The Goddesses of Christianity

Let’s get a few things straight. If you are a Christian you might want to sit down for this…

This one of the oldest images of Jesus, the founder of Christianity. He is called Christ Pantocrator, painted on wooden board in the sixth or seventh century. This image is in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, in Egypt, one of the oldest monasteries in the world.

First of all, Jesus was not a Christian. He wouldn’t have been called Jesus and he wasn’t from Nazareth. His name would have been Yeshua in Hebrew (also spelt Iesou) and he was a Jew from Galilee but he was not impressed by the way Judaism was becoming commercialised. In Jesus’ time Judaism was controlled by two influential Jewish religious groups; the Pharisees and Sadducees.

The Pharisees were not part of the elite, although some were wealthy, whereas the Sadducees were an elite class. The Sadducees were heavily involved in political affairs, including collaborating with the Romans. The Sadducees were priests, running the Temple, its festivals, and its sacrifices.

Jesus belonged to a Jewish sect with differing beliefs to the Pharisees and Sadducees, called the Nazarenes (also spelled Nazirites or Nasoreans). Raymond E. Brown in ‘The Birth of the Messiah’ believes the root word nazir referred to someone consecrated and bound to the Hebrew God. They did not cut their hair, eat meat or drink alcohol.

There are a number of references to Nazirites in the Old Testament, particularly the Book of Numbers (6:1-21) where the special requirements are detailed “If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite.”

In the original Greek text of all four New Testament gospels Jesus was called “Iesou Nazarene”. The group of disciples and followers of Jesus were called Nazarenes  (Acts 24). Jesus may have also had connections within the Essenes of Qumran (authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls), or the Essenes may have been another name for the Nazarenes.

This image, the Good Shepherd from the third century, is an illustration of Jesus stating: “I am the good shepherd… the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11 and 10:14).

The Marys

Most Christians don’t realise the disciples were married and even fewer that they had children. We assume that Jesus’ followers were all men. But this is not the case. Jesus was a man before his time.

Jesus travelled far and wide to teach and heal with a group of followers that included his disciples and their wives and a group of women who supported his ministry financially.

These women were referred to: Mary, wife of Joseph and mother of Jesus (Matthew 1:16; Luke 1:41; Acts 1:14), Mary Magdalene (Matthew  27:56.61, 28:1; Luke 8:2; John 20:16), Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:39-42; John 11; 12:1-8), Mary, mother of James the younger and Joses (Mark 15:40.47; 16:1; Luke 24:10), Mary, the wife of Clopas (John 19:25), Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12) and Mary, who worked very hard in Rome (Romans 16:6).

Jesus’ male disciples would have travelled their family with them as part of their life and ministry. Jesus had women followers who were listened to his teachings and were important enough in his ministry to be named in the gospels.

In the early days of Jesus’ ministry women were already travelling, preaching, healing and baptising alongside Jesus and his male disciples. A group of women was singled out repeatedly.

This painting is known as ‘The Holy Myrrhbearing Women’ housed in the Damascene Gallery.

These women are identified as “they that followed Jesus from Galilee and saw to his needs” (Matthew and Mark) and became known as the Marys.

Mary of Ephesus

While in Türkiye in 2024 I visited what is believed the last home of Mary, mother of Jesus. After the crucifixion, Mary was brought out of Jerusalem. Jesus had entrusted the wellbeing of Mary to John the apostle, who took her to Ephesus near the Ionian settlement where the enormous Temple of Artemis stood – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

A humble stone house still stands on the site amidst luscious gardens and forests, believed to be where Mary lived. I stood in a queue to file through the house single file, entering through one door and out another. There was a small altar set up with a small statue. Many were brought to tears.

I could almost see the air crackling with energy, especially around the altar, but I wasn’t sure whether this was because millions of devout Christians had stood where I was and prayed to Mary. I couldn’t feel, see or sense her although I did feel incredibly calm and peaceful afterwards.

In Ephesus, Mary acquired a quasi-divine status, a curious compromise for the Church fathers to tolerate over the centuries. Between the first and fourth centuries CE, the early Church Fathers incorporated the images of Isis and other familiar goddesses into Mary’s story.

Statues of Mary were installed in the pagan temples in place of Artemis, Demeter and Aphrodite. Some of the temples were even converted into basilicas.

Pre-Christian Anatolian goddess, Artemis and the concept of the Mother Goddess were eventually assimilated into the concept of Mary. Particularly in Ephesus, Artemis reigned not only as Queen of Heaven, but also as Mother, Healer and Saviour.

Reverence for Mary, mother of Jesus, was as so deeply entrenched that after her temple was destroyed and Christian churches were built on top of her sacred places, her citizens demanded to worship the only female character in Christianity, the Virgin Mary, and re-named her Theotokos, God-bearer or Mother of God, at Ephesus in 431 CE. At Ephesus Mary took on deistic attributes, such as the ability to heal and to grant fertility.

This Madonna and Child enthroned among the angels and saints is from Mount Sinai, sixth century.

A Church of Mary was later dedicated to Theotokos at Ephesus. It is also known as the Church of the Councils where two councils of early Christianity are believed to have been held.

Mother Mary is the new goddess of the Christian Church in all but name. Deprived of the goddess, the people had turned to Mary instead as her worship took over the role of the goddess. From the end of the fourth century and beginning of the fifth Mary is depicted in the same position as Isis with Horus, the mural crown of Cybele or Diana, and with the gorgon of Athena painted on her breast. This image of Mary holding baby Jesus is even older, dating to the third century from the Catacombs in Rome.

Mary Replaces the Goddess

Another ancient image of Mary comes from Rome, dated to the fifth century. Here she is Protectoress of the Romans.

Sometime between 400-500 CE the temple of Isis at Soissons in France was consecrated as a church for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Between 500-600 CE Athena’s great temple, the Parthenon, was converted to worship Mary instead.

Within 500 years of her death, images developed her until she assumed the presence and stature of all the goddesses before her – Cybele, Aphrodite, Demeter, Astarte, Isis, Hathor, Inanna and Ishtar. Like them, she is both virgin and mother, and, like many of them, she gives birth to a half-human, half-divine child, who dies and is reborn.

Mary’s cult reached its height in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance from the eleventh till the fifteenth century. Between 1170-1270, for instance, in France alone over 100 churches and 80 cathedrals were built in her honour.

As the church spread through Europe, cathedrals were built over the top of pagan shrines and goddesses were turned into Christian saints. The newly converted pagans chose a divine goddess of their own: Mary, mother of Jesus.

When I look at how Mother Mary is worshipped in the Catholic Church throughout Europe and the New World (the Americas) I find her veneration differs very little from ancient goddess worship.

Notre Dame

The medieval church gave birth to cathedrals—over one hundred and twenty-five were built the size of Chartres. Some, like Chartres, were built on Celtic or pagan sites that had long been sacred to the Earth Mother.

The central four panels in this stain glass is known as ‘Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière’ at Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral, made in the twelfth century, extended with side panels in the twelfth century.

Built where the ley lines cross on a natural island in the Seine upon the site of a Druid shrine to Isis, Chartres Cathedral has stood for hundreds of years. It uses Templar influence and symbology. In many of these cathedrals a statue to the Black Madonna can be found even to this day.

It is a bit off topic but I need to share this image of Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templar, and a major leader in the reform of the Benedictines through the Cistercian Order. He was a big deal, who preached love from the pulpit, and even wrote the secret oath every Knights Templar swore. We’ll get to that in a moment.

This depicts a vision that Bernard had of receiving milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. The scene is a legend that supposedly took place at Speyer Cathedral in 1146.

Anyway, where was I?

Over three hundred Cistercian monasteries were built dedicated to Notre Dame (Our Lady) in this century alone. It is interesting to note that of all the cathedrals Bernard of Clairvaux built with the help of the Templars were dedicated to John the Baptist, Mary and Mary Magdalene.

Every single cathedral was dedicated to Notre Dame with such titles as Notre Dame de Chartres, Notre Dame de Lyons, Notre Dame de Paris. According to the Templars, the title Notre Dame was in honour of Mary Magdalene not Mother Mary. Not a single monastery or cathedral was dedicated to Jesus.

Bernard of Clairvaux wrote the oath the Knights Templar secretly used. They swore allegiance to “the obedience of Bethany, the castle of Mary and Martha”. According to Seren Bertrand and Azra Bertrand in ‘Magdalene Mysteries: The Left-Hand Path of the Feminine Christ’ say that castle was a womb word. This essentially meant that all new Templar knights to swear an oath to the womb of Mary Magdalene!

The Templars were sworn to protect the bloodline of David carried by Mary Magdalene. Seren Bertrand and Azra Bertrand claim that one of the secret founders of the Templars, Godfrey of Bouillon, was a descendent of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.

But I digress. We will talk about Mary Magdalene and Martha in another blog…

These cathedrals were books of stone – teaching tools for a largely illiterate population. The stone masons had a significant role to play in educating the masses and continuing the dissemination of secret mystery traditions. This image is another ancient depiction called ‘Agiosoritissa’ – Mother of God – from Constantinople, dating to the seventh century.

Within 100 years 500 churches were constructed throughout Europe dedicated to Mary. Mary still bares the names of her pagan ancestors: Queen of Heaven, Lady of the World, Mother of God.

Mary was constantly celebrated in the poetry and music of the troubadours, and painted over and over again by artists who beyond the religious iconography of the time to what had been in the past and what she was to become several centuries later.

Mary, a Goddess

As late as 1854 the Catholic Church declared Mary to be immaculately conceived as well as immaculately conceiving thereby assuming the virgin imagery of the ancient goddess, with fatally new, limited and literal meaning.

In 1950 a petition was signed by 8 million people for the declaration of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Pope Pius XII Declared the Assumption of the Virgin as official doctrine, stating that Mary was “taking up body and soul into the glory of heaven”. Four years later the Catholic Church proclaimed Mary the Queen of Heaven.

Mary was not Queen of Earth or Queen of the Underworld, even though she had acted as an intermediary between her son and the souls of the dead. In her role of intercessor and mediator Mary acted as a Goddess of Death and the Underworld, who acted as a merciful, forgiving figure of Our Lady. She assumed the titles of the ancient Sumerian Ninhursag, becoming She who Gives Life to the Dead and Inanna who was Forgiver of Sins.

This Nativity is in St. Catherine Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt dated from the sixth century

Mary or Maria comes from mare, meaning sea. Through the ages, Mary has been worshipped as Mother of the Word, Star of the Sea, Glorious Mother of God, Wide-Open Gate of Heaven, Our Ambassadoress and our Hope, Queen of Angels, Queen of Apostles and Harrier of Hell.

Both Mary and Mary Magdalene are associated with the rose, a symbol of the awakened heart. Mother Mary was also associated with caves, healing waters and the moon. The moon, like the chalice, is a symbol of the changing lunar aspect of the Goddess. Like the cave, the chalice represents the womb of the Great Mother.

Walking the Camino  de Santiago with my mother in 2019 we unexpectedly found this on the track; Mary standing on a sphere with a snake or dragon coiled around it! The symbolism is based on a passage in the Bible: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.” (Revelations 12:1-3)

In art Mary is given the clothes of the archetypal lunar Goddess of the Moon. Mary is dressed in a blue robe of the sky and sea, reminiscent of the lapis lazuli jewellery and blue robe of Inanna and Ishtar. Mary’s robe was spangled with stars and the crescent moon, like Inanna and Isis.

But there is a subtle shift in imagery, defining a shift in the relationship with the natural world. Instead of wearing the crescent moon on her head like the horns of Artemis, Mary stands with a crescent moon under her feet or as a curved and flattened dragon, asserting her dominance and deposition of the ancient lunar cycles of death, birth and rebirth of nature.

In the ancient Mystery Schools, caves were some of the holiest sites of initiation. In a cave it is easy to move into resonance with the Mother Earth. Many saints, sages and ascetics live in caves. Mary Magdalene retreated to live in a cave in Provence, France, as did John the Baptist and the apostle John who wrote Revelation.

This image from the Book of Kells (Folio 7v) is the oldest extant image of Mary in a Western manuscript, dating around 800 CE.

The Nativity story told at Christmas time also offers us Mary as the Goddess of the Animals. Even though not mentioned anywhere in the Gospels, surrounding the crib are the sheep, cow, ox and ass. The ox and ass symbolised the opposing forces of Osiris and his brother Seth, giving the people hearing the story an understanding that Jesus was the union and transcendence of opposites.

Using ancient Neolithic imagery, Mary was depicted seated on a throne with lions resting at her feet. This is like Isis on her lion throne or the Minoan Goddess of Animals flanked by lions.

Apparitions of Mary

In the nineteenth century Mary suddenly began appearing before largely illiterate shepherds and peasant girls. After an absence of 400 years, apparitions of Mary were reported and a whopping 21,000 were authenticated by the Church.

In 1917, Mary appeared to three children near the village of Fátima, Portugal. She became known as Our Lady of Fátima, and continued to appear on the same day for the next 6 months. The children were told God would perform a miracle on October 13 so that people would believe. Over 70,000 people came and witnessed a miracle when a strange whirling ball of light danced from east to west in the sky, as bright as the sun. The Roman Catholic Church officially recognised the Fátima apparitions as “worthy of belief” in 1930.

During the apparitions to these children, Our Lady of Fátima made three predictions of world events, warning that if peace could not be restored a second world war would occur. Her predictions that unfolded over the following eighty years, with the final warning saving Pope John Paul II from assassination in 1981, and the pope publicly credited Our Lady of Fátima for saving his life.

A French Benedictine monk Bernard Billet recorded 232 appearances of the Divine Mother between 1928-1975 in about 32 countries. The Church sanctioned 15 of these apparitions. Incredibly the lady took on the appearance and language of the people she appeared to.

Then in Korea, she looked and spoke Korean, in Italy she was Italian, in Africa she was African and to the indigenous people of the Americas she looked native and spoke their dialect.

One of these aparitions has even been photographed! Our Lady of Zeitoun, also known simply as El-Zeitoun, Zeitun or rarely Our Lady of Light, was a mass Marian apparition that occurred in the Zeitoun district of Cairo, Egypt for about 3 years from 2 April 1968. She can be seen standing on the roof with her halo, her whole body glowing bright.

Curiously, Jesus only made rare appearances and God the Father made none.

I hope this helps to get a feel for the thousands of goddesses who are available for us to work with. This is the long lost her-story of goddess worship that was once integral to a feminine spiritual path.

Which place and period in her-story resonates for you?

Which goddess draws your curiosity?

Examples of Christian goddesses: Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene