The Cross.. Christianity and Paganism

"The Cross
"The sign of the cross, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly antedates in both the East and West to the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization".

- Catholic Encyclopedia.
The acclaimed Cross at a 90° right angle has been one of the most ancient and exalted human ideograms of the Sun throughout the world and has been celebrated as a symbol of life not only to Christians, but also to the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Greeks, the Amerindians and to the Egyptians dating well back as far as the Palaeolithic.

To most of these early cultures, it's sited through what came to be regarded as the widespread observance of the "Crossing" and resurrection of the Sun at the Vernal Equinox (Easter) using the four seasons. To the Christian father Irenaeus, who in the 2nd century determined the Four Gospels, also echoed this same pattern, declaring that,

"the Gospels could not be either more or less in number than they are, as there are the four zones of the world via which we all live"."

..

"The Absent Goddess
"It is certain, that, however much the male element had proclaimed itself ... by the days of the Minoan civilization (3000–1100 BC), the religion still continued to manifest the matriarchal period of social progress. Clearly the Goddess was supreme.."

-- Sir Arthur Evans.
The collapse of the fertility goddess concluded roughly after the fall of the Roman Empire via the succession of Judeo-Christianity in the fourth century AD, of which reform then included the systematization for the ransacking and closure of all temples throughout Europe and the Middle East on an unprecedented scale.

To many early cultures prior to this climax however, her reverence outside of the supernatural domain initially stemmed far back into prehistory through the astronomical and cyclic thanksgivings of all organic lifeforms on Earth, and thus became agronomically regarded as very towering figure in antiquity. Much like today, this methodology of the Heavens derived itself downwards from the exploration for the source of life, and revolved purely around the glorification of birth, death and rebirth, or as seen divergent to the preternatural, or unnatural realm of literal necromantic revival of the flesh.

As in the words of Elaine Pagels:
"Other religions celebrated the cycles of birth and death; Christianity insists in the one unique historical moment where this cycle is reversed, and that a dead man literally came back to life".
Despite this vampire transformation act, her eminence inside creationism was often foremost with her figure solemnly being accredited exclusively as providing new birth always to objects that had seemed dead. Analogous words like 'womb', 'tomb', 'resurrection', 'regeneration', 'renewal, 'procreation', 'origination', 'genesis', 'birth', 'rebirth', 'conception' and so forth all still have their deepest origins with her fertility cults.

As promulgated by Sigmund Freud,
"our current organized system is reproduced from Mother Nature, with the observation of these great astronomical regulations giving man not only the model for the introduction of order into his own life, but the very first clues about how to do it."

Multitudes of people in antiquity regarded her as the Queen of Heaven, alongside that of a Mother Earth incorporating all the physical elements from which everything was produced. In Rome, writers such as Apuleius adjudged her simply as the Mother of the Gods. To the philosopher Plotinus, she was the image of creation itself. Historians such as Diodorus Siculus noted that she even held greater power than the King in Egypt.

To historians like Tacitus, the clans of Europe (goddess Europa) even deemed her the deity to whom all else was subject and duteous. In Athens, the Virgin Mother goddess Athena, like Jesus, also raised a jury of twelve over which she presided. Notable philosophers ("Lover of Sophia") such as Socrates even became conversant on a Pythagorean (python/serpent) priestess who taught him the decree of affinity as according to Plato. In ancient India, she was held as the Mother of the Brahmana, Aditi, who likewise gave birth to Adityas, the twelve Suns/Sons annually, subsequently becoming one Sun god fused upon twelve disciples.

Early provisional migrations of the Hindu god Brahma (A-braham) and the goddess Saraswati (Sarah / A-sherah) had also long been established via trade routes to the east of Mesopotamia adjacent to the Tigris-Euphrates that spread to the Nile. Some of the most oldest specimens of archaic writing (3300 BC) likewise emerged from Uruk and the Temple of Inanna (Babylonian Ishtar, Phoenician Asherah) the Queen of Heaven, of which was one of the most oldest cities in southern Mesopotamia, where Abraham (1900 BC) was later born.

"But also that the temple of the great goddess Diana (Inanna) should be hated, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth."
(Act 19:27)

"Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah"
(Exodus 34:13)

Her initial Stellar worship as the Serpent Goddess (click image right) became instituted in many early Hindu, Sumer-Babylonian, Aegean,  Cretan and Egyptian practices, which predominated the votary, pottery, sanctuary, customary and figural characteristics of each culture. To many, like the Egyptians, the hieroglyph for "Goddess" simply became delegated as the Uraeus (Serpent), which was worn as a headdress by all Egyptian pharaohs as a symbol of sovereignty, dating back into pre-dynastic times.

Her association as the Queen of Heaven, and the Serpent, including the ideal of evil, or darkness also had a long astronomical foundation attached to it, warranted down through the hostilities between the Stellar and Solar priesthoods on account of the Great Dragon/Serpent, or the constellation Draco, that once ruled the celestial sphere with its body spreading over seven signs of the zodiac.

The celebrated alignment of the Great Pyramid of Giza with the pole star Alpha Draconis is likewise considered to be a direct monument to star worship via the priesthood of Seth, precedent to the Great Serpent becoming the cardinal rival of Osirian resurrecting priests, and later Yahweh (Isaiah:27:1). Many Gnostic sects, such as the Christian Ophites even tried to displace this, handling that the Wise Serpent, and the goddess Sophia, alongside the Tree of Knowledge was the genuine champion.

In other foregoing lands, her subjugation was recorded in numerous Serpentine myths, from Marduk conquering the serpent goddess Tiamat in Babylon, to Zeus, Apollo or Hercules conquering Typhon, Python, Hydra and Ladon, as they guarded the scared fruit tree.

"And you shall destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their deities, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree you shall tear down their pillars and burn their Asherah with fire."

(Deut 12:2-3)
Thousands of statuettes (some 90%) of the Queen of Heaven have likewise been unearthed in the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity through archaeological excavations in ancient Canaan, anterior to that of the Levite (Luvian) invasion of the land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 33:3)."

Source and More
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_33.htm