The Truth About Easter
From Babylon, Mystery Religion
Reverand Ralph Woodrow, 1965
Chapter Nineteen
Fish, Friday, and the Spring Festival
We have seen right from the scriptures that Friday was very definitely NOT the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. Yet each Friday many Catholics abstain from meat (substituting fish in its place) supposedly in remembrance of the Friday crucifixion. Roman Catholics in the United States are no longer required by their church to abstain from meat on Fridays (as formerly) – except during Lent – nevertheless many still follow the custom of fish on Friday.
Having seen how numerous doctrines and rites were adopted into the Roman Catholic church from paganism, we need not be surprised to find that numerous attempts were also made to “Christianize” certain popular pagan days and their accompanying customs. Has this been the case with Friday and fish? Certainly the scriptures never associate Friday with fish. On the other hand, there is evidence of the basic idea among the philosophies of the pagans!
The word “Friday” comes from the name of “Freya”, who was regarded as the goddess of peace, joy and FERTILITY by the ancient pagans. And as the
symbol of her fertility, the FISH was regarded as being sacred to her! How the fish has from the very early times been a symbol of fertility. It was a well known symbol of fertility among the ancient Babylonians, as well as the Assyrians, Phoenicians, the Chinese, and others. The very word “fish” comes from the original word “dag” implying increase or fecundity. The reason the fish was used as a symbol of fertility is seen by the simple fact that it has a very high reproduction rate. For example, a single cod fish annually spawns upwards of 9,000,000 eggs; the flounder, 1,000,000; the sturgeon, 7,000,000; the perch, 400,000; the mackerel, 500,000; the herring, 10,000; etc. And so, from ancient times, the fish has been a symbol of sexual fertility, and thus was associated with the goddess of fertility – Freya – Friday! Now we are beginning to see the real significance of Friday and fish.
The Romans called the goddess of sexual fertility by the name of Venus. And thus it is from the name of the goddess Venus that our modern words “venereal” and “venereal disease” have come. Friday was regarded as her sacred day, because it was believed that the planet Venus ruled the first hour of Friday and thus it was called dies Veneris. And to make the significance complete, the fish was also regarded as being sacred to her. The accompanying illustration, as seen in “Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism”, shows the goddess Venus with her symbol, the fish. The similarities betwee the two, would indicate that Venus and Freya were originally one and the same goddess and that original being the mother-goddess of Babylon.
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