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Topic: Christmas
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barrykind
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ENOUGH SAID!
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The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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barrykind
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Jeremiah 10
1Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3For 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.
4They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
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The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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barrykind
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Betty States:
quote:
Barry you just love controversy. Well this dog is not going to bite. I am going to enjoy Christmas. I am going to honor my Savior on Christmas and short of coming to my house and shooting me, you can not stop me.
betty
P.S. Good luck with that cause Texas ladies know how to defend themselves.
Actuall no i dont like it, makes my stomach hurt, believe it or not!
But I DO LOVE TRUTH, and if one choses not to look at things because they are "going to do what they want", thats entirely up to them.
But i will post all that YHWH leads me to, and with as much documentation and facts as i can find!
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The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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Betty Louise
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Barry you just love controversy. Well this dog is not going to bite. I am going to enjoy Christmas. I am going to honor my Savior on Christmas and short of coming to my house and shooting me, you can not stop me.
betty
P.S. Good luck with that cause Texas ladies know how to defend themselves.
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Luk 21:28 And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
Posts: 5051 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: May 2008
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barrykind
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Festivals
Section I. Christmas and Lady-day
If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined in her sanctuaries
be the very queen of heaven, for the worshipping of whom the fierce anger of God was provoked
against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it is of the last consequence that the fact should be
established beyond all possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who
trembles at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either
individually or nationally, the least countenance or support.
Something has been said already that
goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and Babylonian systems; but at every step the
evidence becomes still more overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different
festivals is peculiarly so.
The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for
elucidation--viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the
Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in
honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected with
the 25th of December?
There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or
the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there, implies that at what time soever
His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel
announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in
the open fields.
Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this
country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from
December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to
watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. *
* GILL, in his Commentary on Luke 2:8, has the following: "There are two sorts
of cattle with the Jews...there are the cattle of the house that lie in the city; the
cattle of the wilderness are they that lie in the pastures. On which one of the
commentators (MAIMONIDES, in Misn. Betza), observes, 'These lie in the
pastures, which are in the villages, all the days of the cold and heat, and do not go
into the cities until the rains descend.' The first rain falls in the month
Marchesvan, which answers to the latter part of our October and the former part
of November...
From whence it appears that Christ must be born before the middle
of October, since the first rain was not yet come." KITTO, on Deuteronomy 11:14
(Illustrated Commentary), says that the "first rain," is in "autumn," "that is, in
September or October." This would make the time of the removal of the flocks
from the fields somewhat earlier than I have stated in the text; but there is no
doubt that it could not be later than there stated, according to the testimony of
92
Maimonides, whose acquaintance with all that concerns Jewish customs is well
known.
It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have taken place at the end
of December. There is great unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes,
Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, in his "Jewish Antiquities," who are all of
opinion that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord's nativity, the celebrated
Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful
disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the following;--"At the birth of
Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither
some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially
for women with child, and children to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth
of winter. Again, at the time of Christ's birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks
in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter.
And if any shall think the
winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the
gospel, 'Pray that your flight be not in the winter.' If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it
seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in."
Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our
Lord's birth cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival as
Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far
advanced did it gain much observance.
* Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER's Manual of
Presbytery.
Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into the Worship
of the Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival was observed in that
Church, and adds--"It seems improbably that they should celebrate Christ's
nativity when they disagreed about the month and the day when Christ was born."
See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of
Christ's birth is uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could not
have been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob's complaint to
Laban, "By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night."
Now the whole
force of Jacob's complaint against his churlish kinsman lay in this, that Laban
made him do what no other man would have done, and, therefore, if he refers to
the cold nights of winter (which, however, is not the common understanding of
the expression), it proves just the opposite of what it is brought by Mr. Ryle to
prove--viz., that it was not the custom for shepherds to tend their flocks in the
fields by night in winter.
** GIESELER, CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. Christi), writing in
Antioch about AD 380, says: "It is not yet ten years since this day was made
known to us". "What follows," adds Gieseler, "furnishes a remarkable illustration
of the ease with which customs of recent date could assume the character of
apostolic institutions." Thus proceeds Chrysostom: "Among those inhabiting the
west, it was known before from ancient and primitive times, and to the dwellers
from Thrace to Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and well-known," that
is, the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch in the east, on the
very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was perfectly well-known in
all the European region of the west, from Thrace even to Spain!
How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus:
Long before the fourth cent ury, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated
among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the
Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the
heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was
adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of
Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in
his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting 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." Upright men strive to stem the tide, but
in spite of all their efforts, the apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small
remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan
festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still
celebrated, prove its origin.
In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven,
was born at this very time, "about the time of the winter solstice." The very name by which
Christmas is popularly known among ourselves--Yule-day --proves at once its Pagan and
Babylonian origin. "Yule" is the Chaldee name for an "infant" or "little child"; * and as the 25th
of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, "Yule-day," or the "Child's day,"
and the night that preceded it, "Mother-night," long before they came in contact with
Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.
* From Eol, an "infant." In Scotland, at least in the Lowlands, the Yule-cakes are
also called Nur-cakes. Now in Chaldee Nour signifies "birth." Therefore, Nurcakes
are "birth-cakes." The Scandinavian goddesses, called "norns," who
appointed children their destinies at their birth, evidently derived their name from
the cognate Chaldee word "Nor," a child.
Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This festival has been
commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the
completion of the sun's yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is
indubitably evidence that the festival in question had a much higher reference than this--that it
commemorated not merely the figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the
birth-day of the grand Deliverer.
Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not
the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry, the same period was
observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley's Sabean Philosophy: "On the 24th of the
tenth month," that is December, according to our reckoning, "the Arabians celebrated the
BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD--that is the Moon." The Lord Moon was the great object of
Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December,
which clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the
course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if Christmas-day among the ancient
Saxons of this island, was observed to celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the
case must have been precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known,
regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male. *
* SHARON TURNER. Turner cites an Arabic poem which proves that a female
sun and a masculine moon were recognised in Arabia as well as by the Anglo-
Saxons.
It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the Sun, that was
celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was
observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The name of the Lord Moon in the East
seems to have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of the Divine statement
in Isaiah lxv. 11, "But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad,
and that furnish the drink-offering unto Meni." There is reason to believe that Gad refers to the
sun- god, and that Meni in like manner designates the moon-divinity.
*
*See KITTO, vol. iv. p. 66, end of Note. The name Gad evidently refers, in the
first instance, to the war- god, for it signifies to assault; but it also signifies "the
assembler"; and under both ideas it is applicable to Nimrod, whose general
character was that of the sun-god, for he was the first grand warrior; and, under
the name Phoroneus, he was celebrated for having first gathered mankind into
social communities. The name Meni, "the numberer," on the other hand, seems
just a synonym for the name of Cush or Chus, which, while it signifies "to cover"
or "hide," signifies also "to count or number." The true proper meaning of the
name Cush is, I have no doubt, "The numberer" or "Arithmetician"; for while
Nimrod his son, as the "mighty" one, was the grand propagator of the Babylonian
system of idolatry, by force and power, he, as Hermes, was the real concocter of
that system, for he is said to have "taught men the proper mode of approaching
the Deity with prayers and sacrifice" (WILKINSON); and seeing idolatry and
astronomy were intimately combined, to enable him to do so with effect, it was
indispensable that he should be pre-eminently skilled in the science of numbers.
Now, Hermes (that is Cush) is said to have "first discovered numbers, and the art
of reckoning, geometry, and astronomy, the games of chess and hazard" (Ibid.);
and it is in all probability from reference to the meaning of the name of Cush, that
some called "NUMBER the father of gods and men" (Ibid.).
The name Meni is
just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew "Mene," the "numberer" for in Chaldee i
often takes the place of the final e. As we have seen reason to conclude with
Gesenius, that Nebo, the great prophetic god of Babylon, was just the same god as
Hermes, this shows the peculiar emphasis of the first words in the Divine sentence
that sealed the doom of Belshazzar, as representing the primeval god--"MENE,
MENE, Tekel, Upharsin, " which is as much as covertly to say, "The numberer is
numbered."
As the cup was peculiarly the symbol of Cush, hence the pouring out
of the drink-offering to him as the god of the cup; and as he was the great Diviner,
hence the divinations as to the future year, which Jerome connects with the
divinity referred to by Isaiah. Now Hermes, in Egypt as the "numberer," was
identified with the moon that numbers the months. He was called "Lord of the
moon" (BUNSEN); and as the "dispenser of time" (WILKINSON), he held a
"palm branch, emblematic of a year" (Ibid.). Thus, then, if Gad was the "sundivinity,"
Meni was very naturally regarded as "The Lord Moon."
Meni, or Manai, signifies "The Numberer." And it is by the changes of the moon that the months
are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth the time of
95
its going down." The name of the "Man of the Moon," or the god who presided over that
luminary among the Saxons, was Mane, as given in the "Edda," and Mani, in the "Voluspa."
That
it was the birth of the "Lord Moon" that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we
have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of Scotland to the feast
on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant of the old birth festival for the cakes
then made are called Nur-Cakes, or Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, "Hog-Manai" in
Chaldee signifies "The feast of the Numberer"; in other words, the festival of Deus Lunus, or of
the Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the inveterate
endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, commenting on the very words of
Isaiah already quoted, about spreading "a table for Gad," and "pouring out a drink-offering to
Meni," observes that it "was the custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities
especially in Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious
articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the last day of the month
and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in respect of the fruitfulness of the
year." The Egyptian year began at a different time from ours; but this is a near as possible (only
substituting whisky for wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the
last month of our year in Scotland.
I do not know that any omens are drawn from anything that
takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland is personally cognisant of the
fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before New Year's day, among those who observe old
customs, a table is spread, and that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can
afford them, oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who ne ver see oat cakes but on
this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the provision.
Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at
this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an
essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When,
therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an
incarnation of the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology, which is admitted to be essentially
Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is represented as being
incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods, who, without such a
birth, could not have been subdued. *
* See the Sanscrit Researches of Col. VANS KENNEDY. Col. K., a most
distinguished Sanscrit scholar, brings the Brahmins from Babylon (Ibid.).
Be it
observed the very name Surya, given to the sun over all India, is connected with
this birth. Though the word had originally a different meaning, it was evidently
identified by the priests with the Chaldee "Zero," and made to countenance the
idea of the birth of the "Sun-god." The Pracrit name is still nearer the Scriptural
name of the promised "seed." It is "Suro." It has been seen, in a previous chapter,
that in Egypt also the Sun was represented as born of a goddess.
It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the winter solstice. That
festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there,
showed whence it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; * loose
reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, ** and used
all manner of freedoms with their masters.
* Subsequently the number of the days of the Saturnalia was increased to seven.
** If Saturn, or Kronos, was, as we have seen reason to believe, Phoroneus, "The
emancipator," the "temporary emancipation" of the slaves at his festival was
exactly in keeping with his supposed character.
This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken festival of the month
Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in
Babylon. "It was the custom," says he, "during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in
subjection to their servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a
king." This "purple-robed" servant was called "Zoganes," the "Man of sport and wantonness,"
and answered exactly to the "Lord of Misrule," that in the dark ages, was chosen in all Popish
countries to head the revels of Christmas. The wassailling bowl of Christmas had its precise
counterpart in the "Drunken festival" of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up
among ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter.
The candles, in some parts of
England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally
lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honour to him: for it
was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his
altars. The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and
Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting
the Pagan Messiah, as Baal- Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith.
The mother of Adonis,
the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree,
and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must
have been recognised as the "Man the branch." And this entirely accounts for the putting of the
Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next
morning.
As Zero-Ashta, "The seed of the woman," which name also signified Ignigena, or
"born of the fire," he has to enter the fire on "Mother-night," that he ma y be born the next day
out of it, as the "Branch of God," or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men. But why, it may
be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be
remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the
great god (after that god had been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his
murderers. Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a
huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great serpent,
the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself around the dead stock (see Fig. 27), and
lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree--a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to
be cut down by hostile power--even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The
Christmas-tree, as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the
very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the Christmas- fir; for that covertly
symbolised the new-born God as Baal-berith, * "Lord of the Covenant," and thus shadowed forth
the perpetuity and everlasting na ture of his power, not that after having fallen before his enemies,
he had risen triumphant over them all.
* Baal-bereth, which differs only in one letter from Baal-berith, "Lord of the
Covenant," signifies "Lord of the fir-tree."
Fig. 27: The Yule Log
From MAURICE's Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 368.
Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the
victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, "The birth-day of the
unconquered Sun." Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun- god, but
cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus--the slain god come to life
again. In the light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger among us, the
origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the reader look at the singular
practice still kept up in the South on Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That
mistletoe bough in the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon,
was a representation of the Messiah, "The man the branch." The mistletoe was regarded as a
divine branch *--a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprung out of the
earth.
* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is distinguished from
the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian myths somewhat differed; but
yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it is evident that some marvellous power was
attributed to the mistletoe branch; for it was able to do what nothing else in the
compass of creation could accomplish; it slew the divinity on whom the Anglo-
Saxons regarded "the empire" of their "heaven" as "depending." Now, all that is
neceesary to unravel this apparent inconsistency, is just to understand "the
branch" that had such power, as a symbolical expression for the true Messiah.
The
Bacchus of the Greeks came evidently to be recognised as the "seed of the
serpent "; for he is said to have been brought forth by his mother in consequence
of intercourse with Jupiter, when that god had appeared in the form of a serpent.
If the character of Balder was the same, the story of his death just amounted to
this, that the "seed of the serpent" had been slain by the "seed of the woman."
This story, of course, must have originated with his enemies. But the idolators
took up what they could not altogether deny, evidently with the view of
explaining it away.
Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had
severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe bough became the token of Divine
reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation. Whence
could such an idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11,
"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each other. Truth shall
spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the promised Saviour], and
righteousness shall look down from heaven"? Certain it is that that Psalm was written soon after
the Babylonish captivity; and as multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in
Babylon under the guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the Divine word it must
have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine. Babylon was, at that
time, the centre of the civilised world; and thus Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol as it
ever has done, had opportunities of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the
ends of the earth, through the Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system in
Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising light at once on the
revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to
materialise, carnalise, and degrade them.
Fig. 28: Roman Emperor Trajan burning Incense to Diana
From KITTO's Illustrated Commentary, vol. iv. p. 137.
In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar was fabled to have
done him. According to one version of the story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as
we have seen, in consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian
Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have
perished in like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly
represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great mother of the
gods, has frequently the boar's head as her accompaniment, in token not of any mere success in
the chase, but of her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she
occupied so conspicuous a place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that
killed Adonis, because when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically that it had
not killed her husband of malice prepense, but only through accident. But yet, in memory of the
deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the
offended goddess. In Smith, Diana is represented with a boar's head lying beside her, on the top
of a heap of stones, * and in the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 28), in which the Roman Emperor
Trajan is represented burning incense to the same goddess, the boar's head forms a very
prominent figure.
On Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the
Sun, to propitiate her ** for the loss of her beloved Adonis.
* SMITH's Class. Dict., p. 112.
** The reader will remember the Sun was a goddess. Mallet says, "They offered
the largest hog they could get to Frigga"-- i.e., the mother of Balder the lamented
one. In Egypt swine were offered once a year, at the feast of the Moon, to the
Moon, and Bacchus or Osiris; and to them only it was lawful to make such an
offering. (AELIAN)
In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the great article at the
feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of Martial:--
"That boar will make you a good Saturnalia."
Fig. 29: Egyptian God Seb, and Symbolic Goose
From WILKINSON, vol. vi. plate 31; and goose on stand,
from the same, vol. vi. p. 353.
Hence the boar's head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas dinner, when the reason
of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the "Christmas goose" and "Yule cakes" were essential articles
in the worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at
Rome (Fig. 29). Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that "the favourite offering" of Osiris
was "a goose," and moreover, that the "goose could not be eaten except in the depth of winter."
As to Rome, Juvenal says, "that Osiris, if offended, could be pacified only by a large goose and a
thin cake." In many countries we have evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is
well known that the capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being
surprised by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno, kept in
the temple of Jupiter. The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 30) proves that the goose in Asia Minor
was the symbol of Cupid, just as it was the symbol of Seb in Egypt. In India, the goose occupied
a similar position; for in that land we read of the sacred "Brahmany goose," or goose sacred to
Brahma. Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic
character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in Rome or Egypt, for
there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and his sacrificing knife in the other. *
* The symbolic meaning of the offering of the goose is worthy of notice. "The
goose," says Wilkinson, "signified in hieroglyphics a child or son"; and Horapolo
says, "It was chosen to denote a son, from its love to its young, being always
ready to give itself up to the chasseur, in order that they might be preserved; for
which reason the Egyptians thought it right to revere this animal."
(WILKINSON's Egyptians) Here, then, the true meaning of the symbol is a son,
who voluntarily gives himself up as a sacrifice for those whom he loves--viz., the
Pagan Messiah.
Fig. 30: The Goose of Cupid
From BARKER and AINSWORTH's Lares and Penates of Cilicia, chap. iv. p. 220.
There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter solstice--in other words,
Christmas--was held in honour of the birth of the Babylonian Messiah.
The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives the very strongest
confirmation to what has now been said. That festival, called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on
the 25th of March, in alleged commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the
womb of the Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished
honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who could tell when
this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all in regard to the time.
But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the
Popish calendar for the "Annunciation of the Virgin" was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of
Cybele, the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. *
* AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, and MACROB., Sat. The fact stated in the
paragraph above casts light on a festival held in Egypt, of which no satisfactory
account has yet been given. That festival was held in commemoration of "the
entrance of Osiris into the moon." Now, Osiris, like Surya in India, was just the
Sun. (PLUTARCH, De Iside et Osiride) The moon, on the other hand, though
most frequently the symbol of the god Hermes or Thoth, was also the symbol of
the goddess Isis, the queen of heaven.
The learned Bunsen seems to dispute this;
but his own admissions show that he does so without reason. And Jeremiah 44:17
seems decisive on the subject. The entrance of Osiris into the moon, then, was just
the sun's being conceived by Isis, the queen of heaven, that, like the Indian Surya,
he might in due time be born as the grand deliverer. Hence the very name Osiris;
for, as Isis is the Greek form of H'isha, "the woman," so Osiris, as read at this day
on the Egyptian monuments, is He-siri, "the seed." It is no objection to this to say
that Osiris is commonly represented as the husband of Isis; for, as we have seen
already, Osiris is at once the son and husband of his mother. Now, this festival
took place in Egypt generally in March, just as Lady-day, or the first great festival
of Cybele, was held in the same month in Pagan Rome.
We have seen that the
common title of Cybele at Rome was Domina, or "the lady" (OVID, Fasti), as in
Babylon it was Beltis (EUSEB. Praep. Evang.), and from this, no doubt, comes
the name "Lady-day" as it has descended to us.
Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate relation to one another.
Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December there are exactly nine months. If, then, the
false Messiah was conceived in March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe
that the conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronised, not only to
the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and Christmas-day, then, are purely
Babylonian.
Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop
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The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
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