Origin of Christmas

Origin of Christmas and Its Spirit
Did your parents celebrate your birthday before you were born? Would they think of celebrating it on another day, other than the day you were born? As Christians would they think of honoring it by transferring the day to a pagan festival, by drinking ale out of skulls of enemies, or by offering live human babies to demon gods? If not, why, then, do professing Christians so commemorate the birth of Christ? This article answers.
THE Christmas spirit is not Christian, because it did not originate with Christ. It predated the Christian era by many centuries. Shortly after the Flood the spirit and the whole celebration of Christmas had its beginning. It began with Nimrod, grandson of Ham the son of Noah, a wicked, ruthless dictator, responsible for the great organized worldly apostasy from God that continues to this day. In contempt for God and all decency Nimrod married his own mother, Semiramis. After his untimely death, his mother-wife, Semiramis, taught the lie that her husband-son was a spirit god. She claimed a full-grown evergreen tree sprang overnight from a dead tree stump, which symbolized the springing forth to new life of the dead Nimrod. She taught that on the anniversary of his birth, which was December 25, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts upon it. The historian, Professor Hislop, says: “Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus—the slain god come to life again.”—The Two Babylons, pages 97, 98.
This is the beginning of Christmas with its spirit. This is also the origin of the yule log, the Christmas tree, the celebrating of birthdays, the spirit of exchanging gifts, the spirit of feasting and merrymaking, visits and salutations, jocularity, revelry and drunkenness. All of this is an outgrowth of the first lie, nurtured by the spirit of Satan the Devil, who told it. In Eden to Eve he said: “You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.” Like Eve, Semiramis believed Satan’s lie and proclaimed Nimrod as a spirit god. With this proclamation a wild celebration began on his birthday that has stuck down through the centuries to our day. In.the Western world it is called Christmas.—Gen. 3:4, 5, NW.
Nimrod became worshiped as the “divine son of heaven,” “the Messiah, son of Baal the sun-god.” Devil-worshiping pagans believed that life and immortality proceeded from Nimrod, and so they worshiped the never-dying sun in the heavens as the personification and representation of Nimrod’s “divinity.” Mother and child, Semiramis and Nimrod, became chief objects of worship. The pagan world idolized this combination. In Egypt they were worshiped as Isis and Osiris, in Asia as Cybele and Doius, in pagan Rome as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer. Even in China, Japan, Tibet and in other non-Christian lands is to be found the counterpart of the Madonna, held sacred in Christendom. Pagans adored these symbols long before the birth of Christ, yet Christendom hails these as Christian and adoringly speaks of them as “the beautiful spirit of Christmas.”
Jehovah God, on the other hand, commanded his people Israel: “Learn not the way of the heathen, . . . For the customs of the people are vain.” “You must not bow down to their gods or be induced to serve them, and you must not make anything like their works, but you will without fail throw them down and you will without fail break down their sacred pillars.” “You must not serve their gods, because that will be a snare to you.” Jehovah’s declaration against pagan gods has not changed, nor has his attitude toward pagan worship, because, says he: “For I, Jehovah, change not.”—Jer. 10:1-3; Ex. 23:24; Deut. 7:16, NW; Mal. 3:6, AS.
The Bible studiously avoids the recording of the date of anyone’s birthday, nor is there any record of birthday celebrations by Jehovah’s servants, either before or after Christ. The conspicuous silence of the Bible regarding birthdays is powerful testimony that the same were not kept, that they were frowned upon as pagan. Origen of Alexandria (A.D. 185-254) wisely discerned: “In the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday.” The only birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible are that of Pharaoh, when a man was hung, and that of the adulterous King Herod, whose step-daughter Salome danced to make the celebration “merry,” yes, merry by having the head of John the Baptist chopped off.
FROM PAGAN SATURNALIA TO “CHRISTIAN” CHRISTMAS
How, then, did these pagan customs become a part of the greatest “Christian” holiday, Christmas? That first-century Christians did not celebrate Christmas is borne out by early “Christian” writers. The Catholic Encyclopedia makes the following admission: “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their list of feasts.” When apostate Christians began to fall away to pagan practices, Tertullian complained: “By us, who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia [and other pagan feasts] are now frequented, gifts are carried to and fro, . . . and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar.”—Gal. 4:10, 11; Col. 2:8.
In an effort to gain pagan converts the Roman Catholic clergy in the fourth century after Christ took in this pagan Saturnalia on December 25 and sponsored it as the “mass of Christ” or “Christ-mass.” Christmas, therefore, is nothing more than a carbon copy of the pagan Saturnalia. This is generally admitted by historical and religious scholars. Says a world history, On the Road to Civilization, page 164: “The feast of Saturn, the Saturnalia, was a winter festival which lasted a week beginning on the twenty-fifth day of December, and was celebrated with dancing, the exchanging of gifts, and the burning of candles. The Saturnalia was later taken over by the Christians as their Christmas, and given a new significance.”
Elaborating on the customs of the Saturnalia, the New Americanized Encyclopedia Britannica, 1900, Vol. IX, page 5236, says: “Saturnalia . . . celebrated on the 19th . . . lasted seven days. The time was one of general joy and mirth. The woolen fetters were taken from the feet of the Image of Saturn, and each man offered a pig. During the festival schools were closed. . . . Gambling with dice, at other times illegal, was practiced. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being tapers and clay dolls. These dolls were especially given to children. Varro thought that these dolls represented original sacrifices of human beings (children to the ‘Infernal God’).”—Jer. 32:34, 35.
Last December, “Rev.” A. E. Palmer of Holy Trinity Church was reported by the Examiner to have said: “‘Why choose December 25 as the date of the sacred festival? Wouldn’t any other public holiday do just as well for this jollification?’ There was no evidence, he said, that Jesus was born on December 25 but the Church took over a great many of the ancient pagan festivals and gave them Christian meaning. On December 25 was celebrated the return of the sun, with the days becoming longer, and the Church chose this as being symbolic of the light that shone through the darkness. Christmas without Christ, he said, was nothing but a pagan festival.”
James M. Gillis, C. S. P., editor of the Catholic World (December 2, 1945), makes this candid confession: “It is a well-known fact that the popes and councils in the early Church deliberately placed a Christian festival on or near the day of a previously existing pagan carnival, with the purpose of ousting the heathenish and generally licentious celebration.” Like Haman of old, the Catholic Church became ensnared with her own scheme.—Esther 7:10.
Behind its newly, loosely fitted “Christian” mask Christmas was and is nothing more than the ancient pagan Saturnalia. And it is the spirit of this pagan holiday that is hailed as “the beautiful spirit of Christmas.” What is so beautiful about a pagan holiday that dishonors God? What is so beautiful about a festival that is kept in defiance of God’s commands? What is so beautiful about a celebration that has perpetuated a lie? That makes hypocrites out of its participants? That has blinded men to truth and righteousness? What is beautiful about a “disgusting” thing?
IDENTIFYING THE “SPIRITS”
The spirit of God that produces fruits of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control” is not identified in the Saturnalia borrowed from the pagans. As the well-known Biblical and historical authority, James Murdock, reports in a footnote in his translation of Mosheim’s Institutes of Ecclesiastical History: “From the first institution of this [Christmas] festival the Western nations seem to have transferred to it many of the follies and censurable practices which prevailed in the pagan festivals of the same season, such as adorning the churches fantastically, mingling puppet shows and dramas with worship, universal feasting and merry-making, visits and salutations, presents and jocularity, revelry and drunkenness.”—Gal. 5:22-25, NW.
Instead of converting pagans to “Christianity” the apostate Christians fell victim to their own passions and desires and were swept out to sea by pagan practices. This God foretold: “You must not serve their gods, because that will be a snare to you.”—Deut. 7:16, NW.
The campaign that is now being waged to “put Jesus Christ back in Christmas” is an open admission that Christ is not in its celebration. And, as “Rev.” Palmer stated, “Christmas without Christ is nothing but a pagan festival.” So it is. Christ was never in Christmas, nor was Christmas ever in Christ. More apropos and in line with Christian principle would be the slogan: “Away from Christmas and back to Christ.” Simply to label the pagan Saturnalia as Christian does not make it so. A wolf does not become a lamb simply because we call it such. No, nor does Christmas become Christian because professing Christians take part in its celebration. Its celebration by certain religious organizations does not make it Christian, any more than bingo games, lotteries or card parties in religious parish houses or parish schools are for that reason Christian.
Is the spirit of God to be found in the practice of exchange handed down by demon-worshiping pagans? Is the spirit of God found in the annual $50-million Christmas-tree business that commemorates the lie of human immortality? Is it found in the glittering balls of gold that pay homage to Balder, god of the ever-mystical sun? Is the spirit of God found in the millions of toy soldiers and tanks, guns and planes that glorify war and not “peace on earth, good will toward men”? Is it found in the gluttony, the drunkenness, lasciviousness and murder committed on this day called “Christmas”?
Hardly. “Do not be misled,” says the inspired Paul. “God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap; because he who is sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh, but he who is sowing with a view to the spirit will reap everlasting life from the spirit.” The Christmas spirit is well described for us by apostles Paul and Peter at Galatians 5:19-21 and1 Peter 4:1-4. By these fruits we know her.—Gal. 6:7, 8, NW.
IDENTIFYING FRUITS OF “CHRISTMAS TREE”
The Christmas spirit is supposed to be one of good will toward men. After fifteen hundred years of Christmas celebrating, how much good will is there in the world today? How much good will is practiced during the holiday season itself? How Christlike are the people during this “most sacred festival”? Read and decide for yourself what spirit predominates.
According to a report by Gerhard J. Falf, University of Pennsylvania sociologist, “more murders are committed on Christmas day than on any other one day of the year.” Is this the Christian spirit? A chief detective of a department store declares: shoplifters and pickpockets “increase in numbers” when Christmas arrives. Is this spirit Christian? Last year, in Detroit, Michigan, Carl Ross tried to defend his truckload of trees from a crowd. An unidentified man “grabbed a stake from the truck and beat him unconscious with it. As he lay there while the crowd looted his trees, someone stole $400, his day’s receipts, from his pocket. His father finally got the truck in motion and fled for his life with about a third of his load.” Another man complained that a dealer had beaten him when he offered him fifty cents for his last tree. “An unusual number of persons reported that their front lawn evergreens had been cut down during the night,” the Detroit News announced. Is this the spirit of Christianity?
In the spirit of Christmas “a Santa Claus bandit who said ‘my kid is going to have a real Christmas,’ robbed a Brooklyn toy store of $900.” As “jolly good fellows” during this carnival of self-indulgence 1,200 drunks were gathered off the streets of Los Angeles alone. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” exclaimed a bewildered policeman. “They’re stacked up here like cordwood.” A tabloid headline noted breezily, “Los Angeles Staggering into Christmas.”
As Jesus accurately said: “This people honors me with their lips, yet their hearts are far removed from me. It is in vain that they keep paying respect to me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.” This was true in Jesus’ day, and it is true regarding Christendom today. It is true regarding all her feasts and practices, Christmas not excluded.—Matt. 15:8, 9, NW.
ABOMINATION IN GOD’S SIGHT
The Christmas festival is held high among men of the world. But, as Jesus stated: “You are those who declare yourselves righteous before men, but God knows your hearts; because what is lofty among men is a disgusting thing in God’s sight.” While church bells ring out and men make a pretense at prayer on this day, yet God views their festivities as a disgusting pagan celebration. To Christians that fell away to similar practices Paul said: “You are scrupulously observing days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that somehow I have toiled to no purpose respecting you.” From these things men were made free by Christ, but Christendom has returned to them. She has become as disgusting to God as a dog that “has turned back to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.”—Luke 16:15; Gal. 4:10, 11; 2 Pet. 2:22, NW.
What, then, is the spirit of Christmas? It is “earthly, animal, demonic.” It is the spirit of paganism parading in Christian garb. It is the spirit of the Devil that has intoxicated the whole world. The keeping of Christmas cannot pass as innocent fun for children, because the name and worship of God are involved. The festivities and decorations are demonic, because they glorify paganism, which is demonism. The associating of God’s name and Word with pagan customs is desecrating that name, taking it in a worthless way. One of the Ten Commandments is: “You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way, for Jehovah will not leave the one unpunished who takes up his name in a worthless way.”—Jas. 3:15; Ex. 20:7, NW.
Cannot Christians celebrate Christmas out of a pure heart to the honor of Jehovah God? God himself answers through his Word: “Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? Further, what harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what portion does a faithful person have with an unbeliever? And what agreement does God’s temple have with idols? . . . ‘Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing,’ ‘and I will take you in.’ ‘And I shall be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me,’ says Jehovah the Almighty.” So it is a choice of accepting Christmas with its spirit and losing God, or accepting God and receiving his spirit and favor and losing Christmas. The right choice should not be hard to make.—2 Cor. 6:14-18, NW.

October
December Nimrod’s Birthday—Jesus’ Birthday