The Date Of Christmas

[Aphrodite]

I think maybe I should have put that in inverted commas, i totally agree and the gently coax was somewhat tounge in cheek...

[spittle]

But didn't the Norse gods play any part in this?

I know that some of the names of the days are directly derived from them Thors Day, Fraya's Day....

[roman wargamer]

As I recall, the date of Christmas was fixed in the 300's at Rome. How was this done? What relationship did the Christian holiday of the Nativity have to do with pagan Saturnalia?

 

The feast of "Catholic Christmas" was invented in Rome

by a heretic name Artenon and first celebrated in Constantinople on 373 A.D. (p.47)

 

The New Shaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge

[jud]

Interesting little discussion going on here and I hope you dont mind me adding my thoughts.

 

Throughout the comments made it is constantly mentioned that Constantine was making Christianity more appealing to the pagans. However since he was changing facts about Jesus, and the teaching of the bible, was he not instead paganising christianity?

[Marcus Caelius]

Throughout the comments made it is constantly mentioned that Constantine was making Christianity more appealing to the pagans. However since he was changing facts about Jesus, and the teaching of the bible, was he not instead paganising christianity?

 

Quibble. The Church was not trying to appeal to pagans, it was actively working to supplant, replace and bury paganism for all time. Holidays were co-opted, gods were replaced by saints, and religious sites were "paved over" and literally buried by churches and cathedrals. It was a coherent plan promulgated via edict of Pope Gregory I.

 

As to whether this constitutes "paganising Christianity," what's your point? The Church has never been a stranger to deceit, propaganda, and misinformation, witness the Shroud of Turin, various weeping statues and bleeding mummified hearts, claimed miracles, the Inheritence of Constantine, etc. It's even possible to convincingly argue with the very existence of Jesus of Nazareth (personally, I don't see any need to go that far, so long as you bear in mind the description of Mithras, above - thanks to whomever wrote it).

[jud]

Quibble?

 

In effect you made the point that I was trying to make. You say the church was trying to,"replace and bury paganism for all time. Holidays were co-opted, gods were replaced by saints, and religious sites were "paved over" and literally buried by churches and cathedrals.". Co-opting Holidays and gods and adding Jesus name to them doesn't bury paganism but perpetuates it under a different banner. To some extent you point out that the church is still doing this today for you speak of, "deceit, propaganda, and misinformation, witness the Shroud of Turin, various weeping statues and bleeding mummified hearts, claimed miracles, the Inheritence of Constantine, etc.". again adding Jesus name to this activity doesn't make it acceptable for the church to be doing these things, and in effect misleading people.

 

Jesus, when speaking before Pontius Pilate said, "For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth". When Constantine began adapting Christianity, what had been truth now became contaminated with pagan ideas and truth was lost, and as you say, is still lost in the church today. So by Constantines actions he not only brought about the end of paganism in the pure sense, but also we lost what was pure christianity.

[Marcus Caelius]

No, I was quibbling with you, I wasn't saying that you were doing the quibbling. We agree on the essentials, but you seem to feel Christianity lost its innocence, while I feel it never had any innocence to lose. Even from the beginning Christianity, relied on sideshow trickery; after Constantine, "the Church" retained the sideshow and added brute force, becoming indistinguishable from what it was supplanting.

 

Jesus' name wasn't added to any of these activities, it was all supposedly done in his name from the very beginning, and the Church is/was not "in effect" misleading people about the facts, it is/was attempting to make it impossible to register any kind of dissent.

 

And what is "pure Christianity," anyway? All of the four Gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Jesus supposedly was crucified ~33 AD. Did anybody who actually heard the words of this carpenter-turned-rabbi know how to write? Paul of Tarsus, who never knew Jesus, injected his own personal quirks into the mix, and it was only after he wrote his epistles, thus providing a filter for any oral tradition of the words of Jesus, that Christian history began to be recorded. "Pure Christianity" has never been practiced by any organized body, simply because no one knows what Jesus actually said.

 

Assuming he existed at all.

[jud]

Thanks for the explaination of quibble, you can tell I'm a newbie to this.

 

I think, as you stated, we do agree on the essentials, but whereas you think the church never was innocent I do believe that it was at one time and that that was lost after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. I do believe that Jesus was an historical figure and many historians accept that he did exist. The attached information is just one of a number of quotes from historians who accept the existance of Jesus.

 

Was Jesus a Myth?

 

 

[Rameses the Great]

Was Jesus a Myth?

 

I would just like to ask where in history does it say that Jesus is a myth, and did the Jews not mention him in written archeological evidence?

[Marcus Caelius]

Was Jesus a Myth?

 

 

Edited November 20, 2006 by Marcus Caelius

[Pantagathus]

Quibble. The Church was not trying to appeal to pagans, it was actively working to supplant, replace and bury paganism for all time. Holidays were co-opted, gods were replaced by saints, and religious sites were "paved over" and literally buried by churches and cathedrals. It was a coherent plan promulgated via edict of Pope Gregory I.

Obviously the plan didn't work very well....

 

But let's try to keep this to task and on topic. Arguing the general veracity of Christianity is laid out in another thread on the Forum.

[Marcus Caelius]

Was Jesus a Myth?

 

I would just like to ask where in history does it say that Jesus is a myth, and did the Jews not mention him in written archeological evidence?

 

You're probably talking about the writings of Josephus, ~90 AD, and the authenticity of his passage(s) about Jesus have been called into question. Josephus therefore constitutes undependable heresay evidence.