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BY HERBERT VEGO
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A SONG sung by Jose Mari Chan heralds the “first Christmas.” He was referring to the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger, encouraging its yearly celebration. But the Bible says nothing about Jesus having celebrated his birthday. Not even once!
As I have been saying here in previous Christmas seasons, there is no historical support for the claim that he was born at any time on Dec. 25.
By now, most professing Christians have read or heard that Christmas originated from a pagan festival and jumped over the Christian world unquestionably.
I, too, used to believe that Jesus was born Dec. 25. But history shows otherwise.
The word “Christmas” is an abbreviation of “mass of Christ.” In a sense, the belated celebration of the first Dec. 25 Christmas – according to Roman Catholic Church history – occurred in Rome in 320 A.D. Was it coincidental that the date had always been celebrated by pagans as the Saturnalia or birthday of Saturn, the god of agriculture? Saturn was also known as the “Unconquered Sun.”
It was an attempt to appease the pagans, who were celebrating Dec. 25 as the Roman Saturnalia (a festival dedicated to sun god Ba-al and to Saturn, the god of agriculture). That festival included licentious behavior and riotous merrymaking.
Until then, Christmas had never been observed by the apostles. Otherwise, why did they say nothing of it?
It could have been one of the religious falsehoods “that would deceive the world” as prophesied by the Apostle Paul in II Timothy 4:4.
Jesus could not have been born on Dec. 25, winter time in his birthplace in Bethlehem, because “there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8).
That could not have occurred in the month of December. The shepherds always brought their flocks from the mountainsides and fields and corralled them not later than Oct. 15 to protect them from the cold, rainy season that followed that date.
It was an ancient custom among Jews of those days to send out their sheep to the fields and deserts in the early spring, and bring them home at commencement of the first rain.
There is nothing in any encyclopedia, including the Catholic Encyclopedia, which reveals the proven date of Jesus Christ’s birth. The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
“Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church…The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.”
The Roman world had been pagan. Until the fourth century, Christians were few in number. But with the advent of Constantine as Roman emperor in the fourth century, the Roman world accepted Christianity by the hundreds of thousands.
Since these people had grown up in pagan customs, Dec. 25 eventually crept into the new religion as birthday of the Son of God.
It was only in the fifth century, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, that “the Western Church ordered it to be celebrated forever on the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, as no certain knowledge of the day of Christ’s birth existed.”
The Christmas “lie” has since then been perpetrated and perpetuated all over the world as if it were the historical truth. As already summarized here, the historical truth shouts a different story.
But of course, I don’t mean to compel readers of this column to change their minds. I don’t argue but return the greeting when wished a “Merry Christmas.” As inspirational author Dale Carnegie said, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”/PN
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