Catholics Claim "Keys" To Heaven
The Catholic Church claims That Peter passed on the keys to the gates of Heaven, and that no one can enter into God’s presence unless that Catholic Church opens the gates. The word "Cardinal" means "hinge." The Cardinals of the Roman Church are the “hinges” upon which the “gate,” whom is the Pope, is able to open.
[12th century. Via French < Latin
cardinalis <
cardin- "hinge"]
NASB
Mat 4:18 Now as Jesus [Yahshua] was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
Simon already had the nick name [Peter/Rock] before Yahshua met him. Therefore Yahshua did not name him Rock, but was only calling him by his nick name. That would mean that Yahshua was speaking of the Father being that Rock, which is used often in scriptures.
The Vatican cave was a Mithraeum: a temple of the Roman God Mithras
"The
cave of the Vatican belonged to Mithra until 376 A.D., when a city prefect suppressed the cult of the rival Savior and seized the shrine in the name of Christ,
on the very birthday of the pagan god, December 25."
Barbara G. Walker (The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets)
Paul says, 'They drank from that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ' (I Cor. 10:4).
These are
identical words to those found in the Mithraic scriptures, except that the
name Mithra is used instead of Christ.
The Vatican hill in Rome that is regarded as sacred to Peter, the Christian rock, was already sacred to Mithra. Many Mithraic remains have been found there. The merging of the worship of Attis into that of Mithra, then later into that of Jesus, was effected almost without interruption.
The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read (various authors)
The throne in the Vatican Mithraeum, upon which the Pater Patrum ("Father of Fathers", the head priest of Mithraism) was customarily seated, was also taken.
It is now the throne of St. Peter, though it is adorned by Mithraic carvings and is older than the later Vatican Church. Seated upon it now is the Bishop of Rome, also known as the Pope (from Papa meaning father, late vulgarization of Latin Pater).
Christian Bishops of Rome pre-empted the Mithraic high priest's title of Pater Patrum, which became Papa, or Pope.
"oracles" that breathed the fumes from fumaroles of volcanoes before pontificating.
"'The oracle of Delphi functioned in a specific place, the adyton, or "no entry" area of the temple's core, and through a specific person, the Pythia, who was chosen to speak, as a possessed medium, for Apollo, the god of prophecy."
The temple was constructed over an area of rock in which there were fissures and cracks leading from a deep cavern; the fissures allowed vapors of gases contained in an underground stream to seep up through the rock. The Pythia - an initiated female priestess who had undergone extensive training and conditioning that included fasting - would sit in the adyton, breathe the vapors to induce a trancelike state, and prophesize to those who waited to hear her words outside. The prophecies were obscure and cryptic - in fact, one synonym for the word "cryptic" is "Delphic" - and open to very wide interpretation. The gases were "sweet and perfume-y" according to Plutarch - a known statesman and historian, and one of the two Priests of Delphi - and they did not affect the uninitiated in the same way that they would the priestess. Plutarch also noted that the gases were beginning to lessen and dissipate even during his time (in the first century BC.) The Oracle fell out of use in the 4th century AD with the onset of Roman Christianity, and until very recent times the existence of the gases and even the underground spring was in doubt; modern science has revealed that the legend could have indeed been fact.'"
The Vatican City, the Vatican. The word vaticinor means "foretell, prophesy" from vatis "poet, teacher, oracle".
History: The origin of the word Vatican is shrouded in as much mystery as the place itself. It was used simply as the name of a hill in Rome, Mons Vaticanus "the Vatican Hill". The Latin word vaticinor means "foretell, prophesy" from vatis "poet, teacher, oracle". This suggests that the original hill was the location of an oracle, a place where high priests communicated with the Roman gods. Thus the name reflects a long history of contact with spiritual powers.
Vaticinor
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From
vātēs (“soothsayer, prophet”).
Vatican Hill (in
Latin, Mons Vaticanus ) is the name given, long before the founding of
Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the
Tiber opposite the traditional
seven hills of Rome. It may have been the site of an
Etruscan town called Vaticum.
· The name "Vatican" has often been thought to derive from the Latin "vates", meaning "seer, soothsayer", though this is uncertain and it is also possible that "Vaticanus" comes from an unrelated
Etruscan loan-word.
Indeed, the Vatican Hill was the home of the Vates long before pre-Christian Rome. Vaticanus, also known as
Vagitanus, was an Etruscan god of prophecy, and his temple was built on the ancient site of Vaticanum (Vatican Hill).
· In the 1st century AD, the Vatican Hill was outside the city limits and so could feature a
circus (the
circus of Nero) and a
cemetery.
St. Peter's Basilica is built over this cemetery, the traditional site of
St. Peter the Apostle's grave. There was another cemetery nearby, which was opened to the public on 10 October 2006 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the
Vatican Museums.
· The Vatican Hill is not one of the famous seven hills of
Rome although it was included within the city limits of Rome during the reign of
Pope Leo IV, who,
between 848 and 852, expanded the city walls to protect St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. Thus, Vatican Hill has been within the walls and city limits of Rome for over 1100 years. Until the
Lateran Treaties in 1929 it was part of the
Rione of
Borgo.
Before the
Avignon Papacy (1305–1378), the headquarters of the
Holy See were located at the
Lateran Palace. After the Avignon Papacy the church administration moved to Vatican Hill and the papal palace was (until 1871) the
Quirinal Palace, upon the
Quirinal Hill. Since 1929, part of the Vatican Hill is the site of the
State of the Vatican City. However, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is not St. Peter's in the Vatican, but
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, which is extra-territorially linked, as indicated in the
Lateran Pacts signed with the Italian state in 1929, with the
Holy See.
· The Seven Hills of Rome (
Italian: Sette colli di Roma) east of the river
Tiber form the geographical heart of
Rome, within the
walls of the ancient city.
The seven hills are:
The original city was held by
tradition to have been founded by
Romulus on the Palatine Hill.
Tradition holds that the seven hills were first occupied by small settlements and not grouped or recognized as a city called Rome. The
denizens of the seven hills began to participate in a series of religious games, which started to bond the groups. The city of Rome, thus, came into being as these separate settlements acted as a group, draining the marshy valleys between them and turning them into markets (
fora in Latin). Later, in the early 4th century BC, the seven hills were protected through the
Servian Walls.
Of the seven hills of current Rome, five (Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Quirinal, and Viminal hills) are populated with monuments, buildings, and parks. The Capitoline now hosts Rome's city hall, and the Palatine Hill belongs to the main archaeological area.
The
Vatican Hill (Latin Collis Vaticanus) lying northwest of the
Tiber, the
Pincian Hill (Latin Mons Pincius), lying to the north, and the
Janiculum Hill (Latin Ianiculum), lying to the west, are not counted among the traditional Seven Hills.