In this episode we discuss the Christmas season and connection with Catholicism by analyzing its roots. Some say the season is about Christ, but the name is only a label to the real significance to the festivities. Christians adopt the time.
Listen to “Christmas and Catholicism” on Spreaker.
In our effort to demonstrate the relationship between Christmas and Catholicism, we need to go over some Catholic traditions and origins.
The Catholic Church has been recognized as the head of the Christian faith under Rome since about 325 AD. This was due to Constantine reigning and having a sort of epiphany in using the power of the cross for his conquest and mandating State recognition of Christianity after the ferocious campaigns against it persecuting Christians under Diocletian, Maximian, and Nero previously.
Constantine’s version of Christianity was a counterfeit of hijacked compilation of pagan worship with Christian references. This convergence gave the Christians favor with the culture, as well as a gateway for pagans to accept Christianity under their own polytheism. However, this caused a contamination of the original pure Christian faith as Catholicism was merely a universal head over the religion.
Many today continue to adopt Catholic doctrine, as well as its traditions. The holidays were birthed mostly from Roman Catholic allegory, forming its mythos and worship into Christian terms.
Rome had its polytheistic mythos of Greek gods under Roman names, and used these names as relation with venerated Christian saints recognized as gods under the Catholic religion. Roman Church considered by many as an extension of Babylon.
The picture of Mary with Jesus in her arms was not originating from Christian circles, but was an allegory for the reference to the ancient gods and called the Madonna. It was an extension of the Cult of Mary in the 5th century, an iconography of centering around Mary as the Mother of God, the female fertility agent of God in the pagan worship mythos. However, it continues the fertility worship of goddess and god where the goddess resurrected the god in a reincarnated state of returning.
Nimrod, who was represented as Marduk the Sun god also known as Baal, had a counterpart who was believed to be Semiramis, represented as Ishtar the moon god, having a son Tammuz (also Sumerian) who some say was the reincarnated Nimrod. But these confirmations of order get blurred in the legends. Ashtoreth was called “Queen of Heaven” by pagans. One may see the relationship with Mary under Catholic doctrine that she is Queen of Heaven and an outside agent related to the trinity. Catechism says Mary and Jesus are INSEPARABLE.
This ancient relationship is common in many cultures. In Egypt it is Isis and Osiris with Horus the son as the reincarnated incarnation of the god. In Rome Mithras was the god in favor.
The false god Tammuz is mentioned in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet describes a vision he had, saying the Lord “brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz” (Ezekiel 8:14). God calls the idolatrous practice of weeping for Tammuz a “detestable” thing, made even worse in that it was happening at the temple in Jerusalem. So we know of the worship of idols through him.
Zeitgeist movie claims
Researchers such as that in Zeitgeist the movie attempt to nullify the significance of Jesus. While sounding similar, possibly even retold after the fact, the accounts have significant contrasting details that differentiate Jesus from pagan gods.
The ancient gods were resurrected by the goddess conjuring them into the underworld. Even upon birth of a son, it was not a birth of a son, but reincarnation of the god.
Tammuz/Adonis/Osiris was rescued from the underworld by a faithful lover.
Jesus was raised from the dead by Himself in conjunction with God.
“God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it” (Acts 2:32)
Tammuz/Adonis died once a year.
Jesus died only once.
“The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God” (Romans 6:10)
Osiris died once forever.
Jesus rose once forever.
“You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, / nor will you let your faithful one see decay” (Psalm 16:10)
Tammuz/Osiris’s death and rebirth brought life to agriculture.
Jesus’ death and resurrection brings life to our souls.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”
My article on the reliability of Jesus’ existence explains some of the objections of these claims.
About the birth of Jesus
The birth of Jesus was a noted account in the Bible. It brought forth the fulfillment of scripture as the promised Messiah (Christ). However, the early church did not put an emphasis on the birth, but on the resurrection because THAT was the victory. Many cultures continue the emphasis on the fertility birth of gods.The Catholic Church adopted this and applied it to Jesus to appease both sides. But it was not significant in the early church, only after the religion of Catholicism arose.
Christmas is interesting because the Maess / Missa in the term is associated with dismissal or death, not birth. This gave a picture of death for life as with the pagan gods. The gods would be dead in winter solstice to revive in a new birth at this time. The Catholic mass believes that Jesus is crucified hanging on the cross, and that the ritual of the Eucharist is the participation of the Priest/Catholic Church to be part of raising Him to life each service with the aid of the ceremony.
Mary is coined as the “Mother of God,” wrongly misappropriated as the birth of God through her, which is the pagan concept. Jesus was not God being born or revived, it was the son of God the Father sent in the form of man through Mary the Virgin to take on the cloak of humanity and be the satisfying redeemer of man’s sin for all who put their trust in Him.
December 25th had been designated as the birthday of the Roman god Mithras. Originally December 25th was the given time for the fertility honor to the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. It also relates to the feasts of Saturnalia and the winter solstice as the death of summer and necessity of revival to Spring through fertility worship. Saturnalia was an ancient ritual of human sacrifices, idol worship, and fertility sex practices. (Yule log, mistletoe, cakes, etc) The Christmas tree became an idol for fertility revival for pagans. Adopted after wrongly as the representation for Christ.
Jesus, likely born in September, had to be recognized to appease the merging of cultures, so they adopted a ritual for Jesus coinciding with the pagan gods to include him in their polytheism. In the very least Christians have taken the Catholic tradition and lowered Jesus to equate with the pagan status of gods to relate their mythos. The lie of this gives reason for critical scholars to question the authenticity of Christianity.
Of this time, Christian father Tertullian bitterly lamented the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. “By us,” says he, “who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”