Vatican Obelisk: Mixing Yshua with the Sun God

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It’s my understanding that, even though it may have been part of an Egyptian temple at one point, it was the ancient Romans who brought it to Rome because it was pretty (the Romans were very much into grand architecture, and they were perfectly happy to engage in huge engineering projects). Caligula had it put in the center of his Circus (I believe as a decoration). It is said to have borne silent witness to many Christian martyrdoms – possibly including that of St. Peter himself.

So building a Christian plaza around it is a form of celebration of Christianity’s triumph over paganism.

But, if it’s so bad to keep a statue that was one used as part of a temple, why do we allow the Parthenon to stand? It actually was a temple.
 
maybe it’s because they had so many of them that the Pope decided to use one? Don’t overcomplicate such thing. Aside from the symbolism of conquering Christ, it is a beautiful structure that added aesthetic beauty to the Basilica
 
The Obelisk in the Piazza di San Pietro

The obelisks of the Piazza San Pietro, Piazza dell’ Esuilino, and the Piazza del Quirinale are all uninscribed. Their dates, provenances, and the reasons they were left uninscribed are not known…Neither Flinders Petrie, nor any other excavator working in the ruins of Heliopolis, has ever found an obelisk, or even a small fragment of an obelisk, that was uninscribed. The sovereigns of ancient Egypt were ever eager to decorate monuments with their own names and with phrases proclaiming their own glory, no matter what the size of the monument. The only undecorated obelisks in Egypt were unfinished ones abandoned in their quarries, and in fact one of these decoration was already in progress. More probably, the uninscribed obelisks were quarried in Egypt by the Roman emperors expressly to be taken to Rome, although it is possible that they were left incomplete because of the untimely death of the pharaoh.

The Obelisk in the Piazza di San Pietro is important chiefly by its surroundings… It is made of red granite and stands 25.37 meters high. It was erected in the Julian Forum in Alexandria by order of Augustus and remained their until 37 A.D. when the Emperor Caligula ordered the forum demolished and the obelisk transferred to Rome. It was then erected in the Vatican Circus, and there it remained until its removal to the square before the Basilica of St. Peter (1586). Legend
has it that in the Vatican Circus innumerable Christians, including St. Peter and that the reason this obelisk was not later overturned as were all the others in Rome was that was looked upon as the witness to the martyrdom of St. Peter.*

*Pope Sixtus V appointed engineer Domenico Fontana to move the obelisk from the Vatican Circus. **April 28, 1586, Fontana and his men attended Mass at 2:AM, and later offered public prayers for the success of this feat. *
Dedication ceremonies, Mass, and a procession with the entire papal court went to the obelisk More prayers, were offered and the obelisk was purified, and surmounted with a cross.
Obelisks of the World, by Labib Habachi, Scribner’s Sons, 1974, page 74-75

Former Chief Inspector of Antiquities, Labib Habachi. is an Egyptian archeologist who has published several books on Egyptology, as well as many articles in many journals.

TEST QUESTIONS:
  1. What was the obelisk originally used for, according to this expert?
    A) as an idol
    B) self flattery of the pharoh
  2. Why did the early Christians decide not to knock down this one particular obelisk, contrary to the Old Testament command?
  3. The obelisks in St. Peter’s square are the only ones that have never been inscribed. Discuss if this is a coincidence or some level of divine influence.
 
My Protestant friend told me something about the obelisk and that according to Wiki, it symbolized the sun god Ra, and during the brief religious reformation of Akhenaten was said to be a petrified ray of the Aten, the sundisk. It was also thought that the god existed within the structure.

He told me that there is one in Vatican city and there is a cross at the peak of it.

He told me that the Vatican and the Catholic Church is mixing paganism with Yshua our God and that the Catholic Church, is thus, paganism and thus a false church.

I read Wiki and what he said appears about the Sun God appears to be true.

What is the Vatican’s / Church’s answer to this?
Any Protestant who does not condemn Freemasonry has no right to tell the Chatholic Church about mixing pagan symbols with Christianity.

Episcopalian and Anglican Labyrinths and rock band style Evangelical worship come to mind too.

That’s my answer off the top of my head.

-Tim-
 
Any Protestant who does not condemn Freemasonry has no right to tell the Chatholic Church about mixing pagan symbols with Christianity.

Episcopalian and Anglican Labyrinths and rock band style Evangelical worship come to mind too.

That’s my answer off the top of my head.

-Tim-
Firstly, Catholics modified pagan places of worship into churches which is a part of why they use pagan symbols.

The reason they persist with Pagan symbols is simple. all major religons are a step down from ACTUAL spirituality. The energy created by these monuments is un told and is a network of geomancy that spreads all over the world.
 
Good Day all and thank you for your posts they where very interesting, My question is though recently I had a very vivid dream about a battle between me and a small group against a huge single man bulked up with a eagles head, this dream felt like it went on for hours and ended with me talking to a human who said he was the same creature in human disguise and asked me to join him for then he will make my life easy again? now I first thought this creature must of been in the form of the devil but after much reading it seems to be RA the sun god? Any thoughts? also during this dream the man with a eagles head used to touch people and gold dust would shadow his touch across the person and they would turn selfish and uncaring. The dream had many angles but the basic concept is above and it is very similar to the first post so anyones feedback would be appreciated also this dream has not been the only one?
 
I am attending this keyboard class in “Believer Music”, a Protestant run music school and in one of their lessons, The Roman Empire, they have a photo of the Vatican obelisk and they describe the obelisk as symbolizing the Sun God. My protestant friend asked me what does the Catholic Church have to say about this. I told him I will go back and fnd out … please help me.
Tell your protestant friend that the Catholic Church sees no problem in taking pagans and converting them into Christians so we see no problem in converting pagan symbols into Christian ones either. If you will carefully note the obelisk has a cross on top of it. The cross is there to symbolize the triumph of the Catholic Church over the Pagan mythological gods and goddesses. The obelisk stands in the center of the square and is about 83 feet tall. It dates from 13th-century BC Egypt and was brought to Rome in the fist century to stand in Nero’s Circus about 275 yards away. It was moved to its present location in 1585 by order of Pope Sixtus V. The position of the obelisk in St. Peters square supposedly marks the spot where St. Peter was crucified by the pagans under Nero. There was a cemetery near by. St. Peter was martyred where the obelisk stands and buried in the cemetery on a small hill nearby. The hill was called Vaticanus or Vatican hill. The Basilica of St. Peter sits where the cemetery once was and under the main altar is the grave of St. Peter. This is why the Vatican is called that and why it is where it is. This is what our tour guide in Rome told us.

Also, much of Rome’s ancient buildings were plundered in the middle ages and their marble was recycled. Only those structures like the Pantheon that were taken over as churches were saved from this recycling. The Circus Maximus was obliteated while the Coloseum was stripped of its marble and the bronze anchors that held the marble in place. The bronze was melted and became the four posts that support the canopy over the altar of St. Peters. The holes you see in the walls of the Coloseum were where the bronze anchors were attached to the masonry underneath the marble.
 
Hey thanks Ignatius.

The teacher in this school made a comment to the students telling us what kind of church can combine a cross with the structure that symbolises the Sun God. Now I can tell my protestant friend and maybe the teacher about this inscription.

They may have other arguments though, like why didn’t the Vatican just demolish the paganist structure.

But I know the reason to that is the obelisk is a mark of architectural history and is a mark to remember the persecuation of Christians and St Peter.
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    I feel embarrassed for that teacher, this kind of small thinking get all us Christians lumped in as uncritical thinkers.  He embodies what our society stereotypes as Fundamentalism.  I would just have fired back at that person you mean we should destroy those Obelisks, bring down the Pantheon (which is an actual Catholic parish; would have loved to hear mass there), destroy Maria Sopra Minerva (A temple dedicated to Minerva/Athena that pre-dates Christ and is now a Catholic church), the Vatican Museum should destroy all those beautiful statues it houses of ancient Greco- Roman mythology, that we should have destroyed the Roman Coliseum.  And there more than I don’t even know about.  So if a personal was formerly of a pagan and came to Christ by that stupid thinking we should deny them entry into the Church because of what remnant ideas they might have.
    This thinking comes about a total lack of respect for ‘Truth’ and ‘Knowledge’ where your denominational world view takes liberty to change history and defame others.
God Bless
 
Hey thanks Ignatius.

The teacher in this school made a comment to the students telling us what kind of church can combine a cross with the structure that symbolises the Sun God. Now I can tell my protestant friend and maybe the teacher about this inscription.

They may have other arguments though, like why didn’t the Vatican just demolish the paganist structure.

But I know the reason to that is the obelisk is a mark of architectural history and is a mark to remember the persecuation of Christians and St Peter.
Rome was the pilgrim center of the world along with Santiago de Compostella, and they still are. Countless millions of pilgrims visiting over the centuries. Imagine being a pilgrim visiting Rome for the first time in medieval times. You do not speak the local language, there are no maps of the city. Part of the reason for obelisks in Rome, not just the one at St. Peters, was a plan to facilitate pilgrims. The idea was to have a landmark like an obelisk at each of the 7 or 8 or whatever main places of pilgrim interest so that if you were standing at St. Peters obelisk you could see way down the streets to another obelisk marking your next port of call as a pilgrim, and so on. Even if the plan did not quite work out, it was still a good idea.
 
We keep it for the same reason that my Jewish neighbor who fought in WWII kept a German Luger pistol that he took off a Nazi he captured.
 
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