It is not necessary to be a believer to know more or less about Mary of Nazareth, the pregnant virgin. Very virgin she received a visit from a dove and an angel tells her that she is pregnant and that she is going to have a son from a god and etc. etc. Who hasn’t happened to her? It is the one we all know best, but it is by no means the only or the first story about a pregnant virgin. The gods that were worshiped before were already leaving children abandoned among mortals. A god has the ability to transform, so anyone. We are going to review other embarrassing messes between mortals and divinities.
Zeus, the most gulf of Olympus, leaving a pregnant virgin
Really, in Mary, the pregnant virgin, we have the more or less basic ingredients: the virgin girl, the divinity turned into an animal and the divine child who does demigod things, with a very intense life of doing things that a normal person cannot ( turn water into wine, for example, which are one of those things that come in handy…). But in these affairs god-mortal Zeus was “the fucking master.”
The Oracle prophesies that Danae will have a son who will kill his grandfather (1). The would-be grandfather takes such a rebound that he opts to put her in jail. Zeus, who knows everything, decides to become a golden rain. (Hey, each one with his tastes…). He breaks through the prison walls and she ends up a pregnant virgin. The water is what she has, that she gets everywhere.
Some more examples of Zeus flirting in animal form
Europe also came with pedigree. Zeus sees her on a beach in Tyre, falls in love with her, turns into a bull, falls in love with her and takes her to the island of Greece, where she already such…
Leda was the daughter of the king of Aetolia (Testio). Zeus repeats the animal format here and lashes it in the form of a swan. Two eggs are supposed to hatch from there, one with Castor and Helen (the one from Troy) and the other with Pollux and Clytemnestra. These would be from her husband, Tíndaro. (2) A very crazy night.
Alcmena also had “rollete”. For her, Zeus adopted the presence of her husband, taking advantage of the fact that he was neither there nor expected of her. “Nothing is what it seems”.
eye! That a divinity does not leave just anyone pregnant…
The couplet says that “The Spanish when she kisses is that she really kisses». When a divinity wanted to expand the family, apart from disappearing later and leaving the mortal “rollete” with the brown, he didn’t notice anyone.
The chosen mortals turned out to be princes and princesses. Or historical figures, like Alexander the Great. His mother, Olympias, Queen of Macedoniashe was determined that he was the son of Zeus who, turned into a snake, got between the sheets and made the fix for him. Royalty has always insisted on socializing with divinity. For ancient societies, being the son/grandson of god X validated being a good ruler.
And whose are you?
The great families of antiquity boasted of having a divinity among their ancestors. In Rome, Julius Caesar claimed descent from Venus, mother of Aeneas (3). In the same way, Romulus and Remus were from Mars.
as a tool marketing, priceless. Linking his person and his authority to whatever divinity it was, they establish their power in the people. something like Let’s see if we are going to throw him out and Jupiter is going to get angry…
In addition, they have in common a fear of infertility, directly related to the economy. Among the Hebrews in particular, the greatest blessing was to have descendants (4). This shows how profitable it is for important families to sell to others a divine ancestry, or one of mythological origin, like Romulus and Remus. In ancient societies, the cult of the ancestors occupied an important place, almost as much as the worship of this or that divinity.
going back to mary
It turns out that Maria and Jose they also had a pedigree, or so some official gospels sell (5). Still sticking to Christian mythology and removing Joseph from the equation, Mary would be a descendant of Aaron (6). It is not that they were cousins, but they belonged to the same tribe or clan (7).
That the women chosen by the god to do his things were virgins is a way of emphasizing the purity of the mother of the “super child” that would come later. With which we have everything that gave the child cache: divinity + mortal mothers / fathers with pedigree + purity of those mortal fathers. The child later, to introduce himself, has more than eight surnames…
Same dog with different? necklace
Maria’s lineage includes even the most diverse roots, covering the entire Orient and different groups and cultures. This as marketing to expand Christianity comes that neither painted.
As other religions had done before, when it came to spreading, Christianity took traditions that already existed and emphasized the lineage of Jesus. They no longer sold a prophet as another of those who preached in Jerusalem at the same time, but as a descendant of mythological characters, such as David or Abraham. Just like the Julia in Rome…
In any case, the characters we are talking about and who are still present in a mythology that continues to be worshiped are the same as before. In addition, its diffusers used the same tools as their predecessors.