“WHERE did we get CHRISTMAS? … From the Bible or from paganism?”
-Herbert Armstrong, “The Plain Truth About Christmas”, 1970, p. 5
A great question! But it's a false dilemma.
It suggests there are only two possibilities - Biblical or pagan. I suggest there is another possibility.
In my last post, The Plain Truth About December 25th, we saw that there is compelling evidence to believe that Christians did not co-opt the date of Christmas from the pagans but rather the early Christians calculated the day. (I also recommend you read our article "Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees".)
After that post, I started noticing people asking where the idea of Nimrod and Christmas trees came from. I decided it was worth a look. So that's what this post is going to be about. The answers were surprising to me. I’m definitely going to have to make this a two-parter.
Today, we are going to see that Nimrod is supposedly connected to Christmas trees by way of two other gods named Cybele and Attis. We're also going to see that this is bunk. But first we have to fish through a barrel of various gods to try and find what is actually being claimed.
It suggests there are only two possibilities - Biblical or pagan. I suggest there is another possibility.
In my last post, The Plain Truth About December 25th, we saw that there is compelling evidence to believe that Christians did not co-opt the date of Christmas from the pagans but rather the early Christians calculated the day. (I also recommend you read our article "Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees".)
After that post, I started noticing people asking where the idea of Nimrod and Christmas trees came from. I decided it was worth a look. So that's what this post is going to be about. The answers were surprising to me. I’m definitely going to have to make this a two-parter.
Today, we are going to see that Nimrod is supposedly connected to Christmas trees by way of two other gods named Cybele and Attis. We're also going to see that this is bunk. But first we have to fish through a barrel of various gods to try and find what is actually being claimed.
MUSICAL GODS
To get answers I first needed to get specific details about the claims. Those had to come from Herbert Armstrong and Alexander Hislop. I started by opening Herbert Armstrong’s booklet “The Plain Truth About Christmas.”
To get answers I first needed to get specific details about the claims. Those had to come from Herbert Armstrong and Alexander Hislop. I started by opening Herbert Armstrong’s booklet “The Plain Truth About Christmas.”
Beginning on page 10 we are treated to a tale about Nimrod.
“After Nimrod’s untimely death, his so-called mother-wife, Semiramis, propagated the evil doctrine of the survival of Nimrod as a spirit being. She claimed a full-grown evergreen tree sprang overnight from a dead tree stump, which symbolized the springing forth unto new life of the dead Nimrod. On each anniversary of his birth, she claimed, Nimrod would visit the evergreen tree and leave gifts upon it. December 25th was the birth of Nimrod. This is the real origin of the Christmas tree.”-Herbert Armstrong, “The Plain Truth About Christmas”, 1970, p. 10
Well, it turns out there is nothing to substantiate this. It is completely made up.
HWA took this without reference from Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons" page 98.
Hislop produces an illustration of an old coin with a snake wrapped around a tree stump (see "figure 27" on p. 98 of Hislop's book), and then Hislop proceeds to manufacture a story from the illustration.
Ralph Woodrow, in his book "The Babylon Connection" (we've written about this several times in the past, see our article "The Babylon Connection"), reveals to us that Hislop regularly took illustrations and manufactured entire myths from them.
Was it Osiris?
Hislop seems to be referencing the myth of Osiris, since he mentions a god being chopped into pieces. But the details of the myth of Osiris do not match what Hislop has written here. (I will go over Osiris and Horus in part II.)
Was it Adonis?
Hislop could also have Adonis in mind, since he referenced Adonis on page 97.
Ovid, in "Metamorphoses" book ten, does say Adonis was born when his mother was transformed into a Myrrh tree as punishment for her sins, but that doesn't match what Hislop has written.
Ovid also says Adonis was gored by a boar and turned into windflowers, and neither an evergreen nor a tree stump are mentioned in his death at all, so that doesn't match what Hislop has written either.
These details are no details at all. So now what?
HWA took this without reference from Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons" page 98.
Hislop produces an illustration of an old coin with a snake wrapped around a tree stump (see "figure 27" on p. 98 of Hislop's book), and then Hislop proceeds to manufacture a story from the illustration.
Ralph Woodrow, in his book "The Babylon Connection" (we've written about this several times in the past, see our article "The Babylon Connection"), reveals to us that Hislop regularly took illustrations and manufactured entire myths from them.
Was it Osiris?
Hislop seems to be referencing the myth of Osiris, since he mentions a god being chopped into pieces. But the details of the myth of Osiris do not match what Hislop has written here. (I will go over Osiris and Horus in part II.)
Was it Adonis?
Hislop could also have Adonis in mind, since he referenced Adonis on page 97.
Ovid, in "Metamorphoses" book ten, does say Adonis was born when his mother was transformed into a Myrrh tree as punishment for her sins, but that doesn't match what Hislop has written.
Ovid also says Adonis was gored by a boar and turned into windflowers, and neither an evergreen nor a tree stump are mentioned in his death at all, so that doesn't match what Hislop has written either.
These details are no details at all. So now what?
Back to Herbert Armstrong's booklet on Christmas...
On page 11, HWA mentions that Semiramis and Nimrod are known by other names. Listed among them are Cybele and Deoius (he takes this without reference from Hislop's "The Two Babylons" page 20.) Ah! That gives us something to go on.
On page 11, HWA mentions that Semiramis and Nimrod are known by other names. Listed among them are Cybele and Deoius (he takes this without reference from Hislop's "The Two Babylons" page 20.) Ah! That gives us something to go on.
Was it Deoius?
Do a Google search on Deoius. Why does this name only come matched with “the worship of Semiramis” and only as referenced by Alexander Hislop? This is made up, too.
Do a Google search on Deoius. Why does this name only come matched with “the worship of Semiramis” and only as referenced by Alexander Hislop? This is made up, too.
“Shocking as these facts are, they are the plain facts of history and the Bible!”-Herbert Armstrong, “The Plain Truth About Christmas”, 1970, p. 13
But Cybele, she’s legit... and there's a pine tree involved!
CYBELE
There was once an ancient goddess from Asia Minor whose name is most likely Kybele (Cybele is her Greek name). Philippe Borgeaud has much to say about Cybele in his book “Mother of the Gods”
Borgeaud believes the origins of the goddess are rather ancient, but the oldest remaining evidence we have comes from a rock carving in Phrygia from around the early 6th century BC with the inscription “Mater Kubeleia” (Cybelian Mother).
Notice that this is some 1,500 years after Nimrod and nearly a thousand miles away. Liken that to finding graffiti spray-painted on a wall in Serbia and attributing it to Emperor Justinian's mother.
There was once an ancient goddess from Asia Minor whose name is most likely Kybele (Cybele is her Greek name). Philippe Borgeaud has much to say about Cybele in his book “Mother of the Gods”
Borgeaud believes the origins of the goddess are rather ancient, but the oldest remaining evidence we have comes from a rock carving in Phrygia from around the early 6th century BC with the inscription “Mater Kubeleia” (Cybelian Mother).
Notice that this is some 1,500 years after Nimrod and nearly a thousand miles away. Liken that to finding graffiti spray-painted on a wall in Serbia and attributing it to Emperor Justinian's mother.
I should note that Borgeaud starts his book by denying the theory that all mother goddesses are interrelated (there may be many ancient mother goddesses from many ancient cultures, but that doesn’t mean they are all versions of the same goddess). Borgeaud also denies that Cybele is Mary the mother of Jesus. This is in line with what the current majority view among Biblical historians.
As we make our way down through history, across Greece and into Rome, into the second century AD, Cybele was then paired with a male god named Attis. This is where the plot starts to thicken.
ATTIS
There are many divergent stories about Attis, and compelling evidence that the Attis myth adopted various features of Christianity, but it’s the evergreen tree specifically that brings Attis to our attention.
Arnobius of Sicca, in his book “Against Pagans” book V chapter 7, tells one of the various tales where Attis castrates himself beneath an evergreen tree, bleeds to death, and violets spring up from his blood and grow up into the nearby tree.
Why does this interest us? Two reasons:
First, because of Hislop’s claims about Nimrod and the evergreen tree.
We can see that things are not as Hislop would lead us to believe. An evergreen is involved, but these rituals are uniquely about Cybele and Attis, uniquely Rome; not Nimrod, not Babylon – and not Catholic.
We can safely dismiss the supposed connection between Nimrod and Cybele/Attis. Therefore we can also dismiss the supposed connection between Nimrod and all evergreen trees. Especially this one.
Second, because of HWA’s claims about Cybele/Attis and the Christmas tree.
Even if we do dismiss the connection between Nimrod and Cybele/Attis, we should still ask, are there any similarities between Cybele's tree and the Christmas tree?
You might want to buckle up for this.
SIMILARITY TO CHRISTMAS TREE?
In ancient Rome there were festivals called “Hilaria.” There were many of these throughout the year, but we are interested in one particular Hilaria that honored Cybele. Again, “Against Pagans” book V gives a description of this particular festival:
“What mean the fleeces of wool with which you bind and surround the trunk of the tree? Is it not to recall the wools with which Ia covered the dying youth, and thought that she could procure some warmth for his limbs fast stiffening with cold? What mean the branches of the tree girt round and decked with wreaths of violets? Do they not mark this, how the Mother adorned with early flowers the pine which indicates and bears witness to the sad mishap?” (Chapter 16.)
“That pine which is regularly born into the sanctuary of the Great Mother, is it not in imitation of that tree beneath which Attis mutilated and unmanned himself, which also, they relate, the goddess consecrated to relieve her grief?” (Chapter 17.)
Roger Pearse has more in his articles “Attis – A Useful Dissertation” and “Festival of Cybele Today?”
So the cult of Cybele took an evergreen and decorated it with garlands of violet flowers specifically. The trunk was wrapped in wool. Are any of these things done to a Christmas tree? No.
People may stick on the point that garlands were used, but the garlands were violets specifically. Just like with the wool, the violets had a specific meaning and that is why they were used. This was not just decorating a tree; there were no bulbs, no ornaments, no lights, no tree skirt, no tinsel, no star on top.
Just so that you're aware, garlands in themselves aren’t uniquely pagan.
There were garlands of precious metals decorated with bulbs shaped like pomegranates on the Temple in Jerusalem (II. CHR. 3: 16).
Chains: Strong’s H8333 “shar-sher-aw' a chain; (architecturally) probably a garland: - chain.”
The NKJV even uses the word “wreaths.”
A FUNERAL?
But there’s more!
What was done with the evergreen tree after this?
It was put on a cart and taken by procession to the temple of Cybele on Palatine Hill in Rome. This from Roger Pearse’s article “Carmen Adversus Paganos”:
What was done with the evergreen tree after this?
It was put on a cart and taken by procession to the temple of Cybele on Palatine Hill in Rome. This from Roger Pearse’s article “Carmen Adversus Paganos”:
“We have seen lions bearing yokes wrought in silver, [10] when joined together they pulled creaking wooden wagons, and we have seen that man holding silver reins in both his hands. We have seen eminent senators following the chariot of Cybele which the hired band dragged at the Megalensian festival, carrying through the city a lopped-off tree trunk, and suddenly proclaiming that castrated Attis is the Sun.[10] The lions of Cybele; see M. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis, London 1977, pp. 96ff.”
Do we do this with Christmas trees? No.
Does anyone place it on a cart and walk it through town? No.
Does anyone place it on a cart and walk it through town? No.
People may stick on the point that the tree was set up for display. Well, there is no evidence that it was "set up" for display. It probably just stayed on the cart. That is as superficial a similarity as I can think of.
But there’s more still!
What was done with the tree once it reached the temple?
What was done with the tree once it reached the temple?
First they would mourn for it, and then they would hold a funeral for it.
You see, the cart was a funerary procession, not a joyous parade. There are a good number of people who report that they would even bury it. That's right! They would hold a funeral for it, and then bury it.
Some people claim the funeral was only symbolic. Does it matter?
The last thing most people would think to do with their Christmas tree is to give it a funeral. Checking the facts about the story seems to be important, wouldn't you agree? I can't believe how we were told half-truths!
IN THE SPRING?
But there’s even more still!
Everyone knows that Christmas is on December 25th. Do you know when the Hilaria took place?
On March 22nd, in a festival called Arbor Intrat (the Tree Enters), the tree was cut down and taken in procession to the temple of Cybele.
The next day was a day of mourning.
The next day, Sanguis (the Day of Blood), is when they held the funeral.
The day after that, March 25th, was the official Hilaria for Cybele where there was much rejoicing (you might say, it was hilarious.)
I try not to quote WikiPedia unless I'm making a point that the information is so available anyone can find it, but read the WikiPedia article on Hilaria.
SUMMARY
A funeral in March for a tree under which a man castrated himself and bled until violets sprung up is supposedly the same as a Christmas tree? These are "the plain facts of history and the Bible"?? I couldn't disagree more.
This was sold to us as truth - God's truth. God have mercy on the people who are so malicious against the truth and their fellow Christian!
HWA and Hislop have willfully distorted the facts. The only similarity here is that the trees are pine.
Evergreen trees were used in their pagan rituals, this is true, but this was a spring funeral ritual, not a winter birth celebration. If anything, we would expect to see "Easter trees" at Eastertide. But there are none.
And don’t forget that God also used evergreen trees - as palms are an evergreen - in His worship (NEH. 8: 14-17). Garlands with fruit-shaped bulbs were on His very temple (II. CHR. 3: 16).
If HWA’s point was to make Attis’ evergreen into one and the same as a Christmas tree, then why are we seeing these outrageous differences, distortions, and omissions?
Oh, how I wish I had the means and desire to check these details long ago.
Evergreen trees were used in their pagan rituals, this is true, but this was a spring funeral ritual, not a winter birth celebration. If anything, we would expect to see "Easter trees" at Eastertide. But there are none.
And don’t forget that God also used evergreen trees - as palms are an evergreen - in His worship (NEH. 8: 14-17). Garlands with fruit-shaped bulbs were on His very temple (II. CHR. 3: 16).
If HWA’s point was to make Attis’ evergreen into one and the same as a Christmas tree, then why are we seeing these outrageous differences, distortions, and omissions?
Oh, how I wish I had the means and desire to check these details long ago.
In the next post, I will look into another story from Hislop with another pair of gods from Egypt.
************
It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; ) Acts 17:11
************
It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; ) Acts 17:11
************
3 comments:
I'm reminded of the practice in some Catholic countries where they make representations of saints, place them on carts, and parade them through their village, not unlike how Pasadena would have the Rose Parade in the dead of winter, which the students at Ambassador participated in.
Indeed.
Have you heard of the UCG "Winter Festival" which is held around Christmas time?
Quite interesting that they would do such a thing.
Great research x.
Post a Comment