I was going to stay away from X-Mass this year in my commentary.
I do not condemn anyone who does it, because I once observed it, not only as a child, but as an adult who had been studying the scriptures for several years. However, when I learned the truth of the origin of it, I changed my behavior, to be more like Messiah Yeshua.
I truly wanted not even to acknowledge it this year. But I have seen such ignorance in justifying it that I am now compelled to write.
One such post was that, since Paul used a quote from a pagan temple to segue into preaching the gospel, that we should use X-mass in order to reach the lost with the truth of the birth of Jesus.
I’m not even going to devote much time to the date of Yeshua’s birth, as most people, even Christians who observe Christmas with passion, know that He was not born on December 25.
Who was born on December 25? “Sol Invictus“.
Sol Invictus [Unconquerable Sun] was the lifelong deity that Constantine the Great worshipped. He deferred to him when he moved the day of worship of the Roman Empire from The Sabbath to ‘sun-day’:
“On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.”
This was cited from his Edict of Milan in 321 A.D., where he made ‘sun-day’ the official day of rest for the Roman Empire. This was after his Milvian Bridge experience, where they say he saw a sign in the sky and said “By This Sign Conquer” [it was an Egyptian Onc, and not a ‘cross’]. When he later created the ‘Catholic Church’, he was the one, as a continued pagan, to determine what should be taught by the leaders of the various congregations. Contrary to popular belief, there was no pope at this time; there was a “bishop” [congregational leader] of Rome, and of every city in the Empire that had a congregation, but the congregations were self-governed before Constantine interfered and demanded new rules. Still, no one pope who had supreme and universal authority over every other bishop came along until 440 A.D. with Leo I. He was the first person to be called ‘pope’ universally, and actually to have any authority over other congregations.
But Constantine was the one who moved the day of rest from the Sabbath to sun-day. And he did so because he was ever a lover of Sol Invictus, the Roman deity heavily influenced by the Egyptian deity Mithras. Constantine had spent some of his time in Egypt, and was fond of their religion. Mithras influenced the Roman Sol Invictus, and Sol Invictus was born on December 25. Yeshua was born on the 15th day of the Seventh Biblical month, in the fall, and scriptures bear that out. Constantine clearly heavily influenced taking the Roman, pagan religion and adding it into the new, universal ‘church‘. Nothing in scripture encouraged x-mass at all. Only Sol Invictus did, in Constantine’s continued attempt to make sun worship and christianity ‘compatible’, to unify the empire.
His new doctrines didn’t take, immediately. And Christmas had not been made official yet, even in Catholicism.
Christmas on December 25 was established by Julius I (around 350 AD). The choice of December 25 coincided with Roman pagan festivals celebrating Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), and it was an effort to merge pagan solar worship with a Christian celebration of the birth of Christ. By this time, December 25 had already been associated with the rebirth of the sun, and the Christianization of this date allowed the new, universal church to appropriate the symbolism of the pagan holiday and give it to “Christ”.
Later, Theodosius I would make “Judaizing” illegal. The problem is, “Judaizing” was simply the fact of believers in Yeshua the Messiah keeping Passover as they had up until Constantine, and keeping the Sabbath of the Bible, and not keeping the new “catholic” holidays:
There are many early laws, since the ‘church’ had become the civil ‘government’ as well, that tried to stamp out truth; one of the most significant examples is found in Codex Theodosianus, Book 16, Title 8, where laws against Messianic people are detailed. These laws specifically target those who followed the Jewish Messiah, called “christians”, who observed Jewish rituals, such as the Sabbath, Passover, and other festivals. Believers in Messiah who followed these practices were considered heretics and were punished.
Here are the actual, historical documents cited that purvey this idea that not following Constantine was punishable, even by death:
Codex Theodosianus, 16.8.1 (385 AD):
“It is our will that all who follow the traditions of the Jews, and keep the Sabbath, or who observe the feasts of the Jews, including Passover, and the unleavened bread, shall be punished with the penalties of law. For it is a manifest perversity for the followers of the holy apostles to subject themselves to such observances. It is unlawful for the faithful to celebrate the feasts of the Jews, or to celebrate the Passover with them.”
The irony is that the “Shlikhim”, the ones SENT by Yeshua [apostles], kept the Sabbath, the Passover, and all the Jewish feasts, and after the Resurrection of Yeshua, did so for the rest of their lives.
Codex Theodosianus, 16.8.2 (389 AD):
“We order that Christians who keep the Sabbath and observe the Passover like the Jews should be stripped of their rights and privileges and punished accordingly.”
Codex Theodosianus, 16.10.17 (392 AD):
“Christians should not observe the Jewish feasts of Passover or Sabbath; anyone doing so will be considered a heretic and can face legal repercussions.”
And those repercussions could be even death, as they considered the feast of Passover and Sabbath as equal to paganism:
Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.59 (391 AD):
“Anyone found guilty of heresy or attempting to continue pagan rituals, or Judaizing practices, will be subjected to penalties and punishments by the state, including capital punishment if the violation persists.”
Theodosius was so determined to stamp out people who worshipped the Messiah on Biblical days that he burned a whole city, Callinicum, and its people, men, women and children, alive, in order to punish those there, “Judaizers” and pagans, for not changing their days of worship.
The very first “pope” also betrayed a murderous heart. He is famed for executing “Judaizers”.
Pope Leo I (Letter 96, to the Clergy of Rome, c. 445 AD):
“Those who keep the Sabbath and the Passover with the Jews, or who dare to teach Christians that they must observe these days, are to be removed from the Church.”
The death penalty for heresy on those who kept Passover and the Sabbath, and not Sunday and X-mass, was often invoked in cases of persistent non-compliance with imperial edicts. Pope Leo’s letter also made it clear that those who refused to abandon their Jewish customs could face legal prosecution and punishment by the Roman authorities.
One would think that by this time the Sabbath would utterly disappear among followers of Messiah, but alas…
During the reign of Emperor Justinian I (527–565 AD), who continued Theodosius’ policies of Roman, Constantinian “orthodoxy”, there were instances of local congregational leaders who were accused of “Judaizing”—that is, of holding onto Jewish practices within the “christian” community. In his Code of Laws, Justinian again outlawed “Judaizing” and ordered executions where the “heresy” persisted.
Justinian’s Code (Book 1, Title 5):
“Any Christian who Judaizes by observing the Sabbath or any other Jewish custom is to be executed as a heretic.”
This time, there was zero leniency; one offense meant death.
That is why it is so difficult to get people to see the truth today: the death penalty has people living in the same fear that caused so many to capitulate. The “popes” were very quick to start to murder people in the name of God. Theodosius was the first official ‘church leader’ guilty of murdering someone for disagreeing with them. He killed a Spanish congregation leader [bishop] for not immediately accepting the new Trinity doctrine, not long before burning Callinicum’s people. This idea that one should die for not complying to the spiritual leader is the very spirit of Anti-Messiah [and it is still in the world]: it is the exact opposite of how Yeshua handles sin: HE dies for the sinner.
Eventually, the rites of Sol Invictus and of the Roman “Saturnalia” became the rites of Christmas. It would take too much of my day to get into the origins of all the pagan practices that are rife in today’s “christmass” rituals. But, the idea of ‘christ mass’ is itself CATHOLIC. It is a celebration of the “eucharist”, which is the re-execution of Jesus every week. But, on December 25, it is held at midnight, and the baby Jesus is the body offered in an execution for the supplicants at midnight “mass”. Some priests even hold up the statue of the baby at the time of consuming the eucharist.
This is telling, given that Mithras/Sol Invictus, and Ishtar, are part of a divine triad, and babies were the sacrifices: and those sacrifices were at the base of evergreen trees. The evergreen tree decorated as it is was a picture of fertility and sexual practice in every way: the tree itself and the decorations were sexual symbols, genitalia.
There is no way anyone will ever convince me that we are to embrace all of this. Our forebears did not: my “pilgrim” ancestors saw the evil and the resulting greed, avarice and lasciviousness that came from such ideas, and they left it behind. It’s just that the world system ‘purchased’ the fidelity of protestant believers in this country in the late 1800s and early 1900s by playing on their emotions with their kids. This ‘holiday’ has nothing to do with the birth of the Messiah Yeshua. In fact, it is celebrated more by unbelievers than believers, outside of the confines of Catholicism. Yes, you see a nativity tossed here and there, but that is merely to placate the consciences of those who, deep down, know that what they are doing is wrong. It is rooted in a lie, that “jesus” was born in the dead of winter.
Paul did not justify paganism in any way. He spoke adamantly against it, in fact. Check these passages: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, Ephesians 4:17-24, Colossians 3:5-10, Galatians 4:8-9, Romans 12:1-2, Acts 19:18-20.
Yes, he did refer to paganism in his preaching, but the whole point of it was to steer them away from idolatry:
22When Paul stood in the court at Areopagus, he said, “Men of Athens, I see that above all things you are extravagant in the worship of idols. 23For as I walked about and viewed the temples of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription: ‘to the hidden deity.’ He therefore, while you know Him not but yet worship Him, is the very one I am declaring to you. 24For the God who made the world and all things therein, and who is The Master of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25neither is He ministered to by human hands, nor is He in need of anything, for it is He who gave life and breath to all men. 26And He has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and He has appointed seasons by His command, and has set limits to the age of men, 27so that they should seek and search after Elohim, and find Him by means of His creations, because He is not far from any one of us. 28For in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own wise men have said; for we are His family. 29Now therefore, man, being of the family of Elohim, is not bound to worship resemblances made of gold or silver or stone, shaped by the skill and knowledge of man into resemblances of a deity. 30For these times of ignorance God has made to pass [away], and at this time He has commanded all men, everywhere, to repent. 31For He has appointed a day in which He will judge all the earth with righteousness by the Man whom He has chosen [Yeshua]. He turns every man to trust in Him [Yeshua]; on that account He has raised Him from the dead.” ~ Acts 17
So, Paul’s use of a quote from a pagan shrine diverted people away from their paganism. He compelled them to repent. He in no way said, ‘hey, let’s continue to worship in your pagan temple, or better, bring your idolatry into the Synagogue’ [Where Paul continued to worship]. No, he told them to repent from it! And they stopped worshipping idols. And if Paul ever heard that anyone was reverting back to his pagan idolatry, he corrected them! [1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, Ephesians 4:17-24, Colossians 3:5-10, Galatians 4:8-9, Romans 12:1-2, Acts 19:18-20].
So, no, I will not comply. I will not apologize. And I will continue to compel God’s people to follow Yeshua, who never once celebrated anything on December 25th, except one of the nights of Khanukah when it actually fell during that week.