Christmas and Lady Day
An article by the late Alexander Hislop
The following text represents one of the most
scholarly works by a Christian author on the origins of Christmas.
Though written over 80 years ago, the facts are no less true today. The
original book has copious notes taking up, in some places, more than
half of the page! For brevity the many footnotes citing the source
title, place and date of publication have been left out at this time.
Please forgive the long paragraphs as we have observed all of the
original author's punctuation, spelling etc.
My copy of this book was at the time I bought
it (16 years ago) available from:
Loizeaux Brothers. Bible Truth Depot
Neptune, New Jersey 07753 Thanks to my children, Shannon and
Sean Casey for their work in typing this in!
Excerpted from: "The Two Babylons" or
"The Papal Worship" by Alexander Hislop Published in 1916
Chapter III, Festivals, Section 1,
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
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 strove 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 year, and the ceremony 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 - Yuleday 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 had 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
indubitable 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 as 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 Years 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 the 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 the 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 come part 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 honor 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 recognized as "Man of 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 the
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 symbolized as a huge tree, stripped of all
it's branches, and cut down almost to the ground. But the great
serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Esculapius, twists itself
around the dead stock, 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
symbolized the new-born God as Baal-barith, "Lord of the Covenant," and
thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power,
now 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 invictisolis, " 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 that
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 misletoe bough. That misletoe bough
in the Druidic superstition, which, as we have seen, we derived from
Babylon, was a representation of the Messiah, "The man the branch." The
misletoe was regarded as a divine branch - a branch that came from
heaven, and grew upon a tree that sprang 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
misletoe 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 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
the version of the story of the death of Adonis, of 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 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
practiced both in Egypt and at Rome. 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 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. Before 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
synchronized, not only to the month, but to the day? The thing is
incredible. Lady-day and Christmas-day, then, are purely Babylonian.
[End of Excerpt]
