Is this actually true?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SalamKhan
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
No, Pagan Gods are not Christian Saints. Unlike Pagan Gods, who are just that, Gods, Saints are merely Holy Men and women who bask in God’s love and grace forever, and who intercede for us. Each Saint was Christian and a real person.
 
Did you go to the link? Your response had nothing to do with my question. My question isn’t theological, I already know what you believe about saints. My question is historical, read the link to understand what I mean.
 
This website looks sketchy, and no references to examine (apart from “Golden Legengs”)
I wouldn’t trust that, especially knowing that St-Lawrence and other saints were based on real, living people.
 
I’m pretty sure we’ve recently found the remains of St Nicholas, for instance, so I really don’t think the claims on the website are credible.

Now, it is important to recognize that there’s a difference between actual saints and those called saints and honored by local people. For instance, I recall there was a dog which died for its owner in some way, and the local people honored it as a saint, despite the Church’s asking them not to do such.

It is also important to note that not all called and recognized as saints were canonized.

I know that those called Josephat and his partner were based off of Buddha quite likely, but he was a real person of some virtue in a pre Christian world.

Now to address the specific claims in the website, they seem extremely suspect. Don’t trust everything you see on the internet
 
I don’t mean this website specifically, but I was referring to cases like Josaphat.
 
My mistake. I went toally off of the question in the post.
 
This is somebody’s pipe dream. A number of the saints mentioned were actually real people in the early Church and we have historical evidence that people like St. Nicholas actually existed and were revered in their time. Moreover, some of the information on there is just plain wrong. They refer to “St. Martin-in-the-fields” which is actually St. Martin of Tours, who was a real person who was a Roman soldier (the son of a Roman military officer) and later a well-known bishop of Tours in what is now France.

The only thing with a hint of truth on that website is the suggestion that sometimes the Christian church made a pagan festival into one that was refocused on a Christian saint or on Christ. This makes sense because the festivals were often, essentially, agricultural or community events, and making them Christian allowed everybody to continue to have the customary celebration but get rid of the pagan part. This is NOT the same as saying we just took some Pagan saint and “invented” a Christian one, when the Christian person is a real person.

The Church in recent decades has been pretty aggressive about removing “saints” from the official records when there is, in the view of the Church, inadequate historical evidence that the saint existed. The Church is fairly strict about who’s allowed to be venerated as a saint, partly to protect against this sort of accusation.

There are some religions I’m aware of that have taken Catholic saints and invented some type of pagan god or voodoo figure based on the Catholic saint, but in those cases, the Catholic saint, who was a real person, came first and the pagan invention came later on.
 
I’ve heard some people say there are many unknown saints that have been discovered to actually be ancient pagan deities. Of course, this was in real life casual conversations so no evidence was provided.
 
Last edited:
That website is largely nonsense. St. Nicholas was a real bishop.

It is true that some legendary figures came to be regarded as saints, even though they may not have been real people. For example, St. Christopher, or Veronica, who is supposed to have wiped the face of Christ.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The Church in recent decades has been pretty aggressive about removing “saints” from the official records when there is, in the view of the Church, inadequate historical evidence that the saint existed.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I heard this too.
 
SalamKhan said:
Were pagan gods made into Christian saints?
Click to expand...
The site is bogus. For example:

"Roman Gods who became Catholic saints
Many Catholic Saints are “votive saints”, that is, their names were copied off votive offerings for Pagan Gods, especially altars and statues which were still standing in Rome in the fourth century CE. "

no evidence of this and Romans didn’t have altars. There is no saint Mars, Jupiter, etc. So I don’t know what Roman pagan gods could possibly relate to Catholic Saints

"The Roman God Mars was originally a God who guarded wheat fields. He became St. Martin (esp. St. Martin-in-the-fields). Although March is the month associated with Mars (it was the beginning of the military campaigning season in Roman times), the major festival for him in Christian times now usually falls in February, called Mardi Gras “Great Mars.”

This is so wrong I’m laughing. St. Martin of Tours was a real person. And Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday not ‘Great Mars’.

Very stupid website.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
For example, St. Christopher, or Veronica, who is supposed to have wiped the face of Christ.
Click to expand...
I thought the latest on St. Christopher is that historians think he was actually St. Menas (sometimes called St. MInas), who was a real person and a martyr, but the name “Christopher” meaning Christ-bearer came about as a reference to a legend about him carrying a child across a river who turned out to be the Christ child.

As for St. Veronica, even if she somehow did not exist, there is no parallel to a pagan goddess with the story of her wiping Jesus’ face.
 
“Unknown saints”?
If by that they mean locally honored but not officially recognized in the Canon, then I don’t know of too many, but I could see it happening perhaps.

But there are many myths about Catholicism in general, so I wouldn’t believe such without solid evidence.

Also what bearself said
 
I love this quote from the webstie:

“Many people have been asking which books would be useful for learning about Proto-Indo-European Religion, and the unfortunate fact is that nothing really useful has been published. That is the reason I have set up this entire website.”

Maybe ‘nothing really useful has been published’ is because there is nothing to publish. As in no scholarly evidence for this website’s claims.
 
vsedriver said:
The Roman God Mars was originally a God who guarded wheat fields. He became St. Martin (esp. St. Martin-in-the-fields).
Click to expand...
Yeah, that made me laugh too.
The Church of “St Martin-in-the-fields” in England (which is now an Anglican church but was originally Catholic) was named after St. Martin of Tours and was called “St Martin-in-the-fields” because it was located in a big field between two city areas. There are other churches in that area with the name of “St. (Other Name)-in-the-fields” because they were also located out in the field as opposed to in the cities. It had NOTHING to do with St. Martin or St. (Other name) guarding wheat fields.

Edited to add source. See part about “Why is it called St Martin-in-the-fields” about halfway down the page.

 
Last edited:
SalamKhan said:
Yeah, I heard this too.
Click to expand...
It’s a bit difficult when a popular traditional saint like St. Philomena is removed. St. Philomena was the chosen patron saint of St. John Vianney, who undoubtedly existed, was extremely holy, and is the patron saint of Catholic priests. He constantly prayed to St. Philomena throughout his life. So perhaps it is possible that she did exist, but because St. John Vianney’s prayers and visions are just private revelation, it’s not conclusive proof, even though St. John Vianney himself is without question a great saint.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top