Pagan holidays mixing with Christian ones

Heavenhome · Feb 2, 2018

Denadii said:
Continually spouting stuff that contradicts the Word does say a lot about what a person believes....And NO I do not celebrate those events any more than Jesus did. There are no truly Christian events...Only renovated pagan ones.

Denadii I am with you all the way. Once I studied the origins of both Christmas and Easter I found there was no way to equate either with Christianity. It was hard to go against the majority but obedience to God is more important and the only things I could find as Christians to observe are the Lords Day and Communion. I am not going to engage in arguing my belief I am answerable to God alone. I previously loved the whole Christmas thing but eventually could not continue as there was nothing Biblical about it nor did the early church observe it.The very fact God did not give us the date is reason enough that it was not something we were to "celebrate".
All I wa

GreekOrthodox · Feb 2, 2018

Happy Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day 2018: Punxsutawney Phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter

and have a Joyous Feast of the Presentation!

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Root of Jesse · Feb 2, 2018

Denadii said:
You need to investigate the celebtion of Easter (Ishtar) a bit deeper It was celebrated for thousands of years before Jesus rose from the dead

Are you worried about the celebrations, or are you concerned with what we commemorate? While I know Catholic parishes that have Easter Egg hunts after the last Easter Mass, what you must know is what we celebrate-the Resurrection of Jesus, our Lord. And "Easter" comes from old English "Oestre". Also, many Catholic Churches have trees on the sanctuary and wreaths for Advent and candles, but you are free to not use any of them, you don't even have to give gifts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, either. In fact, on birthdays, we give gifts to the celebrant, so what do we not give gifts to Jesus on Christmas? Regarding Halloween (and other secular celebrations like Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), and the like), we (Catholics) remember our saints who are alive in heaven, and getting drunk on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve (another holy day), St. Patrick's day and Mardi Gras are simply secular celebrations, not holy celebrations.

Ignatius the Kiwi · Feb 2, 2018

Heavenhome said:
Denadii I am with you all the way. Once I studied the origins of both Christmas and Easter I found there was no way to equate either with Christianity. It was hard to go against the majority but obedience to God is more important and the only things I could find as Christians to observe are the Lords Day and Communion. I am not going to engage in arguing my belief I am answerable to God alone. I previously loved the whole Christmas thing but eventually could not continue as there was nothing Biblical about it nor did the early church observe it.The very fact God did not give us the date is reason enough that it was not something we were to "celebrate".
All I wa

I'm curious as to how you dealt with Melito's Peri Pascha and the account we have in Eusebius of Ireneaus trying to stop the Bishop of Rome breaking communion with the Eastern Churches for celebrating Easter at a different time. How did you conclude based on these early Christian references to the Easter feast that Easter was Pagan?

prodromos · Feb 2, 2018

I'm still waiting for Denadii to tell us what his "good christian" sources are which led him to his "pagan basis" hypothesis.

Heavenhome · Feb 3, 2018

Ignatius the Kiwi said:
I'm curious as to how you dealt with Melito's Peri Pascha and the account we have in Eusebius of Ireneaus trying to stop the Bishop of Rome breaking communion with the Eastern Churches for celebrating Easter at a different time. How did you conclude based on these early Christian references to the Easter feast that Easter was Pagan?

HARK! · Feb 3, 2018

Elect Souls Matter said:
Easter is the first sunday after first spring full moon, therefore variable therefore no pagan roots whatsoever

What are its' roots?

Eusebius' Life of Constantine, Book 3 chapter 18 records Constantine the Great as writing:

"... it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. ... Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way."

Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History 1.9 records The Epistle of the Emperor Constantine, concerning the matters transacted at the Council, addressed to those Bishops who were not present:

“It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. … Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … avoiding all contact with that evil way. … who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. … a people so utterly depraved. … Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. … no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews.”

Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, volume 3, section 79, The Time of the Easter Festival states:

"The feast of the resurrection was thenceforth required to be celebrated everywhere on a Sunday, and never on the day of the Jewish passover, but always after the fourteenth of Nisan, on the
Sunday after the first vernal full moon. The leading motive for this regulation was opposition to Judaism, which had dishonored the passover by the crucifixion of the Lord. ... At Nicaea, therefore, the Roman and Alexandrian usage with respect to Easter triumphed, and the Judaizing practice of the
Quartodecimanians, who always celebrated Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan, became thenceforth a heresy. Yet that practice continued in many parts of the East, and in the time of Epiphanius, about a.d. 400, there were many, Quartodecimanians, who, as he says, were orthodox, indeed, in doctrine, but in ritual were addicted to Jewish fables, and built upon the principle: “Cursed is every one who does not keep his passover on the fourteenth of Nisan.”

Deuteronomy 27:26
"Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying
them out."

Daniel 7:25

Holman Christian Standard Bible
He will speak words against the Most High and oppress the holy ones of the Most High. He will intend to change religious festivals and laws, and the holy ones will be handed over to him for a time, times, and half a time.

HARK! · Feb 3, 2018

prodromos said:
To understand just how stupid this claim is, you need to realise that "Easter" is the Germanic name of the feast day while almost every other language group calls the feast "Pascha" or some derivative of it. English is a Germanic language. Next, Ishtar is an ancient Messopotamian goddess and whatever celebrations revolved around her cult are far removed from any pagan beliefs in Germany. There is absolutely no traceable link between Western German culture and the Middle East. Thirdly, the word Easter is derived from the Old Teutonic German word for "resurrection". Just to add, in several languages, the word for "rise" is the same as the word for "east", as in the sun "easts" in the morning and "wests" in the evening. The word "Oestre" has the same root as the Old Teutonic German "resurrection" and that is all that links them.

But if you want to look like an idiot, by all means continue pushing the old fallacies.

Easter (n.)
Old English Easterdæg, from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic *austron-, "dawn," also the name of a goddess of fertility and spring, perhaps originally of sunrise, whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *aust- "east, toward the sunrise" (compare east), from PIE root *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn.

easter | Origin and meaning of the name easter by Online Etymology Dictionary

prodromos · Feb 3, 2018

HARK! said:
Easter (n.)
Old English Easterdæg, from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic *austron-, "dawn," also the name of a goddess of fertility and spring, perhaps originally of sunrise, whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *aust- "east, toward the sunrise" (compare east), from PIE root *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn.

easter | Origin and meaning of the name easter by Online Etymology Dictionary

And as has already been pointed out on several occasions, the term "Easter" is only used in a couple of Germanic languages, of which English is one. Almost every other language refers to the feast of the death and resurrection of our Lord as "Pascha" or some derivative of the same.

HARK! · Feb 3, 2018

prodromos said:
And as has already been pointed out on several occasions, the term "Easter" is only used in a couple of Germanic languages, of which English is one. Almost every other language refers to the feast of the death and resurrection of our Lord as "Pascha" or some derivative of the sam

paschal (adj.)
early 15c., "of or pertaining to Easter," from Old French paschal (12c.) and directly from Late Latin paschalis, from pascha "Passover, Easter," from Greek pascha "Passover," from Aramaic (Semitic) pasha "pass over," corresponding to Hebrew pesah, from pasah "he passed over." (see Passover). Pasche was an early Middle English term for "Easter" (see Easter).

paschal | Origin and meaning of paschal by Online Etymology Dictionary

Paschal is not Pesach. Here is just one reason why:

"And first of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. For we have it in our power, if we abandon their custom, to prolong the due observance of this ordinance to future ages, by a truer order, which we have preserved from the very day of the passion until the present time. Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way. A course at once legitimate and honorable lies open to our most holy religion. Beloved brethren, let us with one consent adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from all participation in their baseness" --Constantine I

(CLV) Lv 23:5
In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month between the evening hours is the passover to Yahweh

“And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD {Yahweh} throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance FOREVER.” (Exodus 12:14)

prodromos · Feb 3, 2018

Of course the Jewish Pascha is not the Christian Pascha. The former is the shadow which is fulfilled in the latter. As Christians, we were not delivered out of slavery to Egypt. Through Christ the Lamb's death and resurrection, we who are united to Him are delivered out of slavery to sin and death. That is why the Church made the decision to celebrate the Christian Pascha apart from the Jewish Pascha, so there would be no confusion between the shadow and it's fulfillment.

Root of Jesse · Feb 7, 2018

Denadii said:
So then, explain to me how you can Christianize the demonic and have it Christian. If the roots are rotten how can you have a heathy tree?
Matthew 7:17
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

By making it Christian, you purge the demons, as Jesus cast out demons. Also, just because pagans burn candles and incense, and some Christians do so as well doesn't mean they have the same intent.

In fact, Baptism is not of Christian origin. But Christ was baptized, and made the ritual holy and gave it a different meaning.

Root of Jesse · Feb 7, 2018

Choose Wisely said:
So you think the Christmas tree came up first in Germany in the 16th century? I believe we can find the Christmas tree in the Bible long before the birth of Christ.

Jeremiah 10
3 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.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

No offense but you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. You really need to educate yourself so that you might know the truth. The proof that you are wrong is right there in Jeremaih 10. By the sound of your answers it appears you are in the clergy as it would seem odd for a lay person to give that answer for why Christmas is on Dec 25th.

For anyone interested in the truth..........

*Christmas - Dec 25th - Birthday of Tammuz, The sun god, the reincarnated Nimrod.
*Valentines Day - The birthday of Nimrod. Nimrod is Osiris, Odin, Mithra, Zeus, Jupiter etc, etc, etc, etc
*Lent - 40 days of mourning the death of Tammuz. Tammuz is Horus, Thor, Apollo, Krishna etc, etc, etc, etc.
*Easter - Honoring Semiramis, the mother and wife of Nimrod. At her death she becomes Ishtar...who is also known as Isis....Madonna.....Diana....Venus......Ashtoreth.....Devaki.....Cybele etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
*Thanksgiving - Honoring the goddess of the harvest Ceres with the festival Cerelia.......who also has many names as she is Semiramis. If you think the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 by the Pilgrims...........you are sadly mistaken.

God's chosen day of worship changed in 321AD from the Sabbath, to SUNday. The Lord's Day....Baal's Day. The venerable day of the sun by Constantine.

You're the one who has no idea what you're talking about. Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving aren't religious holidays, though Thanksgiving is sacred to Americans. And Christmas, Easter and Lent are what the Catholic Church defined them to be-celebrations of the birth and resurrection of Christ, and commemorating the 40 days He spent in the desert.
Christianity in no way changed the Sabbath. We worship Christ, who is God, on the day of his resurrection. The fact is, every day is holy in God's sight, and we Catholics worship God every day, not just on Sunday or Saturday.

Root of Jesse · Feb 7, 2018

Yanni depp said:
I dont think you could call halloween or Christmas a Christian holiday based on their origins.

But if i know what you mean....Instead of kissing under the mistle toe, druids used to sacrifice animals under it. Crazy...!

But that's not how we celebrate the birth of Christ. IT's how secular people celebrate a secular season.

Root of Jesse · Feb 7, 2018

Monna said:
Are Easter Eggs, Bunny Rabbits, Christmas trees jul logs, reindeer and Santa decscending the chimney to put goodie in "christmas stockings" and mistletoe also Christian in origin?

If you read Kenneth Bailey's "Jesus through Middle Easten eyes," you will have grave doubts about west European and N. American stories of the role of "no room in the inn" in Christ's birthday story. Also the fact that Herod killed all boys under the age of two, based on how long before the wise men from the east had seen the star arrived in Jerusalem, suggests that our cute little stories of shepherds and wise men all gathering around the baby in a manger in a barn, do not really add up. This doesn't make Christmas an originally pagan festival, but it does suggest that many people would rather hold to a "nice story" (that can generate a mighty commerical profit) rather than what is probably a more accurate version of "facts."

It is true that people sorta put all the events in a blender and see what pops out, but the Church doesn't say how long between Christ's birth and the wise men's visit and Herrod's massacre. The fact is you're probably right, but it's hard to write a song around it.

Where I live other "christian" holidays include Ascension Day, and Pentecost (Also related to Whit Sunday in some denominations), All Saints Day (rather than Halloween - the evening before) is also christian holiday. Epiphany is a day off (6th January).

We (Catholics) celebrate all of those, but Halloween is part of All Saints Day.

There is another less widely celebrated holiday "Walpurgis Night is the English translation of Walpurgisnacht, one of the Dutch and German names for the night of 30 April, so called because it is the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia." (Walpurgis Night - Wikipedia).

In other countries you will also find holidays celebrating christian "saints" (like St. Patrick's Day [17th Mar], and St. Stephen's Day [26th Dec] in Ireland). Do such days count as "christian holidays?"

It depends if you're Catholic or Orthodox or not.

tz620q · Feb 7, 2018

Root of Jesse said:
We (Catholics) celebrate all of those, but Halloween is part of All Saints Day.

I heard a Ukrainian Catholic professor talk about the fact that in the Eastern Rite Churches All Saints Day immediately follows Pentecost. This seemed an appropriate piece of theology, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit creates and helps sanctify Saints. Really enjoy your posts, Root of Jesse. May God be with you.

~Anastasia~ · Feb 7, 2018

tz620q said:
I heard a Ukrainian Catholic professor talk about the fact that in the Eastern Rite Churches All Saints Day immediately follows Pentecost. This seemed an appropriate piece of theology, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit creates and helps sanctify Saints. Really enjoy your posts, Root of Jesse. May God be with you.

It does in Orthodoxy too.

Root of Jesse · Feb 7, 2018

tz620q said:
I heard a Ukrainian Catholic professor talk about the fact that in the Eastern Rite Churches All Saints Day immediately follows Pentecost. This seemed an appropriate piece of theology, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit creates and helps sanctify Saints. Really enjoy your posts, Root of Jesse. May God be with you.

I like yours, too, my friend.

ViaCrucis · Feb 10, 2018

So short version: The idea that Christians are celebrating re-skinned pagan days is pure hokum. Yes, Halloween is a Christian observance, it's the Eve of All Saints Day--and there's nothing pagan about it.

Long version: In the 19th century there was a general idea among some academics to see Christianity, on the whole, as nothing more than an amalgam of pagan traditions and myths; and so virtually the entirety of Christianity was treated this way and various hypothetical scenarios were suggested. Of course, the academic position has since changed considerably, because the "Christianity is just re-skinned paganism" theory lacks any evidentiary support whatsoever; and over the last century we have a great deal of evidence to the contrary. At one point some thought that the Gospels were written as late as several hundred years after Jesus, but all evidence points to the Gospels having been written in the first century when many of the first generation Christians were still alive; nobody dates the Synoptic Gospels later than about 80 AD, and the latest anyone dates the Gospel of John is to about 110 AD.

These same folks assumed that Christmas, Easter, Halloween must have also have been pagan and thus a lot of conjecture was made. However there's no material evidence to support these notiongs.

Christmas is thoroughly Christian, celebrating Christ's birth. Christians were talking about Jesus being born on December 25th long before the pagan Romans were doing anything with December 25th. You will, online, here a lot about Saturnalia here, but Saturnalia was a multi-day festival which lasted from December 17th until December 23rd while Christmas is a twelve day season that lasts from Christmas Day (the Feast of the Holy Nativity) until Epiphany (January 6th). You will also find references made to Mithras and other pagan gods being born on December 25th, but it's pure hokum.

The same with Easter or Pascha, Christians have been celebrating the resurrection of our Lord since the beginning, the word "Easter" is uniquely English and we know by way of the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede (8th century) that the Anglo-Saxons called their version of the month of April Eostermonath, ("Easter-month"); Bede attributes the name of this month to a goddess named Eoster but tells us nothing else. But what's more interesting is that there's no evidence that the Anglo-Saxons worshiped a goddess named Eoster, there's no evidence of it whatsoever outside of Bede, as such it is very likely that Bede is mistaken and that Eostermonath has nothing to do with a goddess but like almost all the other Anglo-Saxon months is named after some aspect of nature or the seasons. But this has not stopped some people from making claims such as that Eoster was a fertility goddess who was symbolized by the hare and eggs; except that again there's no evidence for this "Eoster" outside of Bede and Bede certainly says nothing like this. In other words? Pure hokum.

Halloween. Yes, super spooky, must be evil and pagan right? No. Halloween literally means [All]Hallow's Eve[ning], it's actually a contraction, Hallowe'en. The word "hallow" should be familiar to most English speaking Christians as it's in the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name", it's related to the word "holy". The word "hallow" means "holy", but modern English has instead adopted the Latin-based "saint" for regular usage. All Hallow's Day is just All Saint's Day. It's a day of remembering the lives of all God's people. All Saint's Day is on November 1st, as such the evening prior, October 31st is known as All Saint's Eve, or Hallowe'en. You might find on the internet the claim that Halloween is based on the pagan Celtic celebration of Samhain and all sorts of claims associated with Samhain; small problem, the feast of All Saints being celebrated on November 1st had nothing to do with the Celts, but began in Rome after Pope Gregory III (d. 741 AD) dedicated an oratory to all the saints, and in the years following the feast of All Saints (which had been celebrated for centuries at other times on the calendar) became situated on November 1st, becoming the official a couple hundred years later. Ah, but what about trick-or-treating, that's pagan right? Nope, that was invented in the United States in the early 20th century by business owners and business associations to give kids something to do. What about all the spooky imagery? Halloween happens in autumn, and as such autumnal imagery has been associated with it, including spooky things. But what about Samhain? Well, the problem there is that we know literally next to nothing about it, it was probably an end of summer harvest festival celebrated by the Irish Celts, and if later legends (written by Christians) it was much easier to see fairies on or around Samhain because the barrier between this world and the fae world was much thinner.

-CryptoLutheran

DamianWarS · Feb 11, 2018

mathinspiration said:
How many pagan traditions can you find in Christian ones? Hint: Halloween.

the church is full of pagan adoptions but this is not a failure of the church it is a power and testament to the fluidity of the gospel and how it can take values from any nation or tribe and redeem them for the glory of God. The deception today is when we take these adopted traditions and tell others this is the only way it looks. Paul tell us we should be slaves to our mission but our mission should not be slaves to our basterised traditions. if our mission likes to worship by bowing their heads down to the ground facing a certain direction then this too can be redeemed to give glory to God. We should be searching endlessly for ways to reveal the glory of God through cultural forms and values rather than demanding the lost to adopt our systems.

Pagan holidays mixing with Christian ones

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