Mother and Child Worship
From Babylon this worship of mother and child spread to the whole world. In Egypt, the mother and the child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day as Isi and Iswara; in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius, Astarte, Astoreth ; in Pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer or Jupiter, the boy ; in Greece as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, or as Irene, the goddess of peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms ; and even in Tibet, in China and Japan where Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China was represented with a child in her arms. In Britain, the Druid priests worshiped the Virgo-Patitura as the "MOTHER OF GOD." Other names (Roman equivilent in brackets) are Aphrodite (Venus), Artemis (Diana), Athena (Mineva), Demeter (Ceres), Geae(Terra), Hera (Juno), Hestia (Vesta), Rhea (Ops)
Many missionaries were astonished when they arrived in new lands to find that a mother and child was being devoutly worshipped. The image of the mother and child was so firmly entrenched in the pagan mind that when the Roman Catholic Church appeared on the scene these pagan statues and paintings were merely renamed and worshiped as the Virgin Mary and her god-incarnate son Jesus. Mary was then crowned as the Queen of Heaven and worshiped.
