There are identical ideas and phrases from the Egyptian Mystery schools within Christian writings, even as buried as the writers tried to make them. The Song of Songs is a collection of erotic poetry from the Old Testament, or a sacred marriage rite, which has been associated with the early years of the Christian era, with Mary Magdalene, and the Black Madonna cult to the Egyptian goddess Isis. Lines from the Song of Songs are identical and parallel to those found in the liturgical poem from the cult of Isis.

A symbol of Osiris’ sacred marriage and a title of Isis is the menat, “moon charm.” Hieros gamos was the ultimate expression of what is termed “temple prostitution”, where a man would experience the divine through sacred sexuality. After this supreme experience with the goddess/priestess, the god/priest is so changed that he may no longer be recognizable and is “resurrected” into a new life. It is Isis, the queen of all regeneration, who goes into the underworld with her attendants to bring out the resurrected god.

-- Picknett, Lynn and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998. Pages 79-80, 257-258.