Made up.
I wish I could say more on it, but... that's the thing. It's made up. Go ahead, show us the primary source evidence that the Roman Empire had any kind of "spring equinox for the pagans." People who just make claims without evidence themselves do not count. And note it has to be something in the actual Roman Empire, because your whole claim is that the pagans in the Roman Empire were doing this.
Who is this "Dionysius"? I'm going to assume Dionysius the Little given his idea on how to compute the date of Easter was popular, but you claim this is happening in the fourth century, when Dionysius wouldn't even be born until the fifth century, and his Easter computations not introduced by him until the sixth.
This also doesn't fit at all with the claim you made about there being a "spring equinox for the pagans". Passover comes after--or at least is supposed to come after--the spring equinox. If Easter is a month later than Passover, how in the world is it mirroring a pagan spring equinox celebration? It's more than a month after!
Now, this claim of it being a month after than "the original Jewish Pasch feast" seems wrong anyway. The timing of Easter is supposed to be the Sunday after the Jewish Passover (that's when the Resurrection happened!). So that's at most a week, not a month. But since Passover--and therefore Easter--always comes after the spring equinox, sometimes as far as a month after, how in the world did any of this aid anyone in having Easter replace this mythical spring equinox festival?
And your evidence for the cakes being having a "cross in a circle" is what, precisely? Like so much of the rest of this, you make a whole lot of claims here, and offer zero evidence of anything.
Even if this was true, the hot cross bun appears to be an invention of around the 17th or 18th centuries. And if you disagree, go ahead and show me evidence of Christian usage of them prior. Oh, and again primary sources only. There is a claim some people make that they were invented in the 14th century by a monk, but the earliest anyone has been able to trace this claim, as far as I know, is by someone in a 19th century work. It is almost certainly something made up in the 19th century to try to give the food a greater antiquity.
Well, since the feast day appears made up, so would this. Even if there was some ancient practice, Easter eggs--while not as new as hot cross buns--still develop too much later for there to be any plausible connection.
The rest of your post is mostly just based on these errors, so there's no need to go further. You're just spouting off a bunch of incorrect information here that's essentially all just speculation.
If you want anyone to take any of this seriously, you need to provide actual primary sources. But all anyone ever is able to do to try to back these claims up is to just point to random websites or books that offer no evidence themselves. Which makes sense--for there's no evidence for them, outside of a whole lot of speculation.
Well lets take a closer look then...
.
"Here is how Pagan Rome was converted to Papal Rome:
Roman Empire (Imperium Romanum) renamed:
Roman Catholic Church
Curia (legal body of Senators) slight name change:
Curia (legal body of Cardinals)
Roman Emperor renamed:
Roman Pope (head of all church and state affairs)
Civil government matters of state:
Extra-Ordinary affairs (matters of civil-state governments)
Religious orders matters:
Church “ecclesiastical” matters
Roman College of Senators renamed:
College of Cardinals
Magistrate of College of Senators renamed:
Dean of College of Cardinals
Departments of the Roman Senatorial Curia renamed:
Congregations
Political Ambassador renamed:
Pro-Nuncio (highest civil ambassador sent to other governments, ie Washington DC, London etc)
......Roman Senators renamed:
Cardinals
Roman Governors renamed:
Archbishops
Roman Senator with no territory:
Bishop (Code of Canon Law 376)
(Large) Roman Province renamed:
Archdiocese
(Small) Roman Territory renamed:
Diocese
Imperial Chair of Jupiter where Caesar sat renamed:
Throne of St. Peter
Vestal Virgins renamed:
Nuns
Pontifex Maximus (high priest of College of Senators) renamed:
Supreme Pontiff of College of Cardinals
Pontiff or “high priest ” of a pagan religious order (Zues, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Jupiter, Baal, Dionysys, Pythia etc) same name:
Pontiff
A Pontiff (Latin: “pontifex”) means bridge-builder or priest between man and the gods of the underworld.
The Roman Calendar and Holy Days of the gods renamed:
Calendar Holidays of the Saints
Voice of the gods speaking through Caesar:
Ex-Cathedra: Voice of God speaking through Pope
Meeting of the Pontiffs (high priests) of the pagan religious orders renamed:
Ecumenical Council of the Bishops
Legal act of creating a god (of a living or dead human, as was done to most of the Caesars) “Apotheosis of the Gods” renamed:
Canonization of the Saints
A decree of Caesar (dictator for life):
Pope’s infallible Dogma
Praying to a dead human god renamed:
Praying to a saint"
....Papal Rome as a Continuation of Pagan Rome
Its so vast I cant put it all and history has so many sources that point out the origins of the pagan corruption that was let in and the results....
...the "temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, Holidays, and seasons of devotion, processions, blessings of the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests, munks and nuns), images, and statues... are all of PAGAN ORIGIN." -The Development of the Christian Religion Cardinal Newman p.359
The penetration of the religion of Babylon became so general and well known that Rome was called the "New Babylon." -Faith of our fathers 1917 ed. Cardinal Gibbons, p. 106
"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the instruments and appendages of demon worship to an evangelical use... the rulers of the church from early times were prepared should occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace." -Development of Christian Doctrine, Cardinal Newman. p. 372
Cardinal Newman lists many examples of things of "pagan origin" which the papacy brought into the church "in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen: "in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen:" "The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; holy water; asylums [hermitages, monasteries and convents]; [pagan] holy-days, processions, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images, . . . and the Kyrie Eleison."--Cardinal J. H. Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1920 edition, p.373 [Roman Catholic].
"The [Catholic] Church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season . . . The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom . . . The sun has worshipers at this hour in Persia and other lands . . . Hence the Church would seem to say, 'Keep that old pagan name [Sunday]. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.' And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus"--William L. Gildea, "Paschale Gaudium," in The Catholic World, 58, March, 1894, p. 809 [A Roman Catholic weekly].
"in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen:" "The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; holy water; asylums [hermitages, monasteries and convents]; [pagan] holy-days, processions, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images, . . . and the Kyrie Eleison."--J. H. Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1920 edition, p.373 [Roman Catholic].
"The mighty Catholic Church was little more then the Roman Empire baptized."-- A. C, Flick, The Rise of the Mediaeval Church, 1909 edition, p. 148. From ancient Babylon came the cult of the virgin mother-goddess, who was worshiped as the highest of gods--see S. H. Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 1931 edition. This worship was taken over as Mary-worship by Rome. Heathen sun-worship on Sunday was likewise adopted by the Roman apostasy.
"In order to attach to Christianity great attraction in the eyes of the nobility, the priests adopted the outer garments and adornments which were used in pagan cults." -Life of Constantine, Eusabius, cited in Altai-Nimalaya, p. 94
"The Church did everything it couldto stamp out such 'pagan' rites, but had to capitualet and allow the rites to continue with only the name of the local diety changed to some Christian saint's name." -Religious Tradition and Myth. Dr. Edwin Goodenough, Professor of Religion, Harvard University. p. 56, 57
"From the foregoing, which treats merely of the more important solar festivals, it is clear that these products of paganism are as much in force at present ... as they ever were, and that Christianity countenances, and in many cases has actually adopted and practiced, pagan rites whose heathen significance is merely lost sight of because attention is not called tot the source whence these rites have sprung. So heavy was this infiltration that Sir Samuel Dill exclaims: "Christianity is only a sect of the Mithraists." -Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. VII
"We know that Mithraism was a state religion of Rome at the time that the Christian church was established there. Evidently tenants of Mithraism such as Sunday worship and eating the wafer in the mass were adopted into Christianity at that time" -Jim Arrabito "666 & the Mark"
In Stanley's History, page 40: "The popes filled the place of the vacant emperors at Rome, inheriting
their power, their prestige, and their titles from PAGANISM."
"In short, sun worship, symbolically speaking, lies at the very heart of the great festivals which the Christian Church celebrates today, and these relics of heathen religion have, through the medium of their sacred rites, curiously enough blended with practices and beliefs utterly antagonistic to the spirit which prompted them." -Sun Lore of All Ages, Olcott, p. 248
"Yet the cross itself is the oldest of phallic emblems, and the lozenge-shaped windows of cathedrals are proof that the yonic symbols have survived the destructions of the pagan Mysteries. The very structure of the church itself is permeated with (sexual symbolism) phallicism. Remove from the Christian Church all emblems of Priapic origin and nothing is left..." -The secret teaching of all ages by Manley P. Hall
"When the zealots of the primitave Christian Church sought to Christianize paganism, the pagan initiates retorted with a powerful effort to paganize Christianity. The Christians failed but the pagans succeeded. With the decline of paganism the initiated pagan hierophants transferred their base of operations to the new vehicle of primitive Christianity, adopting the symbols of the new cult to conceal those eternal verities which are ever the priceless possession of the wise." -The secret teachings of all ages, Manley P. Hall p. CLXXXV
"...The world, cloaked with a form of righteousness, walked into the church. Now the work of corruption rapidly progressed. Paganism, while appearing to be vanquished, became the conqueror. Her spirit controlled the church. Her doctrines, ceremonies, and superstitions were incorporated into the faith and worship of the professed followers of Christ." -The Great Controversy, p. 50
"The belief in miracle-working objects, talismans, amulets, and formulas was dear to Christianity, and they were received from pagan antiquity . . . The vestments of the clergy and the papal title of 'pontifex maximus' were legacies from pagan Rome. The [Catholic] Church found that rural converts still revered certain springs, wells, trees, and stones; she thought it wiser to bless these to Christian use then to break too sharply the customs of sentiment . . . Pagan festivals dear to the people, reappeared as Christian feasts, and pagan rites were transformed into Christian liturgy . . . The Christian calendar of saints replaced the Roman 'fasti' [gods]; ancient divinities dear to the people were allowed to revive under the names of 'Christian saints' . . . Gradually the tenderest features of Astarte, Cybele, Artemis, Diana, and Isis were gathered together in the worship of Mary"--Wil Durant, The Age of Faith, 1950, pp. 745-746.
"Langdon tells us that Mary worship came from ancient Babylon where the virgin mother-goddess was worshiped under the name "Ishtar." Elsewhere in the Near East, the mother-goddess was called "Astarte, Ashtoreth, Persephone, Artemis, [Diana] of Ephesus, Venus, and Isis." This goddess, considered to be greater than any god, was called by these heathen the "virgin mother, merciful mother, Queen of Heaven, and my lady" [which is what "Madonna" means in Italian]. Langdon says she was often sculptured in mother-and-infant images, or as a "mater dolorom" [sorrowful mother] interceding for men with a wrathful god. And thus ancient paganism was brought into the churches and lives of Christians.--see S.H. Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 1931 edition, pp. 12-34, 108-111, 341-344. Laing mentions several other corruptions by which the mother-goddess was worshiped by heathens, that Rome adopted into Christianity: holy water, votive offerings, elevation of sacred objects [lifting of the host], the priest's bells, the decking of images, processions, festivals, prayers for the dead, the worship of relics and the statues of saints.'"--see Gordon J. Laing, Survivals of Roman Religion, 1931 edition, pp. 92-95, 123-131,238-241.
'Stephen Benko specializes in early Christianity in its pagan environment. In
The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology, he traces the development of the cult of Mary from Greek and Roman mythology through to recent times. Benko avoids anti-Catholic polemics and is sympathetic to the place of the “queen of heaven” in Christianity. That said, he unerringly traces Mary’s roots to the pagan, pre-Christian heavenly queens of Greece, Rome and the wider Mediterranean—those mutable goddesses whose ranks include Artemis, Astarte, Celeste, Ceres, Cybele, Demeter, Diana, Ishtar, Isis and Selene.... “Christianity,” he notes, “did not add a new element to religion when it introduced into its theology such concepts as ‘virgin’ and ‘mother’; rather, it sharpened and refined images that already existed in numerous forms in pagan mythology.”'
The Rise and Rise of the Queen of Heaven
