[THIS POST HAS BEEN REPUBLISHED TO ADDRESS THE WIDESPREAD PUBLIC DELUSION ABOUT THE PAGAN CEREMONY OF “CHRISTMAS”]
Great! Thanksgiving’s coming up again. Get your turkey, folks, and your pumpkin pie and dig in to a real genuine Christian feast, a real genuine Pilgrim American feast. The founding fathers, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, loved Jesus — that’s why they came to America, to escape persecution from the Anglican cult in England and its parent-cult the Vatican on the continent. They didn’t celebrate Witchcraft ceremonies like “Christmas”. Neither does any true born-again Spirit-filled Christian today. They celebrated Thanksgiving, in gratitude to the Lord Jesus Who saved them in their pilgrim colony and led them (with the help of their dear native American Indian neighbors) to bring in a good harvest. Thank God for that. Ever since America has been a refuge for Bible-believing, God-fearing, God-loving Christians and has been a beacon on a hill to the rest of the world. Thanksgiving is a true Christian celebration, thanking God for His continued loving welfare. The Devil didn’t let them off scot-free, of course. He introduced weeds into the wheat-field and conned the Pilgrims’ descendants by re-introducing the European cults’ Witchcraft ceremony the Winter Solstice “Christmas”. Through the love of money (the root of ALL evil) the Devil promoted this Witchcraft ceremony by deceiving little children with the myth of Santa Claus and his goblin helpers. Presents, presents, presents! Money, money, money! That’s what it’s about. It’s just the Devil in disguise. Santa Claus is the old supposed-to-be “saint” Nicholas of Myra. A thoroughly degenerate little Vaticanite he was, like the present so-called “bishop” of Rome, the international pedophile ring-leader known as the “Pope”. The Bible predicted that the cult of the leaders named after “Nicholas” would swallow up the world in their false religion, and so it has come about. See Revelation 2. “6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans [means: “cultists named after Nicholas”], which I [Jesus Christ] also hate“, and “15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate“. Notice
Let me repeat what has been said in an earlier post:
Satanism works by spells (magic words and formulas) and by ceremonies (magic acts). If a person participates in these he binds himself by evil forces. That means: just to take part in a Satanic ceremony is to bind your soul in bondage to demons.
A Holy-Ghost filled Christian, of course, would never take part in such a thing, or use magic words to achieve a stated purpose. So, Satan being aware of these facts he gets Christians to take part in his Satanic rituals by deception. One trick is to invite Christians to a festival or party which is actually a Satanic ritual-feast. That’s what the Apostle Paul said the Israelites did in their Desert Wanderings — they committed idolatry just by sitting down to the feast of Baal-Peor (a Satanic idol), and by getting up after the meal and playing “games” at the party.
Paul says this about it: 1 Corinthians 10 7 “Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Notice Paul calls these backslidden Israelites “idolaters” because they “sat down to eat” and “rose up to play”. Once the Israelites got into the “party-spirit” they started to get drunk and commit fornication with the sexy-dressed girls of the worshipers of Baal-Peor. Notice it was not necessary for them actually to worship the idol physically — they just “went to the party”. Well, yes. That’s exactly what Satan does now using the so-called “Christian” festivals which were created by the pagan Vatican cult known as the “Roman Catholic Church”. He gets Christians to come to the party at his Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Halloween festivals, which are all pagan Roman Satanic feasts dressed up with “Christian” names and titles. So in the Name of the Lord Jesus, keep away from them!
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The detailed study of Alexander Tille, titled “Yule and Christmas”, London, 1899, p. 102 and following pages, gives you the facts about the Witchcraft cult of the so-called “Christmas Tree”: it was originally dedicated to the god Bel of Babylon (Babylon being Satan’s main cult-center), and was transferred into “Christian” (in name only) churches in Germany. The idol Bel is strongly condemned by God in the Bible: Isaiah 46:1: “Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts”, Jeremiah 50:2: “Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.” Jeremiah 51:44: “And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.”
The following quote is a bit technical so I’ll summarize it here: The Babylonian Satanic cult of Bel, including the use of magic branches and trees at the New Year, was borrowed by the Romans and practiced in ancient pagan Rome. When the Roman army conquered the ancient Germans, the Romans passed on this evil cult to the Germans. Later, when the Roman Empire turned “Christian” (in name only), the old pagan customs of Bel worship were given a “Christian” brush-up. So in Germany, for example, around the year AD 950, the pagan Roman Bel cult at New Year (January 1) was transferred by a Roman “Catholic” fanatic “saint” (so-called) to the nearby date of December 25. December 25 itself was an ancient pagan festival celebrating the birth of the Sun-god, but had been changed into the “Birthday of the Son of God” (Jesus) by the false Roman church. So now around AD 950 in Germany this so-called saint added a little spice to the poisonous mixture by taking the magic trees and branches of the Bel cult at New Year festival and splotting them onto December 25 “Birthday of the Son of God” (so-called). And so on and so forth — what a mess! The magic tree of the Bel cult popped up under the new name of the “Christmas Tree”. So the pagan witchcraft ceremony, from the Babylonian Bel cult, of looking for a tree in midwinter which had fruit or flowers on it, or was very green and fresh-looking, as an omen of fertility for the future year, had polluted the so-called churches of Europe and infested nominal Christian homes, as it still does today.
I have added a few explanations and comments in square brackets in the following quotation from Tille:
“Alsso [a writer about AD 1400] even tells us more. At the beginning of every month the Bohemians carried about the image of their god Bel, singing a Czechic song. They rejoiced in the god thus visiting their houses, hoping faithfully that, in consequence, the whole month long he would send them good luck, and lead all their fortune and life. Therefore people brought gifts to the image of Bel, as it were a tribute, regarding themselves as his true worshippers in order that he might bring them luck. But St. Adalbert [AD 956-997, he is called a “saint” here but he was obviously no saint], because it was too circumstantial to do so at the beginning of every month, and in order that the Christians might not also celebrate the beginning of the months [New Year] according to heathen custom, changed this celebration of the beginnings of months [the pagan New Year] into a celebration of Christ’s Nativity and of the week following it, thinking that it would be better to exercise that habit in the time in which Christ was born [he imagined this to be December 25], than at the beginning of months [New Year January 1], at which honour had once been bestowed upon Bel. He also is said to have altered the name and the sense of that celebration, making of ‘kalendisare’ [meaning “to practice a cult at the New Year”] ‘colendisare’ [meaning “to practice a reverend ceremony”] (from colere, to revere), because through that usage Christ was revered at his birthday, and not in the Calends [the Calends is the New Year Jan. 1]. If this report does not imply that medieval Christmas in South Germany took the place of an older Calends celebration according to Roman usage, I do not know what it implies. The confusion in which the minds of both authors are is best shown by the fact that they not only regard the Calends [that is, New Year] rites as an imitation and distortion of Christmas rites caused by the devil, but at the same time inform us that up to St. [not a Saint!] Adalbert’s time the Calends [New Year] alone prevailed, and that it was this Saint [so-called] who transferred to Christmas the Calendisationes or Calends [New Year] processions,—two statements which are mutually exclusive.
[Notice the contrast with earlier more Bible-based customs shown in the following statements:] When the Chapters of Bishop Martin of Bracae, A.D. 575, forbade the faithful to observe dangerous Calends [New Year] customs, to keep the heathen times of leisure, and to adorn their houses round about with laurel and green trees, he rendered a very great service indeed to folklore, for this seems to be the only prohibition of that Calends [New Year] custom which has come down to us, and it is not until eight hundred years later that we can show houses to have been adorned with green and trees at New Year and Christmas. It is told, however, of the [ancient Italian] Sabinian king Tatius, to whom by the legend a date is given about the middle of the eighth century B.C, that in winter he received branches of a happy or fortunate tree from the grove of Streniae as favourable omens with respect to the new year. It is true that story is told by a Roman writer of about 400 A.D., Q. Aurelius Symmachus, and it cannot therefore be regarded as affording any evidence on a state of things twelve hundred years before that time. But the one thing certain from it is that, in the time of the Roman empire, there existed the habit of presenting to people, on the Calends of January [New Year, Jan. 1], branches of trees for the sake of good luck in the new year. It is again solely from this custom that we learn the meaning of the adornment of houses with laurel and green trees in the sixth century. These things were put up as good omens for the luck of the year. Even later evidence of this custom is very scarce. That in Italy it lived on we know at the end of the fifteenth century, through Polydore Vergil, who says: “Trimmyng of the Temples with hangynges, floures, boughes, and garlandes, was taken of the Heathen people, whiche decked their Idoles and houses with suche arraye.” In Germany the two fifteenth century witnesses for that usage come both from the Rhine country, from Strassburg, and both mention that at New Year’s day the houses were adorned with green fir branches.
In Strassburg it is also that, a hundred years later, the first Christmas tree appears, a usage which seems to have sprung out of the union of the habit of adorning houses with green branches and trees according to Roman Calends [New Year] custom, and of a Christian tenth century legend, according to which, in the night when the Saviour was born, all trees bloom and bring forth fruits in the forest. This legend can be proved to have been very popular in the Germany of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In England the same custom must have been popular, at least in the fifteenth century, even in the form of trees or artificial trees. “Against the Feast of Christmas, euery mans house, as also their parish Churches, were decked with Holm, Iuy, Bayes, and whatsoeuer the season of the yeere aforded to be greene. The Conduits and Standards in the streetes were, likewise, garnished. Amongst the which, I read, that in the yeere 1444, ‘by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the first of February at night, Pauls steeple was fiered, but with great labour quenched, and toward the morning of Candlemas day, at the Leaden Hall in Cornhill, a Standard of tree being set up in the midst of the pauement, fast in the ground, nayled full of Holme and Iuy, for disport of Christmas to the people, was torne up and cast downe by the malignant Spirit (as was thought), and the stones of the pauement all about were cast in the streets, and into divers houses, so that the people were sore aghast at the great Tempests.'”
Gay, in his Trivia, sings:
“When Rosemary and Bays, the poet’s crown,
Are bawl’d in frequent cries through all the town;
Then judge the festival of Christmas near,
Christmas, the joyous period of the year!
Now with bright Holly all the temples strow
With Laurel green, and sacred Mistletoe.”
And from that time on there is a complete continuity of tradition as regards the adornment of houses and churches by holly and ivy, evergreen and mistletoe, box and bay. There are the well-known fifteenth century carols about the contest between Holly and Ivy:
“Holly and Ivy, Box and Bay,
Put in the Church on Christmas day.”
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PS. A little background on our Fairy-Fir-Tree “Saint” Adalbert, who takes the lion’s share of the blame for the filthy so-called “Christmas” cult as practiced today. He is the Roman “Catholic” patron-saint of Poland, and got that dubious distinction on account of the following “missionary” enterprises. After failing to “convert” the (already-converted) Old Slavic Christians further South, Adalbert decided it would be easier to win simple pagans to Rome’s Christianized military machine. He was the “Pope’s” chief representative on the Northern Germanic front, and a close relative of the “Holy Roman” Emperor, who headed the “Pope’s” thug-regime in Germany. As has widely been proclaimed, the “Holy Roman Empire” was neither “Holy”, nor “Roman” nor an “Empire”. It was a cultic fraternity of Barbarian chiefs bent on thrusting the “Pope’s” Vatican regime on as many poor deluded peasants as possible, if necessary by massacre and mayhem. So our Fairy-Fir-Tree “Saint” Adalbert towards the end of the tenth century AD, despaired of tricking the canny Slavic Christians (with their Received Text Old Slavonic Bibles), and headed off to “convert” what he imagined to be the more easily-deluded pagan peasants of Prussia. Venturing into their land, he was quickly pierced through by the alert pagan peasants — seven spears went through his torso, pinning him to the ground in the posture of the Roman crucifix. Quite appropriate really. He was followed over 200 years by another three Roman “missionary” attempts, and each time the Prussian peasants executed or banished the Roman spies (sorry, “missionaries”). Finally the “Pope” had enough of it and in the 13th century resorted to his normal tactics. He sent in the unemployed Crusaders known as the “Teutonic Knights” and the Order of the “Brethren of the Sword” (both of them sort-of Roman jihadi units), and massacred the pagan Prussians in a scorched-earth campaign across Prussia. He then imported settlers from Germany to occupy the devastated villages and hamlets under the eyes of the Roman barons in their highly fortified castles constructed for the purpose on the mountain-tops. Obviously, after that, Prussia (Poland) was “Catholic”. What a wonderful, miraculous conversion!!! That’s how it remained till the Reformation when, after recovering somewhat from the devastation, the poor Prussians threw off Roman “Catholicism” and brought forth a glorious Reformed church. The Pope didn’t let it last long and crushed this new movement in Prussia ruthlessly in the Counter Reformation. After that second round of massacring and mayhem, blessed by the “Pope”, Prussia (Poland) remained in the backwater of fanatical Romanism right to the present day.
For more on the pagan ceremony of “Christmas” try this: http://www.christianhospitality.org/wp/?p=979
For some Bible light on the pagan, pseudo-Christian, festival of “Easter”
try this: http://www.christianhospitality.org/wp/?p=575
Get the Bible facts about the Satanic festival of Valentine’s Day at this link: http://www.christianhospitality.org/wp/?p=2770.
You are welcome to be more specific about the Brumalia: I am not certain why you ask “how would I respond” to the Brumalia. The Brumalia was a winter festival leading up to the solstice (24th Nov to 24th December), and that is all.
As regards Tertullian. You will notice he is as weasely here as he always is when he discusses Christians’ attitudes to pagan festivals. You can find out what his attitude was in the First Church of Rome on the Bible Resources page of this site. http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/first-church-rome-online/content/first-church-rome7.html. Briefly he was originally a member of the First Church of Rome (later the Roman “Catholic” cult) which had slipped into paganism. He was subsequently influenced by the followers of Polycarp, particularly the Montanist ones, and split from his home group, but retained many of its pagan customs. These he attempted to justify to the other disciples of Polycarp et al. by claiming that such practices were fine so long as a proper “Christian” gloss was given to them. This was not Apostolic, and was rejected by the true disciples of Polycarp (like Irenaeus) and by all those who adhered to the Scriptural form of Christianity preserved up to the Middle Ages.
Thank you for your pertinent comment. Factually according to the person who should have known best (Irenaeus the disciple of Polycarp the disciple of John), the Book of Revelation was written AD 96 in the reign of Domitian. Your confusion relating to Nicholas of Myra is due to a misunderstanding. The Book of Revelation refers to Nicolaitans, not Nicholas of Myra per se. My point is that the Nicolaitans developed into two streams of heresy, 1) the Artemonite brand which is what Nicholas of Myra and the Eastern “Arians” belonged to, and 2) the Docetist branch, which is what the later Roman “Catholic” cult belonged to. (See the study Nicholas of Myra and the Nicolaitans in the Bible Resources section of this site. http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/first-church-rome-online/content/first-church-rome20.html.) Thus the prophecy in the Book of Revelation is talking of the Nicolaitans, and therefore Nicholas of Myra in “embryonic prophetic” mode as it might be called.
How would you respond to Brumalia beginning November 24th? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumalia
Consider also Tertullian:
But, however, the majority (of Christians) have by this time induced the belief in their mind that it is pardonable if at any time they do what the heathen do, for fear the Name be blasphemed. Now the blasphemy which must quite be shunned by us in every way is, I take it, this: If any of us lead a heathen into blasphemy with good cause, either by fraud, or by injury, or by contumely, or any other matter of worthy complaint, in which the Name is deservedly impugned, so that the Lord, too, be deservedly angry. Else, if of all blasphemy it has been said, By your means My Name is blasphemed, we all perish at once; since the whole circus, with no desert of ours, assails the Name with wicked suffrages. Let us cease (to be Christians) and it will not be blasphemed! On the contrary, while we are, let it be blasphemed: in the observance, not the overstepping, of discipline; while we are being approved, not while we are being reprobated. Oh blasphemy, bordering on martyrdom, which now attests me to be a Christian, while for that very account it detests me! The cursing of well-maintained Discipline is a blessing of the Name. If, says he, I wished to please men, I should not be Christ’s servant. But the same apostle [Paul] elsewhere bids us take care to please all: As I, he says, please all by all means. 1 Corinthians 10:32-33 No doubt he used to please them by celebrating the Saturnalia and New-year’s day! [Was it so] or was it by moderation and patience? By gravity, by kindness, by integrity? In like manner, when he is saying, I have become all things to all, that I may gain all, 1 Corinthians 9:22 does he mean to idolaters an idolater? to heathens a heathen? to the worldly worldly? But albeit he does not prohibit us from having our conversation with idolaters and adulterers, and the other criminals, saying, Otherwise you would go out from the world, 1 Corinthians 5:10 of course he does not so slacken those reins of conversation that, since it is necessary for us both to live and to mingle with sinners, we may be able to sin with them too. Where there is the intercourse of life, which the apostle concedes, there is sinning, which no one permits. To live with heathens is lawful, to die with them is not. Let us live with all; let us be glad with them, out of community of nature, not of superstition. We are peers in soul, not in discipline; fellow-possessors of the world [Man does not possess the world as of yet. It has not been taken from the “ruler of this age” yet, who is Satan. See 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 5:19, Ephesians 2:2. It is important to understand that Adam surrendered to the beast nature and the dominion given him was usurped by Satan for this entire age.], not of error. But if we have no right of communion in matters of this kind with strangers, how far more wicked to celebrate them among brethren! Who can maintain or defend this? The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy-days. Your Sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies, says He, My soul hates. By us, to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons and festivals formerly beloved by God, the Saturnalia and New-year’s and Midwinter’s festivals [Brumae] and Matronalia are frequented — presents come and go — New-year’s gifts — games join their noise — banquets join their din! Oh better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself! Not the Lord’s day, not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens! If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs but once annually: you have a festive day every eighth day [I would cut out the word “eighth” because we are not living in the eighth day. We haven’t even reached the 7th yet, which is what the Sabbath represents – see Hebrews 4.]. Call out the individual solemnities of the nations, and set them out into a row, they will not be able to make up a Pentecost. (Tertullian. On Idolatry, Chapter XIV, c. 155 – c. 240 AD)
Did you know that the book of Revelation was written about 65AD? Did you also know that Nicholas of Myra wasn’t born until 270AD? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
So how can Revelation be talking about him when the readers of the time would have known who it was referring to? Surely Jezebel and Balaam were known to the readers of Revelation. It would be inconsistent with the context of the passage to make that one name prophetic of the future and the others in its immediate vicinity historical.
Thank you my friend for your largely intelligent attempt to “correct” me. However, you have made erroneous statements in each of your points. I will go through them one by one. There may be more that I’ve missed. C’est la guerre.
1) You DO worship the Devil, you just don’t know it (yet). Any spirit which is not the true Spirit of the one True God IS the Devil in some form or other. You worship one or the other, according to the Word of God (the Bible), and since you don’t accept Jesus Christ as God, but worship something or someone else you are worshiping the Devil. The same goes, of course for multitudes of Christians-in-name who ignorantly or otherwise end up worshiping Satan too, “another Jesus”, not the real Word Jesus (II Corinthians 11. 4).
2. The pagan festivals you name DO INDEED in Roman Catholicism and other non-Word based forms of Christianity “masquerade as Satanic festivals to trick CHRISTIANS”. Obviously pagans are celebrating (or claim to celebrate) the original pagan rites without necessarily attempting to trick anybody, but your statement is still false. Your implication that paganism is “older” and therefore more authentic than Christianity falls on the fact that Christianity believes in an Eternal Being, God, Who in the form of His Son the Word, not only predates the universe but also created it in all its wonderful natural beauty and harmony.
3. Your spelling of the word SABBAT is only correct if you don’t mean “Sabbath” (Hebrew shabbath), but you allude to the “Sabbath” in the surrounding phrases, as referenced in my blog-posts.
4. You can only make your assertion about “spells” if you are able to tell me how long a piece of string is. There are as many pagans as days or even seconds in the year at least and some of them do use spells in a malicious manner. It depends on the individual.
5. (4 #2 in your comment). Refer to point 1 in my reply above for the correction to your statement.
As regards your final remarks, I do indeed research paganism and its origins as you can examine for yourself in the Six Days of Creation study on the Bible Resources page. Html version: http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/6-days-creation-online/ or PDF version: http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/6-days-creation.pdf. You might not agree with the findings. That is your privilege.
Blessings to you in the Lord Jesus and all best wishes for the salvation of your soul and for your good health.
As a pagan, I would like to correct a few things that you have said in past blog posts:
1. We DO NOT worship the devil. I know it’s hard to believe, but a very large chunk of Paganism is simply the reverence of nature and nothing more. As a matter of fact, not even Satanism really worships the devil. It was more of a “haha f*** you” to the church.
2. Samhain, Yule, Ostara and Beltane have never and will never masquerade as “Satanic festivals meant to trick Christians”. Paganism has existed for more than 30,000 years. Christianity has existed for, at best, 2,100. When Christianity was growing in Europe, the Catholic Church wanted to, in a way, suffocate Paganism, as to accelerate the spread of Christianity. And so they had their own holidays line up directly with major Pagan Sabbats. In that way, it covered up Paganism. And it worked.
There’s also a little thing with Sabbats, where unless you’re actively celebrating, you’re not celebrating at all. So unless you’re going around telling people to have a “blessed Yule”, your celebrating the 2,100 year old Catholic Christmas. And nothing more.
3. It’s SABBAT (sa-bat) not Sabbath. And nothing about it is black.
4. The “spells” that many (not all) Pagans use are in no way welcoming evil. Their simply used to manipulate energy to aid in everyday life. For example, protection against spirits or healing from an ailment. They aren’t meant to hurt anybody. In Wicca, there’s something called the three-fold rule. Any energy you put out into the world will return to you three times as powerful.
4. How could we be worshipping the Devil? We don’t follow the rules of the Christian religion. We don’t really even HAVE a devil.
Here’s a little word of advice: Next time you write another article slamming a 30,000 year old religion that many people hold dear, get your head {vulgar reference removed} and do a little bit of research. Just because it’s your opinion, doesn’t make it fact. That’s something you should have learned in grade school.
How is Tertullian being “weasley” in his statement? He is saying exactly the opposite of the characterization you you attempting to paint. He is saying that Christians were syncretizing with pagan holidays for the sake of winning heathen into the fold. He called it idolatry and sin. How does that make him weasley or a syncretist? If you are trying to make the point that he was holding on to some of his pagan roots the same can be said of many of the early church historians, many of whom had come from the Greek world of Platonism. We don’t throw their writings out because they had error (Tertuallian is not excluded). We rightly divide the truth. His statement from “On Idolatry” seems to be more anti-Catholic than anything. He knew exactly where the church was heading, that is, the direction Paul and Christ warned them they would go. The institution of the Church became a harlot riding the Roman beast. Protestantism isn’t much better. The mother of harlots was a mother after all. There is much apostasy in Christianity today. If Paul were here he would marvel at how far from his teachings our brethren have come.
As far as Brumalia, escpecially in the context of what Tertullian is saying, it is a damnable Winter festival which just so happens to start at the end of November and proceeds to the end of December, culminating in Saturnalia then giving way to the New Year’s and Matronalia festivals. I’m trying to show that all our holidays are pagan in nature. People just assign whatever meaning they want to them and think it’s OK. That’s all people have ever done, invent their own belief systems and traditions.
Thank you my friend for your percipient comments. Tertullian’s “weasely” approach is well represented by the following quotations found in the First Church of Rome study on this site (http://www.christianhospitality.org/resources/first-church-rome-online/content/first-church-rome6.html#footnote102|region), footnote 102:
“102. Tertullian, On Fasting Against the Psychics (De Ieiunio Adversus Psychicos), ii. 4-5 (emphases mine): “4. ‘Xerophagies’ [fasts in which certain types of food only were permitted, including especially the one before Passover] is a new name for what is treated as an official duty and is suggestive of pagan superstition: it is reminiscent of the asceticism found in the purificatory rites of Apis, Isis and the Great Mother [Cybele], which involve the exclusion of certain items of food: it was, however, if the truth be told, merely to ensure that the free faith in Christ should not depend for its practice of abstinence from any types of food on the Jewish Law, that the Apostle [Paul] lumped together all such practices in one and the same market-stall, in his expression of detestation for those who, as they forbade marriage, also commanded to abstain from foodstuffs, which were ordained by God. 5. Therefore we cannot accept that those who practice these rites in modern times are those referred to then as ones who depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits of this world, having a conscience branded with doctrines of deceitful talkers. What firebrands, I pray you, effected this result? Am I to believe those at which we multiply marriages and roast dinners every day?” Latin: “4. Xerophagias uero nouum adfectati officii nomen et proximum ethnicae superstitioni, quales castimoniae Apim, Isidem, et Magnem Matrem certorum eduliorum exceptione purificant, cum fides libera in Christo ne Iudaicae quidem legi abstinentiam quorundam ciborum debeat, semel in totum macellum ab apostolo admissa, detestatore eorum qui sicut nubere prohibeant, ita iubeant cibis abstinere a deo conditis. 5. Et ideo non esse iam tunc praenotatos in nouissimis temporibus abscendentes a fide, intendentes spiritibus mundi seductoribus, doctrinis mendaciloquorum inustam habentes conscientiam. Quibus, oro te, ignibus? Credo, quibus nuptias saepe deducimus et cenas quotidie coquimus?” Ibid. xvi. 7-8: “7. In fact you do well, as you heap blasphemies on our xerophagies, to equate them with the Ascetic Fast [Latin: Castus, see footnote 139, below, >>] of the cult of Isis and Cybele. I accept the comparison you make to defend your position. The rite thereby is confirmed to be of God, as the Devil, the emulator of the things of God, is imitating it. A lie is formed out of truth, superstition is compounded from elements of true religion. 8.Thereby you are proved to be that much more without true religion, and the pagan that much more provided with it: by this practice he sacrifices his appetite for the sake of the idol, but you are not willing to do the same for God.” Latin: “7. Sed bene quod tu nostris xerophagiis blasphemias ingerens casto Isidis et Cybeles eas adaequas. Admitto testimonialem comparationem. Hinc diuinam constabit, quam diabolus diuinorum aemulator imitatur. Ex ueritate mendacium struitur, ex religione superstitio compingitur. 8. Hinc tu eo inreligiosior, quanto ethnicus paratior. Ille denique idolo gulam suam mactat, tu deo non uis.” The whole argument of this tract of Tertullian is aimed at orthodox, Bible-believing, Christians who charged that the fasts imposed on those who celebrated the Passover ritual of Tertullian (the same ritual as was followed in the First Church of Rome) were comparable to the ritual, ascetic, fasts imposed in paganism on devotees of Isis and the Great Mother goddess, Cybele, at the time of the pagan spring festival. The basic (anti-Jewish) Passover ritual had always been practiced in the First Church but was latterly adopted by the Montanists, Tertullian himself being a fervent Montanist. This ritual developed out of the Docetist belief that the bread of the eucharist was the material body of the Supreme or Good God. The adherents of this doctrine abstained from worshiping with those who denied the communion bread was (literally) the body of Jesus, and believed rather that Jesus suffered and died in the flesh. (See footnote 27, above, >>.) With the (magical) importance of their eucharist uppermost in their minds, the bishops of the First Church even sent portions of it out to any in other churches who were willing to receive it. Those who received this eucharist in other churches and practiced other rituals at the same time, e.g. the Jewish Passover celebrated by the disciples of John, were not at first excommunicated by the bishops of the First Church. When the Montanists took it up, however, they added an obligatory element which was not present originally, because in Montanism rituals of this kind were now declared to be commandments of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. From the Montanists the First Church adopted the idea of making the Passover fast obligatory and added this to its already-existing ritual. It is obligatory to this day in Roman Catholicism (Lent). Now those who celebrated the Jewish Passover were summarily excommunicated by the First Church. Irenaeus rebuked the First Church bishop, Victor, for having thus altered the practice of his predecessors. The Lenten fast of seven weeks before Easter was, according to the 6th century Liber Pontificalis, instituted in Rome by bishop Telesphorus (sub nom.): “hic constituit, ut septem ebdomadas ante pascha ieiunium celebraretur:” “he ordained, that for seven weeks before Pascha a fast should be celebrated.”
And in ibid. footnote 106:
106. The following quotation relates to a subsequent phase of the Paschal controversy, in the sixth-century Celtic West, but it shows how the First Church promoted paganism (including their obligatory Paschal ritual) by playing it off against Judaism, as Tertullian did already in the second and third century: Bede, Ecclesiastical History, III. xxv: “Then Wilfrid [the representative of the First Church of Rome], being ordered by the king to speak, delivered himself thus :— ‘The Easter which we observe, we saw celebrated by all at Rome, where the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, lived, taught, suffered, and were buried; we saw the same done in Italy and in France, when we traveled through those countries for pilgrimage and prayer. We found the same practiced in Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, and all the world, wherever the church of Christ is spread abroad, through several nations and tongues, at one and the same time; except only these and their accomplices in obstinacy, I mean the Picts and the Britons, who foolishly, in these two remote islands of the world, and only in part even of them, oppose all the rest of the universe. When he had so said, Colman answered, ‘It is strange that you will call our labors foolish, wherein we follow the example of so great an apostle, who was thought worthy to lay his head on our Lord’s bosom, when all the world knows him to have lived most wisely.’ Wilfrid replied, ‘Far be it from us to charge John with folly, for he literally observed the precepts of the Jewish law, whilst the church still Judaized in many points, and the apostles were not able at once to cast off all the observances of the law which had been instituted by God. In which way it is necessary that all who come to the faith should forsake the idols which were invented by devils, that they might not give scandal to the Jews that were among the Gentiles. For this reason it was, that Paul circumcised Timothy, that he offered sacrifice in the temple, that he shaved his head with Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth; for no other advantage than to avoid giving scandal to the Jews. Hence it was, that James said, to the same Paul, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of the Jews have believed; and they are all zealous for the law.’ And yet, at this time, the Gospel spreading throughout the world, it is needless, nay, it is not lawful, for the faithful either to be circumcised, or to offer up to God sacrifices of flesh.’”
You will notice that what Tertllian is doing is playing off his paganizing Montanist rituals (which he claims MUST be performed because they were supposedly ordained by the Paraclete) against the Mosaic Law (which was of course truly ordained by the Paraclete). He does not deny the similarity between the Montanist rituals and the pagan ones, he merely condemns obvious overt paganism, and accepts the Montanist paganizing customs because they have Christian names and titles.
Incidentally, if your statements on the Brumalia are implying that pagan festival was the origin of the American Thanksgiving, they are mistaken. It is a coincidence of timing merely, as an examination of the history shows.