Saturnalia: The Real Roots of Christmas

Many Christians today believe that Christmas is a Christian holiday. The fact is that people have been celebrating Christmas, long before the birth of Christ. The festivity was known then, as Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a festival in which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn. As winter approached, they were losing harvest and were in need of the sun in order for their harvest to grow and bear fruit. Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture and harvest.

This meant that the god Saturn was in need of the sun god in order to complete his job, therefore the attention was then shifted to the sun god. The Saturnalia custom is rooted in pagan and Celtic believes and traditions. They believed in human sacrifice including the sacrifice of small children and infants in which were offered to their gods in order to empower the sun to return with strength. They believed that winter was due to the sun losing its power due to a battle between the sun god and the god of the dead.  Since winter is annually, they believed these battles were fought annually and thus the sacrifices had to be annually in order to appease or empower their respective gods.  Because the sun always return at the beginning of the new year, they believed that its was due to all of their human sacrifices,  and costum rituals that took effect; empowering their sun god to return each year victoriously.

The Roman pagans introduced into their law December 17-25 as Saturnalia. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week long celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering the innocent man or woman who they chose to represent “the forces of darkness”.

In the 4th century, the Roman Catholic Church adopted the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Chatolic leaders succeeded in converting to “Christianity” large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate their Saturnalia as “Christmas”. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor of history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

The problem was that there was nothing in relation to Christianity concerning Saturnalia. To remedy this, these so called Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, Christmas, to be Jesus’ birthday.

As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the poor places in Rome were forced to wear clown type of clothing and march through the city streets to the mocking of the crowd, heavely rained by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation. On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers were disable or disfigured, and many Jewish women were raped.  Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.  Some foundation for a holyday they like to call “Christian”.

Today, the same formula its being used when it comes to repackaging pagan practices and doctrines by just renaming them and giving them a “Christian” name.  For instance, rock and roll music; so called Christian leaders believe a worldly or pagan person can join a Christian church with out having to leave their worldly rock and roll behind, because they can find rock and roll in the church too. 'Christian rock and roll' that is! This is now offered by so called Christian churches today, supposedly to attract and convert the worldly.
The list goes on and on, from rock, to “Christian rock”, to yoga, to “Christian yoga”, to porn, to “Christian porn”; that’s right… they now even have porn with the name “Christian” before it. These are a few of many traps laid to the undiscerning, designed to lead him into the wrong path, the one that does not lead to heaven, but to death and destruction.

Although this is a different story, the method in which Satan operates, is exactly the same. The Roman Catholic church then, was not concerned with people’s souls, but rather with their contributions to their church. Today, nothing has changed!

The fact is that the Bible (the Word of God) is our ultimate measurement authority in which all things should be measured by. With that said, let’s examine the origins of Christmas and let's use the Bible as the final authority on this matter as it should be in all matters.  After it's all said and done, I want you to ask yourself if you as a Christian, should be celebrating “Christmas”.

Also, keep in mind that once a truth is revealed to you, ignorance cannot be used as an excuse to continue in a sinful practice, because God will judge us in accordance to the knowledge we have received.  Prove of this can be found on John 9:40- 41: “And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them,

If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth”.In other words, the Pharisees claimed to have knowledge and understanding of the things of God. This would have made them to be spiritually able to see. Therefore, because they claimed to see which is the same as, to know or understand, they remained in their sins by simply knowing and yet ignoring the Word of God.

Also keep in mind Hosea 4:6: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

The Origins of Christmas Customs:

A. Christmas TreesJust as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church. Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Catholic Church.  Jerimiah 10:3 says: “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 and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not”

B. MistletoeNorse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim. The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.
C. Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace.  The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).

Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century. Most of Cristmas is celebrated after him for his contribution in marrying Saturnalia with the Catholic ”Christ mass”.

…What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?… (2 Corinthians 6:14 KJV)

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” ( Matthew 7:18 KJV)

And now you know the root of Christmas and whether it should be celebrated by Bible believing Christians or not. You decide to follow God or not.

Conclusion:
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Joshua 24:15  (KJV)