Rome is Daniel’s Fourth Beast
The Pagan gods the Same
Ishtar and her Counterparts
Ishtar and her Counterparts
Ishtar in Babylonia was Ashtoreth in Israel, Astarte in Canaan and Carthage, Isis in Egypt, Aphrodite in Greece, Ostara in Norway, and Eastre in Saxony (The Sixth Seal, 313-325, pg. 43).
“Ishtar, or Istar, the name of the chief goddess of Babylonia and Assyria, the counterpart of the Phoenician Astarte.”
“Ishtar,” The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 14, p. 870.
“Ashtoreth: The name of the supreme goddess of Canaan and the female counterpart of Baal. The name and cult of the goddess were derived from Babylonia, where Ishtar represented the evening and morning stars … From Babylonia the worship of the goddess was carried to the Semites of the West … The cult of the Greek Aphrodite in Cyprus was borrowed from that of Ashtoreth … ”
“Ashtoreth,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
“Within many forms of Wicca the goddess has come to be considered as a universal deity … In this guise she is the ‘Queen of Heaven’, similar to Isis; she also encompasses and conceives all life, much like Gaia. Much like Isis … she is held to be the summation of all other goddesses, who represent her different names and aspects across the different cultures.”
“Goddess,” Wikipedia.
Frigga is identified as the Norse ‘queen of heaven’ by H. A. Guerber, Myths of Northern Lands, p. 51.
“The Saxon goddess Eastre, or Ostara, goddess of spring, whose name has survived in the English word Easter, is also identical with Frigga, for she too is considered goddess of the earth, or rather of Nature’s resurrection after the long death of winter. This gracious goddess was so deeply loved by the old Teutons, that even after Christianity had been introduced they still retained a pleasant recollection of her, utterly refused to have her degraded to the rank of a demon, like many of their other divinities, and transferred her name to their great Christian feast. It had long been customary to celebrate this day by the exchange of presents of colored eggs, for the egg is the type of the beginning of life; so the early Christians continued to observe this rule, declaring however, that the egg is also symbolical of the resurrection.”
H. A. Guerber, Myths of Northern Lands, pp. 57-58.
The Pagan gods the Same
The pagan gods of all the peoples were essentially the same, for the peoples had taken the pagan system with them upon leaving Babel (The Sixth Seal, 313-325, pg. 43).
For the proof and citations from sources, please see Christine Miller, The Babylon Connection.
Jacob Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology, Vol. 1, “An Account of the gods of Greece; To shew that they were all originally one god, the Sun,” pp. 381-396.
Bryant capitalizes “gods” and “god” in his book, but I cannot bear to place a capital letter on this word unless it is referring to Yehovah Elohiym, Creator of heaven and earth.
Revelation 6:9-11 Endnotes
Establishing the Timeline of the Fifth Seal
The Tenth Roman Persecution the Worst
The Christians Blamed for Roman Troubles
Ten Roman Persecutions Fulfill the Fifth Seal
Persecution Under Nero
Persecution Under Marcus Aurelius
Persecution Under Diocletian
History of the Christian Martyrs
The Catholic Encyclopedia on Martyrs of the First Age
Secular Discounting of Roman Christian Persecutions
The Christians Blamed for Roman Troubles
The Christians, who were blamed for the troubles of the past century, were furiously persecuted … (The First Four Seals: 96-300 AD, pg. 28).
Diocletian’s intent in pursuing the persecution of the Christians was to eliminate them entirely, as most non-Christian Romans blamed them for the troubles of the last century. (The Fifth Seal: 303-313 AD, pg. 32.)
“Notwithstanding the efforts of the heathens to exterminate the Christians, and abolish their mode of faith, yet they increased so greatly as to become formidable by their numbers … and particularly excited the hatred of Galerius, the adopted son of Diocletian, who, stimulated by his mother, a bigoted pagan, persuaded the emperor to commence a persecution. It accordingly began on the 23rd of February, A.D. 303, that being the day on which the Terminalia were celebrated, and on which, as the pagans boasted, they hoped to put a termination to Christianity.”
John Foxe, Book of Martyrs, p. 53.
“In A.D. 250 the most violent persecution the church had yet faced was instigated by the emperor Decius (249-251). A general from the Danubian frontier, Decius was determined to have no nonsense from the Christians. In his eyes, they were the enemies of the empire. Their atheism was responsible for the many troubles in the realm.”
Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, pp. 74-75, emphasis added.
“The common people also, with their polytheistic ideas, abhorred the believers in the one God as atheists and enemies of the gods. They readily gave credit to the slanderous rumors of all sorts of abominations … practiced by the Christians at their religious assemblies and love-feasts, and regarded the frequent public calamities of that age as punishments justly inflicted by the angry gods for the disregard of their worship.”
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, p. 43.
See also Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, pp. 37-45, for the full discussion of Rome’s policy toward religions in general and Christianity in particular, and the causes of Christian persecution.