The following text is taken from http://www.stevethepro.ukf.net/xmas/articles/. I cannot be certain about the accuracy and exactness of its content. I will be happy to receive info regarding controversial points and to amend any inaccuracies in the text.
The "Spirit" of Christmas (?)
'Put the Christ back in Christmas', we're always told. Christ was never really in Christmas. In fact, when you celebrate Christmas by eating too much, drinking too much and/or spending a fortune on presents almost, but not quite, entirely unsuitable for the person to whom you gave them, you come rather closer to the real spirit of Christmas.
Christmas is a venerable pagan festival, on permanent loan (or should we say stolen) from Ancient Rome.
Rome's Saturnalia was a curious mixture of ancient fertility rite and social event. Romans decorated their doorposts with holly and kissed under the mistletoe. Shops and businesses closed and people greeted one another in the street with shouts of Io Saturnalia! On one day of the twelve, masters waited on their slaves at table while, in the legions, officers served the ranks. A rose was hung from the ceiling in banqueting rooms, and anything said or done sub rosa went no further than the front door. The government - in both Rome and the provinces - often laid on free public feasts. The emperor Domitian held one such feast in the colosseum. The festival of Saturnalia was a time, too, for family dinners, for parties, for amours, for socialising, for wishing others well.
December 25th occurs about the time of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The shortening days were taken as a sign that the Sun was getting weaker. After the Solstice, the days begin to get longer ...... and pagan peoples thought that was an indication that the Sun was getting stronger. Thus, the Winter Solstice became the birthday of several gods: Attis, Frey, Thor, Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Mithra, Tammuz, Cernunnos and so forth. It is a solar holiday, marking the time that the sun becomes apparently stronger day by day.
Mithra, by the way, was born on December 25, of a virgin. His birth was witnessed by shepherds and magicians [magi]. Mithra raised the dead and healed the sick and cast out demons. He returned to heaven at the spring equinox and before doing so had a last supper with his 12 disciples (representing the 12 signs of the zodiac), eating mizd, a piece of bread marked with a cross (an almost universal symbol of the sun). Any of that sound familiar?
First of all, we need to establish from the beginning that December 25th is NOT the date of the birth of Jesus.
The year of the Christian Nativity must be ascertained by historical and chronological research, since there is no certain and harmonious tradition on the subject. The Anno Domini dating system, which was introduced by the Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, and came into general use two years later, during the reign of Charlemagne, puts the Nativity Dec.25, 754 Anno Urbis, that is, after the founding of the city of Rome. Nearly all chronologists agree that this is wrong by at least four years. Christ was born 750 AU (or 4 BCE) if not earlier.
According to Matthew 2:1 (comp. Luke 1:5, 26), Christ was born “in the days of King Herod I, the Great,” who died, according to Josephus, at Jericho, 750 AU, just before Passover. This date has been verified by the astronomical calculation of the eclipse of the moon, which took place March 13, 750 AU, a few days before Herod's death. Allowing two months or more for the events between the birth of Christ and the murder of the Innocents by Herod, the Nativity must be put back at least to February or January, 750 AU (or 4 BCE), if not earlier.
We also have a Jewish festival near that date: Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights (another solar reference) which occurs on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, approximately in December by the Roman calendar, and the Zoroastrian Yalda, the celebration of the victory of good over evil.
The Christian holiday was not always celebrated on December 25th, however. For the first three hundred years of the current era, there was no festivity of the birth of Jesus. Some churches celebrated Jesus' birthday in the spring time and some celebrated it on January 6 (Epiphany).
Early in the fourth century, the Roman church decreed that December 25 would henceforth be recognized as the birthday of Christ. The Eastern churches refused to accept Christmas until 375 C.E., and the churches in Jerusalem rejected the December 25 date until the seventh century. There are still some Eastern Rite churches that continue to celebrate the Epiphany date.
The Winter Solstice was the season of a major celebration of fertility in ancient Rome called Saturnalia, starting on December 17th. This honoured the good old days when the god Saturn ruled a supposed Golden Age, and there were no masters and no slaves, and everything was easy. Thus, it became a reversal-holiday, when the masters served the slaves, and a slave was chosen to temporarily rule the household. The Romans were civilized enough to not kill him afterwards, as seems to be the custom with such holidays in more primitive cultures. They also exchanged presents, were allowed to gamble in public, and in general had a good time. It was the greatest holiday of the year.
It should come as no surprise then that the Christian Church co-opted this seasonal holiday, celebrated by the city that ruled the world -and- celebrated by Christianity's major competitor (Mithraism). It was simply a very astute political move.
St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century wrote: “On this day also the Birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome in order that while the heathen were busy with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their sacred rites undisturbed. They call this (December 25th), the Birthday of the Invincible One (Mithras); but who is so invincible as the Lord? They call it the Birthday of the Solar Disk, but Christ is the Sun of Righteousness.”
This custom of the Feast of Fools was continued in medieval Western Europe, with a Lord of Misrule, mummers doing traditional plays, feasting with a boar's head, games, dancing and other such merriment. This could last for more than just Christmas Day, going on until at least Epiphany (January 6th) in many cases ..... these are our “Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Christmas even started out controversially in North America. Reverend Rel Davis writes…
“The festival of Christmas has always been a controversial one in Christianity. The Puritans banned Christmas altogether and during the Cromwellian period in England, anyone celebrating Christmas was jailed for heresy. Probably the most hated of all Puritan laws was the one abolishing Christmas and probably led to popular acceptance of royalty (nb: the Restoration) – at least the King allowed the masses to celebrate Yule!”
Now let's look at some Christmas customs:
· The word Yule is derived from the Old Norse Jol or Jul thru Anglo-Saxon Geol to Middle English Yule. It means Winter Solstice.
· The word Christmas derives, of course, from Middle English Cristes Masse or Christ’s Mass, that is, the Roman church’s standard ritual celebration. At the time Middle English was spoken, the Roman Catholic Church was pretty much the only game in town.
· The night before, Christmas Eve, was called Modranect or Modranecht by the Germanic pagan peoples (this seems to be Old English / Anglo-Saxon, and apparently means Mother's Night). This is obviously in honor of the Mother Goddess who bore the solar Child of Promise.
· The Magi, or the Three Wise Men: The Magi were, in antiquity, priests of Zoroastrianism ..... and reputed to be expert Magi-cians and astrologers. Mithraism is associated with Zoroastrianism much like Christianity stems from Judaism.
· As shown in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and in Mallory's Morte d'Arthur the pentagram is very much a Christian symbol too.
· The Yule Log is pretty obvious. Sympathetic magic, with its rule of As in Heaven, so on Earth (a re-stating of the more usual wording of As above, so below) means that to have a blazing fire on earth would encourage the sun to grow stronger. Therefore, the Winter Solstice is a fire festival, with bonfires and Yule logs being lit to help the sun grow stronger between then and Midsummer.
· Mistletoe is an old Celtic symbol of regeneration and eternal life. The Romans valued it as a symbol of peace and this eventually led to its usage as one of the common symbols of Christmas. Kissing under mistletoe was a Roman custom, due to its' being regarded as a symbol of fertility. Many primitive societies, such as the Ainu of Japan and the Wallas of West Africa also regarded the mistletoe with veneration.
If we go way back into history, to the time people refer to as pagan, that is where most of our Christmas customs came from. For example, the pagan practice of decorating the home during soltsice was christianized by the early missionary monks of St Benedict, under St Augustine himself, following the rules set down by the then, leader of the whole Christian Church, pope St Gregory. He told the monks to encourage the people of Britain to decorate their temples for the 'nativities of the saints' rather than to their earlier deities; and to celebrate likewise, eating the animals they had slain, for food for themselves, rather than for making sacrifices.
Gregory was a man way ahead of his time. He realised that the Church would make more converts by 'adding on' to what was already an inherent practice, rather than trying to eliminate everything pagan. However, the focus of these new celebrations was to be the Birth of Jesus.
The time of the year—following the harvest, and centering about the winter solstice—has almost universally been a period of festivity and religious significance in the northern hemisphere ages before the spread of Christianity. The date is undeniably pagan: even Catholic authorities admit that.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1949, article Christmas) says—“CHRISTMAS (the 'Mass of Christ')”. Clement of Alexandria (about 200 AD) mentions several speculations on the date of Christ's birth, and condemns them as superstitious... The exact day and year of Christ's birth have never been satisfactorily settled. When the Fathers of the Church in AD 340 decided upon a date to celebrate the event, they wisely (!) chose the day of the Winter Solstice, which was firmly fixed in the minds of the people, and which was their MOST IMPORTANT FESTIVAL.”
The Encyclopaedia Americana (1946, article Christmas) says the same— “CHRISTMAS, the 'Mass of Christ'... In the 5th century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the Birth of Sol (the Sun)... Among the German and Celtic tribes, the Winter Solstice was considered an important point of the year, and they held their chief festival of Yule to commemorate the return of the burning-wheel (the sun).” And Everyman's Encyclopaedia says— “CHRISTMAS (the Mass of Christ)... It is certain that the time now fixed could not by any possibility have been the period of Jesus' birth. The choice of this season was probably due to the general recognition that the Winter Solstice was the turning point of the year.”
Alfred Hottes, Christmas Fact and Fancy , “The roots of Christmas observance go deeply into the folklore of the Druids, Scandinavians, Egyptians and Romans.”
The Chambers Encyclopaedia records, “Many of the beliefs and usages of the Old Germans, and also of the Romans, relating to this period, passed over from heathenism to Christianity.”
R.J. Campbell, in The Story of Christmas, declares, “There are not a few popular observances associated with the Christmas season which have NOTHING TO DO with the Christian religion and the birth of Jesus. Most of these observances are older than Christianity, and some of them—it must be confessed—are NOT OF VERY ELEVATED ORIGIN.”
William Auld, in Christmas Traditions, notes, “There are the green garlands, the marvellous trees, the mystic fire and lights, and customs many...still clustering about the great midwinter feast—all of which descend to us from the PAGAN CHILDHOOD OF THE RACE.”
T.G. Crippen, in Christmas and Christmas Lore, confesses, “The Feast of the Nativity rather incorporated than supplanted various heathen festivals. It was therefore only natural that RELICS OF HEATHEN PRACTICE should survive as traditional customs.”
The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics confirms this, “MOST of the Christian customs [related to Christmas] now prevailing in Europe, or recorded from former times, are HEATHEN customs which have been absorbed or tolerated by the Church. The Christian feast has inherited these customs from two sources: Roman and Teutonic PAGANISM.”
And the Catholic Encyclopaedia (note the source) admits, “There is NO DOUBT that the original Christian nuclei attracted PAGAN accretions.”
The Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopaedia similarly says, “There were non-Christian elements present in the origin of Christmas. The giving of presents was a Roman custom. The Yule-tree [modern 'Christmas Tree'] and the Yule-log are remnants of old Teutonic NATURE WORSHIP.”
All these sources, be it noted, are friends of Christmas. They are not exposing its corrupt background: they are rather glorying in it. They regard its heathen-Catholic origin as a delightful and intriguing asset. We find exactly the same picture in standard, independent reference books.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “Many current customs date back to pre-Christian origins: among them are Christmas decorations. The Romans ornamented their temples and homes with green boughs and flowers for the Saturnalia [Dec. 17-23] ... The Druids gathered mistletoe and hung it in their homes; the Saxons used holly and ivy.”
The Everyman's Encyclopaedia declares, “The practice of decorating churches is pagan in its origin.”
And this is from the Encyclopaedia Americana, “The holly, the mistletoe, the Yule log and the wassail bowl are relics of pre-Christian times...The Christmas tree has been traced back to the Romans.”
Alexander Hislop, in his monumental Two Babylons, goes even further back.
“The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in pagan Rome and pagan Egypt...The festivals of the Roman Church are innumerable, but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation, viz: CHRISTMAS, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian.
It is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties that, within the Christian Church, no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance…
“This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half way was very early developed. We find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the pagans to their own superstitions. 'By us', he says, 'the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and the Matronalia are now frequented, gifts are carried to and fro, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar. Oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.
“Upright men (continues Hislop) strove to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts the Apostacy went on till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was submerged under pagan superstition...THAT CHRISTMAS WAS ORIGINALLY A PAGAN FESTIVAL IS BEYOND ALL DOUBT.”
This period of the year was one of great festivity for the pagan Romans. First came the celebrated Saturnalia, beginning Dec. 17. This feast of the god Saturn, the Roman deity of seed and sowing, finds much mention in all commentaries on Christ-Mass. One says…
“The Roman Saturnalia was characterized by processions, singing, lighting candles, adorning houses with laurels and green trees, giving presents.”
Again from the Religious Encyclopaedia…
“The Saturnalia provided the model for most of the merry customs of Christmas. The time was one of general mirth. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being candles and dolls. Christmas inherited the general merriment: games, giving of gifts, abundance of sweetmeats, and—as to the more ceremonious elements—the burning of candles.”
The Encyclopaedia Britannica relates similarly…
“Christmas customs are an evolution from times that long antedated the Christian period: a descent from seasonal, pagan, religious, and national practices ... The god Saturn's great festival was the Saturnalia. Business, public and private, was at a standstill, schools closed, presents were exchanged, the traditional ones being candles and dolls.”
Likewise the Encyclopaedia Americana…
“At the commencement of this festival, a great number of candles were lighted in the temple of Saturn... no business was transacted, schools kept holiday, law courts were closed. Jests and freedom everywhere prevailed, and all ceased from their various occupations.”
Campbell, in The Story of Christmas, further says…
“The Romans adopted from earlier folk-customs the rituals which appear in their Saturnalia which have been CARRIED OVER INTO THE OBSERVANCE OF MODERN CHRISTMAS. There was giving of presents, feasting, drinking, and decorating with evergreens.”
Auld says again, in his Christmas Traditions…
“Much of the spirit of this old Roman festival of the Saturnalia passed into Christmas celebration. The early Puritans, witnessing the jolly antics of grotesque fools (the 'Lords of Merry Disport'), never had any doubt in the matter... That transient [that is, shallow and passing] feeling which blossoms at Christmastime OWES AS MUCH TO THE KIND GOD SATURN as to the loving Son of Man... This is the Christmas which—mixed with a LITTLE, sentimental Christianity, lies so pleasantly in the genial pages of Dickens.”
A major feature of the pagan Saturnalia festival was the reversal of all order and dignities: a mock turning everything upside down. This was carried to great lengths at Christmastime in the Church in the Middle Ages. In England it was customary to appoint a Lord of Misrule or Abbot of Unreason who presided over the blasphemous foolery.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says…
“Merrymaking came to have a share in Christmas observance, evenwhile emphasis was on the religious phase... A Lord of Misrule and his jester directed the revels, and kept them uproarious”.
The Schaff-Heroz Religious Encyclopaedia adds…
“In England an Abbot of Misrule was chosen in every large household; in Scotland, and Abbot of Unreason. During the term of the festival he was the master of the house.”
We discover, with shock and surprise, that it was quite customary for even the clergy to let down all barriers of restraint within the Church itself at the Christmas season.
Crippen relates (which seems almost unbelievable)…
“At Vesters [the evening prayers], at the end of the Magnificat [hymn of praise to God], the whole service was turned into burlesque. Dice were cast, and black puddings [blood sausage] were eaten, on the alter, ludicrous songs were sung, and old leather was burned as mock incense. In some places an ass was led into the Church, in whose honor a mock hymn was chanted, with a bray for a refrain.”
The Encyclopaedia Americana confirms this…
“On St. Nicholas’ Day, a ‘Boy Bishop’ was elected, who exercised a burlesque Episcopal jurisdiction, and parodied ecclesiastical functions and ceremonies.”
Such is the height and stability and value of a religion grounded on sentiment and superstition. Auld adds, “All through the Middle Ages the two rivers of RIOT and RELIGION flowed together.”
Following the Saturnalia in Rome was the Sigallaria, or Doll Festival, another obvious link with modern Christmas. Then on the great day, December 25th itself, came the Brumalia (from bruma: shortest day)—the religious observance of the sun-worshipers. This was known also as Natalis Solus Invicti: the Birth of the Unconquerable Sun—the date when the day began again to lengthen.
It is significant that the Catholic Encyclopaedia itself says…
“The well known solar feast of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on Dec. 25, has a strong claim for the responsibility of our Christmas date.”
On this point, the Encyclopaedia Americana says…
“In the fifth century the Western Church ordered Christmas to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol.”
And Everyman's Encyclopaedia declares…
“The observance which especially influenced the Christian Church was probably the Roman festival of the Winter Solstice, celebrated on Dec. 25.”
Then came the Kalends of January, and finally the Juvenalia (Children's Festival), both of which have contributed their share to the modern Christ-mass.
With very odd logic, but typical of the thinking of the flesh, Crippen remarks…
“Surely it was well that all these should be COMBINED IN ONE GREAT CHRISTIAN FEAST, and their ancient significance transferred in the light of the Gospel. Many customs obtained a new lease of life. “In Egypt, as in Rome, the new festival would coincide with the birthday of the Sun-God. And the northern barbarians would find it practically coincident with their own Yule. It seems to have been the festival of the god Thor.”
Again from Auld…
“After the barbarians were Christianized, all the customs and SUPERSTITIONS which had belonged from time immemorable to their own Yuletide began to CLUSTER ABOUT CHRISTMAS. When the season calls up in the mind crackling fires on the hearth, lighted candles, rooms adorned with evergreens, bright berries and flowers, feast and frolic—these are the GENUINE PAGAN ELEMENTS.”
Regarding the period when Catholicism originated Christmas, the Catholic Encyclopaedia says it was NOT among the early festivals of the Church, because Ireneus and Tertullian, at the end of the second century, omit it from their list of feasts. The first evidence of any observance of the birth of Christ appears about 200 AD in Egypt. It was not earlier than 330 AD that Dec. 25 was chosen by any Pope, and it was not universally accepted till long after that—for the position and authority of the Pope was then still far from established.
In the Schaff-Heroz Religious Encyclopaedia, we are told…
“From the beginning of the fourth century, when the restless searchings of the nature and persons of Christ drove men's minds into many singular errors, the Eastern Church began to feel the importance of emphasizing the actual birth of Christ by a separate festival...The date once fixed, Christmas gradually became one of the three great annual festivals of the Church.”
And from the Abbott-Conant Dictionary of Religious Knowledge…
“Christmas seems to have first appeared in the Roman Church after the middle of the fourth century. At a somewhat later period it spread into Eastern Asia. It was not received with equal readiness by all the churches. Some denounced it as an innovation... It was not till the sixth century that anything like unanimity prevailed as to the day to be observed. The manner in which this festival came to be observed in the Romish Church, and through it to the other churches, is as follows: In this season of the year, a series of heathen festivals occurred, the celebration of which was in many ways closely interwoven with the whole civil and social life of the Romans. These festivals had an import which easily admitted of being spiritualized, and tranformed into a Christian sense. First came the Saturnalia, which represented the Golden Age, and abolished for a while the distinction of ranks. Then came the custom, peculiar to this season, of making presents, afterwards transferred to the Christmas festival. After the Saturnalia came the Festival of Infants [Juvenalia], at which the children were presented with images. Next came a festival still more analogous to Christmas, that of the shortest day [Brumalia], the Winter Solstice1, the Birthday of the New Sun, about to return once more toward the earth... Hence the celebration of the Nativity of Christ was transferred to December 25. In the Romish Church, Christmas is a very high festival.”
Regarding the attitude of early Christians toward such things, Auld says…
“As for the first believers, they had NOT THE SLIGHTEST INTEREST IN ANYTHING OF THE KIND. Hope in the Lord's imminent return from heaven in great power and glory was the flame that fired their devotion.”
In the book, The Customs of Mankind, we read…
“Christmas was originally a festival of the Winter Solstice. It was customary to hold great feasts in honor of the HEATHEN GODS. The early teachers of Christianity PROHIBITED THESE FESTIVALS as unsuited to the character of Christ. Yet the symbols and customs of the old festivals are adapted to the new, and so we find Christmas patterned with many customs of pagan origin. To the mind of the Puritans, Christmas smelled to heaven of idolatry... The Puritans abolished Christmas as a hateful relic of Popery.”
Tertullian—who wrote (says Encyclopaedia Britannica) “in a period when a LAX SPIRIT OF CONFORMITY had seized the churches”: about 200 AD—says regarding decorating with evergreens and ceremonial candles…
“Let those who have no Light, light their lamps, let them affix to their posts laurels. YOU [Christians] are the Light of the World, a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, make not your own gate a temple [by heathen wreaths].”
Crippen says, “At the time of persecution, Christians were detected by NOT decorating their houses at the Saturnalia.”
Some conformed to the heathen customs to avoid suspicion, and to appear like their neighbors, so they would not be looked on as odd and different. This practice was strongly condemned by the early church.
And Campbell relates…
“There can be no doubt that [some of] the early Christians also frequently shared in the frolics of their heathen neighbors; and the fathers of the Church had considerable difficulty in prevailing on their members to refrain from such unedifying pastimes. The early Christians discouraged the use of evergreen decorations in Christian homes and assemblies, because their display had long been associated with heathen festivals. Bishop Martin of Braga forbad the use of all greenery and 'other dangerous Kalend customs'.”
Crippen remarks…
“So long as heathenism was in full vigor, the ancient Christians were puritanically jealous of anything that might seem like coqueting with idolatry. But when heathenism was declining, there was a disposition to adopt its customs. What had been heathenish became rich with Christian (!) symbol.”
Note that last statement. Auld too betrays the same perverted outlook…
“The use of evergreens is one of the happy (!) contributions which PAGANISM made to the Christian festival. At first the Church frowned upon this intrusion of paganism into the sacred season. But altogether, the ancient Church was wisely tolerant (!) in her attitude to heathen IDEAS and customs ... hence the curious and interesting MIXTURES of IDEAS — pagan and Christian — which became charmingly (!) entwisted.”
After unsuccesfully fighting the adoption of pagan customs, says Campbell…
“The clergy endeavored to transform the heathen revels into amusements which — if not really more spiritual in character — had at least the merit of recognizing the authority of the Church.”
The Encyclopaedia Britannica confirms this…
“As Christianity spread among the peoples of pagan lands, many of the practices of the Winter Solstice were blended with those of Christianity, because of the liberal ruling of Pope Gregory I and the cooperation of the missionaries.”
That is, instead of teaching the converts to abandon their old superstitions, and to start a clean new life solely according to the Way of God, the Church found it more practical and profitable to give the old superstitions new names, and mix Christianity with paganism.
The Christmas extravaganza has become the standard for traditional holidays today. Families will gather around December 25, gorge on ham and turkey, stare at a decorated tree while a swooning Bing provides the ambience, while exchanging billions of dollars in gifts. A crescendo of months of retailer pre-hype will come to a climax on one glorious orgy of joy and peace. Or, theoretically, anyway.
Christmas is assumed by many to be rooted in the Bible. A revealing survey would be to poll frantic Christmas shoppers to find out how many know the origins of Christmas. Do YOU know what Christmas is all about? If Christmas is that significant—the biggest holiday of the year demanding a great deal of your time and money—shouldn’t you at least know what it is actually all about?
Do you observe Christmas because you believe it is in the Bible? Try as you might, you will not find a hint of Christmas anywhere in the Scriptures. There is neither a call to observe it nor an example where anyone in the Bible did so. Shocking? Millions are oblivious to this simple fact! As one authority puts it, “There is no historical evidence that Jesus’ birthday was celebrated during the apostolic or early post-apostolic times,” (Christmas, p. 47). The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge. Another writer makes this astounding statement: “The day was not one of the early feasts of the Christian church. In fact the observance of birthdays was condemned as a heathen custom repugnant to Christians,”. (The American Book of Days, by George W. Douglas.)
What an eye-opening statement. The single most important religious holiday observed today in Christianity would have been FORBIDDEN in early New Testament times! Many other historians and Biblical scholars corroborate this fact. Now read a candid admission from The New Catholic Encyclopaedia…
“Inexplicable though it seems, the date of the [Messiah's] birth is not known. The Gospels indicate neither the day nor the month,” vol. 3, p. 656. And the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature says, “The fathers of the first three centuries do not speak of any special observance of the nativity. No corresponding festival was presented by the Old Testament ... the day and month of the birth of [the Messiah] are nowhere stated in the Gospel history, and cannot be certainly determined,” Christmas, p. 276.
If Christmas is as popular and pervasive a religious holiday as retail sales indicate, why isn't it found anywhere in the bible?
The bible, itself, does not place the birth of Christ anywhere near the solstice. In fact, it states otherwise. Luke 2:8: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” Is this describing a cold, wintry December scene? According to Jeremiah 36:22, December is wintry in the Holy Land. It is the rainy season where on occasion snow covers the ground. Luke, however, says that sheep were still in the open fields. This had to be before the cold winter rains and snows began to fall. The livestock had not yet been moved to shelters. Notice: “It was a custom among Jews to send out their sheep to the deserts about the Passover [early spring], and bring them home at the commencement of the first rain” (Clarke's Commentary by Adam Clarke, vol. 3, p. 370). Clarke says the first rain commences in October or November. He adds, “As these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks, it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Savior was not born on the 25th of December, when no flocks were out in the fields ...the flocks were still in the fields BY NIGHT. On this very ground the nativity in December should be given up.” December is no time for flocks and their shepherds to be standing out in the field.
If Christmas is not in the Bible, where did it come from? Christmas was an invention of the Roman church, designed to compete with the heathen Roman feast of Saturnalia in honor of the sun deity Mithras. Mithras bore remarkable similarity to the Biblical Messiah. The Mithraic feast, like Christmas, was celebrated to commemorate his birth. Notice the astounding parallels, as detailed by Joscelyn Godwin, professor at Colgate University. Mithras was…
“the creator and orderer of the universe, hence a manifestation of the creative Logos or Word. Seeing mankind afflicted by Ahriman, the cosmic power of darkness, he incarnated on earth. His birth on 25 December was witnessed by shepherds. After many deeds he held a last supper with his disciples and returned to heaven. At the end of the world he will come again to judge resurrected mankind and after the last battle, victorious over evil, he will lead the chosen ones through a river of fire to a blessed immortality,” Mystery Religions in the Ancient World, p. 99.
Godwin remarks…
“No wonder the early Christians were disturbed by a deity who bore so close a resemblance to their own, and no wonder they considered him a mockery of [the Messiah] invented by Satan.”
These two popular movements were vying for dominance in the Roman Empire, one pagan the other Christian. Historian and archaeologist Ernest Renan once wrote, “If Christianity had been halted in its growth by some mortal illness, the world would have been Mithraist” (Marc Aurele, p. 597). Caught in the middle were the Roman emperors, who wanted to unify and solidify their diverse empire. They didn't need divisive religious factions. For political reasons, the Roman rulership saw great advantage in synchronizing and harmonizing these religious beliefs into one.
So today, much of what is accepted as Bible-based tradition is the direct result of compromising and mixing with heathen religion. Roman Emperor Constantine, a former pagan himself, gave the most significant push to the Christian-pagan blending of teachings like Christmas. Among other things, he would decree that worship for Christianity switch from the seventh day Sabbath to the first day of the week, Sun-day, the day the pagans worshiped the sun.
“This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed,” says Alexander Hislop in The Two Babylons, p. 93. Interestingly, Hislop notes that at the same time the pagans gave up precious little of their own beliefs and practices. “And we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of [Messiah] in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition.” Hislop then quotes Tertullian, the most ancient of the Latin church fathers whose works are extant, as he decries the early church observances…
“By us who are strangers to Sabbaths and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to [Yahweh], the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar.”
A mass is a celebration of the Eucharist or the emblems of the death of the Savior. Yet, Christ-mass is an observance supposedly in honor of His birth. Why? The answer is found with the secular ancients. Mithras was known as the Sun Deity. His birthday, Natalis solis invicti, means “birthday of the invincible sun.” It came on December 25, at the time of the winter solstice when the sun began its journey northward again. Pagan peoples were overly concerned with life and fertility. They saw life fading in the darkness of winter and so held festivals in honor of and to beckon back the sun to give life and light to the earth once more. The Dictionary of the Middle Ages explains how a mass came to be celebrated for the supposed birthday of Jesus:
“In patristic thought [the Messiah] had traditionally been associated with light or the sun, and the cult of the Sol invictus, sanctioned as it was by the Roman emperors since the late third century, presented a distinct threat to Christianity. Hence, to compete with this celebration the Roman church instituted a feast for the nativity of [the Messiah], who was called the Sol iustitiae .... Usually when Christians celebrated the natalis of a saint or martyr, it was his death or heavenly nativity, but in this case natalis was assigned to be [the Messiah's] earthly birth, in direct competition with the pagan natalis.” – pp. 317-318.
That is, it was to compete with the birthday of Mithras. So confused were some about what or whom they were worshiping that Pope Leo I (440-461) chastised Christians who on Christmas celebrated the birth of the sun deity!
The sun cult was particularly strong at Rome about the time Christmas enters the historical picture, according to the New Catholic Encyclopaedia…
“The Feast is first mentioned at the head of the Depositio Martyrum in the Roman Chronograph of 354. Since the Depositio was composed in 336, Christmas in Rome can be dated that far at least. It is not found, however, in the lists of Feasts given by Tertullian and Origen,” vol. 3, p. 656.
Where did Mithraism come from, this Roman religion that venerated the sun deity and influenced Christianity so greatly? Kenneth Scott Latourette in A History of Christianity, traces Mithraism to the mystery religions of Egypt, Syria, and Persia. “Almost all the mystery cults eventually made their way to Rome,” he notes. “They were secret in many of their ceremonies and their members were under oath not to reveal their esoteric rites. Numbers of them centered about a savior-god who had died and had risen again. As the cults spread within the Empire they copied from one another in the easy-going syncretism which characterized much of the religious life of that realm and age,” pp. 24-25.
As we have seen, Christmas as the observance of Jesus’ birth did not come into existence immediately. It was not kept for at least three centuries after Jesus’ birth! That's a period longer than the entire existence of the United States. But Christmas as a pagan holiday traces back thousands of years before Christ.
The Madonna and child theme, which is universal or evident in hundreds of religions down through the centuries, had its origin in Babylon. The similarities with Biblical elements found among pagan religions is not simply coincidence.
Elements of this worship are still found in today’s Christmas rites. The Romans worshiped Tammuz as the sun deity Mithras in a special observance called the Saturnalia. The Saturnalia was named for Saturn, otherwise known as Cronus. Cronus is an alias of Tammuz. His wife and mother was Rhea (Semiramis).
The Saturnalia, therefore, was just another observance for Tammuz, the counterfeit redeemer. The Romans kept the Saturnalia in December, at the time of the winter solstice in honor of the returning sun. The festival lasted seven days. “All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being waxed tapers and clay dolls,” says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition. “These dolls represented original sacrifices of human beings to the infernal god,” vol. 24, p. 231.
During the Saturnalia the social structure was turned upside down. Frequently the master would serve the slave, who could shout at his master and carry on as lustily as he pleased. Social permissiveness reigned. A King of the Saturnalia was chosen by lot. He ruled according to his wildest whim. His counterpart was Lord of the Misrule in medieval England and King of Carnival or Rex in today's Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Legend has it that the Saturnalia was instituted by Romulus under the name Brumalia (from bruma, meaning winter solstice), Britannica, p. 232. “The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence,” notes the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Enowledge, p. 48. And so, the church established the birthday of jesus to coincide with the heathen feast day.
“…the Latin Church, supreme in power, and infallible in judgement, placed it on the 25th of December, the very day on which the ancient Romans celebrated the feast of their goddess Bruma. Pope Julius I was the person who made this alteration” (Clarke's Commentary).
This fact is supported by the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 223:
“December 25 was the date of the Roman pagan festival inaugurated in 274 as the birthday of the unconquered sun which at the winter solstice begins again to show an increase in light. Sometime before 336 the Church in Rome, unable to stamp out this pagan festival, spiritualized it as the Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness.”
Hislop observes, “That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin,” The Two Babylons, p. 93.
This blending of observances only served to confuse worshipers. By the middle of the fifth century, Pope Leo the Great rebuked his over-cautious flock for paying reverence to the Sun on the steps of St. Peter's before turning their backs on it to worship inside the westward-facing basilica. Even some bishops, like Troy, continued to pray to the sun. He eventually went back to sun worship entirely (The Early Church, by Henry Chadwick).
As the Roman Empire spread, so did the customs of Christmas. Cultures in northern Europe contributed some of their own customs, or twists on some old themes, nearly all of which had a basis in Babylonian paganism. The decorated tree, St. Nick, yule log, wreaths, cookies, berries, mistletoe, bonfires, roast goose, roast pig, wassailing, caroling, and other familiar fixtures were added or embellished for the Christmas-Saturnalia in various countries. When the Protestant movement attempted to rid itself of the excesses and sins of Roman Catholicism, there also came an opposition to Christmas that almost obliterated it entirely in England. “In England, for example, the Puritans could not tolerate this celebrating for which there was no biblical sanction. Consequently, the Roundhead Parliament of 1643 outlawed the feasts of Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, along with the saints' days,” Celebrations, p. 312.
For a period of 12 years the staunch Puritans kept the shackles on Christmas, making it an ordinary day of business and even a day of fasting. Yet with the Restoration in 1660 the citizens reclaimed Christmas, but it was a different festival from what it had been. The religious aspects were often neglected, with the result that the secularization of the holiday was well under way. In America, strong religious antagonism to the feast of Christmas lasted from 1620 to 1750 ? 130 years! In 1776 General George Washington surprise-attacked the German Hessians on December 25, winning a critical Revolutionary War battle by defeating the Christmas-celebrating, drunken German mercenaries. Obviously, Christmas was not an important celebration for the father of our country! It was to take many years for the regard for Christmas to grow to what it is today in America and around the world. In Boston, up to 1870, anyone missing work on Christmas Day would be fired. Factory owners customarily required employees to come to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas — to insure they wouldn't have time to go to church that day. And any student who failed to go to school on December 25 would be expelled. Only the arrival of large numbers of Irish and northern European immigrants brought acceptance of Christmas in this country. Christmas did not even begin to be a stat holiday anywhere in the United States until very late in the nineteenth century, with Alabama being the first state to make it so.
Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman and lecturer, wrote in 1874 of his boyhood in New England, “To me Christmas is a foreign day, and I shall die so. When I was a boy I wondered what Christmas was. I knew there was such a time, because we had an Episcopal church in our town, and I saw them dressing it with evergreens, and wondered what they were taking the woods in church for; but I got no satisfactory explanation. A little later I understood it was a Romish institution, kept up by the Romish Church.”
In Old Testament times an indispensable part of Baal worship involved the asherah, a sacred tree stem or pole (from which we get the May pole). Notice what the prophet Jeremiah wrote in connection with tree-idol worship: “Thus says Yahweh, learn not the way of the heathen ... for the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go ...” 10:2-5.
It is a historical fact that trees were decorated and adored by ancient peoples in honor of pagan deities, as this source reveals: “We can find enough instances of the use of trees, even decorated ones such as the pine tree on which images of the god Attis were hung amid rows of ribbons at a spring festival, to convince us of the ultimately pagan origin of our custom,” Celebrations, p. 331. Although based in mystery worship, the modern Christmas tree as we know it traces to Europe. “...tree worship is well attested for all the great European families of the Aryan stock. Amongst the Celts the oak-worship of the Druids is familiar to everyone. Sacred groves were common among the ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct among their descendants at the present day” (The Golden Bough, p. 58).
How the evergreen tree was popularized for Christmas in Europe comes by way of one of the earliest stories told of St. Boniface as an 8th century missionary in Germany…
“He was trying to stamp out the pagan rite of sacrificing people to the oak tree. He led his followers into a forest at yule time. Showing them a fir tree, he said it pointed straight upward to the [Messiah]. 'Take this tree into your homes,' he said, 'as a sign of your new worship [Christianity]. Celebrate [Yahweh's] power no more in the forest with shameful rites, but in the sanctity of your homes with laughter and love,' ” Compton 's Encyclopaedia and Fact Finder, vol. 5, p. 326.
Pagan rites were synchronized into Christian worship. Rather than abolishing what was heathen-based, the practice became to modify it, to make it fit somehow into biblical worship.
The jolly old gent is actually three traditions in one. The original is St. Nicholas, a Catholic bishop in Myra of Asia Minor during the first half of the fourth century. A supposedly generous individual, he became the patron saint of a number of countries and cities, as well as merchants, bakers, mariners, and children. To this last he developed into a giver of gifts on the eve of his feast day, December 6, among the Dutch and Flemish. The Dutch called it the Feast of Sinterklaas (a form of Sint Nikolaas), hence the anglicized corruption, “Santa Claus.”
When the Pennsylvania Dutch came to America in the eighteenth century they brought with them the custom of Christkindl. This Christ Child supposedly brought gifts for children on Christmas eve, riding a mule loaded with presents, His name was changed by the English settlers to Kriss Kringle. The notion of his North Pole home was contrived through Scandinavian or Russian tales about north-dwelling wizards.
When we tell our children lies about the existence of fantasies like Santa Claus, we introduce them at an early, impressionable age to the art of deception.
Santa Claus is perhaps the most remarkable of all the figures associated with Christmas. To us, Santa has always been an essential part of the Christmas celebration, but the modern image of Santa didn't develop until well into the 19th century. Moreover, he didn't spring to life fully-formed as a literary creation or a commercial invention (as did his famous reindeer, Rudolph). Santa Claus was an evolutionary creation, brought about by the fusion of two religious personages (St. Nicholas and Christkindlein, the Christ child) to become a fixed image which is now the paramount symbol of the secular Christmas celebration.
In 1804, the New York Historical Society was founded with Nicholas as its patron saint, its members reviving the Dutch tradition of St. Nicholas as a gift-bringer. In 1809, Washington Irving published his satirical A History of New York, by one "Diedrich Knickerbocker," a work that poked fun at New York's Dutch past (St. Nicholas included). When Irving became a member of the Society the following year, the annual St. Nicholas Day dinner festivities included a woodcut of the traditional Nicholas figure (tall, with long robes) accompanied by a Dutch rhyme about "Sancte Claus" (in Dutch, "Sinterklaas"). Irving revised his History of New York in 1812, adding details about Nicholas' "riding over the tops of the trees, in that selfsame waggon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children." In 1821, a New York printer named William Gilley issued a poem about a "Santeclaus" who dressed all in fur and drove a sleigh pulled by one reindeer. Gilley's "Sante," however, was very short.
On Christmas Eve
of 1822, another New Yorker, Clement Clarke Moore, wrote down and read to his
children a series of verses; his poem was published a year later as "An Account
of a Visit from St. Nicholas" (more commonly known today by its opening line, "'Twas the night
before Christmas . . ."). Moore gave St. Nick eight reindeer (and named
them all), and he devised the now-familiar entrance by chimney. Moore's Nicholas
was still a small figure, however — the poem describes a "miniature sleigh" with
a "little old driver."
Meanwhile, in parts of Europe such as Germany, Nicholas the gift-giver had been
superseded by a representation of the infant Jesus (the Christ child, or "Christkindlein").
The Christkindlein accompanied Nicholas-like figures with other names (such as "Père
Noël" in France), or he travelled with a dwarf-like helper (known in some places
as "Pelznickel,"
or Nicholas with furs). Belsnickle (as Pelznickel was known in the
German-American dialect of Pennsylvania) was represented by adults who dressed
in furry disguises (including false whiskers), visited while children were still
awake, and put on a scary performance. Gifts found by children the next morning
were credited to Christkindlein, who had come while everyone was asleep. Over
time, the non-visible Christkindlein (whose name mutated into "Kriss Kringle")
was overshadowed by the visible Belsnickle, and both of them became confused
with St. Nicholas and the emerging figure of Santa Claus.
The modern Santa Claus derived from these two images: St. Nicholas the elf-like gift bringer described by Moore, and a friendlier "Kriss Kringle" amalgam of the Christkindlein and Pelznickel figures. The man-sized version of Santa became the dominant image around 1841, when a Philadelphia merchant named J.W. Parkinson hired a man to dress in "Criscringle" clothing and climb the chimney outside his shop.
In 1863, a caricaturist for Harper's Weekly named Thomas Nast began developing his own image of Santa. Nast gave his figure a "flowing set of whiskers" and dressed him "all in fur, from his head to his foot." Nast's 1866 montage entitled "Santa Claus and His Works" established Santa as a maker of toys; an 1869 book of the same name collected new Nast drawings with a poem by George P. Webster that identified the North Pole as Santa's home. Although Nast never settled on one size for his Santa figures (they ranged from elf-like to man-sized), his 1881 "Merry Old Santa Claus" drawing is quite close to the modern-day image.
The Santa Claus figure, although not yet standardized, was ubiquitous by the late 19th century. Santa was portrayed as both large and small; he was usually round but sometimes of normal or slight build; and he dressed in furs (like Belsnickle) or cloth suits of red, blue, green, or purple. A Boston printer named Louis Prang introduced the English custom of Christmas cards to America, and in 1885 he issued a card featuring a red-suited Santa. The chubby Santa with a red suit (like an "overweight superhero") began to replace the fur-dressed Belsnickle image and the multicolored Santas.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the burgeoning Coca-Cola company was still looking for ways to increase sales of their product during winter, then a slow time of year for the soft drink market. They turned to a talented commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white garbed Santa Claus with Coca-Cola. Coke's annual advertisements — featuring Sundblom-drawn Santas holding bottles of Coca-Cola, drinking Coca-Cola, receiving Coca-Cola as gifts, and especially enjoying Coca-Cola — became a perennial Christmastime feature which helped spur Coca-Cola sales throughout the winter (and produced the bonus effect of appealing quite strongly to children, an important segment of the soft drink market). The success of this advertising campaign has helped fuel the legend that Coca-Cola actually invented the image of the modern Santa Claus, decking him out in a red-and-white suit to promote the company colors — or that at the very least, Coca-Cola chose to promote the red-and-white version of Santa Claus over a variety of competing Santa figures in order to establish it as the accepted image of Santa Claus.
Although some versions of the Santa Claus figure still had him attired in various colors of outfits past the beginning of the 20th century, the jolly, ruddy, sack-carrying Santa with a red suit and flowing white whiskers had become the standard image of Santa Claus by the 1920s, several years before Sundlom drew his first Santa illustration for Coca-Cola. As The New York Times reported on 27 November 1927:
A standardized Santa Claus appears to New York children. Height, weight, stature are almost exactly standardized, as are the red garments, the hood and the white whiskers. The pack full of toys, ruddy cheeks and nose, bushy eyebrows and a jolly, paunchy effect are also inevitable parts of the requisite make-up.
It's simply mind-boggling that at the beginning the 21st century, historians are still egregiously perpetuating inaccurate information like the following:
So complete was the colonization of Christmas that Coke's Santa had elbowed aside all comers by the 1940s. He was the Santa of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street just as he is the Santa of the recent film The Santa Clause. He is the Santa on Hallmark cards, he is the Santa riding the Norelco shaver each Christmas season, he is the department-store Santa, and he is even the Salvation Army Santa!1
As we just pointed out above, the modern Santa had "elbowed aside all comers" long before the 1940s, and well before Coca-Cola co-opted him as their wintertime advertising symbol. And we're at a loss to understand how anyone could have recognized the Santa of Miracle on 34th Street, a BLACK-AND-WHITE film, as the red-and-white Coca-Cola Santa.
All this isn't to say that Coca-Cola didn't have anything to do with cementing that image of Santa Claus in the public consciousness. The Santa image may have been standardized before Coca-Cola adopted it for their advertisements, but Coca-Cola had a great deal to do with establishing Santa Claus as a ubiquitous Christmas figure in America at a time when the holiday was still making the transition from a religious observance to a largely secular and highly commercial celebration. In an era before color television (or commercial television of any kind), color films, and the widespread use of color in newspapers, it was Coca-Cola's magazine advertisements, billboards, and point-of-sale store displays that exposed nearly everyone in America to the modern Santa Claus image. Coca-Cola certainly helped make Santa Claus one of the most popular men in America, but they didn't invent him.
Today's biggest Christmas rite is the giving of gifts. True to tradition, the practice of giftgiving also rests with the ancient heathens. The Romans gave gifts to one another at the Saturnalia merrymaking (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Virtually every Christmas custom is connected with some man-made rite or tradition that has little or nothing to do with the Bible.
· Mistletoe is a Druidic survival that was thought to cure everything from epilepsy to infertility, the wax berries of this parasite thought to be a sex stimulant. Holly's green leaves and red berries were respected in medieval times as protection against witchcraft and the evil eye; a good luck charm for men.
· Wreaths with their round shape symbolize the returning sun at the winter solstice; made of laurel, they depict the sun's comeback victory over darkness and death (Nimrod reincarnates to Tammuz).
· Christmas candles trace to the burning yule log and the reincarnation of Nimrod.
· Ham is eaten because Tammuz (Adonis) was thought to have been killed by a boar. In his memory, pagans sacrificed and ate swine at the Saturnalia.
· Christmas cookies trace back to the cakes that were made to the Queen of Heaven or Semiramis (Jer. 44:19). Round ones were made for the Saturnalia and Brumalia to symbolize the returning sun.
Christmas has evolved on a faulty Foundation. First, from its inception in the fourth century, it has been surrounded by controversy. For example, there was the question of Jesus’ birthday. Since the bible does not specify either the day or the month of Christ's birth, a variety of dates have been suggested. In the third century, one group of Egyptian theologians placed it on May 20, while others favored earlier dates, such as March 28, April 2, or April 19. By the 18th century, Jesus' birth had been associated with every month of the year!
December 25 was assigned by the Catholic Church as Jesus’ birthday, because “early Christians wished the date to coincide with the pagan Roman festival marking the birthday of the unconquered sun ” (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Because of the idolatrous practices associated with Roman festivals, early Christians did not share in them. By the middle of the fourth century, the grumbling subsided, as more and more counterfeit Christians crept into the fold. This led to compromises with the Roman world. Commenting on this, the book The Paganism in Our Christianity states: “It was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance.” The willingness of the so-called Christians to adopt pagan celebrations now brought a measure of acceptance within the community. Before long, Christians came to have as many annual festivals as the pagans themselves. Not surprisingly, Christmas was foremost among them.
The Catholic church adopted the viewpoint that it was fitting to perpetuate a joyous festival in honor of Jesus’ birthday. Accordingly, in 567C.E., the council of Tours “proclaimed the 12 days from Christmas to Epiphany as a sacred and festive season.” (The Catholic Encyclopaedia for School and Home)
Christmas soon absorbed many features from the profane harvest festivals of northern Europe. Merrymaking remained more common than piety as revelers indulged in gluttonous eating and drinking. Rather than speak out against the loose conduct, the church endorsed it. In 601 C.E. Pope Gregory I wrote to Mellitus, his missionary in England, telling him “not to stop such ancient pagan festivities, but to adapt them to the rites of the church, only changing the reason for them from a heathen to a Christian impulse.” Thus reports Arthur Wegall, who once was inspector general of antiquities for the Egyptian government.
During the middle ages, reform-minded individuals felt the need to speak out against such excesses. They sent out numerous decrees against “the abuses of Christmas merriment.” Dr. Penne Restad, in her book Christmas in America—A History, says: “Some clergy stressed that fallen humankind needed a season of abandon and excess, as long as it was carried on under the umbrella of Christian supervision.” This only added to the confusion. It hardly mattered, though, for pagan customs were already so closely fused with Christmas that most people were unwilling to give them up. Writer Tristram Coffin put it this way: “People at large were doing just what they had always done and paying little attention to the debates of the moralist.”
By the time Europeans began settling the New World, (America) Christmas was a well known holiday. Still, Christmas did not find favor in the colonies. Puritan reformers viewed the celebration as pagan and banned it in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681. After the ban was lifted, the celebration of Christmas increased throughout the colonies, particularly south of New England. In view of the holiday’s past, however, it is not surprising that some were more concerned with having a good time than with honoring Jesus. One Christmas custom that was especially disruptive was that of wassailing. Rowdy bands of young men would enter the homes of wealthy neighbors and demand free food and drink in a trick-or-treat fashion. If the householder refused, he was usually cursed, and occasionally his house was vandalized. The Catholic Encyclopaedia plainly states: “pagan customs....gravitated to Christmas.”
Clearly, the facts about modern Christmas are not very flattering. It is largely a manufactured holiday with much evidence pointing to a degraded past.
In ancient Rome the god Saturn was worshipped, and along with this idolatry the winter solstice was highly regarded. A week long winter festival called Saturnalia was celebrated by them in honor of the re-appearance of the sun in the northern hemisphere. The final day of this festival, Brumalia, fell on December 25. This was regarded as the day of the invincible sun. During these festivals there was much gaiety, feasting, and even the exchanging of gifts, very similar to the manner in which Christmas is celebrated today. Yet all of these customs existed many years before the birth of Jesus Christ, and as we can see they were all in honor of pagan gods.
Surely, the activities involved in these ancient Roman festivals give us a good example of what obviously predominated the celebration of Tammuz's birth anciently. Thus we see that the date, December 25, was celebrated anciently by the Romans and other pagans who knew nothing about Jesus Christ. To them this date had nothing whatsoever to do with the birth of Christ. December 25 was a day of pagan origin in honor of the sun god.
This day does not really honor Christ's birth. The real origins are the birth of Nimrod (Baal). Since Christ's time the Roman church converted a pagan holiday into a Christian holiday — just like they did all of the other holidays. It was a deliberate attempt to get away from God's Holy Days which were called Jewish days. Note the clever transference. The real New Year's day became April Fool's day. The Passover became Good Friday. Unleavened Bread became Holy Week and the resurrection — not even commanded to be observed — became Easter, a day originally observed in honor of Nimrod and Semiramis.
Then Christ’s birth, another day without Biblical justification, became Christmas — a day originally observed in honor of the birth of Nimrod. The original mother and child was not Mary and Christ but rather Semiramis and Nimrod many centuries before Christ's birth. This day was not celebrated by the early church! Not observed in the Christian community until the 4th century and made official by the Roman Church “in the 5th century to be celebrated on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol” (The Encyclopaedia Americana).
The day set apart by Semiramis in memory of the new birth of Nimrod, her husband who had been slain by Shem, is familiar to everyone. What day is this? CHRISTMAS!
Through her mysteries her dead husband was said to have been miraculously conceived of Semiramis and to have returned in the form of Horus (Semiramis' illegitimate son). It was the BIRTHDAY OF THE UNCONQUERED SUN! (Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, p. 42). She claimed Shem had not vanquished Nimrod even though he had slain him.
In Egypt, the son of Isis (Semiramis), the Babylonian queen of heaven, was supposedly born at the approximate time of the winter solstice (Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. iv, p. 405). The winter solstice then was December 25th, the place marking the beginning of the days becoming longer and longer. TO PAGAN SUN-WORSHIPPERS IT MEANT THAT THEIR GOD — THE SUN — WAS NOT GOING TO DIE AFTER ALL, BUT WAS BECOMING STRONGER AND STRONGER.
The Sabeans of Arabia regarded the 24th day of December as the birthday of their pagan Lord (Stanley's History of Philosophy, p. 1066, col. 1). The Saxons observed December the 25th. Hislop, p. 96 states: “It was an essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the only God. When, therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as god incarnate,” (after he had supposedly taken the human form, as Christ did centuries later) “that implied he was an incarnation of the Sun.”
Here again, then, we see why observing the BIRTHDAY of Tammuz is Sun-worship! In observing THIS DAY, PEOPLE OF OUR TIME ACTUALLY PAY HOMAGE TO THE SUN, WHILE THEY THINK THEY ARE HONORING CHRIST'S BIRTHDAY.
The apostate Church followed the now famous advice of Pope Gregory I, that by all means they should meet the pagans halfway and so bring them into the Church (Bower’s 'Lives of Popes', vol.ii, p.523).
About the sixth century A.D., emissaries were sent over Europe, with an eye to gathering the pagans into its fold. Remember, the apostate Church was formed by a union of pagans and professing Christians (Consult Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i, chap. 15). These emissaries or investigators found that celebration of the winter solstice was very popular.
To gain numbers to the church was the thing! This meant both professing Christians and pagans must be satisfied. The pagans wanted this festival. The Christians would not tolerate a name suggestive of its real meaning. So a Christian name was put on this pagan festival. This is exactly the way our pagan Christmas came into Christianity and why there are so many pagan festivals observed in the churches today. Christmas, of course, does not belong to the Christians.