How Christmas Began
Did you know that thousands of years before Christ — before there ever was a CHRISTIAN — people, just as we do today, went out into the forests and cut down evergreen fir trees? They trimmed the branches, brought the trees into their homes, nailed them down and decorated them with gold and silver ornaments. They exchanged gifts, sent greeting cards, played games, sang songs and feasted in a gala festive season.
And this was all done on the same day of the year — the equivalent of our December 25.
But Jesus Christ wasn't the central figure of the festival. Rather, it was the pagan god Sol — the SUN-GOD! It was HIS BIRTHDAY. The Romans celebrated December 25 as the Brumalia or birthday of the new sun.
In most any public library you can get proof of this in a book entitled 4000 Years of Christmas, by Earl Wendel Count. The very name of this book proves that the Christmas holiday isn't Christian. It was celebrated 2000 years before the birth of Christ in honor of pagan gods!
Christmas originated in the original Babylon of ancient Nimrod! It stems from roots whose beginning was shortly this side of the Flood!
Nimrod, grandson of Ham, son of Noah, was the real founder of the Babylonish system that has gripped the world ever since — the system of organized competition — of man-ruled governments and empires, based upon the competitive and profit-making economic system. Nimrod built the tower of Babel, the original Babylon, ancient Nineveh and many other cities. He organized this world's first kingdom — a kingdom in opposition to the government and the rule of God. The very name Nimrod, in Hebrew, is derived from "Marad," meaning "he rebelled."
From many ancient writings, a considerable amount is learned of this man, who started the great organized worldly apostasy from God that has dominated this world until now. Nimrod was so evil, it is said he married his own mother, whose name was Semiramis. After Nimrod's untimely death, his so-called mother-wife, Semiramis, propagated the evil doctrine of the survival of Nimrod as a spirit being. She claimed a full-grown evergreen tree sprang overnight from a dead tree stump, which symbolized the springing forth unto new life of the dead Nimrod. On each anniversary of his birth, which was December 25, she claimed that Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts upon it. This is the real origin of the Christmas tree!
Through her scheming and designing, Semiramis became the Babylonian "Queen of Heaven," and Nimrod, under various names, became the "divine son of heaven." Through the generations, in this idolatrous worship, Nimrod also became the false messiah, son of Baal, the sun-god. In this false Babylonish system, the "Mother and Child" (Semiramis and Nimrod reborn) became chief objects of worship. This worship of "Mother and Child" spread over the world. The names varied in different countries and languages. In Egypt it was Isis and Osiris. In Asia, Cybele and Deoius. In Pagan Rome, Fortuna and Jupiterpuer. Even in Greece, China, Japan, and Tibet are to be found these "Mother and Child" counterparts, long before the birth of Christ!
Christmas honors the birthday of the pagan sun-god!
No wonder there is not a single word in the New Testament, or anywhere in the Bible, telling us to observe Christmas. No wonder Christians of the first century, under the inspired teachings of Peter and Paul and the other apostles, never observed it. No wonder there is no Bible authority whatsoever for its observance.
But How did this pagan custom come to be called "Christian" — and WHEN?
How WE Got Christmas
As true Christianity began to spread in the first century, false pagan teachers quickly began to emerge. They taught a counterfeit Christianity which blended the truth of God with pagan fables which were so popular in the Roman world.
Notice Paul's warning of this very thing: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own LUSTS [desire for pleasure] shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall TURN AWAY their ears from the truth and shall be turned UNTO FABLES" (II Tim. 4:3, 4).
Paul said people would reject the truth and begin to follow myths — and they did just that! Instead of continuing to observe the days God sanctified, as the first Christians did, the apostatizing majority, who called themselves "Christians," soon began to invent their own traditions and to "Christianize" their former pagan practices.
One of the most widespread of these practices was the observance of the Saturnalia which was celebrated from December 17th to the 22nd. All governmental offices and schools were closed.
Then on December 25th, the ancient Brumalia was celebrated in honor of the birthday of the sun-god — just as it had been done for thousands of years before.
Greeting cards were traded, gifts were exchanged — there was feasting and celebrating beginning on the "eve" before — just like our "Christmas Eve" today. (See 4000 Years of Christmas)
Bishops in the West, and especially at Rome, saw that by allowing converts to retain this and other pagan holidays, they could induce many thousands to enter the church. Tertullian lamented this trend when he said in 230 A.D. that instead of observing ". . . festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia (December 24) the 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" (from De Idolatria, chapter 14).
In less than two centuries after Christ's death, professing "Christians" were following their former pagan practices — including the observance of December 25, the birthday of Sol the sun-god.
Tertullian's testimony is one of the earliest indications that Christians were mislabeling the birthday of the physical s-u-n as the birthday of the S-o-n of God.
This adoption of idolatrous heathen festivals proceeded slowly until "Christianity" — aptly termed by some authorities as "baptized paganism" — became the state religion of the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine. Then the pagans flocked to the churches bringing ever more of their customs with them. Within forty years the celebration of the 25th of December as the birthday of Christ became widespread, as is fully explained in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, by James Hastings, article "Christmas."
The Catholic Encyclopedia also states that by 354 A.D. Christmas celebration on the 25th of December had begun. This source further freely admits: "Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. . . . The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt." "Pagan customs centering around the January calends gravitated to Christmas."
Encyclopedia Britannica makes the same admission: "Christmas (i.e., the Mass of Christ) was not among the earliest festivals of the church. . . ."
And the Encyclopedia Americana says: "Christmas . . . was, according to many authorities, not celebrated in the first centuries of the Christian church, as the Christian usage in general was to celebrate the death of remarkable persons rather than their birth . . . (but) a feast was established in memory of this event [Christ's birth) in the fourth century. In the fifth century the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ's birth existed."
Notice! These recognized historic authorities show Christmas was not observed by Christians for the first two or three hundred years — a period longer than the entire history of the United States as a nation! Though it got into the Western or Roman Church by the fourth century A.D., it was not until the fifth century that the Roman Church ordered it to be celebrated as an official "Christian" festival!
Now read what the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia says in its article on "CHRISTMAS": "How much the date of the festival depended upon the Pagan Brumalia (Dec. 25) following the Saturnalia (Dec. 17-24), and celebrating the shortest day of the year and the 'new sun' . . . cannot be accurately determined. The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence. . . . The pagan festival with its riot and merrymaking was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit and in manner. Christian preachers of the West and the Near East protested against the unseemly frivolity with which Christ's birthday was celebrated, while Christians of Mesopotamia accused their Western brethren of idolatry and sun-worship for adopting as Christian this pagan festival. . . . Yet the festival rapidly gained acceptance and became at last so firmly established that even the Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century was not able to dislodge it."
And that is how we came to have Christmas! Many details could be added about the origin of the yule log, the mistletoe, Santa Claus, and a host of other customs which surround the Christmas celebration. But these are explained in our booklet, Plain Truth About Christmas, which is free for the asking, for those who would like to pursue the subject further. Only one other custom will be mentioned here.
Is Exchanging Gifts Scriptural?
Many ask, "Isn't giving gifts at Christmas scriptural? Didn't the wise men give gifts at the birth of Christ? But here is the surprising answer:
"The custom of giving presents was a feature of the Romans during their winter festival, the Saturnalia," says John Then in his book, Christmas, page 91. Professing "Christians made presents to their children on Christmas morning, under the pretense that they were the gift of the Christ child. . . . This age-old custom can be traced to the dawn of history" — to paganism!
Did trading gifts at Christmas come from Scripture? No! It came from pagan tradition and was falsely labeled "Christian" — a deception to fool little children practiced by millions today.
Millions of sincere but deceived people spend precious dollars they can't afford just to give unappreciated gifts to friends on a day that doesn't honor Christ. How silly to claim to honor Christ, when giving gifts to one another on a day that isn't His birthday at all.
The wise men didn't give gifts to one another. "Opening their treasures, they offered Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh" (Matt. 2:1-11 RSV). Why? Because it was Christ's birthday? No!
Jesus had been born many days before. Rather, the wise men were coming to worship Jesus because he was a King; and in the East it was unthinkable to come into the presence of a King without a gift.
Does It Make Any Difference?
But so what? Aren't the facts in this article more or less common knowledge?
Sure they are! They are published in newspapers, and cheerfully admitted by religious editors each year.
Then does it make any difference? Not if there isn't any God.
But there is a God. And that God says the observance of pagan customs and holidays makes a great deal of difference to Him. He warns:
"Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them [pagan peoples) . . . and that thou enquire not after their gods saying, How did these nations serve their gods ? even so will I do likewise. THOU SHALT NOT DO SO UNTO THE LORD THY GOD: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods . . ." (Deut. 12:30-31).
God gives us in His Word — the Bible — the way to worship Him. And He condemns our attempt to worship Him through the invented lies of pagan peoples.
Now notice what God says about the Christmas tree: "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven [being concerned when the sun shines for so short a time in December] . . . 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" (Jer. 10:2-4).
Could anything be plainer? God condemns pagan, heathen practices — including the Christmas tree.
Yet many who know Christmas is pagan to the core still refuse to give it up. Some give the weak excuse that it means so much to the children. But what does it mean to your children? Lies. Deceit. Paganism.
Do you know what happens when children find out the truth about the Santa Claus lie? Two New York educators found out when they interviewed about 50 pupils of the age where the break with fantasy usually occurs.
"Mom and Daddy are liars," one child told them. "Christmas doesn't mean anything now," said a second disillusioned child. "Next they'll tell us there ain't no God, neither," snapped a third. "Things just don't add up," said a fourth confused youngster. And so it went.
Is that the way you want your children to feel about you — and about God? Of course not!
What You Can Do
God warns His people concerning this world and its false, counterfeit, Babylonish ways: "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. 18:4).
God's plagues are about to fall on this world for its many sins — including the worship of pagan deities and days which God condemns.
So what should YOU do about Christmas? You should obey God!
Wouldn't you really be glad to escape the debt, the frustration, the rat race of commercialism?! You've got plenty of time to explain to your children —before this season descends on you again! You'll be surprised and impressed at how gladly your children and relatives will respond — and how truly thankful they'll be.
And more than that, you can determine NOW that you are going to get deeply involved with the REAL, living Christ and His Work of warning the world of what is ahead.
It is ironic — and another one of the amazing incongruities of Christmas — that most people are robbing Christ at the very time they claim to be honoring Him. While spending every available dime on gifts for friends and relatives in this commercialized season, they are forgetting Christ. They take — steal — the very money that belongs to Him.
Notice what Malachi says in his prophecy for us today: "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How are we robbing thee?' In your tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you" (Malachi 3:8, 9, RSV).
Many have been robbing God of His tithes and offerings by spending God's own money on Christmas gifts instead of giving Him what is due. Yet this, too, is an important part of obeying God and coming out of the ways of this world.
Yes, God condemns Christmas and its pagan counterfeit customs. But only you can decide whether or not you will obey — and cut yourself free from the frustrations of today's world and its way!