Christmas is not pagan

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Look at this insanity! This line of reasoning, if actually followed, means gentile Christians can be trannies and thieves and liars and what-not.

Of course, the silly types who chant "Acts 15!" as some kind of magical mantra that wards off moral obligation to God and His Divine Law don't actually mean what they say, since they themselves don't follow their own "reasoning" on it. They don't listen to their own words, so neither should anybody else listen to them.

The only one with faulty reasoning in this thread is you. I suppose you would have said the same to the Apostles had you been there when the incident in Acts 15 occurred. When we receive the Holy Ghost, God writes his moral code on the tablets of our hearts. We live by the Spirit, not the letter. Because we are governed by the Spirit and love God, we behave in a certain way that conforms to God's character. We grow in grace and the knowledge of him through his word. So nobody who lives in the Spirit will be a trannie, thief, or murderer.

[Originalist]

Originally Posted by Esaias

In the book History of Rome, by Michael Grant, we read this startling revelation:

"Yet there was also another pagan belief during this same epoch, that much more nearly competed with Christ for the control of the Western world. This was the cult of the Sun, which was revered by millions of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and its religion for a time even became the state worship....

"In Rome, the divinity of the Sun came very early on; and then, centuries afterwards, in the superb dome of Hadrian's Pantheon, the central opening, surrounded by star-like rosettes, represented the solar orb....Before long, the emperor Aurelian established a massive temple of the Unconquerable Sun as the central and focal point of the entire religious system of the state (274). The birthday of the god was to be on DECEMBER 25, AND THIS, TRANSFORMED INTO CHRISTMAS DAY, WAS ONE OF THE HERITAGES THAT CHRISTIANITY OWED TO HIS CULT" (p. 391- 392, emphasis mine).

Notice! Christianity took over the birthday of the sun god, the cult of the sun, and transformed it into CHRISTMAS DAY, the "birthday" of Yeshua the Messiah! It was in reality the birth day of the pagan sun god, worshipped by millions throughout the Roman Empire!

We read more about this novel and profound "plot" to turn paganism into "Christianity" in a book by historian Jack Finegan, Myth & Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World. Finegan writes:

"...But the worship of the sun-god continued widely throughout the empire, and under Aurelian (A.D. 270-275) the cult was restored to its former high estate. In the year 274 Aurelian declared the god -- now called Deus Sol Invictus -- the official deity of the Roman Empire; he built a splendid temple of the sun in Rome...and set the sun's birthday celebration (naturalis solis invicti) ON DECEMBER 25, the date then accepted for the winter solstice (also in his solar character the BIRTHDAY OF MITHRAS). In the time of Constantine the cult of Deus Sol Invictus was still at its height, and the portrait of the sun-god was on the coins of Constantine....Likewise it must have been in this time and with the intent to transform the significance of AN EXISTING SACRED DATE that the birthday of Jesus, which had been celebrated in the East on January 6...was placed in Rome ON DECEMBER 25, THE DATE OF THE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION OF SOL INVICTUS. This date appears in a list of dates probably compiled in A.D. 336 and published in the Roman city calendar, edited by Filocalus, for the year 354"

http://www.hope-of-israel.org/cmas1.htm

All of this has been debunked. The church f that time had none of this in mind when they began celebrating Christmas.

[Amanah]

***In the millennial reign, the coming kingdom, Sabbath's shall be reestablished

Isaiah 66:20-23
King James Version
20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.

21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord.

22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.

23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.

***In the coming kingdom, festivals shall be reestablished

Zechariah 14:16-19
16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.

17 And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Amanah

In the millennial reign, the coming kingdom, Sabbath's shall be reestablished

Isaiah 66:20-23
King James Version
20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.

21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord.

22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.

23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.

Sad to see that shadow which is already fulfilled in Christ is thought to be restored in shadow form once again in a kingdom in our future, in which Christ is already ruling in the here and now. Israel missed his coming the first time, and so many have already missed what they think is still a coming kingdom.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by seguidordejesus

I'd rather base my conclusions on the consensus of the only Church in existence on the planet at the time than random interlinear notes of 12th century rabbis. I mean, at least they're Christian

Who are these 12th century rabbis you speak of?

Only church in existence? Hardly. Even mainstream church historians recognize the variety of Christian churches and movements from the 1st century onward.

Why do you follow Rome on the dating of Pascha instead of the practically universal practice of the post apostolic orthodox churches which prevailed up until the 4th century?

Why do you follow the Montanist heretic Tertullian on denying the undivided Monarchy of God in favour of his trinitas of emanating persons over against (as even he himself admitted) what was the "consensus" view of the churches that in God there is only one Person, who also incarnated ("Oneness")?

Etc etc.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Sad to see that shadow which is already fulfilled in Christ is thought to be restored in shadow form once again in a kingdom in our future, in which Christ is already ruling in the here and now. Israel missed his coming the first time, and so many have already missed what they think is still a coming kingdom.

Sad to see that people just can't bring themselves to simply DO what God said to do but instead prefer catholic/pagan traditions of men.

As for the Millennium, that has been explained to you numerous times yet you seem to always pretend as if dispensationalism is the only "millennialism" there is. Why is that, I wonder?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Originalist

What pagan practice is associated with Christmas?

Eggnog. It is of the devil, tastes like brimstone, clearly showing its satanic origins.

[Esaias]

1 Kings 12:26-33 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: (27) If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. (28) Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (29) And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. (30) And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. (31) And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. (32) And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. (33) So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

What was the "sin of Jeroboam, whereby he made Israel to sin"?

He altered the divinely ordained worship of God. He did not call Israel to worship the deities of Canaan. Rather, he introduced innovations into the worship of Jehovah.

These innovations had four characteristics:

1. Doing what God had explicitly forbidden.
2. Doing what God had never commanded.
3. Not doing what God had explicitly commanded.
4. Doing what was invented by man.

God had forbidden the use of graven images in worship. Jeroboam introduced (in imitation of Aaron's sin at Sinai) the use of graven images in the worship of Jehovah.

God had never commanded any feast or holy day in the eighth month. Jeroboam introduced a non-Biblical holiday tied to worship of Jehovah.

God had commanded a feast to be kept in the seventh month. Jeroboam induced the people to abandon the divinely ordained seventh month feast as part of their worship.

Jeroboam's innovations were the product of his own devising, they were human inventions introduced as the means of worshipping God. Interestingly, his human inventions mirrored the common pagan religious practices of the surrounding heathen nations. When man begins to invent ways to worship God in place of the divinely ordained way, he typically falls into the same patterns of worship found in heathen paganism. Thus, the sin of Jeroboam is the sin of altering Biblical worship so that it imitates and mirrors pagan devil worship, which is exactly what Christmas does.

[Esaias]

Natalis Invicti

The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date. For the history of the solar cult, its position in the Roman Empire, and syncretism with Mithraism, see Cumont's epoch-making "Textes et Monuments" etc., I, ii, 4, 6, p. 355. Mommsen (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 12, p. 338) has collected the evidence for the feast, which reached its climax of popularity under Aurelian in 274. Filippo del Torre in 1700 first saw its importance; it is marked, as has been said, without addition in Philocalus' Calendar.

...

The earliest rapprochement of the births of Christ and the sun is in Cyprian, "De pasch. Comp.", xix, "O quam præclare providentia ut illo die quo natus est Sol . . . nasceretur Christus." — "O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born . . . Christ should be born."

In the fourth century, Chrysostom, "del Solst. Et Æquin." (II, p. 118, ed. 1588), says: "Sed et dominus noster nascitur mense decembris . . . VIII Kal. Ian. . . . Sed et Invicti Natalem appelant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster? . . . Vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est Sol iustitiæ." — "But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December . . . the eight before the calends of January [25 December] . . ., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice."

Already Tertullian (Apol., 16; cf. Ad. Nat., I, 13; Orig. c. Cels., VIII, 67, etc) had to assert that Sol was not the Christians' God; Augustine (Tract xxxiv, in Joan. In P.L., XXXV, 1652) denounces the heretical identification of Christ with Sol.

Pope Leo I (Serm. xxxvii in nat. dom., VII, 4; xxii, II, 6 in P.L., LIV, 218 and 198) bitterly reproves solar survivals — Christians, on the very doorstep of the Apostles' basilica, turn to adore the rising sun. Sun-worship has bequeathed features to modern popular worship in Armenia, where Christians had once temporarily and externally conformed to the cult of the material sun (Cumont, op. cit., p. 356).

...

The Second Council of Tours (can. xi, xvii) proclaims, in 566 or 567, the sanctity of the "twelve days" from Christmas to Epiphany, and the duty of Advent fast; that of Agde (506), in canons 63-64, orders a universal communion, and that of Braga (563) forbids fasting on Christmas Day.

...

The crib (creche) or nativity scene

St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 originated the crib of today by laicizing a hitherto ecclesiastical custom, henceforward extra-liturgical and popular. The presence of ox and ass is due to a misinterpretation of Isaiah 1:3 and Habakkuk 3:2 ("Itala" version), though they appear in the unique fourth-century "Nativity" discovered in the St. Sebastian catacombs in 1877. The ass on which Balaam rode in the Reims mystery won for the feast the title Festum Asinorum (Ducange, op. cit., s.v. Festum).

...

Cards and presents

Pagan customs centering round the January calends gravitated to Christmas. Tiele (Yule and Christmas, London, 1899) has collected many interesting examples. The strenæ (eacute;trennes) of the Roman 1 January (bitterly condemned by Tertullian, de Idol., xiv and x, and by Maximus of Turin, Hom. ciii, de Kal. gentil., in P.L., LVII, 492, etc.) survive as Christmas presents, cards, boxes.

...

Gervase of Tilbury (thirteen century) says that in England grain is exposed on Christmas night to gain fertility from the dew which falls in response to "Rorate Cæli"; the tradition that trees and flowers blossomed on this night is first quoted from an Arab geographer of the tenth century, and extended to England. In a thirteenth-century French epic, candles are seen on the flowering tree. In England it was Joseph of Arimathea's rod which flowered at Glastonbury and elsewhere; when 3 September became 14 September, in 1752, 2000 people watched to see if the Quainton thorn (cratagus præcox) would blow on Christmas New Style; and as it did not, they refused to keep the New Style festival. From this belief of the calends practice of greenery decorations (forbidden by Archbishop Martin of Braga, c. 575, P.L., LXXIII — mistletoe was bequeathed by the Druids) developed the Christmas tree, first definitely mentioned in 1605 at Strasburg, and introduced into France and England in 1840 only, by Princess Helena of Mecklenburg and the Prince Consort respectively.

...

Only with great caution should the mysterious benefactor of Christmas night — Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmärtel on a wooden horse, St. Martin on a white charger, St. Nicholas and his "reformed" equivalent, Father Christmas — be ascribed to the stepping of a saint into the shoes of Woden, who, with his wife Berchta, descended on the nights between 25 December and 6 January, on a white horse to bless earth and men. Fires and blazing wheels starred the hills, houses were adorned, trials suspended and feasts celebrated (cf. Bonaccorse, op. cit., p. 151). Knecht Ruprecht, at any rate (first found in a mystery of 1668 and condemned in 1680 as a devil) was only a servant of the Holy Child.

(From the Catholic Encyclopedia: Christmas, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm )

[Esaias]

Baal was the Canaanite sun god and god of fertility. Pagan religions of different nations worshipped the same gods, but under different names and forms. Thus Ares to the Greeks was Mars to the Romans, etc. Also, many gods from one nation might be recognized as one god in another nation, and vice versa. Thus, Baal in Canaan would be identified with Amon, Ra, the later composite deity Amon-Ra, and Osiris in Egypt. Etc.

Pagans across Europe, North Africa, the middle east, Persia, and India, recognized the Sun God as "dying" (represented by and resulting in winter) but being revived, or reborn, or reincarnated, to bring the next spring/summer cycle. The Sun God was thus considered "eternal and immortal, conquering death through revivification". And so the Sun God was also the god of death, the god of the afterlife, and the god of immortality or "eternal life".

This Sun God was said to be reborn at the time of the winter solstice. This was common throughout the pagan world, regardless of nation. Thus, Mithra (the Persian Sun God, known to Romans as Sol Invictus) was said to born on December 25th. This Sun God was also nearly universally represented by evergreen trees and plants, symbolizing his immortality and conquering of death. This Sun God was also nearly universally associated with phallus worship (because of his association with life, rebirth, and fertility). Obelisks, ziggurats, poles, trees, stone pillars, etc are all well known symbols of the phallus, used throughout the pagan world.

European pagans using evergreen trees to represent life, eternal life, during the winter solstice, is nothing less than the Germanic (and Celtic!) variation on the same theme found throughout the Ancient World: worship of the Sun God and his phallic symbolism, who was "born" on December 25th.

Nobody seems to ask themselves: "WHY December 25th? WHY evergreen trees, holly, mistletoe? How did any of that ever get associated with Jesus Christ?"

The answer is pretty simple and obvious. The cult of the Sun God (Baal, Osiris, Ra, Mithra, etc) continues on in the guise of Catholicism and Protestantism. Baal is now near-universally worshipped under the name "Jesus", represented by phallic symbols and evergreens, born on December 25th, Lord of the Afterlife where the immortal human soul goes upon death of the physical body.

Modern Christendom is largely Baal worship. He's got a new name, but he's still the same old phallic Sun God, born in the winter, worshipped with evergreens, trees, obelisks (including steeples in his temples!). What people today can't wrap their minds around is that the gods CHANGE NAMES FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE. How then can they be recognized? How did the ancients know that Baal, Osiris, Saturn, etc were all the same deity? BY THEIR ASSOCIATIONS.

EVERY pagan would INSTANTLY know which deity was being worshipped (regardless of name) if you told them you worship a dying god of immortality born at the winter solstice represented by evergreen trees, whose temples are adorned with obelisks, and whose main day of worship is the first day of the week (day of the SUN). The only thing they'd ask is "where did his temple prostitutes go?" But then they would understand, when they discovered the highly sensual, effeminate worship music led by females and soyboys so popular in his temples.