There are many other pagan traditions that Christianity has accepted with open arms. Stock Credit: Stock.Xchang
Did you know that many traditions that are generally viewed as Christian traditions are actually from pre-Christian, pagan beliefs, festivals, and worship? Here are some traditions that may come as a surprise:
Christmas Trees
At the Winter Solstace, druids would cut oak trees and decorate them with balls (the testicles of bulls, symbolizing fertility). This tradition actually dates all the way back to Nimrod, who is the grandson of Ham and, maybe, the builder of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 10:8,9). At the death of Nimrod, his mother/wife Simeramis taught their son, Tammuz, to place gifts under a specific tree at the Winter Solistace because it was believe that Nimrod, when he died, became the sun. At the Winter Solistace, the sun is at its weakest (shortest day of the year) and he needed gifts to give him back his strength. Wreaths, boughs, and holy, also used at Christmas time, were circular on purpose: to represent the sun.
Did you know that in the early years of America, the colonies outlawed Christmas as we know it? Why? Because of Jeremiah 10:2-4, which reads: “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”. The US did not celebrate Christmas as we know it for its first hundred or so years!
Then in 1846, the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland, causing the US to have a large number of Irish immigrants. These immigrants brought with them a mixture of Roman Catholic and Druidism beliefs and traditions, which included the Christmas tree.
Easter Bunnies…and Easter Itself
Also a tradition that dates back to Nimrod. Nimrod married his mother, Semiramis, and they had a son, Tammuz. After Nimrod’s death, Semiramis instituted the belief in a pagan trinity: Nimrod became the sun god, Semiramis became mother earth, and their son Tammuz. Other names of Semiramis are: Ishtar, Maia, Diana, Isis, Venus, etc. She was also called Easter. The festival of Easter was dedicated to Semiramis, “Easter” or mother earth, and always held on the Spring Equinox.
It was a sex/fertility festival. For the weeks leading up to Easter (which coincide with the Catholic weeks of Lent), the pagans would refrain from sexual activites in the hopes of causing their pagans gods and goddesses to… and replentish the earth. Eggs and rabbits were fertility symbols used during this ancient pagan festival and the pagans would hide the eggs from evil spirits by putting them with rabbits. (Easter egg hunt, anyone?)
Hot cross buns were also used during this festival because the woman symbol (a circle with a cross underneath) was the Babylonian symbol for women: the circle is for the sun god and the cross is for equinox. As you may realize, trying to make a woman symbol out of bread was difficult, so they simply moved the cross from beneath the circle into the center and got Hot Cross Buns.
The pagan goddess Easter (Semiramis) was often pictured as a woman surrounded by lilies, her flower, with a sun burst around her head. This image was adopted by Catholics to adorn their images of Mary, mother of Jesus. This “sun burst”, representing the sun god, was also adopted by artists to mean ‘godly’ or ‘saintly’ and, especially during the baroque period, were placed around the heads of Jesus, John the Baptist, Mary, Jesus’ disciples, and Saints.
Wedding Rings
Though some disagree, most believe that the wedding rings date before the Romans and Greeks back to the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians had the tradition of, at the wedding ceremony, the man placing a gold coin on one of the wife’s fingers to show he trusted her with his money.
For Romans: Gold rings were prefered because gold was a symbol of the sun’s strength (the Roman sun god being Mithras). Roman wedding rings were carved with two clasped hands; very early rings had a key through which a woman could open her husband’s heart. Romans, and some say Egyptians too, believed that the vein in the third finger of the left hand ran directly to the heart; thereby joining the man and woman together for eternity.
Conclusion
There are many other pagan traditions that our society (and Christianity) has accepted with open arms. You may be thinking: “How did this happen?” The simplest explanation is this:
In 325 AD, the emperor of Rome Constantine and the bishop of Rome Sylvestor called together a council of Christian leaders, which was called the Counsel of Nicea (where the Nicean Creed originates from). There were 220 Christian elders, called bishops, present. This council did a few very important things: 1- they announced that the Roman Bishop would be the head of the Christian church (the pope), 2- the Holy Day was changed from the Sabbath (seventh day of the week) to Sunday (first day of the week), 3- there was a strong penalty for 7th Day worshippers which ranged from imprisonment to death, and 4- the Festivals of Rome (which included Easter) were brought into the Christian faith.
In 525, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus suggested that the pagan festival of Christmas be added to Christianity. The name of the festival was obviously changed to Christmas, coming from the Greek word Christos or “anointed” and the Latin word misa or “depart”.
Now Christmas and Easter are commericalized holidays, believed by some to be Christian and others to be secular. On a whole, many Christians are appalled at how secularized these holidays have become, but hardly any Christians know of the pagan origins of these holidays! Other pagan holidays we as a society honor include: Halloween and Valentine’s Day.
So now we as Christians must make a decision: do we follow the world’s traditions or do we follow our Lord and Savior?
I leave you with John 17:15-17, in which Christ Himself says: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.“
