Alexander Hislop (1807–1865)

A quick perusal of online reviews reveals the hilarious fact that there are 21st-century Protestants who take this book to be an effective indictment of Roman Catholicism! Certainly that is what author Hislop intended.

Thelemites, by contrast, consider that the text -- to the quite incomplete extent that it is true -- reflects positively on the modern Roman custodianship of ancient traditions. Rather than a sinister conspiracy to perpetuate the alleged villainy of ancient Babylon, the many show more centuries of cultural and organizational development of traditional Christian rites and churches have organically incorporated the religious lives of communities which they have conquered and/or absorbed, integrating them into a Christianity which was ab origine a synthesis of Hellenistic, Hebrew, and other ancient traditions, and never as innovative as its proponents have insisted.

This book may possibly have been a persuasive influence on the occultist Charles Stansfeld Jones (Frater Achad) in his adult conversion to Catholicism. show less

Oh, the classic nineteenth century piece of polemic against the Catholic Church. It is amazing how much of this information crops up today still. Now, I'm no big fan of the Catholic Church, I have problems with some aspects of their theology, teachings, and church government, but I still believe that Catholics are Christians. This old work by a Scots Presbyterian shows wide research, but the connections made between facts (and outdated "facts") would make your most idiotic New Age show more "historian" blush. This is David Icke (look him up on Wikipedia) before the internet age. Still, it is one of those books an old Baptist like me should have on his shelf. For kicks. show less

I guess I want to start off with saying, there are some connections and claims in this book that have proved to be false. The author also had biased intentions. This book should be taken with a grain of salt, but I did also find interesting and informative.

Hislop writes this book to make the claim that Catholicism is the reincarnation of pagan practices that originated with worship of Nimrod. This false worship was started with the Babylonian "mysteries" and has since spread to all show more civilizations in some form or fashion after the confusion of the languages at the tower of Babel. Christianity incorporated many of these practices into their teachings and customs to convert pagans to Christian, if in name only.

I did enjoy seeing a similarity across civilizations in beliefs as well as corroborated history of Nimrod and early biblical civilization. There is evidence through history of pagan celebrations influencing and infiltrating Christian practices and teachings. I looked up a lot of information while reading this book. It seems the biggest fault Hislop had was trying to use language and translation to connect everything back to the same original words and meanings. Many of those points have been proven false. He also states some connections as fact that does not seem to have strong or any historical evidence, such as Nimrod's wife. But, if take with a grain of salt and used as guide to do further research on teachings and practices, this book is an interesting find. show less

Alexander Hislop reveals that many Roman Catholic teachings did not originate with Christ or the Bible, but were adopted from ancient pagan Babylonian religion, and given Christian names.Although difficult reading, this book accurately provides a fascinating historical in-depth examination of the shocking similarities between the practices of ancient Babylonian religion and those of today's Roman Catholic church.