last remnants of  the pagan establishment, idols got broken or maybe just chipped a little.  The horns came off of Isis and the measuring cup came off Serapis’ head.  In any case, I have no doubt that the icon of Jesus to this day is really a recycled image of Serapis.  A cultural void left by Isis, mother of Horus and dad Serapis soon got filled in with the icons of the new gods of the eastern church. 

I.H.S. – I Have Suffered – Jesus H. Christ

There is one of those symbols of Christianity that has always confused me.  Nobody ever explained it to me.  I never asked.  The Catholicism of my youth was pretty much “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it came to theology.

Don’t ask and I won’t tell you - embarrass you in front of a crowd - for asking a stupid question.  People with faith or of the faith are not supposed to question anything.  Whatever.

I.H.S.  A Christogram.  From a rather tedious explanation of it from Wikipedia, it is a corrupted or poorly translated, Greek to Latin thing for the name Jesus Christ, first three letters,  in Greek or “IHCOYC XPICTOC”.  IHC though is something like “Jes” – geez.  Sounds more like a street corner nickname for old bro Jees.

Anyway, Latin of the letter I can be represented as a J.  Greek letter sigma can be represented as S or C.  So over the ages you have JHS, JHC, IHS or IHC. 

The JHC is the supposed origin of the Jesus H Christ swear thing.  IHS has always been translated on a peon level of understanding as I Have Suffered, the mantra of all good Constantine dying empire beliefs.  Suffer now and be happy later.  It’s guaranteed.

In other words, ancient and or superstitious symbolisms like Chi-Ro, XP, are iconic symbols hanging around worship places explaining a faith you have but in other languages that you so not necessarily understand. 

This whole IHS thing got a run through the corporate cash register with a medieval mystic named Beradino of Siena who wandering all over Italy stirring up local bailiwicks with his vision of IHS in the middle of  a Sunburst.  (Again, the old sun worship sub-cult of the Roman church going back to the Egyptians). 

Always a good selling point to win over the hierarchy on visions with the question of them being bona fide, if the ancient sun god is involved in the background of the sales spiel.

At least San Bernadino was only interested in selling his worship of the holy name of Jesus.  He wasn’t trying to reform anything like Father Savonarola or Father Luther.

It is remarkable how in a closed system of medieval theology, how you can come up with a way to sell indulgences and or the scraped paint off the wall so long as you have some reasonably holy person having visions and his or her conduct does not greatly interfere with the weekly collection plate thing.  Or “crisis of the purse” as they still in the Roman church discuss the whole matter of the Martin Luther cash flow thingy.

That if you die and people start huddling over your grave and miracles are attributed to you, it is somehow a sign of sainthood of the deceased.  Again, whatever.  So long as it $ells, package it.

In a closed arena of where theology, with its limits, is allowed to go, a vision carefully screened and considered, an image, an abstract of an idea can become an object of worship.  Is this, in a technical sense, just another  idol?

(Wrapping oneself in the “holy name of Jesus” is a sign of respect or just another propaganda tool used by corrupt bishops and clergy to hide crimes behind?)