Is the christmas tree evil?

[tabcom]

**I still have one or two things against thee ol’ christmas tree . . . .

In reply to Post #319:**

Still, the vestiges of paganism found in Christmas festivities aren’t to be overlooked. . . . Once converted, people did not think of banning these.

**Can the Word of God be changed? No.

Deut 12:32 Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do: you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

Can one take an unclean thing and make it clean? No.

Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

I can point out from one end of the Bible to the other why this statement by Eden is not true.

I will cite 4 examples here:

1. Exodus Ch. 32.
2. 2 Chronicles 11:13-23
3. The Book of Jeremiah
4. Revelation Ch. 2 and 3
5. Moses leads the people out of Egypt. Ten days later, he goes up to Mount Sinai and receives the Law. What do the people do in his absense? They get scared and demand from Aaron (Moses brother) that he make a pagan idol to protect them. When Moses returns to the people, how does God react, He kills those that turned from Him to the golden calf. For the naysayers that say, “Oh, but that was a specific event only relevent to Moses”. If so, why was it important enough for the story to be retold in Acts 7:30-41?
6. After God split Israel into two because Soloman’s interest in pagan women (1 Kings 11 Ch.), the Levites (priesthood) fled Northern Israel for Jerusalem because King Jeroboam allowed pagan idolatry to spread.
7. This thread has placed alot of focus on Jeremiah. One more time, Jeremiah was a prophet of doom. He repeatedly says that becasue the Jews had allowed paganism to creep in that God was going to destroy them for it and lead them into captivity. He did!
8. John reprimands the seven churchs of Asia for mixing the Truth of Christ with the lie of paganism.

To the few, and I do mean few that see the tree as a symbol of the everlasting life of Christ, ok, I can accept that. At some point in your life, if the Holy Spirit is within you, you are going to come to the revelation that you no longer need the training wheels.

To the vast majority of the world, the tree represents something entirely different.

No one is going to get an arguement from me saying they should not do Christmas. It was a pagan festival in the ancient world, it is a pagan festival of glorifying self today.

Pagans are suppose to do it!

**

 

[tequilamac]

**After 3200 unique views and 50 different posters, you are the first to eloquently refute my claim. Thank you for providing the catechism on idolatry. And thank you for describing what the tree represents to you and those that support your statement.
**
Once again, the eloquence is breath taking…well done!

your response to mercy gate stating that the tree is put up as a symbol of Christ’s everlasting light was accusing all those who do so of idolatry, is absolutely breathtaking.
We pray that you will someday come to love Christ rather than paganism.

 

[tequilamac]

**After 3200 unique views and 50 different posters, you are the first to eloquently refute my claim. Thank you for providing the catechism on idolatry. And thank you for describing what the tree represents to you and those that support your statement.
**
Once again, the eloquence is breath taking…well done!

your response to mercy gate stating that the tree is put up as a symbol of Christ’s everlasting light was accusing all those who do so of idolatry, is absolutely breathtaking.
We pray that you will someday come to love Christ rather than paganism. For what you have shown us is that you are rather much more interested in paganism than you are anything else.

 

[tabcom]

your response . . . was accusing all those who do so of idolatry.

**You err in your interpertation of my post.

It should be taken for its face value, nothing more.**

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Can one take an unclean thing and make it clean? No.

That is what you say, tab. Then how do you justify Peter’s dream? He was given a vision with clean and unclean animals, and told to 'get up, Peter, kill and eat."

And he, of course, responded with “But Lord, no unclean food has ever passed my lips.” Peter was a devout man, brought up in the Jewish faith and therefore kept kosher, no?

Because God’s law for the Jews, involving dietary purity and ritual, had been superseded by the New Covenant Law in the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ being offered as food for us all "Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink of His blood, you shall not have life within you.", Peter was shown that the old ritual dietary laws no longer held. We have been given the bread of life.

What happened with Peter’s dream? *Because * of the dream, Peter (through the guidance of the Holy Spirit) saw that God had ‘opened up’ His salvation not only to the Jewish people, His ‘chosen people’ but to the Gentiles as well.

Now you might like to go back and argue endlessly over the “Jeremiah tree” (which you’ve been told time and again did not refer to ‘all nations’ but represented a specific citation against a specific nonJewish cult and its practices. Nobody, repeat nobody, ‘worships’ a tree–not even a granola-chomping card-carrying member of Greenpeace). (FYI, I have absolutely nothing against Greenpeace, granola, or cards per se. They’re all just fine–no evil symbols, LOL).

But nobody here (and we’ve taken great pains over this) **worships **his or her tree. Nobody has put ‘the Christmas tree’ into God’s place, prays to the tree, or sees the tree as an idol or a symbol of covetousness, and thus is implicitly adoring the gods of conspicious consumption as represented by said tree.

Everybody here (yourself excepted) sees the Christmas tree simply and solely as an ‘accessory’. Not an idol, not a symbol of greed, but as a symbol representing, in its evergreen leaves, the ‘eternal’ Christ; in its symbolism representing both the tree of life in Paradise and the wood of the Cross on which our Savior Hung, which we make ‘beautiful’ in thanksgiving of the great gift He gave us in being born, and dying for us, and because of His gift to us, He is the reason for which we give gifts to others.

Do some people not do this? Probably. . .but not because the *tree * is an evil symbol, but because they themselves have become confused. “Getting rid of the tree” does nothing to correct the confusion of those who have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas.

 

[tabcom]

Everybody here . . . sees the Christmas tree simply and solely as an ‘accessory’. . . . as a symbol representing, in its evergreen leaves, the ‘eternal’ Christ; in its symbolism representing both the tree of life in Paradise and the wood of the Cross on which our Savior Hung, which we make ‘beautiful’ in thanksgiving of the great gift He gave us in being born, and dying for us, and because of His gift to us, He is the reason for which we give gifts to others.

I can accept this explaination, thank you.

Peter was shown that the old ritual dietary laws no longer held. We have been given the bread of life.

**I humbly submit . . . thank you. Thank you for putting Deut. 12:32 in biblical context.

The context for which I was using it in post #336 is that taking pagan rituals and cleaning them up and calling them christian does not work in alleviating confusion amongst the general population. The general population doesn’t want to hear about denying self, they want to fullfill self.**

Do some people not do this (see the symbolism of christ in the tree)? Probably. . .because they themselves have become confused.

**Do you really believe this? If so, it contridicts what the Bible teaches.

Tantum ergo, and those nodding their heads in agreement with you, once you log off your computer, or walk outside the doors of the Catholic Church, you are walking into the world of moral relativism that cares not for your christ-like symbolism in the tree.

So what value is not doing the christmas tree?

For me, the tree symboliizes a cross for me to die on. Five years ago when I stopped doing christmas, I asked each family member and close friend what christmas meant to them. The survey was astonishing to me. Christ was not number one. Most of those in survey are no longer a part of my life. But it’s not just my little unscientific survey, it is the culture. You are not going to hear commerical media proclaiming the christ symbolism that you stated. If Wal-Mart came out with a “Christ hung on wood similar to this christmas tree” display, would that sell more HDTV’s?

One final note about me not doing christmas. It is this very issue that has guided me down the path that led to my wife.

**

 

[tabcom]

Originally Posted by Tantum ergo :

Do some people not do this (see the symbolism of christ in the tree)? Probably. . . because they themselves have become confused.

**I want to return to this notion that only some people don’t see the symbolism of Christ in the tree, because they are confused.

The bible teachs that most don’t want anything to do with Christ. Let me explain:

3 John 2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest “prosper” and be in health, even as thy soul “prospereth.”

The word prosper and prospereth are both the same word: Euodoo - to help on the road, succeed in reaching, from:

* eu-meaning well and
* hodos-meaning road or way.

Prosper means a well way (hodos), road or path, Jesus said in John 14:6 – I am the way (hodos)–no man cometh unto the Father but by me. Jesus is saying, I am the only "prosperity, the only road or way to heaven. Jesus tells us exactly what that way (hodos) is in reality:

Matt. 7:14 - Because strait is the gate and “narrow” is the way (hodos).

The way (prosperity) equals “narrow is the way” (hodos, which is Jesus). In order to understand what John was saying to Gaius when he said, “I wish that thou mayest prosper”–(3 John 2), we have only to define the word “narrow.”

* Narrow - Greek: thlibo - this verb means to crowd, to afflict or to suffer tribulation; the noun form is the word thlipsis meaning pressure, affliction, burden, tribulation or trouble.

The prosperity of God is the well-way (euodoo) to heaven. It is tribulation, persecution and pressure when we take up our cross daily and deny self. After Paul preached at Antioch and fled to Iconium his pursuers pressured (thlipsis) him to flee to Lystra where they took him outside the city. They stoned him there and left him for dead, whereupon Paul made the following statement;

Acts 14:22-- We must through much “tribulation” (thlipsis/prosperity) enter into the kingdom of God. Referring back to this event later, Paul states in

2 Tim. 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Paul is saying, if a man is not suffering persecution for righteousness sake, he is living ungodly.

Paul says that tribulation (thlipsis/thlibo) is the “narrow” way (hodos) into God’s kingdom. Jesus says, “I am that only way (hodos),” and it is required if a man is to go to heaven, he must suffer tribulation. This is the prosperity that John wished for Gaius. There is no other prosperity (way/hodos) for God’s elect children. Jesus said, “If the world persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15:20).**

Originally Posted by mercygate

Let me quote the Catechism: “Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc.”

**To the world outside the Church, does the tree represent these things? Yes. The vast majority of people are not confused. They have substituted God for the god of self. Their lifes is focused on striving for power, pleasure, ethnic identity, family traditions, patriotism, and wanting more.
**

 

[Robin]

Since I’m just an ignorant Okie I had to go and look up Haggis and suet pudding. I see from Wikipedia that Haggis is a “small four-legged Scottish Highland creature”. Not sure whether I could eat it or not. Pictures look interesting. The suet pudding I could not eat! Suet is for the birds. I don’t like animal fat as a rule so most likely would not care for that. I’d probably try a bite just to see.

Hmmm if the Christmas tree is idol worship because it is cut down and decorated than does that mean when we decorate our house for Christmas we are also worshipping it? After all houses are made of wood (cut trees) and most people do decorate them for Christmas.

Yes - Only Larger and more expensive

Robin of the Wichita Hood

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

** I was quoting from my New American Bible from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.**

Regardless of the English translation, i.e. ‘strive’ or ‘fight’, the original Greek text word is still agonizomai.
**When I was eight, I was moved by the story taught in Mass. However, when I was told that Santa Claus didn’t exist, I felt like if my parents could lie to me about Santa Claus, then they could also be lying about Jesus. **

**Can you see the confusion that taking pagan symbols, like the tree, and trying to clean them up and call them christian can cause in the eyes of a baby believer? **

**Parents - & others - often say what is not in accord with objective & ascertainable reality, not so as to deceive, but in order to give an explanation of things without having to go into great detail: not because they take pleasure in falsehood, but because (rightly or wrongly) they judge that children would not appreciate the facts. **​

**The Bible is one “lie” from start to finish, if a *****truth-telling account of things *****has to be an exact description of how things are in reality. “I am the Vine” - excuse me, but I don’t see any tendrils or shoots. Vines have both - Jesus has ****neither: so Jesus is telling porky pies: unless He is green & a source of wine: if He’s saying anything true at all, that must be His meaning. Otherwise, don’t listen to Him - He’s obviously not telling the truth: so how can anyone trust a word He says ? “The Lord is a man of war” - another lie: a “man of war” is a jellyfish, which has a very nasty sting: what on earth possesses Christians to worship jellyfish ? God’s *not *a jellyfish ? ****Then why call Him one ? Where’s the sense in that ? Besides, how can a jellyfish dress vines ? **

**IOW - taking words as exact descriptions of reality in all circumstances, causes gigantic problems: because words, & speech, & language, don’t always work like that. A proper description of how the eye works, would be very long: 500 pages, perhaps. But people don’t want a 500-page essay on the subject; they want something much shorter - IOW, they want a lie. Children don’t want an essay on the distinction between the elves of Father Christmas, elves in English folklore, & Elves in Tolkien - not even if they hear all about elves in Elisabethan literature as a bonus; they want a lie, not because they delight in falsehood, but because the full story of the elves who help Father Christmas load his sleigh would take an exceeding long time to tell properly. So a potted version of the facts is what they get - IOW, a lie. **

**Lies are always forbidden - economy with the truth, is not. The Bible uses economies all the time, not to deceive, but to convey what is a true in a manner which is adapted to the tiny capacities of man’s understanding. God so far exceeds our understandings, that it is impossible for them to recive Him as He truly Is; only God can understand God. So He “dumbs down” the Truth out of mercy for our wretchedness, so that we might receive a drop of the infinite Ocean of His Truth. Parents too use economies, for the same reason: the **
**poverty of the hearer; so that later on"childish **
things" may be “put away” ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

**If you would be so kind as to tell me if you agree with or disagree with “the christmas tree is NOT a literal idol.”**Thank you for clarifying this for me.

**Just to make my own what mercygate said - no, a Christmas tree is not a literal idol. **​

**Anything that one is able to prize more than God is able to be an idol: sex, money, food, security, property, health, fame, learning, career, society, intellectual brilliance, reputation, prosperity, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, virtue, power, conformity, individuality, the will, happiness, the Church, the Bible, reputation, spiritual gifts, presents, holidays, leisure, the family, one’s nation, respectability: - anything that is not God Himself, can be an idol; even a Christmas tree. ****It is the intention of the heart, not the existence of things, that makes idolatry. **

As for those verses about not following the heathen - what does that involve ? St. Paul wrote in Greek, a language spoken by worshippers of many gods. Was that not following the heathen ? Judah’s contacts with Greek culture had not been happy in the second century BC: yet there is St. Paul writing in Greek, & even quoting Greek non-Jews - Stoics, indeed. Every Christian who reads Acts 17 reads a line from a Stoic poet:

Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring…

(Phaenomena 1-5).

And what is St. John doing, using a word & concept developed by Plato ? The strict interpretation of some Christians, who seek to have their fellow-Christians follow a law not even given to them in the first place, but to Israelites living 3000 years ago, undermines the very New Testament those Christians seek to honour

 

[tequilamac]

**Parents - & others - often say what is not in accord with objective & ascertainable reality, not so as to deceive, but in order to give an explanation of things without having to go into great detail: not because they take pleasure in falsehood, but because (rightly or wrongly) they judge that children would not appreciate the facts. **​

**The Bible is one “lie” from start to finish, if a *****truth-telling account of things ***has to be an exact description of how things are in reality. “I am the Vine” - excuse me, but I don’t see any tendrils or shoots. Vines have both - Jesus has **neither: so Jesus is telling porky pies: unless He is green & a source of wine: if He’s saying anything true at all, that must be His meaning. Otherwise, don’t listen to Him - He’s obviously not telling the truth: so how can anyone trust a word He says ? “The Lord is a man of war” - another lie: a “man of war” is a jellyfish, which has a very nasty sting: what on earth possesses Christians to worship jellyfish ? God’s *not ***a jellyfish ? **Then why call Him one ? Where’s the sense in that ? Besides, how can a jellyfish dress vines ? **

**IOW - taking words as exact descriptions of reality in all circumstances, causes gigantic problems: because words, & speech, & language, don’t always work like that. A proper description of how the eye works, would be very long: 500 pages, perhaps. But people don’t want a 500-page essay on the subject; they want something much shorter - IOW, they want a lie. Children don’t want an essay on the distinction between the elves of Father Christmas, elves in English folklore, & Elves in Tolkien - not even if they hear all about elves in Elisabethan literature as a bonus; they want a lie, not because they delight in falsehood, but because the full story of the elves who help Father Christmas load his sleigh would take an exceeding long time to tell properly. So a potted version of the facts is what they get - IOW, a lie. **

**Lies are always forbidden - economy with the truth, is not. The Bible uses economies all the time, not to deceive, but to convey what is a true in a manner which is adapted to the tiny capacities of man’s understanding. God so far exceeds our understandings, that it is impossible for them to recive Him as He truly Is; only God can understand God. So He “dumbs down” the Truth out of mercy for our wretchedness, so that we might receive a drop of the infinite Ocean of His Truth. Parents too use economies, for the same reason: the **
**poverty of the hearer; so that later on"childish **
things" may be “put away” ##

Good heavens. This must have been meant for the younger generation with good eyesight?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Good heavens. This must have been meant for the younger generation with good eyesight?

Is it difficult to read ? I thought it would not be - any advice on making it easier to read will be gratefully received : large fonts look so much as though they are drawing attention to themselves ​

 

[tequilamac]

Is it difficult to read ? I thought it would not be - any advice on making it easier to read will be gratefully received : large fonts look so much as though they are drawing attention to themselves ​

Admittedly the large fonts are extremely irritating and lack charity in my eyes, but I’m afraid they are easier to read then your small font was for the elderly. Is there no middle ground?
Is there no peace on earth?

 

[Zooey]

Allow me; I have to do it for myself anyhow, I’ll just do the same for you all:

**Parents - & others - often say what is not in accord with objective & ascertainable reality, not so as to deceive, but in order to give an explanation of things without having to go into great detail: not because they take pleasure in falsehood, but because (rightly or wrongly) they judge that children would not appreciate the facts. **​

**The Bible is one “lie” from start to finish, if a *****truth-telling account of things ***has to be an exact description of how things are in reality. “I am the Vine” - excuse me, but I don’t see any tendrils or shoots. Vines have both - Jesus has **neither: so Jesus is telling porky pies: unless He is green & a source of wine: if He’s saying anything true at all, that must be His meaning. Otherwise, don’t listen to Him - He’s obviously not telling the truth: so how can anyone trust a word He says ? “The Lord is a man of war” - another lie: a “man of war” is a jellyfish, which has a very nasty sting: what on earth possesses Christians to worship jellyfish ? God’s *not ***a jellyfish ? **Then why call Him one ? Where’s the sense in that ? Besides, how can a jellyfish dress vines ? **

**IOW - taking words as exact descriptions of reality in all circumstances, causes gigantic problems: because words, & speech, & language, don’t always work like that. A proper description of how the eye works, would be very long: 500 pages, perhaps. But people don’t want a 500-page essay on the subject; they want something much shorter - IOW, they want a lie. Children don’t want an essay on the distinction between the elves of Father Christmas, elves in English folklore, & Elves in Tolkien - not even if they hear all about elves in Elisabethan literature as a bonus; they want a lie, not because they delight in falsehood, but because the full story of the elves who help Father Christmas load his sleigh would take an exceeding long time to tell properly. So a potted version of the facts is what they get - IOW, a lie. **

**Lies are always forbidden - economy with the truth, is not. The Bible uses economies all the time, not to deceive, but to convey what is a true in a manner which is adapted to the tiny capacities of man’s understanding. God so far exceeds our understandings, that it is impossible for them to recive Him as He truly Is; only God can understand God. So He “dumbs down” the Truth out of mercy for our wretchedness, so that we might receive a drop of the infinite Ocean of His Truth. Parents too use economies, for the same reason: the **
**poverty of the hearer; so that later on"childish **
things" may be “put away” ##

 

[tequilamac]

Allow me; I have to do it for myself anyhow, I’ll just do the same for you all:

Well then I am out voted. I can only say I refuse to participate in the pagan idol worship of

colored

Fonts

 

[Zooey]

Well then I am out voted. I can only say I refuse to participate in the pagan idol worship of

colored

Fonts

http://bestsmileys.com/lol/10.gif

 

[tabcom]

As for those verses about not following the heathen (see post #336) - what does that involve ?

. . . anything that is not God Himself, can be an idol; even a Christmas tree. It is the intention of the heart, not the existence of things, that makes idolatry.

I took the liberty of editing your post into a simple Q and A format.

 

[tabcom]

St. Paul wrote in Greek, a language spoken by worshippers of many gods. Was that not following the heathen ?

No.

The strict interpretation of some Christians, who seek to have their fellow-Christians follow a law not even given to them in the first place, but to Israelites living 3000 years ago, undermines the very New Testament those Christians seek to honour

**And what exactly is being underminded?

Perhaps the moral relativism philosophy that you are describing?

"Moral Relativism takes the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition’s truth. Relativistic positions often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning, though most relativists propound a more limited version of the theory.

Some moral relativists — for example, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre — hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies or ought to lie at the foundation of individuals’ moral acts. In this view public morality reflects social convention, and only personal, subjective morality expresses true authenticity."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
**

 

[tabcom]

**From CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE
W - Zyro, Ferdinand
by James Strong & John McClintock
p. 434

Yule

the old name for Christmas, still in provincial popular use in England. It points to heathen times, and to the annual festival held by the Northern nations at the winter solstice as a part of their system of sun-worship. In the Edda (q.v.) the sun is styled fagrahoel (fair or shining wheel), and a remnant of his worship, under the image of a fire-wheel, survived in Europe as late as 1823. The inhabitants of the village of Konz, on the Moselle, were in the habit, on St. John’s Eve, of taking a great wheel wrapped in straw to the top of a neighboring eminence, and making it roll down the hill, flaming all the way: if it reached the Moselle before being extinct, a good vintage was anticipated. A similar usage existed at Trier. The Greenlanders of the present day have a. feast at the winter solstice to rejoice at the return of the sun, and Wormius (Fast. Dan. lib. 1) tells us that in his time the Icelanders dated the beginning of their year from Yule. The old Norse hoel, Anglo-Saxon hveol, have developed into Iceland hiol, Sweden and Danish hjul, English wheel; but from the same root would seem to have sprung old Norse jol, Sweden and Danish jul, Anglo-Saxon geol, English yule, applied as the name of the winter solstice, either in reference to the conception of the sun himself as a wheel, or, more probably, to his wheeling or turning back at that time in his path in the heavens. The general nature of the observances of this festival are noticed under the head of Christmas. (q.v.). In the greenery with which we still deck our homes and places of worship, and in the Christmas trees laden with gifts, we may see a relic of the symbols by which the pagan ancestors of the modern English signified their faith; in the power of the returning sun to clothe the earth again with green and hang new fruit on the trees; and the furmety, until lately eaten in many parts of England (in Scotland the preparation of oatmeal called sowans) on Christmas eve or morning. seems to be a lingering memory of the offerings paid to Hulda, or Berchta, the divine mother, the Ceres of the North, or personification of fruitfulness, to whom they looked for new stores of grain. The burning of the Yule-log, Yule-log, or Christmas-block, testifies to the use of fire in the worship of the sun. This custom still survives in the north of England. In 1684 Herrick tells, in his Hesperides, how the Yule-log of the new Christmas was wont to be lighted “with last year’s brand,” and already, in the same year, its blazes are condemned by Warmstrey as “foolish and vaine, and not countenanced by the Church.” The religious keeping of Yule and Easter had been one of the articles of Perth (q.v.), which had been strongly 435 objected to. On the accession of William and Mary the Scottish discharged what was called the “Yule vacancy” of the Court of Sessions, and compelled the judges to attend court at that period. But in 1712 an act was passed re-enacting, the Christmas recess. The act gave great offence to many Presbyterians in Scotland. See Atkinson, Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect (1868); Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie; Brand, Popular Antiquities, s.v.
**

 

[mercygate]

From CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE
W - Zyro, Ferdinand
by James Strong & John McClintock
p. 434

Yule

the old name for Christmas, still in provincial popular use in England. It points to heathen times, and to the annual festival held by the Northern nations at the winter solstice as a part of their system of sun-worship. In the Edda (q.v.) the sun is styled fagrahoel (fair or shining wheel), and a remnant of his worship, under the image of a fire-wheel, survived in Europe as late as 1823. The inhabitants of the village of Konz, on the Moselle, were in the habit, on St. John’s Eve, of taking a great wheel wrapped in straw to the top of a neighboring eminence, and making it roll down the hill, flaming all the way: if it reached the Moselle before being extinct, a good vintage was anticipated. A similar usage existed at Trier. The Greenlanders of the present day have a. feast at the winter solstice to rejoice at the return of the sun, and Wormius (Fast. Dan. lib. 1) tells us that in his time the Icelanders dated the beginning of their year from Yule. The old Norse hoel, Anglo-Saxon hveol, have developed into Iceland hiol, Sweden and Danish hjul, English wheel; but from the same root would seem to have sprung old Norse jol, Sweden and Danish jul, Anglo-Saxon geol, English yule, applied as the name of the winter solstice, either in reference to the conception of the sun himself as a wheel, or, more probably, to his wheeling or turning back at that time in his path in the heavens. The general nature of the observances of this festival are noticed under the head of Christmas. (q.v.). In the greenery with which we still deck our homes and places of worship, and in the Christmas trees laden with gifts, we may see a relic of the symbols by which the pagan ancestors of the modern English signified their faith; in the power of the returning sun to clothe the earth again with green and hang new fruit on the trees; and the furmety, until lately eaten in many parts of England (in Scotland the preparation of oatmeal called sowans) on Christmas eve or morning. seems to be a lingering memory of the offerings paid to Hulda, or Berchta, the divine mother, the Ceres of the North, or personification of fruitfulness, to whom they looked for new stores of grain. The burning of the Yule-log, Yule-log, or Christmas-block, testifies to the use of fire in the worship of the sun. This custom still survives in the north of England. In 1684 Herrick tells, in his Hesperides, how the Yule-log of the new Christmas was wont to be lighted “with last year’s brand,” and already, in the same year, its blazes are condemned by Warmstrey as “foolish and vaine, and not countenanced by the Church.” The religious keeping of Yule and Easter had been one of the articles of Perth (q.v.), which had been strongly 435 objected to. On the accession of William and Mary the Scottish discharged what was called the “Yule vacancy” of the Court of Sessions, and compelled the judges to attend court at that period. But in 1712 an act was passed re-enacting, the Christmas recess. The act gave great offence to many Presbyterians in Scotland. See Atkinson, Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect (1868); Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie; Brand, Popular Antiquities, s.v.

Tab, none of this is news to most of us here. But rather than obliterating it, you can turn it all around and view it from the other end of the telescope.

Pagan celebrations of things like the solstice can be seen as a natural groping towards something they could not yet understand: the true light of the World. There are only just so many symbols in the world: fire, water, oil, bread, trees . . . all of them point to the Creator, all of them point to Christ.

The fact that pagans intuited something quasi-sacred in the natural form paved the way for them to receive the revealed Truth when He finally appeared in the fullness of his light.

The paganism of things like mistletoe has been purged: defanged by the triumph of the Cross, which we celebrate at this time of year in the wood of the manger. They cannot be separated. They have transformed the world: all of it.