A Historical Perspective of Christmas for Devotees
BY: URDHVA KETU DAS
Dec 28, 2013 — USA (SUN) — Sankirtan is a yagna—sacrifice—meant for the purification of the entire world. It is not a mere party or hedonistic smorgasbord of sense gratification as Christmas has become.
www.simpletoremember.com is a website that gives a historical look at Christmas, and describes the origins of the "holiday's" symbols, like the Christmas tree and gift-giving. We also learn the details of how this atrocious hoax of commercialism called Santa Claus came into being. The site is intended for Jews, but this article—though from a Jewish perspective—sticks to the historicity of the thesis. And since Jesus himself was a Jew and did not teach Christianity (which today has bifurcated into tens of thousands of different cults), no Christian scholar can ignore the fact that Christianity has its roots in the place where Jesus himself was coming from. That is why the great Shrila Shri Bhaktivinoda Thakur himself has called Lord Jesus Christ "the Jewish prophet" (and not "the Christian prophet").
I am submitting this article to the learned editor of Sun with the hopes that they will print it because it appears from the unfortunate trend of dressing Lord Krishna and Shrimati Radha in "Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus" outfits, as well as other artistic compromises, many members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness have not understood what a colossal offense they are creating by equating Deity worship of Shri Shri Radha-Krishna archa vigraha with Christmas, a festival that in truth has nothing to do with Lord Jesus Christ, and a lot less to do with Krishna consciousness. Furthermore, Santa Claus from the very beginnings when he was actually defined by Coca-Cola, is the number one symbol of consumer greed and desires.
As mentioned, the article—though well-researched and scholarly—is from a Jewish perspective. But since Jesus accepted that God was also present in the places of Jewish worship (when he threw the merchants from the synagogue calling it the temple of the Lord) therefore we can understand that by his teachings God is not found in "Christianity" alone. However, the fact that God is worshipped all over the earth in different ways is no cause to water down the supreme philosophy that has come down via the protective shelter of parampara in the form of Krishna's representative, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his teachings in Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Shrimad Bhagavatam, Shri Chaitanya-caritamrita, etc.
In the Bhagavad-gita (7.16) Shri Krishna explains to Arjuna the symptom of first class devotion, and that does not mean approaching the Lord to seek Christmas presents, which is why Christians are taught to revere the gift-giving Santa Claus.
"O best among the Bhāratas [Arjuna], four kinds of pious men render devotional service unto Me—the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute."
From the Bhaktivedanta Purport: Unlike the miscreants, these are adherents of the regulative principles of the scriptures, and they are called sukṛtina, or those who obey the rules and regulations of scriptures, the moral and social laws, and are, more or less, devoted to the Supreme Lord. Out of these there are four classes of men—those who are sometimes distressed, those who are in need of money, those who are sometimes inquisitive, and those who are sometimes searching after knowledge of the Absolute Truth. These persons come to the Supreme Lord for devotional service under different conditions. These are not pure devotees because they have some aspiration to fulfill in exchange for devotional service. Pure devotional service is without aspiration and without desire for material profit. The Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu defines pure devotion thus:
anyābhilāṣitāśūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṁ bhaktir uttamā.
"One should render transcendental loving service to the Supreme Lord Krishna favorably and without desire for material profit or gain through fruitive activities or philosophical speculation. That is called pure devotional service."
When these four kinds of persons come to the Supreme Lord for devotional service and are completely purified by the association of a pure devotee, they also become pure devotees. As far as the miscreants are concerned, for them devotional service is very difficult because their lives are selfish, irregular and without spiritual goals. But even some of them, by chance, when they come in contact with a pure devotee, also become pure devotees.
Those who are always busy with fruitive activities come to the Lord in material distress and at that time associate with pure devotees and become, in their distress, devotees of the Lord. Those who are simply frustrated also come sometimes to associate with the pure devotees and become inquisitive to know about God. Similarly, when the dry philosophers are frustrated in every field of knowledge, they sometimes want to learn of God, and they come to the Supreme Lord to render devotional service and thus transcend knowledge of the impersonal Brahman and the localized Paramātmā and come to the personal conception of Godhead by the grace of the Supreme Lord or His pure devotee. On the whole, when the distressed, the inquisitive, the seekers of knowledge, and those who are in need of money are free from all material desires, and when they fully understand that material remuneration has nothing to do with spiritual improvement, they become pure devotees. As long as such a purified stage is not attained, devotees in transcendental service to the Lord are tainted with fruitive activities, and they search after mundane knowledge, etc. So one has to transcend all this before one can come to the stage of pure devotional service. "
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
Only a crass and shameless materialist will approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead Shri Krishna for material wealth (which only implicates in karma and causes more misery in the terrible cycle of samsara.) Therefore, depicting Lord Krishna as some gift-giving Santa Claus is the greatest disservice to devotional service. (Image Source)
The History of Christmas
Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen - www.simpletoremember.com (Images added)
I. When was Jesus born?
A.
Popular myth puts his birth on December 25th
in the year 1 C.E.
B.
The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus'
birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark's, written about 65 CE – begins with the
baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked
interest in or knowledge of Jesus' birthdate.
C.
The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius
Exiguus, a Scythian monk, "abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as
follows:
a.
In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from
ab urbe condita ("the founding of the City" [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC
signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of
Rome's reign, etc.
b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor
Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.
c.
Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years
old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign.
d.
If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius' reign, then he
lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus' 28th
year of reign).
e.
Augustus took power in 727 AUC. Therefore, Dionysius put
Jesus birth in 754 AUC.
f.
However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus' birth in the days of
Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which
Dionysius places Jesus birth.
D.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical
Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical
Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association – writing
in the Catholic Church's official commentary on the New Testament,
writes about the date of Jesus' birth, "Though the year [of Jesus birth is not
reckoned with certainty, the birth did not occur in AD 1. The Christian era,
supposed to have its starting point in the year of Jesus birth, is based on a
miscalculation introduced ca. 533 by Dionysius Exiguus."
E.
The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document
believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus
birth on March 28. Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought
Jesus was born on November 18. Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses
that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.
II. How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on
December 25?
A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia,
a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During
this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could
be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong
celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose "an enemy of the
Roman people" to represent the "Lord of Misrule." Each Roman community selected
a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures
throughout the week. At the festival's conclusion, December 25th,
Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by
brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
B.
The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in
his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival's observance in
his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread
intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other
sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some
English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).
C.
In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported
the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian
leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by
promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as
Christians.
D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically
Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named
Saturnalia's concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus' birthday.
E.
Christians had little success, however, refining the
practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the
University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, "In return for ensuring massive
observance of the anniversary of the Savior's birth by assigning it to this
resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be
celebrated more or less the way it had always been." The earliest Christmas
holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the
streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.
F.
The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in
1687 that "the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25
did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the
Heathens' Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to
have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones."
Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its
observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.
However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.
G. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia
carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope
Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked
through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, "Before they
were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for
them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid
Rome's taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon
a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily."
H.
As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th
and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were
forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers
of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome
sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual
Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, "It is not opportune to
make any innovation."
On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into
Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews
were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped.
Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.
The photo of this offensive display was taken in an ISKCON temple. Note even Lords Gaura and Nitai were not spared this mental speculation. They are also bedecked in red "Santa Claus" attire. Polar bears have replaced cows and a sled with reindeer has replaced Lord Krishna's chariot and horses.
III. The Origins of Christmas Customs
A.
The Origin of Christmas Tree
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with
the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were
recruited by the Church sanctioning "Christmas Trees".
Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes
and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian
veneer by the Church.
B.
The Origin of Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow
by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use
mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.
The Christian custom of "kissing under the mistletoe" is a later synthesis of
the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.
C.
The Origin of Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised
citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and
Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among
the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor
by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).
The photo of this offensive sahajiya display taken at ISKCON Amritsar was run on the ISKCON Desire Tree website. It met with widespread comments from approving devotees as you can read here
D.
The Origin of Santa Claus
a.
Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and
later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He
was only named a saint in the 19th century.
b.
Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened
the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they
produced portrayed Jews as "the children of the devil"
who sentenced Jesus to death.
c.
In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved
his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas
supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua
Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The
Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the
Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant
they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas' death, December 6.
d.
The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by
German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden
–their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long,
white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When
Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard,
mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.
e.
In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe,
the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they
should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th.
f.
In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of
Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several
times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch
name, Santa Claus.
g.
Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read
Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the
character Santa Claus: "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the
house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung
by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…"
Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended
through chimneys.
h.
The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the
modern picture of Santa Claus. From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore's
poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper's Weekly.
Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking
bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock. Nast also gave Santa a home at the
North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad
children of the world. All Santa was missing was his red outfit.
i.
In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom
modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby
face. The corporation insisted that Santa's fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca
Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and
commercial idol.
The whole idea of "Merry Christmas" means having a jolly good time over the great sacrifices of Lord Jesus, the Lord's representative. Furthermore, the Lord's representative does not dance on an equal platform with the Supreme Lord when in his role as acharya.
IV. The Christmas Challenge
Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season's festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration's intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.
Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the "curse of the Torah." It is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.
Christmas is a lie. There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25th.
December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.
Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.
Many who are excitedly preparing for their Christmas celebrations would prefer not knowing about the holiday's real significance. If they do know the history, they often object that their celebration has nothing to do with the holiday's monstrous history and meaning. "We are just having fun."
Imagine that between 1933-45, the Nazi regime celebrated Adolf Hitler's birthday
– April 20 – as a holiday. Imagine that they named the day, "Hitlerday," and
observed the day with feasting, drunkenness, gift-giving, and various pagan
practices. Imagine that on that day, Jews were historically subject to perverse
tortures and abuse, and that this continued for centuries.
Now, imagine that your great-great-great-grandchildren were about to celebrate
Hitlerday. April 20th arrived. They had long forgotten about
Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. They had never heard of gas chambers or death
marches. They had purchased champagne and caviar, and were about to begin the
party, when someone reminded them of the day's real history and their ancestors'
agony. Imagine that they initially objected, "We aren't celebrating the
Holocaust; we're just having a little Hitlerday party." If you could travel
forward in time and meet them; if you could say a few words to them, what would
you advise them to do on Hitlerday?
On December 25, 1941, Julius
Streicher, one of the most vicious of Hitler's assistants, celebrated Christmas
by penning the following editorial in his rabidly Antisemitic newspaper, Der
Stuermer:
If one really wants to put an
end to the continued prospering of this curse from heaven that is the Jewish
blood, there is only one way to do it: to eradicate this people, this Satan's
son, root and branch.
It was an appropriate thought for
the day. This Christmas, how will we celebrate?
AUTHOR: LAWRENCE KELEMEN
Simpletoremember.com
This depiction of the Personality of Godhead Lord Vishnu coming in a sleigh with wrapped gifts in each of His hands presupposes that His gifts are mere consumer items. When His highest gift is the re-establishment of our long lost relationship with Him as His devotees, such misleading images do the greatest disservice to the cause of pure devotional service.
[Editor's Note: A reader informs us that the ISKCON Deity Worship ministry, apparently following last Christmas, has admonished temples/devotees engaged in costuming the Deities as Santa and Mrs. Claus to cease the practice. We are told that the instruction is now being followed, and pictures floating on the web of costumed Deities are old pictures. ]
