How the Christians made up Christmas, do you know they stole the holiday?

Question

Educational excerpt.

No one knows for sure on what day Christ was born. Dionysus Exiguus, a sixth century monk, who was the first to date all of history from December 25th, the year of our Lord 1. Other traditions gave dates as early as mid-November or as late as March. How did Christmas come to be celebrated on December 25th? Cultures around the Mediterranean and across Europe observed feasts on or around December 25th, marking the winter solstice. The Jews had a festival of lights. Germans had a yule festival. Celtic legends connected the solstice with Balder, the Scandinavian sun god who was struck down by a mistletoe arrow. At the pagan festival of Saturnalia, Romans feasted and gave gifts to the poor. Drinking was closely connected with these pagan feasts. At some point, a Christian bishop may have adopted the day to keep his people from indulging in the old pagan festival.

600 years before Christians got around to stealing the solstice holidays of the established religions

To those that thought I did not bring forth all the facts to which I have access. I did not want to overload intellects nor force to many to fall into irrationalzations.

Bzzzzz on Brother M....Constantine died in 337 C. E. no Christmas until 600CE

Ah, the Christians, a band of religious holiday thieves that threatened those celebrating in the established religions with death or incarceration. Did it too, a few centuries later.

BTW, how could have Constantine pick a date when the Christianized calender di not begin until the year 600CE which in itself was arbitrary

Answer 1

And you left out poor old Mithra who was born on December 25th of a virgin, had 12 disciples, held a last supper, died for his people and was resurrected three days later.. then arose from the dead and you had to ingest his body and blood for atonement.. yeah yeah yeah.. old news here fella.

They know.. they just don't care to associate Jesus with paganism.

Answer 2

"Christmas" is just the latest name for a very ancient holiday. The Romans celebrated it as Saturnalia. The poet Vergil, writing well before Jesus was born, describes the celebration of the virgin birth of a boy who would become king, an occasion marked by the exchange of gifts. [See Vergil's Eclogue IV].

The ancient British had a winter solstice holiday. I forget its name. But I suppose pretty much every culture in the Northern hemisphere had one too.

As the birthday of a savior, the Christians absorbed the idea from December 25, the birthday of Attis of Phrygia, who was crucified, buried in a tomb for three days and arose to cries of "He is risen!" when the stone was rolled away on Easter morning. All this was long before Jesus lived. Galatia was in Phrygia, and Paul was not pleased when he found his Christians there keeping the holidays of the older religion - see Galatians 4:10.

I suppose the Puritans who banned Christmas were probably correct in doing so. Christmas is in fact a very old pagan festival. It is not originally Christian by any means. The ignorant fundies who bray "Keep Christ in Christmas" would do better to say "PUT Christ in Christmas", and after all that's exactly what Christians did since the holiday existed long before Christianity came along.

Answer 3

Sigh.... As a pagan i'm fairly sick of questions like this. each and every new springing up subculture adopts some practices, customs, traditions and such from pre-modern cultures. Neo-pagans do the comparable, so what's the great deal? As a pagan, i do no longer rejoice the beginning of or resurrection of Jesus (that are the reasons Christmas and Easter have been regular). So what if Jesus became into no longer born on Dec twenty 5th and that became into in simple terms the day chosen for all to rejoice. Sheesh, we had a social gathering for my neighbor's youngster on Saturday, yet his easily birthday became into in the midst of the week earlier - could desire to we no longer have celebrated on Saturday while absolutely everyone became into available to assemble because of the fact he became into no longer easily born on 6/25? So what if Christians included some old seasonal customs into their celebrations of Jesus. Decorations and such are extra so secular now besides. The religious which potential of them relies upon on the guy utilising them. this is completely pleased with me if a Christian has a Christmas tree and that i've got a yule tree on the comparable time of twelve months. Pagans do no longer very own unique rights to the month of December for goodness sake. there is room for anybody right here - and no could desire to bicker over such issues that are so petty now thinking they got here approximately see you later till now you or I have been even born. I nonetheless rejoice yule and Ostara for what they advise to me - have been doing so my entire grownup existence - so it form of feels Christianity did no longer steal my holy days after all.

Answer 4

Jesus was born in September. They just put it on pagan holidays to distract people of those religions. Easter is a pagan holiday too. He resurrected on another date. So they didn't "make up Christmas" cuz it should be in september. They just put it on a different date, a pagan holiday. Who cares when it's celebrated, because it's still a celebration. It's not made up it's just celebrated at the wrong time.

Answer 5

Jesus was born on or about September 29 5BC. CHRIST mass is a holy day commemorating Christ's birth. It was not stolen from anyone.The winter solstice is usually celebrated on the 21st of December. Hanukkah is an 8 day celebration sometimes around the time of CHRIST mass, sometimes not. Pagans dont own the month of December.

Answer 6

A question that is totally irrelevant. If Jesus was not born on Dec. 25th just what difference does that make? If you or I celebrated our birthday 2 months before or 2 months after our actual date of birth, what would happen then? Probably Easter is on the wrong day to, so what?

You state: no one knows for sure on what date Christ was born. and I agree and still ask, so what?

Answer 7

Constantine did it in an effort to merge all religions into Catholicism. There are several other things that came that way. They took the names off of statues of Greek gods and replaced them with biblical names and that is when praying to saints started.
However, Passover and Easter are straight from the Bible. As are several times of feasting.
Also, just because the Catholic church does it doesn't mean all Christians do. And being a Christian doesn't mean you aren't informed about history.

Answer 8

We are well aware of the history of the "Roman" church. Here is an excerpt from an answer to this very question.

"Constantine encountered considerable resistance from the heathen Roman populace. Realizing that he could not utterly remove all of their various feasts, orgies, bacchanalias and observances, he simply stamped Christian names and observances onto the festivities that already existed. For instance, the Feast of Ishtar, a Spring Fertility Feast replete with rabbits, eggs and other symbols of fertility, occurred close to the time of the Passover, when Christ rose from the dead. The two were effectively mashed together, and the early-risers who went to celebrate the rising of the sun, the rebirth of Tammuz, and his mother Semirimus, called Ishtar, was simply "Christianized" to celebrate the resurrection of Christ from the dead. In fact, it's pretty spooky that the most significant religious observance of the calendar year still bears her name - Easter! And, people in the Christian church still run out to greet the sun as it rises - a form of Babylonish Baal (sun god) worship.
Anyway (you can see this coming), rather than try to stop the mid-winter Saturnalia feast, called "birthday of the unconquered sun," Constantine simply imposed the birth of Christ onto that date in order to give it significance for every citizen of Rome, regardless of their personal depth of Christian commitment. It was a small matter to change "the sun" to "the Son." And, in keeping with their penchant for mixing and matching heathen and Christian names and concepts, that holiday came to be known as the Christ-mass. The English word "mass" is derived from the Latin "masse," which is derived from the Greek "maza," which were small, round barley cakes baked to honor Semirimus as the "queen of heaven." That name was carried into the Catholic worship service, with its veneration of Mary as "queen of Heaven." So, when the Mass was performed to honor her child, it was designated the yearly "Christ-mass." We just call it Christmas.
And, Christmas doesn't have the sort of illustrious American history that modern folk assume. It was understood to be a pagan practice by the earliest pilgrims and settlers. In fact, Christmas was generally outlawed in America until the end of the last century. Up until 1870, the city of Boston proclaimed that anyone missing work on Christmas Day would be fired. Factory owners required employees to come to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas in order to insure they would not go to church that day. And any student who failed to go to school on December 25 was summarily expelled. Alabama was the first state of the union to recognize Christmas as a legal holiday, but that was late in the nineteenth century. It's amazing how times have changed; now that Christmas is a staple in our national economy.
While there's some debate as to where the various traditions and observances of Christmas started, it's clear that most of them pre-date Christ Himself. They were simply carried over from their heathen roots into the "christian" culture. And, Santa Claus is one of those traditions. If you do a simple search on the Internet on the History of Christmas, or the history of Santa Claus - remember that "Santa" comes from the Latin word for "saint" - you'll find a wealth of debate and information. But, it's clear that a fat man in red coming down the chimney to give gifts to children has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.
The reason I referred to him as Baal, is because of the ancient mid-east and European wood carving that depict Baal as an old man with a long white beard, usually holding a fir, or evergreen, tree as a sign of eternal life. That exact imagery, by the way, appeared on this year's Christmas stamps from the US postal service. Spooky.
It's funny how inculcated this essentially heathen custom has become in our society, though. I once told a woman that I didn't care for Christmas and she accused me of being an atheist! But, it's just the opposite. I don't like Christmas because I am a committed Christian! Certainly, Jesus was right when He said, "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." (Mat. 15:6)"

Answer 9

not so much stealing as borrowing.

its like 'well you could worship the sun god on the 25th, or you could worship jesus!'

it was done for PR.

Answer 10

Do you realize that we really do not care !?! What difference when we Celebrate Christs birth, we Celebrate it on a Day convenient for us, so what !?!