**Since Christ was not born on December 25th, then how did this particular day come to be a part of the church calendar?
History has the answer. Instead of this day being the time of Christ's birth, it was the very day and season on which the pagans for centuries had celebrated the birth of the Sun-god!** A study into history shows how far apostate church leaders went in their effort to merge Christianity and paganism into one apostate religion, even to placing the birth of Christ on a date to harmonize with the pagan birthday celebration of the sun-god!
The sun had won another fight and so pagan culture had festivals and feasts on this day. It was celebrated in China, in India, in South America, in Mexico, in Africa and in many other cultures. There were presents exchanged, green trees decorated in honor of the sun-god and great celebrating.
**When Christianity gained influence in the fifth century they outlawed the pagan holiday with little success. Finally they adopted the holiday into the church and changed the words and meanings of the festivities to fit with "christianity". It took many years to effect this. It took much propaganda and it took many penalties and reprisals against those who continued with the old festival but eventually the "christian" community won the day. Then there was a change from the Gregorian calendar to the present day calendar, and with that change Christmas or the Solstice shifted a few days so that December 25th became officially recognized as a Christian day.
It was in the fifth century that the Roman Catholic Church commanded that the birth of Christ be observed forever on December 25th, the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, one of the names of the sun-god!**
In pagan days, this birth of the sun-god was especially popular among the branch of the "mysteries" known as Mithraism. Concerning this we read: "The largest pagan religious cult which fostered the celebration of December 25th as a holiday throughout the Roman and Greek worlds was the pagan sun worship, Mithraism. Their winter festival was called 'the Nativity', the "nativity of the SUN".4 And not only was Mithra, the sun-god of Mithraism, said to be born at this time of the year, but Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Bacchus, Adonis, Jupiter, Tammuz, and other sun-gods were also supposedly born at what is today called the "Christmas" season, the winter solstice!5
Says a noted write: the "winter solstice (was) the time at which all the sun-gods from Osiris to Jupiter and Mithra had celebrated their (birthdays), the celebration being adorned with the pine tree of Adonis, the holly of Saturn, and the mistletoe.. ..tapers represented the kindling of the newborn sun-god's fire..."6
Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, mentions that the practice of exchanging gifts at this season was a part of the pagan Roman Saturnalia. When this mid-winter festival was adopted into the Roman church, this custom was also adopted. As usual, however, apostate leaders tried to find some point of similarity between paganism and Christianity - to make the merger seem less obvious. In this case, reference was made to the fact that the wise men, when they came to see the Christ-child, presented to him gifts. Some suppose that this is where the custom of exchanging gifts at Christmas time came. But not so! The wisemen did not exchange gifts among themselves. They presented their gifts to JESUS who was born king of the Jews. (It was an Eastern custom to present gifts when coming into the presence of the King). But these gifts were not birthday gifts. When the wisemen arrived, it was some time after the day on which Jesus was born. By this time, he was no longer in a stable, but in a HOUSE (Matt. 2:9-11). Obviously, the gifts of the wisemen were not Christmas gifts.
*Other pagan practices that are included in the holiday of Christmas are the use of the round wreath, the mistletoe, the use of the Yule log, the wassail bowl, holly, red berries, Santa Claus, the undue commercialism of the season, the use of candles during the holiday, etc. The wassailing bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the "Drunken festival" of Babylon. The candles, in some parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used as long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honor to him; for it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax candles on his altars. *
www.logosresourcepages.org/chrismas.html
[besides, jesus christ is a myth, if some have not woken up yet]
Now i’m confused as to whether that’s folklore or history. Maybe that was the person referred to as St. Nick?
