ChristMASS or ChristMISS?

Has somebody been having a jolly ho-ho-ho time for almost 2000 years on Christmas day? While almost 2 billion churchians may have massed themselves in cathedrals and churches globally to commemorate Christ’s birth, could they have missed the true Christ? Let’s consider the Christian calendar and Christmas.

Based upon evolutionary influence the Encyclopedia Britannica, with confident intellectual aplomb declares: “The Church year has deep roots in primitive man’s impulse to mark certain times with sacral significance and ritual observance.” [Encyclopedia Britannica, Macropaedia, 13th Edition, Vol 4, p 600, article: “Church Year”. Emphasis added.] 

The assumption is that “primitive man” devised a calendric system, the mathematical complexities of which far exceed the capabilities and comprehension of 99% of most tertiary level educated people.

Illustratively, and since Britannica introduces the Church Year article by referencing its historic “Jewish background”, it is to be noted that it took the greatest mathematical geniuses of Jewish intelligentsia over seven centuries to define and refine [not perfect] their fourth century Hillelian calendar! The mathematical and religious intricacies are complex. It was thus an “evolutionary” process – not executed by “primitive man” but rather by highly intelligent man.

Britannica, nonetheless, asks us to believe “primitive man’s impulse” served as the root – the source, origin, or motivation – of a religious calendric complexity exceeding common ken.

Ironically, to date, sixteen centuries later, Rabbinic religious authorities have not yet resolved their “divine calendar”. Disputes still exist, considering, inter alia, the Karaite conflict.

The ultimate solution? According to Jewish calendric scholar, Arthur Spier, in his seminal work, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar [recommended by past President of Yeshiva University, Samuel Belkin, for Universities, Yeshivas, academic institutions, libraries, synagogues, and learned Rabbis], “the sanctified calendar of Hillel II is to be modified [corrected!] in accordance with the requirements of astronomy and the Torah.” Indeed!

Similar corrections are apropos to the Christian calendar where departures from biblical sacred days and amalgamation of God’s original sacred days with the festal pollutions of the heathen – specifically the two great feasts of Churchianity, Easter and Christmas – have blinded Christians and blighted their church calendar.

Having acknowledged their departure from the Divine Law instituted at Genesis 1:14, Exodus 9 and 12, and Leviticus 23, in the determination of their sacral festivals, Rabbinic correction is awaited.  But how and when, and through what authority, will the correction happen? 

Act 3:21, speaking of Christ, states: “Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things …” – this includes the sacred calendar which He instituted.

But back to Britannica’s “primitive man” …

There was no “primitive man” developing along an evolutionary trajectory, relentlessly trudging through muddy marshes and muddled mental machinations towards an intelligent calendric cycle, striving to create a certain seasonal succession by which to design, configure and compute highly complex “times and seasons” whereby he, "evolving" man, could sacerdotally order his evolving life and religion.

There was only a highly intelligent man and woman to whom the Creator gave a ready-made universe with a specifically designed cosmic calendar suitable to the physical and spiritual needs of two soulish beings and their offspring.

It was this divinely designed calendric cycle [sacred days within annual seasons] within which man was placed to function religiously and reverentially. These holy days [Leviticus 23] pagan Churchianity mangled and manipulated to crown its sacred year with the resplendent grandeur of the sun god on December 25!

ORIGINS

ALL calendars originated with the Creator God who formed and fashioned, structured and designed, annual seasons regulated by the sun, moon, and stars in their respective cosmic positions and cycles [Gen 1:14] by which humankind were to honor and worship their Creator.

In other words, the Creator, having “set” these cosmic bodies [Gen 1:17], is the ORIGINATOR OF CALENDRIC CONCEPTS. It was designed and designated to serve a divine purpose – to link man to his Creator, to His creation, and to human destiny and eternity.

To ecclesiastically, or rabbinically, or individually, designate as sacred, different days from those which the Eternal purposed, is not only to misappropriate his design and purpose, but replaces His sovereignty with insignificant others, i.e., idols! Thus, the command: “enquire not after their gods [idols]” [Deut 12:30].

Intelligent man, dependent upon his Creator, was to religiously function within God’s inexorable calendar cycles. God set out specific seasons associated with specific religious observances as detailed in the Law [Torah]. For instance, Passover, commemorating the death of Christ -- not Easter, which honors a pagan sex goddess [see earlier blog on Easter] -- is to be kept in the spring season. [Exodus 12, Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16, et al..]

Paradoxically, Britannica got THAT right! They declare, regarding the origins of the church calendar, under subtitle ‘’Jewish background”, that “The Jewish religious year [is] grounded in the divinely revealed Law of the Old Testament.”  [Emphasis added.]

This august work admits that the calendar is of divine origin though it obfuscates the issue of the Sabbath by immediately thereafter contradictorily declaring, “Of uncertain origin … [is the] sabbath” which was “transformed … ïnto a sacral day consecrated to Yahweh” [Ibib, p.601, emphasis added].

Britannica scholarship seems deliberately obfuscatory, or bereft of scholarly honesty, when, stating that the Sabbath day [the seventh day of the week, secularly named after a pagan god, Saturn (Saturday)] – is of “uncertain origin” and, to crown it all, then questioning its “original purpose”.  

As admitted by this work, the Sabbath is part of the “divinely revealed Law” [Exodus 20, 31 with Gen 2:1-3.] and its original purpose is contained in the very word “Sabbath”, meaning REST!  

Apparently primitive man – you know, that crude creature, the nascent homo sapiens emerging from non-intelligent, mind-less, soul-less slime – was able to ascend transformatively by sheer evolutionary slimish will-power from gook, gunge, and gunk into Avahi Occidentalis [or some such-like Madagascarian ape], to reach the progressive pinnacle of intelligent, mind-full, soul-imbued humanhood – then to transform God’s calendar to suit his now highly evolved mind and soul. [Surprisingly, evolutionist have not yet concluded that this primitive, self-evolving man, created the universe!  No, they went one better – nothing created that!] (See our blogs on creation.)

 But I segued anachronistically … back to Britannica, calendar and Christmas …

The Christian calendar – and hence ultimately Christmas – is based upon a “lunar-month calendar stemming [originating] from the primitive nomadic life of the Hebrews …” [ibid].

To the contrary, the calendar stemmed – originated – from God at creation who established a luni-solar calendar [Gen 1:14]. not from these seemingly visionary primitive Hebrews, as contexted in Britannica’s article. 

Though we can quibble with the obtuseness, questionable intention, or lack of theological understanding of Britannica, it remains true -- as they admit! -- that the Christian church calendar is based upon the “Divinely revealed Law of the Old Testament.” But this basis was appropriated and developed into self-serving constructs by the nations and their priesthoods to suit their religious perversions and preferences. Hence when the tribes of Israel were on the verge of entering the promised land, Yehovah sternly warned them not to search out and study the religious calendric customs – the ways and days – of the demon worshipping nations.  He said:

Deuteronomy 12:30  “Take heed to yourself that thou be not snared by following [these nations] … and that you enquire not after their gods, [demons] saying, How did these nations serve their [demon-]gods? even so will I do likewise. 31 You shall not do so unto YEHOVAH your God: for every abomination [everything disgusting and abhorrent] to YEHOVAH, which he hates, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.” 

According to Jeremiah 10:1-5 one demonic deception pervasive among pagans was the erecting of a tree, decking it with gold and silver and paying homage to it. When, in their calendric cycle did the pagans engage in this practice? Every year,as attested to throughout history, on the 25th of December!

Jeremiah 10:2  “Thus saith Yehovah, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed [fearful, afraid and thus prostrate yourself] at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts 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 [morally revere, worship, or honor]; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.” [Keeping these heathen demon-gods' festivals will not be a blessing, neither will refusing to keep them be a curse!]

STALKING CHRISTMAS

Searching for the real birth date of Christ on the internet reveals an astonishing array of articles, videos, podcasts, and sermons by the learned and the pretentiously learned – sometimes the more pretentious the less learned! – who focus upon the "glory" of Christmas. Examining just a few sites will cause you to stagger data-drunk among an array of dates on the calendar.

Christ’s birth is variously posited as being Nisan 1 [Johnathan Cahn, et al]; Tishri 1 [Trumpets/Yom Teruah, see Marie Casale, “The course of Abijah points to the birth of Christ” (on Tishri 1, 5 BCE)]; or Tishri 15 [Tabernacles/Sukkot, favoured by many, because Christ “dwelt” (tabernacled) with man, John 1:14, [Jim Staley]; while early Church fathers considered that Christ’s birth coincided with the assumed creation of the world at the spring equinox; some consider this the conception to give them a birth at December 25  (Biblical Archaeology). But most popular among the over two billion “Christians” remains the merry myth of December 25, which Hebrew scholar Miles Jones [B'Nai Emonah Institute], posits to be, not the birth, but the gift-giving date, since the Maggi arrived about two years after the birth when Yeshua was already a toddler.

So, when was Christ born?

Highly learned academicians, mathematicians, calendrists, and theologians wrestled with this dilemma for millennia. Do we have a definitive answer?

THE IRONY

Amazingly scripture is absolutely silent regarding a specific BIRTH DATE for Christ. Yet Churchianity will insist upon finding a date for Christ’s birth to enable it to conscience-soothingly, sentimentally, and sanctimoniously commemorate and celebrate it. In contradistinction, over 2 billion Churchians, under their ecclesiastical leadership, totally ignore the event and date which scripture clearly commands true Christians to observe – Christ’s DEATH, the annual Passover, on Nisan 14, to be observed after sighting of the first annual spring season new moon.

Astonishingly, Christ’s death, specifically commanded to be observed by Christ himself, is clearly dated in Scripture as Nisan 14 on the sacred biblical calendar. Yet, nowhere is there the slightest hint that his birth is to be commemorated nor, therefore, is any date indicated.

This is not to deny that the perpetrating cabal within fake Christianity have, surprisingly in many cases, factual archeological, calendric, chronological, and astronomical authentications with which to bolster their sentimentally and emotionally preferred dating of the nativity.            

With erudite historic interpretations, refined reasonings, and sophisticated self-justifications, and a sense of superior holiness, a host of scholars, researchers, and a motley menagerie of sanctimonious clergy, bequeath sanctity upon December 25, Christmas. But as all the evidence will corroborate throughout the thousands of articles on the internet and in voluminous scholastic works, it is but a man-made religious observation. In essence it’s man dictating to God how and when He should be honored and celebrated. It’s the “primitive man” becoming insolently intelligent and sophisticated to the point of dictating calendar and custom to the Creator!

Churchianity have coarsely compromised and syncretized "the faith once delivered" [but largely lost today] with heathen customs to celebrate what the Eternal declares “abominable” --- abhorrent and disgusting! [Deut 12:30-31; Jer 10:1-5.]

By now, every informed pope, priest, pastor, or prelate of any description across the denominational and sectarian spectrum are fully aware of, and supportive of this counterfeit birth date; a date foisted upon an unsuspecting western Churchianity almost eighteen centuries ago.

THE PAGAN CONNECTION

The pagan connection with the birth of the gentile sun god, ‘Sol Invictus’ [the ‘Unconquered Sun’] has been well documented from historic and classical sources.

Popular tradition that December 25 is the supposed birth date of Christ is due to the merging of the purported birth of several pagan gods dating from c. 3000 BCE, including, inter alia, such “deities” as Egypt’s Osiris and son Horus; Phrygia’s Attis c. 1400 BCE; Zarathustra c.1000 BCE; Heracles c. 850 BCE; Dionysus c. 200 BCE; and let’s not forget Achilles, Aeneas, Anchises, Asclepius, Pythagoras and Pythias whose December 25 birthday claims were celebrated long before the pagan emperor Constantine consolidated the feast in an already corrupted Christianity, in the highly corrupt pagan Roman Empire. [For an insightful article on Pagan deities born on December 25 see (https://www.biblechristiansofgod.com/).]

The history behind Constantine’s consolidation of December 25 as the supposed birthday of Christ is hardly known in Church circles. It starts about a century before Constantine appears on the scene.

The utterly perverse Syrian-Arab teenage Roman emperor, Elagabalus (born Various Avitas Bassianus), who succeeded Caracalla, ruled for four years. By age 18 he had most heinously debauched the emperorship. So base was he that his grandmother, who, by her wealth and political influence, secured him the throne, plotted his assassination by his Praetorian Guard in 222 CE. On March 13 they unceremoniously tossed his diseased, prostituted cadaver into the Tiber.

But despite his disdainful disregard of Rome’s traditional deities, Elagabalus succeeded in one thing: he invested his patron deity, the Syrian sun god Elagabal, of which he was the high priest, as the supreme Roman sun god, Sol, and assumed to himself the soubriquet “supreme pontiff”, the highest priest of the unconquered god, the sun, Elgabal”.  Thus, he introduced and promoted the cult of Sol, the sun god.

This Assyrian sun god cult gained great acceptance and popularity among Roman soldiers so that, 50 years later, Emperor Aurelian recognized the cult of Sol Invictus as the official religion of Rome.

Having emerged as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon, Aurelian built one of the largest temples in the Campus Agrippae in Rome to honor the sun god, Sol Invictus. He purportedly dedicated the temple in 274 CE on December 25, the “birth date” of Sol, the sun god.

The celebration of Sol Invictus on December 25, being also the date of the winter solstice when the sun begins its annual rebirthing cycle, gave rise to it being called the Birthday of the Invincible Sun. Dies Natalis Solis Invicti retained its prominence for the next 50 years up until Constantine’s “conversion”, when he, presumptively, in total ignorance of God’s conversion process [and despite having the celebrated but seemingly equally biblically ignorant historian-bishop, Eusebius, as advisor], proclaimed  Christianity as the state religion, retaining the celebration of December 25, ostensibly honoring Christ, by conflating the “Sun of Righteousness” [the resurrected Christ, Mal 4:2] with the pagan "Sun Victorious", or "Sol Invictus".

The Chronographer of 354, or the Philocalian Calendar, indicates that early Christians believed that Christ was born eight days before the “calends of January”, meaning December 25, (inclusive reckoning), and that the festival was observed by the church in Rome by 336 CE. It was exported from Rome to the eastern churches of the empire where Christians of the first two centuries never celebrated the birth of Christ. It took another hundred years before the December 25 feast was recognized by the mother church in Jerusalem under the leadership of Bishop Juvenal [424-458].

Constantine, after his 325CE “conversion”, consolidated “Sol Invictus” worship, making December 25 the invincible imprimatur of PAGAN ROME.  PAGANISED Churchianity followed in its wake.

A BIBLE INDICATOR?

Luke was inspired to provide history with a detail such as the “course of Abijah” [Luke 1:5]. He equally provided general indicators about the time of Christ’s birth in chapter 2. [The census, Cyrenius' procuratorship, and the shepherds.] Matthew indicates the nativity by referencing the Magi from the east and Herod's rule [chapter 2].

The question remains, why was neither Luke nor Matthew inspired to provide the exact date of Christ’s birth? Surely if it were important to the Father, to Christ, the Apostles, and the early ecclesia, to celebrate the birth date of Christ, the EXACT date could have been recorded. After all, at the time of their writings, James and Jude (two of Christ’s brothers), his sisters and most likely his mother Mary, were still alive, yet not a hint regarding the date of Christs’ birth!

Since the late 15th century various historians pointed out that Christmas was inextricably linked to pagan observations.  There was the most distinguished German Theologian, Paul Ernst Jablonski (1693-1757) who wrote a treatise “Concerning the origins of Christmas”. Following Jablonski, there were others writing on the origins of Christmas being linked to the festival of the "birth" of the “Unconquerable Sun”. Famous historian, Roman Catholic Cardinal Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), in his seminal work: “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” demonstrated the confluence of Christmas and Sol Invictus. Following on in the 19th century was Anglican Priest, Alexander Hislop (1807-1865), with his epoch-making, “The Two Babylon’s”. The December 25-Christmas pagan connection, by preponderance of evidence, is indisputable. And, indeed, it required “breathtaking mental acrobatics”, and great speculative ingenuity, combatively stretched out over centuries, to bind the birth of "Sol Invictus" to the birth of Christ. The sun created is not the Sun Creator! [Mal 4:2]

Deuteronomy 12:30-32 contains a dire warning to all who will follow the calendric customs of the nations, particularly Christmas [Jeremiah 10:1-5].  It is ultimately a choice of Life and Death [Deut 30:15-17].

When, as tradition will have it, “reformer” Martin Luther, lit up his Christmas tree with candles to replicate Bethlehem’s starry sky on  December 25,  did he highlight Christ-mass or did he, despite his learning, engage in a Christmas that  missed the true Christ?

In closing: consider the word “Christmas” -- the "Mass of Christ". Is there possibly a deeper double-entendre concealed within the word "Mass"? The Latin literally means “dismiss”. While some hold that the word “Mass” applies to the dismissory formula at the conclusion of any service, it is nonetheless ironic that it is attached to the person of Christ, thus literally implying “Dismiss Christ”!

Has somebody been having a jolly ho-ho-ho at the expense of Christless Christianism?

References

BiblicalArchaeology. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/department/in-history-55/

Britannica, E. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/church-year

Cahn, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlsXtTf6n0

THE 137 REASONS WHY. Retrieved from https://www.biblechristiansofgod.com/135-reason-we-don-t-observe-christm

Staley, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from Passion for Truth Ministries: https://passionfortruth.com/holidays/sukkot/gods-prophetic-calendar-sukkot/