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Why Is The Pope’s Mitre Shaped Like A Fish?


She-ra

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Did you ever wonder why the Pope’s mitre looks like the head of a fish? What are the origins of this ceremonial hat and what does it truly represent?

What is the origin of the Pope’s hat?

Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians, wore a fish hat that is still seen today with Roman Catholic Church’s pope and bishops.

... “The miter is derived directly from the miters of the ancient pagan fish-god dagon and the goddess Cybele. The papal miter represents the head of Dagon with an open mouth, which is the reason for the pointed shape and split top.” ...

Read more here: http://in5d.com/why-...ed-like-a-fish/

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I don't know, why is the Pope's mitre shaped like a fish?

Oh, it's not a joke. Well, the fish has a long history in Christian iconography as well of course, the Ichthys goes back to the earliest days, although they may well have borrowed from pagan iconography too I expect.

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The link goes to an article that goes into the history of the fish hat plus some other cool things. Enjoy :tu:

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I believe the Catholic Church's version, since Dagon was long forgotten by the time the Christian religion organized into a formal church.

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Yeah, this gets kicked around a lot, but mostly trafficked in anti-Catholic circles run by Christian fundamentalist fringe groups, trying to undermine the Church for some reason or another.

The papal mitre is shaped like a mitre because its a mitre, and it's only been that way for relatively recently. Thank you, Dr. Wikipedia, for the design progression:

Mitre_evolution.gif

As for Dagon, and I can't emphasize this enough, he was not a freaking fish. The fish thing came from medieval rabbis making a cheap jab at Christianity for its early use of fish as a symbol since St. Peter, the first Pope of Rome, was a fisherman by trade the same as Christ was a a builder.

In the Hebrew Bible, Dagon was the patron god of the Philistines, the hereditary enemy of Israel, even to this day ("Palestine" is the Romanization of the original word for the Philistines; a final Imperial insult to Judaea). So when Christians asked some passive-aggressive rabbis for some lore behind Dagon for translations, they responded that he was so totally, definitely Dag-On, which is Hebrew for "Mega-Fish." Christians didn't catch the sarcasm and it got reinforced later on when we came to understand the Philistines as the displaced Sea Peoples. In actuality, Dagon derives from the Semitic Dagan or "Grain." He's a run-of-the-mill agrarian fertility god that was probably rechristened after being brought over from pre-Greek Mycenae.

I haven't looked at the link, but I'd wager that there's an Assyrian-looking wall carving of a merman or a guy wearing a fish costume? I say that because those images always get dragged out. Those are Mesopotamian river genies, not early Christian or anything remotely Jewish. Israel's got the one river really, the Jordan, and gets the rest of their water from wells. Mesopotamia, literally "The Land-Between-Rivers," takes theirs more seriously.

Next Cybele. This little gem tends to get dusted off too. Cybele was an Anatolian mother-goddess who was identified with pretty much every maternal divinity in the Mediterranean at one point or another and held a popular cult in Rome as the Magna Mater- Great Mother. Because Roman Catholicism dares to put forth a positive female figure in the form of Mary, a lot of the shame-based, Christian fundamentalist factions jump at any chance to declare any reverence or blessing for Mary as goddess-worship and use Cybele as the "Aha!" evidence and origin of Mariolatry that cements it, apparently.

There are some major problems with bringing Cybele into it though. Yoking Cybele and Mary together is like saying that Michael Jordan is the greatest soccer player to ever lace up his skates. There are similar themes and goals, but monumental differences for anybody who takes thirty seconds to think about it. The reason Cybele gets identified with so many goddesses is because there's a metric **** tonne of mother goddesses, which happens for the same reason dolphins and fish both have fins; similar needs and motivations spawn similar innovations.

Seeing as how everyone has a mother (theoretically) and how generally their opinions of their mothers tend to be positive, the role of a divine mother ends up being ubiquitous. But just because everyone has a mother doesn't that they're by any means interchangeable. The same with mother goddesses; some are reverse-adopted in the making of the non-traditional family that was the Roman Empire, but everyone has at least one original mother of their own.

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Kind of a fishy story, I would agree. It does win the silly hat parade, though.

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I don't know, why is the Pope's mitre shaped like a fish?

Oh, it's not a joke. Well, the fish has a long history in Christian iconography as well of course, the Ichthys goes back to the earliest days, although they may well have borrowed from pagan iconography too I expect.

Vesica piscis has some pagan use, but so do crosses. Basic geometric shapes get used by everybody, that doesn't mean the Celts founded the Americas because the Medicine Wheel used by several Great Plains tribes looks like a pre-Christian Celtic cross.

In the Christian context, vesica piscis is used to symbolize something along the lines of overlapping worlds--Heaven and Earth met in Christ, which is why Christian art will often have Christ seated inside of one. Moreover, it goes well with the styling of the architecture of Gothic cathedrals. Behind every symbol is a point of concrete practicality.

That brings us to the Ichthys. I already mentioned how Peter and some of the early Disciples were fishermen, so them using fish would be a natural step. A nautical theme was incorporated into many early Roman Christian tombs when the Way was still verboten under Imperial law. They'd use the fish as a call back to the Apostles, as well as a crux dissimulata hidden in the shapes of anchors. "Ichthys" is also a Greek acronym--Iesos Christos, Theou (h)Uios, Soter-- Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Savior. But like I said earlier, there was a very practical reason for the Ichthys, which is why I hate those little "Jesus Fish" ones you glue onto your car bumper.

No follower of the Way, the original, outlawed Church, would ever draw or display the full Ichthys. It was meant to be used as an indicator as to where the next meeting would be for worship, as they kept the locations of such as mobile as possible. So, Shimon would greet Benyamin in the town square and strike up a conversation. Shimon would then begin to absentmindedly pick at the dirt with his walking stick, before making an arc shape in the dust. If Benyamin new the location of the next meeting, he'd keep the conversation going, if not, he'd strike through the arc. They'd continue the small talk and shift around in a circle until Shimon finally got his arc to point to the right house, at which point Benyamin would answer with another arc of his own that would complete the Ichthys, pointing to Yosef's house so Shimon could follow the Way. Practicality becomes stylized into symbolism.

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I love hearing these types of history and how things came about. Very interesting stuff. Thanks Mag :yes:

Hey, s'what I do. It's either this or give in to the voices.

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Because as I once say Jordan Maxwell say in a video...

The Pope's Mitre is shaped like a fish...

because we live in the ages of Pisces the fish?

then is the age of Aquarious as they say?

I used to be deep into all these things..

but I don't care what his hat looks like...

i know his teaching don't empower me like magic does

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I remember watching a legitimate documentary on Youtube (which one it was is lost to my memory) in which it was suggested that the drawn fish symbol had another meaning to the clergy in medieval times. It had something to do with their adoration of the Virgin Mary. I'll just let you think about that one.

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I remember watching a legitimate documentary on Youtube (which one it was is lost to my memory) in which it was suggested that the drawn fish symbol had another meaning to the clergy in medieval times. It had something to do with their adoration of the Virgin Mary. I'll just let you think about that one.

The astrological symbol for Virgo the Virgin looks like an "M" with an Ichthys tacked to the end. I believe that's what you're thinking of. I've seen a couple of shrines to Mary off out of the way in sanctuaries that use the composite symbols for that reason.

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Because as I once say Jordan Maxwell say in a video...

The Pope's Mitre is shaped like a fish...

because we live in the ages of Pisces the fish?

then is the age of Aquarious as they say?

Yeah, but how old is belief in astrological ages? Not that old, really. Like, definable at some point post-Enlightenment and built out of old parts.

The earliest discussion about astrology actually having something to do with a grand scheme of things is out of the Renaissance, and even then it was just a rationalization of history by cherry-picking events. And that only concerned ages defined by the classical planets or their associated angels. Western culture wouldn't have even considered using a zodiac-based precession system since most accounts had the world as being less than ten thousand years old. Even now, the traditional Jewish dating system from the medieval period says that the world's only 5775 years old. A zodiac age takes something like 2000 years or more, so why build a premonitory system set over a couple dozen millennia if you're only a couple notches into it for the first time?

Astrology for the purposes of telling the future wasn't used that often, there were much more accurate and precise (as much as can be expected, at least) means that didn't require staying up all night. The zodiac only really mattered in terms of establishing a calendar, and even then, Jews and early Christians didn't use a solar zodiac calendar for centuries after the birth of Christ. We went off the old Jewish lunar calendar, and now we use the reformed Roman calendar, which isn't even based around the equinoxes. The Greeks definitely left a mark with the zodiac on Jewish culture, but it was never more than something pretty to look at in the night sky; its workings beyond the comprehension of men by Grand Design.

The only real exception in the ancient world was from academic Mages who were usually consulted to look back at their astronomical records to engineer a favorable astrological reading for the birth or coronation date of a king. The Star of Bethlehem for example; Herod didn't know anything about it until a bunch of Magi showed up and said that a couple years back a king's star had shown up that specifically pointed to a Jewish king, which Herod most certainly was not.

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The astrological symbol for Virgo the Virgin looks like an "M" with an Ichthys tacked to the end. I believe that's what you're thinking of. I've seen a couple of shrines to Mary off out of the way in sanctuaries that use the composite symbols for that reason.

Not quite what the meaning of the Ichthys that was discussed in the documentary I watched.

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Not quite what the meaning of the Ichthys that was discussed in the documentary I watched.

Well, do you remember anything more about it? That's the only connection I've got off the top of my head linking Mary and the Ichthys.

Were they linking in vesica piscis or something as a womb motif?

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Well, do you remember anything more about it? That's the only connection I've got off the top of my head linking Mary and the Ichthys.

Were they linking in vesica piscis or something as a womb motif?

Now I regret posting about this. More like a womb motif.

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Jesus Christ was persecuted and killed, and this thing with the Dagon miter claims to be the representative of God on earth, with a history of oppressing half the world, and torturing and killing 70 million people to say the least...?

I am not confused as to who is Christ and who is the Antichrist. 538 AD to 1798 AD = 1260 years. Predicted in 500 BC and in 100 AD.

Don't feel sorry for it.

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Maybe the Pope and staff restarted ancient customs?

Internet Urbanist: The Romans used to eat a fish called the "dreamfish" that produced hallucinogenic effects similar to LSD

http://www.interneturbanist.com/2014/12/14-year-old-kurt-cobain-announced-to.html?m=1

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Maybe the Pope and staff restarted ancient customs?

Internet Urbanist: The Romans used to eat a fish called the "dreamfish" that produced hallucinogenic effects similar to LSD

http://www.internetu...ced-to.html?m=1

That's cool as heck!

Oh 'She-ra' ... you look like the fashionable type glamourous, show-off type ... hmmmm ?

I am sure you would appreciate the Pope's fashions need to be the 'best and most holy' ;)

back to earth :w00t: WHAT am I watching - LOL! Oh I just love the "flying nun's" Very nice lol
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That's cool as heck!

back to earth :w00t: WHAT am I watching - LOL! Oh I just love the "flying nun's" Very nice lol

Its Fellini. You never heard of (or watched) Fellini ?

Bellissimo !

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