The Moon's role in religion is as old as religion itself and we've all heard of the cave paintings and ancient pagan groups that used the moon in their religions. What many are not so aware of is the great influence of Moon worship on the Jewish and Christian forms of worship.
It is interesting to note that many of the words and names used to denote God came from earlier words that referred to the Moon as God. The common Semitic word for ‘god' that corresponds to the Hebrew and Aramaic deity Elohim is one of the early names of the Moon God. So the word that came to mean the supreme deity of Hebrew monotheism, and later Christianity, originally denoted the ancient and prehistoric Moon God.
Scholars have long known of the linguistic similarities between the words for ‘God' and ‘moon' on clay tablets from the time of Hammurabi, who ruled during the time of Abraham. Some have translated certain passages as "Yahweh is God" (or "Jehovah is God" in English) while others have translated the same passages as "The Moon is God." The words are so close in meaning as to be interchangeable. These early lunar influences were gradually absorbed into the Judaic religion, later Islamic, and eventually into the Christian religions. The Hebrew calendar is still lunar oriented and so are many of it's holidays. The name and day of the Sabbath comes from the religious importance of the moon. The Babylonians called the day of the full moon ‘sapattu.' Many scholars feel that the Hebrew word ‘sabbath' as well as the idea of a day of rest was an adaptation of the Babylonian ‘sabattu.' The Sabbath eventually became applied to the new moon, first quarter and third quarter as well.
Christianity also show vestiges of lunar worship.
One of the most noticeable is the worship of Mary as the Moon Goddess. While this statement may anger many Christians today who feel that their Christian worship has no ties to paganism in any form, the fact remains that there are many records that give weight to that statement. J. W. Slaughter in his book The Moon in Childhood and Folklore tells of a fourth century sect of Christians who worshipped the Moon in the person of the Virgin Mary. It is well known that the lower classes during the middle ages also openly worshipped the Moon as the Virgin. The Church's official prayer book speaks of Mary as "Sancta maria, coeli Regina, et mundi Domina, which translates "Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven, and Mother of the World." All titles used previously in relationship to the Moon Goddess.
Catholic priest Andrew Greeley states in his book The Making of the Popes, "Mary is one of the most powerful religious symbols in the history of the Western world. The Mary symbol links Christianity directly to the ancient religions of mother goddesses."
E. O. James in The Cult of the Mother-Goddess tells us about the Third Council at Ephesus. Ephesus was a city notorious for its devotion to the Moon Goddess Artemis (or Diana as the Romans called her). The council there decided to give Mary the title of ‘God-bearer' and replaced Artemis worship with that of Mary worship. This information can also be found the book Testament by John Romer, where he ads that the city of "Ephesus, itself for centuries the city of the virgin huntress Diana, became the city of the Virgin Mary."
And it is interesting to note that another of the Great Goddesses, Isis, who was often pictured with her child Horus at her breast was copied and changed into the pictures known so well of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. The Sun God too has been a part of this picture, so much so that in the fifth century the Pope had to stop his congregation from walking backwards up the steps of St. Peter's so as not to offend the Sun God. Sol's weekly festival Sol-day became Sunday and was adopted as the Christian Sabbath.
Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that the "expansion of the veneration of the Virgin Mary....is one of the most astonishing occurrences in the history of the early church. The New Testament offers only scanty points of departure for this development. Mary completely recedes behind the figure of Jesus Christ, who stands in the centre of all four Gospels.... Accordingly, all the Gospels stress the fact that Jesus separated himself from his family. Even the Gospel According to John still preserved traces of Jesus' tense relationship with his mother. Mary appears twice without being called by name the mother of Jesus; and Jesus himself regularly withholds from her the designation of mother. The saying, "Woman, what have you to do with me?" (John 2:4), is indeed the strongest expression of a conscious distancing." The Encyclopaedia goes on to tell us that the veneration of Mary received it's impetus under the Emperor Constantine (about 300 years after Jesus death) when the pagan masses came under the Christian influences. The people of the Mediterranean and Middle East simply could not relate to an absolute male power which the Christian Church had taken over from the patriarchalism of the Jewish idea of God. After millennia of thought in which the Great Mother, Virgin Goddess, or Moon Goddess held sway and formed the religious consciousness of people, the worship of Mary was something people could relate to much easier than the "God the Father" the Church taught. The Church saw this and decided to encourage it. Mary, over time, simply took the place of the Moon Goddess. She took on many of her names and positions, and filled her place in the minds and hearts of the people.
So what does all this mean today? Can a witch using the Moon as a symbol in her worship of the Goddess consider her Catholic neighbour misguided when she prays to Mary for help with a problem? Can a Catholic consider a pagan relative to be under the influence of Satan while she herself is praying to Mary to save her relative from Goddess worship? Can a Jewish person celebrating his Sabbath denounce a friend who celebrates the full moon?
It would seem that these things happen all too frequently. And yet there is a common background in all of these practices that cannot be ignored. It seems that instead of looking at the differences that seem to be so great in these so called ‘wildly diverse' beliefs we would all be much happier and better off if we acknowledged the similarities of our common backgrounds.
As a witch I am very much aware of what I think of as the ‘sisterhood of worship' that encompasses Artemis, Mary, Full Moon celebrations and Sabbaths. Not long ago I was asked to accompany Catholic friends to a Christmas Mass. Having celebrated my own version of the Winter Solstice a few days before I could see no reason to not celebrate my friends' version with them and so accompanied them to a large beautiful stone church. The church was huge and soaring. The architecture was quite beautiful and the interior design even more so. On entering the church the first thing that caught my attention was the wonderful arches rising above us. The second thing that I noticed, with an inward smile, was the painting of Mary that dominated the whole church.
Behind the alter where the priest stood was a three story painting that was the whole width of the church. It showed Mary standing on a large glowing full moon, with the great universe, Earth, and other planets spread out behind her in their breathtaking beauty. Mary, Queen of Heaven. Certainly. Artemis, Moon Goddess. Just as certainly. It was an image easily recognizable to both Catholic and Pagan.
And as welcoming to both.
-Selena Nightwind