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Part 1, Part 2 is below this post.
Yes, where did Christmas come from? It did not begin at the birth of Christ; it began earlier! The December 25 celebration had nothing to do with His birth. It is an interesting story; one I think you will be interested in.
WHEN WAS JESUS BORN?
It is well-known among Biblical scholars that Jesus was not born in December, because the shepherds were never out in the fields with their sheep at that time.
"There were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."--Luke 2:8.
Shepherds always brought their sheep in from the mountainsides and fields and corralled them not later than October 15, to protect them from the cold, rainy season that followed. (Also read Songs 2:11 and Ezra 10:9, 13.)
"It was an ancient custom among Jews of those days to send out their sheep to the fields and deserts about the Passover [early spring], and bring them home at commencement of the first rain. During the time they were out, the shepherds watched them night and day. As . . . the first rain began early in the month of marchesvan, which answers to part of our October, we find that the sheep were kept out in the open country during the whole summer.
"And, as these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks [when Christ was born in Bethlehem], it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th of December, when no flocks were out in the fields; nor could He have been born later than September, as the flocks were still in the fields by night. On this very ground the nativity in December should be given up. The feeding of the flocks by night in the fields is a chronological fact . . . See the quotations from the Talmudists in Lightfoot."--Adam Clarke, Commentary, Vol. 5, p. 370.
The census of Caesar Augustus is mentioned in Luke 2:1-2, but historians are not certain when it was issued. But it is improbable that he would call for the citizens of the Roman Empire to return to their native homes to be enrolled in the census in the middle of winter. Even his armies avoided marching during the hazards of winter weather.
Many authorities believe that Christ was born in the spring of the year, but, in the wisdom of God, the date of Christ's birth has been hidden from us.
Why then does all the world celebrate the birth of Christ--not merely in December--but on a certain day in December?
We need to know (1) what is "Christmas?" (2) how did Christmas get into the Christian Church? and (3) why did it enter back in those early days? Here are answers to these questions:
WHAT IS CHRISTMAS?
The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ," or, as it came to be shortened, "Christ-Mass." It came to the modern world from the Roman Catholic Church. They, in turn, got it not from the Bible, but from paganism.
"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 [the pagan calendar] gravitated to Christmas."--Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 ed., article: "Christmas."
Origen, an early Catholic writer, said this about celebrating birthdays in the Bible:
"In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his [Christ's] birthday. It is only sinners [like Pharaoh or Herod] who make great rejoicings over the day in which they were born into this world."--Catholic Encyclopedia, 11th ed., art: "Natal Day."
HOW DID CHRISTMAS GET INTO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
In one brief paragraph, the New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge tells us how the December 25 holiday entered the Christian Church:
"How much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia [The December 25 celebration], following the Saturnalia [an eight-day December 17-24 festival preceding it], 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."-- New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art: "Christmas."
Church leaders adopted a pagan holiday, in spite of the protests of some godly local pastors. It was considered idolatry to do this, since it was nothing more than a heathen day of worship. In addition, the day for this worship had been selected in honor of Mithra, the sun god. December 25 was dedicated to the keeping of his birthday. Therefore, sincere Christians considered it to be a form of sun worship. The sun had reached its lowest angle in the sky on December 21 (the winter solstice), and the 25th was the first observable day in which it began rising in the noon sky. So December 25 had, for centuries, been celebrated as the "birth of the sun god."
But earnest believers recognized that Christians dare not accept pagan practices or pagan holidays. Those heathen customs could not be found in the Bible, so they ought to be shunned by conscientious Christians.
The Roman world was essentially pagan and many converts to Christianity had come to enjoy those festivities, and did not want to forsake them after baptism into the Christian church. When these half-converted church members rose to leadership positions, they made policy changes in agreement with contemporary heathen customs. And that is how we got Christmas.
"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." --Encyclopedia Americana (1944 edition), art: "Christmas."
If the Bible contained no certain knowledge of when Christ was born, then we should not select a definite day on which to worship Him. Instead, we should remain with the only weekly worship day God ever gave us: the Seventh-day Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11).
Sol means "sun" in Latin, and was another name for Mithra, the sun god. A strong controversy arose in the Christian church over this latest apostasy by Western church leaders: "Certain Latins, as early as [A.D.] 354, may have transferred the birth day from January 6th to December 25, which was then a Mithraic feast . . . or birthday of the unconquered sun . . . The Syrians and Armenians accused the Romans of sun worship and idolatry."--Encyclopedia Britannica, (1946 ed).
It was clearly understood by many that this pagan holiday should not be adopted as the memorial day of the birth of Christ:
HOW DID MITHRA WORSHIP BRING THESE THINGS INTO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
In order to understand how and why Christmas came into the Christian Church back in those early centuries, we need to understand the tremendous influence of pagan Mithraism in the first few centuries after the time of Christ--and how Christian leaders decided to adopt the customs of paganism in order to win the battle against it.
The following information is vital, and comes from an earlier study by the present writer:
THE PLANETARY WEEK
The various days of the week were in ancient times called the first day, the second day, etc., for these were their Biblical names. But about the time of Christ they were given new names. The non-Christians began calling them the Day of the Sun, the Day of the Moon, etc., in honor of different heavenly bodies. This was known as the "planetary week."
Each day was ruled over by a different god, but the most important of all gods was given the rule of the first day of the week, with the idea in mind that the first is always more important than that which follows it. The most important of all gods was given the rule over the first of the seven days: it was his day, the day of the Sun, and all the worship of the week centered on his day.
Now, although these names for the days of the week were new, the Sun god wasn't, for his worship came from a devotion to that most powerful of natural objects. It was one of the most ancient forms of worship and is represented by solar-disc images found on nearly every continent of our world.
"Sun worship was the earliest idolatry."--Fausset, Bible Dictionary page 666. The Arabians appear to have worshipped it directly without using any statue or symbol (Job 31:26-27). Abraham was called out of all this when he went to the promised land. Ra was the Sun god in Egypt, and On (Heliopolis) was the city of Sun worship (see the Hebrew of Jer. 43:13). Entering Canaan under Joshua, the Hebrews again met Sun worship: Baal of the Phoenicians, Molech or Milcom of the Ammonites, and Hadad of the Syrians, and later the Persian Mithras or Mithra. Shemesh was an especially important Sun god in the Middle East, and, later, in Egypt Ala, was the god of the Sun Disc. The temple at Baalbek was dedicated to Sun worship.
By associating with Sun worshipers, the Israelites frequently practiced it themselves (Lev 26:34; Isa 17:8). King Manasseh practiced direct Sun-worship (2 Kg 21:3, 5). Josiah destroyed the chariots that were dedicated to the Sun, and also removed the horses consecrated to Sun worship processions (2 Kg 23:5, 11-12). Sun altars and incense were burned on the housetops for the sun (Zeph 1:5). And Ezekiel beheld the "greatest abomination": direct Sun worship at the entryway to the temple of the true God. This was done by facing eastward to the rising sun. (Ezek 8:16-17)
MITHRA AND THE DAY OF THE SUN
All this time there was no particular day that was used for his heathen worship. But then, about the time of Christ, or a little before, the various days of the week were dedicated to specific pagan gods--dies Solis--the day of the Sun, dies Lunae--the day of the Moon, and so on.
The sacred day of the Jews and Christians was the memorial of Creation--the true Sabbath--the Seventh day--the only Sabbath given in the Bible. The sacred day of paganism was the memorial of the Sun-god--the first day of the week. His day was called, "the Venerable Day of the Sun."
Sunday-keeping never occurred in the Old or New Testament, nor was it commended. In the time of Christ and the Apostles, the official religion of the Roman government did not have a sacred day, but gradually Sunday-keeping began to become common among the non-Christian people of the empire.
The planetary week, each day named after a different planet in the sky, played a very important part in the worship of the sun. By the time of Christ, Sun worship was most powerfully represented in Mithraism.
Now, Mithra (or Mithras) was originally an ancient god of Iran, and had been worshipped as the god of strength and war by the descendants of the Persians. But by the first century A.D., he had been transformed, oddly enough, into the leading Sun god, and the foremost pagan god of any kind, of the western civilized world. The Romans often called him by a new name, Sol invictus, "the Invincible Sun." During the early centuries of the Christian Era, Mithra was the greatest pagan rival of Christianity.
And this was not without a carefully developed plan, for Satan had arranged that this religion would closely approximate in several ways the only true religion in the world--Christianity. It had such features as a dying, rising saviour, special religious suppers, a special holy day out of the weekly seven--the Sun Day, initial baptism of its converts (in the blood of a slaughtered bull), and other similarities. It counterfeited the religion of the true God more cleverly than any other religion up to that time in history.
Gradually, large numbers of non-Christians began observing Sunday as a holy day in honor of Mithra. He was especially liked by the Roman soldiers, for his worship included athletic feats of skill and "warlike manliness."
Gradually, the worship of the Invincible Sun became even more popular and wide spread among the Roman Empire. Emperor Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), whose mother was a priestess of the Sun, made this solar cult the official religion of the empire. His biographer, Flavius Vopiscus, says that the priests of the Temple of the Sun at Rome were called pontiffs. They were priests of their dying-rising saviour--Mithra, and vicegerents in religious matters next to him.
By this time, the middle of the second century, worldly Christians, apparently from the records In Alexandria and Rome more than anywhere else, in order to be better accepted by their pagan neighbors, began keeping Sunday, and in order to excuse their practice, since it was not Scriptural, they called it "the Lord's Day," even though it was obvious to all that Revelation 1:10 said nothing about Sunday.
Sun worship continued to be the official religion of the empire until Constantine I defeated Licinius in 323, after which it was replaced by Romanized Christianity.
In every case that the present writer can locate, the few men advocating Sunday-keeping prior to 400 A.D. were the very ones who were introducing pagan heresies to the brethren in the Christian Church. The primary exceptions were the Roman Bishops, who appeared to be better at legislating these heresies upon the churches, than inventing them.
Along about this time, a youngster was growing up that was destined to powerfully affect the Christian world for all time to come--a boy named Constantine.
Yes, where did Christmas come from? It did not begin at the birth of Christ; it began earlier! The December 25 celebration had nothing to do with His birth. It is an interesting story; one I think you will be interested in.
WHEN WAS JESUS BORN?
It is well-known among Biblical scholars that Jesus was not born in December, because the shepherds were never out in the fields with their sheep at that time.
"There were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."--Luke 2:8.
Shepherds always brought their sheep in from the mountainsides and fields and corralled them not later than October 15, to protect them from the cold, rainy season that followed. (Also read Songs 2:11 and Ezra 10:9, 13.)
"It was an ancient custom among Jews of those days to send out their sheep to the fields and deserts about the Passover [early spring], and bring them home at commencement of the first rain. During the time they were out, the shepherds watched them night and day. As . . . the first rain began early in the month of marchesvan, which answers to part of our October, we find that the sheep were kept out in the open country during the whole summer.
"And, as these shepherds had not yet brought home their flocks [when Christ was born in Bethlehem], it is a presumptive argument that October had not yet commenced, and that, consequently, our Lord was not born on the 25th of December, when no flocks were out in the fields; nor could He have been born later than September, as the flocks were still in the fields by night. On this very ground the nativity in December should be given up. The feeding of the flocks by night in the fields is a chronological fact . . . See the quotations from the Talmudists in Lightfoot."--Adam Clarke, Commentary, Vol. 5, p. 370.
The census of Caesar Augustus is mentioned in Luke 2:1-2, but historians are not certain when it was issued. But it is improbable that he would call for the citizens of the Roman Empire to return to their native homes to be enrolled in the census in the middle of winter. Even his armies avoided marching during the hazards of winter weather.
Many authorities believe that Christ was born in the spring of the year, but, in the wisdom of God, the date of Christ's birth has been hidden from us.
Why then does all the world celebrate the birth of Christ--not merely in December--but on a certain day in December?
We need to know (1) what is "Christmas?" (2) how did Christmas get into the Christian Church? and (3) why did it enter back in those early days? Here are answers to these questions:
WHAT IS CHRISTMAS?
The word "Christmas" means "Mass of Christ," or, as it came to be shortened, "Christ-Mass." It came to the modern world from the Roman Catholic Church. They, in turn, got it not from the Bible, but from paganism.
"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 [the pagan calendar] gravitated to Christmas."--Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 ed., article: "Christmas."
Origen, an early Catholic writer, said this about celebrating birthdays in the Bible:
"In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his [Christ's] birthday. It is only sinners [like Pharaoh or Herod] who make great rejoicings over the day in which they were born into this world."--Catholic Encyclopedia, 11th ed., art: "Natal Day."
HOW DID CHRISTMAS GET INTO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
In one brief paragraph, the New Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge tells us how the December 25 holiday entered the Christian Church:
"How much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia [The December 25 celebration], following the Saturnalia [an eight-day December 17-24 festival preceding it], 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."-- New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art: "Christmas."
Church leaders adopted a pagan holiday, in spite of the protests of some godly local pastors. It was considered idolatry to do this, since it was nothing more than a heathen day of worship. In addition, the day for this worship had been selected in honor of Mithra, the sun god. December 25 was dedicated to the keeping of his birthday. Therefore, sincere Christians considered it to be a form of sun worship. The sun had reached its lowest angle in the sky on December 21 (the winter solstice), and the 25th was the first observable day in which it began rising in the noon sky. So December 25 had, for centuries, been celebrated as the "birth of the sun god."
But earnest believers recognized that Christians dare not accept pagan practices or pagan holidays. Those heathen customs could not be found in the Bible, so they ought to be shunned by conscientious Christians.
The Roman world was essentially pagan and many converts to Christianity had come to enjoy those festivities, and did not want to forsake them after baptism into the Christian church. When these half-converted church members rose to leadership positions, they made policy changes in agreement with contemporary heathen customs. And that is how we got Christmas.
"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." --Encyclopedia Americana (1944 edition), art: "Christmas."
If the Bible contained no certain knowledge of when Christ was born, then we should not select a definite day on which to worship Him. Instead, we should remain with the only weekly worship day God ever gave us: the Seventh-day Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11).
Sol means "sun" in Latin, and was another name for Mithra, the sun god. A strong controversy arose in the Christian church over this latest apostasy by Western church leaders: "Certain Latins, as early as [A.D.] 354, may have transferred the birth day from January 6th to December 25, which was then a Mithraic feast . . . or birthday of the unconquered sun . . . The Syrians and Armenians accused the Romans of sun worship and idolatry."--Encyclopedia Britannica, (1946 ed).
It was clearly understood by many that this pagan holiday should not be adopted as the memorial day of the birth of Christ:
HOW DID MITHRA WORSHIP BRING THESE THINGS INTO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
In order to understand how and why Christmas came into the Christian Church back in those early centuries, we need to understand the tremendous influence of pagan Mithraism in the first few centuries after the time of Christ--and how Christian leaders decided to adopt the customs of paganism in order to win the battle against it.
The following information is vital, and comes from an earlier study by the present writer:
THE PLANETARY WEEK
The various days of the week were in ancient times called the first day, the second day, etc., for these were their Biblical names. But about the time of Christ they were given new names. The non-Christians began calling them the Day of the Sun, the Day of the Moon, etc., in honor of different heavenly bodies. This was known as the "planetary week."
Each day was ruled over by a different god, but the most important of all gods was given the rule of the first day of the week, with the idea in mind that the first is always more important than that which follows it. The most important of all gods was given the rule over the first of the seven days: it was his day, the day of the Sun, and all the worship of the week centered on his day.
Now, although these names for the days of the week were new, the Sun god wasn't, for his worship came from a devotion to that most powerful of natural objects. It was one of the most ancient forms of worship and is represented by solar-disc images found on nearly every continent of our world.
"Sun worship was the earliest idolatry."--Fausset, Bible Dictionary page 666. The Arabians appear to have worshipped it directly without using any statue or symbol (Job 31:26-27). Abraham was called out of all this when he went to the promised land. Ra was the Sun god in Egypt, and On (Heliopolis) was the city of Sun worship (see the Hebrew of Jer. 43:13). Entering Canaan under Joshua, the Hebrews again met Sun worship: Baal of the Phoenicians, Molech or Milcom of the Ammonites, and Hadad of the Syrians, and later the Persian Mithras or Mithra. Shemesh was an especially important Sun god in the Middle East, and, later, in Egypt Ala, was the god of the Sun Disc. The temple at Baalbek was dedicated to Sun worship.
By associating with Sun worshipers, the Israelites frequently practiced it themselves (Lev 26:34; Isa 17:8). King Manasseh practiced direct Sun-worship (2 Kg 21:3, 5). Josiah destroyed the chariots that were dedicated to the Sun, and also removed the horses consecrated to Sun worship processions (2 Kg 23:5, 11-12). Sun altars and incense were burned on the housetops for the sun (Zeph 1:5). And Ezekiel beheld the "greatest abomination": direct Sun worship at the entryway to the temple of the true God. This was done by facing eastward to the rising sun. (Ezek 8:16-17)
MITHRA AND THE DAY OF THE SUN
All this time there was no particular day that was used for his heathen worship. But then, about the time of Christ, or a little before, the various days of the week were dedicated to specific pagan gods--dies Solis--the day of the Sun, dies Lunae--the day of the Moon, and so on.
The sacred day of the Jews and Christians was the memorial of Creation--the true Sabbath--the Seventh day--the only Sabbath given in the Bible. The sacred day of paganism was the memorial of the Sun-god--the first day of the week. His day was called, "the Venerable Day of the Sun."
Sunday-keeping never occurred in the Old or New Testament, nor was it commended. In the time of Christ and the Apostles, the official religion of the Roman government did not have a sacred day, but gradually Sunday-keeping began to become common among the non-Christian people of the empire.
The planetary week, each day named after a different planet in the sky, played a very important part in the worship of the sun. By the time of Christ, Sun worship was most powerfully represented in Mithraism.
Now, Mithra (or Mithras) was originally an ancient god of Iran, and had been worshipped as the god of strength and war by the descendants of the Persians. But by the first century A.D., he had been transformed, oddly enough, into the leading Sun god, and the foremost pagan god of any kind, of the western civilized world. The Romans often called him by a new name, Sol invictus, "the Invincible Sun." During the early centuries of the Christian Era, Mithra was the greatest pagan rival of Christianity.
And this was not without a carefully developed plan, for Satan had arranged that this religion would closely approximate in several ways the only true religion in the world--Christianity. It had such features as a dying, rising saviour, special religious suppers, a special holy day out of the weekly seven--the Sun Day, initial baptism of its converts (in the blood of a slaughtered bull), and other similarities. It counterfeited the religion of the true God more cleverly than any other religion up to that time in history.
Gradually, large numbers of non-Christians began observing Sunday as a holy day in honor of Mithra. He was especially liked by the Roman soldiers, for his worship included athletic feats of skill and "warlike manliness."
Gradually, the worship of the Invincible Sun became even more popular and wide spread among the Roman Empire. Emperor Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), whose mother was a priestess of the Sun, made this solar cult the official religion of the empire. His biographer, Flavius Vopiscus, says that the priests of the Temple of the Sun at Rome were called pontiffs. They were priests of their dying-rising saviour--Mithra, and vicegerents in religious matters next to him.
By this time, the middle of the second century, worldly Christians, apparently from the records In Alexandria and Rome more than anywhere else, in order to be better accepted by their pagan neighbors, began keeping Sunday, and in order to excuse their practice, since it was not Scriptural, they called it "the Lord's Day," even though it was obvious to all that Revelation 1:10 said nothing about Sunday.
Sun worship continued to be the official religion of the empire until Constantine I defeated Licinius in 323, after which it was replaced by Romanized Christianity.
In every case that the present writer can locate, the few men advocating Sunday-keeping prior to 400 A.D. were the very ones who were introducing pagan heresies to the brethren in the Christian Church. The primary exceptions were the Roman Bishops, who appeared to be better at legislating these heresies upon the churches, than inventing them.
Along about this time, a youngster was growing up that was destined to powerfully affect the Christian world for all time to come--a boy named Constantine.
