Rome’s Stolen Ideas

Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ:

Three centuries BC:

The college of the Vestal Virgins tended the state hearth, and sprinkled it daily with holy water from the fountain of the sacred nymph Egeria. These white-clad, white-veiled nuns were chosen from among girls six to ten years of age; they took a vow of virginity and service for thirty years, but in return they received many public honors and privileges.

pg.63

The ritual of worship aimed merely to offer the gods a gift or sacrifice to win their aid or avert their wrath. To be effective, said the priest, the ceremony had to be performed with such precision of words and movements as only the clergy could manage. If any mistake was made, the rite had to be repeated, even to thirty times. ... Holy formulas pronounced over the victim turned it into a god who was to receive it; it this sense the god himself was sacrificed. 

pg.64

The first citation says how the Roman Catholic Church stole the Vestal Virgin idea and made it into their “nunnery” theology. Nuns must stay virgin and they are clad and veiled in white.

The second citation shows me where the Papist “Mass” comes from.