The origins of Christmas!

If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna enshrined in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the worshipping of whom the fierce anger of God was provoked against the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it is of the last consequence that the fact should be established beyond all possibility of doubt; for that being once established, every one who trembles at the Word of God must shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either individually or nationally, the least countenance or support. Something has been said already that goes far to prove the identity of the Roman and Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence becomes still more overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the different festivals is peculiarly so. The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation--viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected with the 25th of December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there, implies that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. *

It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have taken place at the end
of December. There is great unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes,
Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, in his "Jewish Antiquities," who are all of
opinion that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord's nativity, the celebrated
Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful
disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the following;--"At the birth of
Christ every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither
some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially
for women with child, and children to travel in. Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth
of winter. Again, at the time of Christ's birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks
in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the
winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the
gospel, 'Pray that your flight be not in the winter.' If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it
seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in."
Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our
Lord's birth cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival as
Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far
advanced did it gain much observance.
How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus:
Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated
among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the
Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the
heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was
adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of
Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in
his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this
respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. "By us,"
says he, "who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God,
the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are
carried to and fro, new year's day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are
celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take
special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians." Upright men strive to stem the tide, but
in spite of all their efforts, the apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small
remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan
festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still
celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven,
was born at this very time, "about the time of the winter solstice." The very name by which
Christmas is popularly known among ourselves--Yule-day --proves at once its Pagan and
Babylonian origin. "Yule" is the Chaldee name for an "infant" or "little child"; * and as the 25th
of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, "Yule-day," or the "Child's day,"
and the night that preceded it, "Mother-night," long before they came in contact with
Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.
Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. This festival has been
commonly believed to have had only an astronomical character, referring simply to the
completion of the sun's yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is
indubitably evidence that the festival in question had a much higher reference than this--that it
commemorated not merely the figurative birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the
birth-day of the grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the moon, and not
the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object of their idolatry, the same period was
observed as the birth festival. Thus we read in Stanley's Sabean Philosophy: "On the 24th of the
tenth month," that is December, according to our reckoning, "the Arabians celebrated the
BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD--that is the Moon." The Lord Moon was the great object of
Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according to them, was born on the 24th of December,
which clearly shows that the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the
course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if Christmas-day among the ancient
Saxons of this island, was observed to celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the
case must have been precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as is well known,
regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as a male.
It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not of the Sun, that was
celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was
observed by the Arabians on the 24th of December. The name of the Lord Moon in the East
seems to have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of the Divine statement
in Isaiah lxv. 11, "But ye are they that forsake my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad,
and that furnish the drink-offering unto Meni." There is reason to believe that Gad refers to the
sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the moon-divinity. *
Meni, or Manai, signifies "The Numberer." And it is by the changes of the moon that the months
are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth the time of  its going down." The name of the "Man of the Moon," or the god who presided over that
luminary among the Saxons, was Mane, as given in the "Edda," and Mani, in the "Voluspa." That
it was the birth of the "Lord Moon" that was celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we
have remarkable evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of Scotland to the feast
on the last day of the year, which seems to be a remnant of the old birth festival for the cakes
then made are called Nur-Cakes, or Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, "Hog-Manai" in
Chaldee signifies "The feast of the Numberer"; in other words, the festival of Deus Lunus, or of
the Man of the Moon. To show the connection between country and country, and the inveterate
endurance of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, commenting on the very words of
Isaiah already quoted, about spreading "a table for Gad," and "pouring out a drink-offering to
Meni," observes that it "was the custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all cities
especially in Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and furnish them with various luxurious
articles of food, and with goblets containing a mixture of new wine, on the last day of the month
and the year, and that the people drew omens from them in respect of the fruitfulness of the
year." The Egyptian year began at a different time from ours; but this is a near as possible (only
substituting whisky for wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day of the
last month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any omens are drawn from anything that
takes place at that time, but everybody in the south of Scotland is personally cognisant of the
fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before New Year's day, among those who observe old
customs, a table is spread, and that while buns and other dainties are provided by those who can
afford them, oat cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes but on
this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article of the provision.

Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon itself and elsewhere, at
this festival he was worshipped not merely as the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an
essential principle of the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God. When,
therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate, that implied also that he was an
incarnation of the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology, which is admitted to be essentially
Babylonian, this comes out very distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is represented as being
incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued. *
It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the winter solstice. That
festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there,
showed whence it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; * loose
reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, ** and used
all manner of freedoms with their masters.
This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken festival of the month
Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in
Babylon. "It was the custom," says he, "during the five days it lasted, for masters to be in
subjection to their servants, and one of them ruled the house, clothed in a purple garment like a
king." This "purple-robed" servant was called "Zoganes," the "Man of sport and wantonness,"
and answered exactly to the "Lord of Misrule," that in the dark ages, was chosen in all Popish
countries to head the revels of Christmas. The wassailling bowl of Christmas had its precise
counterpart in the "Drunken festival" of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up
among ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The candles, in some parts of
England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used so long as the festive season lasts, were equally
lighted by the Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honour to him: for it
was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his worship to have lighted wax-candles on his
altars. The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and
Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting
the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis,
the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree,
and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must
have been recognised as the "Man the branch." And this entirely accounts for the putting of the
Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next
morning. As Zero-Ashta, "The seed of the woman," which name also signified Ignigena, or
"born of the fire," he has to enter the fire on "Mother-night," that he may be born the next day
out of it, as the "Branch of God," or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men. But why, it may
be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be
remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the
great god (after that god had been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his
murderers. Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a
huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great serpent,
the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius, twists itself around the dead stock (see Fig. 27), and
lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree--a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to
be cut down by hostile power--even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The
Christmas-tree, as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the
very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the Christmas-fir; for that covertly
symbolised the new-born God as Baal-berith, * "Lord of the Covenant," and thus shadowed forth
the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, not that after having fallen before his enemies,
he had risen triumphant over them all.
Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the
victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, "The birth-day of the
unconquered Sun." Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but
cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus--the slain god come to life
again. In the light reflected by the above statement on customs that still linger among us, the
origin of which has been lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the reader look at the singular
practice still kept up in the South on Christmas-eve, of kissing under the mistletoe bough. That
mistletoe bough in the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon,
was a representation of the Messiah, "The man the branch." The mistletoe was regarded as a
divine branch *--a branch that came from heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprung out of the
earth.
Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree, heaven and earth, that sin had
severed, were joined together, and thus the mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man, the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation. Whence
could such an idea have come? May it not have come from the eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11,
"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have KISSED each other. Truth shall
spring out of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the promised Saviour], and
righteousness shall look down from heaven"? Certain it is that that Psalm was written soon after
the Babylonish captivity; and as multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in
Babylon under the guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the Divine word it must
have been communicated to them, as well as to their kinsmen in Palestine. Babylon was, at that
time, the centre of the civilised world; and thus Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol as it
ever has done, had opportunities of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all the
ends of the earth, through the Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system in
Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast surprising light at once on the
revelations of grace made to all the earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to
materialise, carnalise, and degrade them.
In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a boar was fabled to have
done him. According to one version of the story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as
we have seen, in consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The Phrygian
Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with that of Adonis, was fabled to have
perished in like manner, by the tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly
represented in popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great mother of the
gods, has frequently the boar's head as her accompaniment, in token not of any mere success in
the chase, but of her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which she
occupied so conspicuous a place. According to Theocritus, Venus was reconciled to the boar that
killed Adonis, because when brought in chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically that it had
not killed her husband of malice prepense, but only through accident. But yet, in memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its head or was offered in sacrifice to the
offended goddess. In Smith, Diana is represented with a boar's head lying beside her, on the top
of a heap of stones, * and in the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 28), in which the Roman Emperor
Trajan is represented burning incense to the same goddess, the boar's head forms a very
prominent figure. On Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a boar in sacrifice to the Sun, to propitiate her ** for the loss of her beloved Adonis.
In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed the great article at the
feast of Saturn, as appears from the following words of Martial:--
"That boar will make you a good Saturnalia."
Hence the boar's head is still a standing dish in England at the Christmas dinner, when the reason
of it is long since forgotten. Yea, the "Christmas goose" and "Yule cakes" were essential articles
in the worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both in Egypt and at
Rome (Fig. 29). Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that "the favourite offering" of Osiris
was "a goose," and moreover, that the "goose could not be eaten except in the depth of winter."
As to Rome, Juvenal says, "that Osiris, if offended, could be pacified only by a large goose and a
thin cake." In many countries we have evidence of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is
well known that the capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being
surprised by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the geese sacred to Juno, kept in
the temple of Jupiter. The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 30) proves that the goose in Asia Minor
was the symbol of Cupid, just as it was the symbol of Seb in Egypt. In India, the goose occupied
a similar position; for in that land we read of the sacred "Brahmany goose," or goose sacred to
Brahma. Finally, the monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic
character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as well as in Rome or Egypt, for
there the priest is seen with the goose in the one hand, and his sacrificing knife in the other. *
There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter solstice--in other words,
Christmas--was held in honour of the birth of the Babylonian Messiah.
The consideration of the next great festival in the Popish calendar gives the very strongest
confirmation to what has now been said. That festival, called Lady-day, is celebrated at Rome on
the 25th of March, in alleged commemoration of the miraculous conception of our Lord in the
womb of the Virgin, on the day when the angel was sent to announce to her the distinguished
honour that was to be bestowed upon her as the mother of the Messiah. But who could tell when
this annunciation was made? The Scripture gives no clue at all in regard to the time. But it mattered not. But our Lord was either conceived or born, that very day now set down in the
Popish calendar for the "Annunciation of the Virgin" was observed in Pagan Rome in honour of
Cybele, the Mother of the Babylonian Messiah. *
Now, it is manifest that Lady-day and Christmas-day stand in intimate relation to one another.
Between the 25th of March and the 25th of December there are exactly nine months. If, then, the
false Messiah was conceived in March and born in December, can any one for a moment believe
that the conception and birth of the true Messiah can have so exactly synchronised, not only to
the month, but to the day? The thing is incredible. Lady-day and Christmas-day, then, are purely
Babylonian.



The Two Babylons
or The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod
and His Wife
By the Late Rev. Alexander Hislop
First published as a pamphlet in 1853--greatly expanded in 1858.