Christmas' Pagan Roots and Santa Claus' Other Names

Christmas is coming, and everyone that celebrates the holiday has been getting ready by putting decorations around the house, Christmas lights outside and a Christmas tree in the living room. It is a fun time to celebrate family and giving. Making cookies for the holiday and exchanging presents are exciting, especially for children. There are many new shows on TV about Christmas, movies to see in the theater and new toys advertised. Video games are popular. It is a bit ironic that they are usually about fighting and shooting other video characters.

Yet, knowing the full story on the festival makes one realize that they actually fit it pretty good. The spirit of the season is about being merry and generous. Christmas is advertised using primarily Santa and his elves. Yet, it involves Christianity and the birth of Jesus Christ in the manger. Most, if not every, Christian knows that December 25th is not the actual birth time of the baby Jesus and that he actually had been born earlier in the year in the Fall. Most Christians realize too that Santa Claus does not really fit in any true beliefs or accounts in scriptures. Santa has other names such as Saint Nicholas the patron saint of children in the Catholic church. He is a man that prayed for three murdered boys to come back to life and they did according to the accounts (Christmas, Yule, Past). Yet, this is not the same as riding in a sleigh using flying reindeer and delivering toys to good little boys and girls after descending down a chimney.

Santa has more names than I am listing in this article. However, the main ones most people know such as Saint Nicholas and Kris Kringle. He has several other names that are not mentioned at Christmas time and not everyone has heard before. According to historians, the festival of Christmas originated in Babylon as part of the beliefs and idolization of the Queen of Heaven, and the birth of her son. She is known as Isis in Egypt, the first recorded accounts of festivals are here. Her son in Babylon is Gilgamesh from the Gilgamesh epics. He later becomes known as Nimrod. Hence, Nimrod is one of the aliases for Santa. This is actually a derisive term for the vulgar, lewd, unmentionable and violent behavior of Gilgamesh. Other than that viewpoint, Gilgamesh is described as a hero, an excellent hunter of lions and a hunter of men in versions of the Gilgamesh epic (Livingston-2001). Surprisingly, those video games do fit into the season.

These sun or son beliefs and festivities are rooted in sun idolization as an integral part of the harvest and keeping track of the seasons for agricultural purposes. The sun comes to a solstice over the winter season, days become shortened until the shortest day occurs and they begin to lengthen again after this. This equinox is considered the birth point of the sun or son of the Goddess of Nature and the lengthening of days is the growth of the son. The solstice has been celebrated by partying, drinking, eatting, orgies and exchanging presents in many places and cultures. Romans celebrated this festival as the birth of Saturn or Saturnalia (Wittmann-2002).

Back to Christmas and the Christmas tree, the tree had originally been believed to be a transformed state of the Queen of Heaven in Babylon. Her son is then a branch on the tree, in Egypt this is a palm tree. Her son is born in winter in the winter solstice. The new lengthening of days is from the birth of the son or sun and his growth. Mother and son idolization from Babylon are the basis for many versions of pagan beliefs and festivals at winter time. The trees, present giving, yule logs and characters like Santa and his elves are originally beliefs from Babylon that became modified over the course of history. Gilgamesh dies at a young age from a violent death and then is said to have come back to life as a man-god being. The mystery religions have Nimrod represented as a branch that gets stripped and cut down, his death. This branch then develops a sprout of a different type of tree representing Nimrod's new self. This is re-enacted in Norse beliefs by putting the Yule log in the fire to burn. At this time, the goddess Hertha appears in the burning fire (Heiliczer, Armstrong). Then, on Christmas day the evergreen tree represents Nimrod reborn as a god being (Christmas, Yule, Past). These many versions of the Babylonian story especially Mithraism, the son being Mithra, encompassed a large number of prospective converts. It is easy to see the similarities between the Nimrod stories and Lucifer falling from a tree and being turned into a different form by God. (Livingston-2001 & FESTIVALS, Zionsake).

The Catholic Church under pope Julius I decided that combining the popular pagan festivals many people practiced at the time and the birth of Jesus Christ into one big celebration for the birth of Christ had the advantage of gaining more people to the Catholic church. He made his announcement in 350 A.D. that Christ's birthday be celebrated on December 25th (Wittmann-2002) After this time, the festival became incorporated into Christiandom and Catholicism as Christmas and became an interesting Christian festival that has direct roots into many pagan festivals that go back to the time of Babylon. Jesus easily became the son figure in the festival and the virgin Mary took the place of the goddess figure. Believers in Mithraism and other versions of mother son idolatry had a more conducive environment for accepting Catholicism since they no longer had to throw out their other beliefs. Mithraism had been the most popular belief in Rome and Greece, Mithra being a Persian male sun god (Loughran-1997). December 25th had been the date of the festival. called the Nativity, celebrating the birth of Mithra (Heiliczer, Armstrong). Since then, Christmas has grown in popularity as a pseudo-Christian festival and become the thing that it is today.

References

"Christmas, Yule and the Winter Solstice" Past and Present Festivals of Britain. Mysterious Britain. Dec,04,2007.

"FESTIVALS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME." Christian Zionist Perspectives. Zionsake at Holyland Inc.Dec,04,2007.

Heiliczer, Reb Yeshayahu. "CHRISTMAS, or PAGAN-MASS?" The Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association. Dec,04,2007

Livingston, Dr. David P."Nimrod - Who was he? Was he godly or evil?" Associates for Biblical Research. Originally published in ABR's BIBLE AND SPADE 14.3 (2001), pp. 67-72. WebBible Encyclopedia. Sept.,19, 2007. ChristianAnswers.Net. Dec,04, 2007. >

Loughran, David B.."Is Christmas Christian?" Stewarton Bible School, Stewarton, Scotland.1997. Reformatted: December 1999, Dec,04, 2007.

Wittmann, Kelly. "Christmas' pagan origins Few people realize that the origins of a form of Christmas was pagan & celebrated in Europe long before anyone there had heard of Jesus Christ" © 2002 Pagewise. Essortment Information and Advise You Want to Know. essortment.com.Dec,04,2007