Pagan-rooted 'Holidays'

“ST. NICHOLAS”

 Another year has rolled around. “Christmas” has come again. Newspapers, magazines, radios, [televisions] and posters will tell the world that Santa Claus is come again. The churches will have special services, and commemorate, as they say, the birth day of the Savior on the 25th of December.

Whence came Santa Claus, Christmas, and the custom of celebrating this special day? You may answer that it was the day on which the Messiah as the babe of Bethlehem was born; the night upon which the angels sang praises as they appeared unto the shepherds – or, not being satisfied with “hear say” you may have gone to the bottom of this custom – and found the “devil in the wood pile.”

Who is Saint Nick? He is the devil. Yes, we know of the mythological bishop Nicholas of Myra, but we also know that the Scriptures speak of the deeds of the Nicolaitans, worshippers of Nicka – the devil. And even today, we speak of the devil as “Old Nick.”

Santa Claus is merely a corruption of the name Saint Nicholas – so he is also the devil – regardless of names. The evergreens hung upon the house, the wreaths upon the windows, the holly and mistletoe, the yule-log, the giving of presents, came not from the faith of the Saints from Jerusalem, but from the mystery of Babylon – from Nimrod of Chaldea.

Centuries before the Messiah was born at Bethlehem, the pagans of Babylon, of Greece, of Rome, observed Christmas – almost as we do today.

The early saints in England and America knew the origin and taintedness of this pagan holiday, and refused to have any thing to do with it. In England, Christmas was forbidden to be observed by act of Parliament in 1644. This act was later revoked, but the Puritans, Scots and others, refused to have anything to do with this holiday; regarding its festivities as sinful and pagan.

In our early colonial days, the Puritans were strongly opposed to Christmas observance, and they had a law enforced against those who adopted the pagan custom. On May 11, 1659, the elders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed: “Whosoever shall be found observing any such days as Christmas, or the like, either forbearing of labor, feasting, or any way, as a festival, shall be fined five shillings.” – A.P.

Why were these early believers so strongly opposed to Christmas, a custom now so universally observed, defended and encouraged, so that it has become the chief festival of the church? The answer is, they knew its origin, its early evil associations, its corrupt practices, and its exaltation of a mythological personage (Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, or Nimrod), instead of the Savior of the world – and refused to have anything to do with this hybrid festival of half Saint Nick and half the Messiah of the world.

You ask, was not the Savior born on December 25th? The answer is, No. It could not have been. The evidence is against it. The shepherds tended their flocks in the open fields, the people

were called to Jerusalem to be taxed, a thing not thought of in the midst of winter. The Savior was not born in December.

You question, can we know when the Savior was really born? Our answer is, not for a surety – possibly because the heavenly Father did not wish His followers to adopt and celebrate that date. However, there are evidences that the Messiah was born at the “Feast of Tabernacles” – in the fall, the seventh Bible month. The pyramid of Gizeh bears witness to this date. But the scriptures give us evidence to work from in the courses of the priests in Luke 1:5-36, regarding the course of Abijah, which proves that the Savior was born in the fall at the time of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles – a truly fitting time of the year.

All evidence which can be collected goes to prove the heathen origin of the Christmas festival – and to show that it was not the birth date of the Messiah. Since its pagan origin is fully established, so much so that every December the newspapers of the country give the true origin of this holiday, we believe it is time for the saints to wake up, to forsake such heathen customs, and take heed to the prophet Jeremiah, who warns us in these clear-cut sentences:

“Thus saith 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 (tinsel) and with gold (ornaments); they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” (They nail down the Christmas tree.) – Jeremiah 10:2-4.

The custom of observing Christmas is of pagan origin, is useless, harmful and unscriptural. Saints should never allow themselves to be caught in its whirlpool. …

Originally printed in the November-December, 1978 issue of The Faith

CUSTOMS – The Great Festival

Nineveh saw nothing like it, Imperial Rome would have been abashed, and Solomon, in all his glory, could not have afforded it. It is America’s great Christmas festival. …

Pagan Rights. As usual, there is considerable hand-wringing by purists and priests, who complain that the cash box has replaced the crèche. But the fact remains that Christmas never completely belonged to the church. It began as a pagan festival, and it has slowly been changing back into one for the past half-century.

Long before the birth of Chr-st, December 25 was celebrated in pagan societies as the day on which the sun began its yearly rebirth (astronomically they were only three days off). Peasants in northern Europe decorated their homes with evergreens as a tribute to nature’s victory over the numbing winter, held lengthy feasts and processionals. The Romans celebrated the entire winter solstice season to honor Saturn, the god of agriculture. During the Saturnalia everyone ate, drank and exchanged presents in one long bacchanal. When the Christian missionaries began to comb

the countryside for converts, they found that few were willing to give up their pagan rites. Figuring that pragmatism was called for, they combined the two holidays into the mixture of religious and secular customs that remains today.

Excerpts from TIME Magazine (Modern Living) December 10, 1965