CHRISTMAS

What the Encyclopedias are Saying

The word “Christmas” is derived from “Mass of Christ” or “Christ-Mass”. The Christmas festival came to the Protestants and the secular world from the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Roman Catholic Church did not get Christmas from the original Apostles. It’s not even in the Bible!!

Now just in case you may think I just have something personally against Christmas; or as the psychologists saying, I just had a bad childhood so I feel bad about Christmas; or worse, I belong to a religious cult!; let us see what the Catholic and secular Encyclopedias themselves are saying about Christmas.

“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.”

“…In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his [the Savior’s] birthday. It is only sinners who make great rejoicings over the day in which they were born into this world.” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 Edition, published by the Roman Catholic Church

“…Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church…” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1946 edition

“Christmas… It 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 (e.g. Communion – death of Chr-st) rather than their birth…”

“…A feast was established in memory of this event (the birth of [the Savior]) 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 (SUN), as no certain knowledge of the day of [the Savior’s] birth existed.” (EMPHASIS MINE) Encyclopedia Americana, 1944 Edition

Christmas was not celebrated by the Church UNTIL the FOURTH CENTURY. Christians did NOT celebrate Christmas for the first 300 years – longer than the entire history of the United States of America!