Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
I'm with Joseph Campbell on this one, and he was a devout and active Catholic.
I think we observe religious, cultural, and theological similarities between "pagans", Christians, Jews, and yes, even Muslims too, not because of literal borrowing from each other (though sometimes this is the case), but because these cultural manifestations stem from the same primal human subconscious archetypes like Carl Jung talks about. Our subconscious mind shares the same collective imagery and symbolism, so we tend to apply the same intuitive understandings to the same things. Its like what the Apostle Paul said about those who seem to follow the Law even in pagan practices.
for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them
Romans 2
We share the same collective mind and human experience, so naturally we come to the same kinds of worship, the same use of religious symbolism, and the same kinds of cultural practices and taboos, stemming from a common source. We could think of this source as the Holy Spirit. My own two-cents is that I feel God gives us this commonality so that when by the Holy Spirit He brings folks into the Church through Baptism, the Church they come into is no so instinctively foreign
stay blessed,
habte selassie
