VOLUME 9 - ISSUE11
GWINGOURWRISTS SLAPPED SINCE1993
UNIVERSilY COLLEGE OFTHEFRASER VALLEY'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
~ANTA CLAUSE-THE PSEUDO-CHRIST By James Clark
ren1ove that jolly old elf. The tuhby red flannel Santa w:is crented by ad execs at Coca-Cola as a Christrm1s promotion. Before Sant11moved 10 America he carried on a more low key existence in Europe us Kris Kringel. Old Kris had many name!. undone of his first was that of Mithra, a Persian deity. The cult of Mithra was powerful in ancient Ro111e monuments and doc• uments of its existence survive 10 this duy. It rival kc.I the power of nnother cull of the day, Christianity. The tem.:hings Milhru. the Mother of the Gods, and that of Christianity were so similar that Christian doctors of the day denounced it as the teachings of the devil. Santa knows if you've been bad or good because he cnn sec you when you are sleeping and when you urc awake. Odin could see :ill of heaven and earth from his high throne in the for north at Asgard. "Odin wus believed to bestow special gifts at Yuletide to those who honoured him by approaching his sacred fir tree." It's a good thing that Santa can be eliminated from our holiday festivities becausealong with Santa goes all the gift-giving, elf worshipping and consumer nonsensethat goes along with him. This leaves us tirne tu focus on the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus.
Deck the bolls, trim the tree, light the logs, buying overpriced useless garbage. this season we will all be doing Christmas stuff without thinking about where the traditions came from. This year I wanted to know why l bring a tree into my house and don't put it into the fireplace. So in the interest of keeping the holidays Christian, I figured I'd expunge all the pag,m elements and so we can be left with the Christian Christmas. Let's start with the tree. It is one of the classic symbols of Christmas, but tree worshipping dates back to ancient Egypt. The sacred tree theme was again picked up in the first century B.C.E by nomadic German tribesmen who brought their tree worship to Rome. In fact the Teutonic word for "temple" has it roots in the word for tree. Tree worship was not new to the Romans who hud worshiped the sacred fig tree of Romulus since the dawn of the Empire. It does show that tree worshipping was rampant in ancient times. The early Christians tried to gliti up their religion by using pagan symbols and giving them some Christian spin doctoring. Around mid-winter when there was no green anywhere pagans would worship the evergreens to help bring on 1hecoming of spring. The Christians changed the pagan evergreen into the tree of life from Genesis, the hght of the world shone from the;:qmdles th.it would be placed upon it. Are we worshipping the trees or Christ? As we ga1her around the Christmas tree and praise it wi1h songs like "Oh Christmas Tree," we ask ourselves if we are giving homage to our pagan ancestors and not Christ. Because children may be confused about the nature of our modern tree wor. ship, we definitely remove it from our cer• cmonies. What else should we take out? Decking the halls with houghs of holly, is another holiday treat that we fim.l parlicularly fun but who came up with this super fun idea? Holly was one of several magical plants used in ancient druidic rituals in northern Europe and Scandinavia. People used it to ward off evil spirits. This ritual apparently didn't protect them from the spirit of Christmas, which found the festive evergreen with it's red and green colourings just the thing to brighten up the holiday season. Coincidentally the red and green "Christmas colours" were also the colours that people dressed in for the fcsti• val of Jupiter, the Roman god of thunder, rain and the oak; Jupiter also carried a sceptre of holly. Mistletoe, another symbol of Christmas, happens to grow on oak trees. We kiss people under the mistletoe and unknowingly pay hom<1geto the druids who worshiped it as a symbol of fertility.
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Now that holly and mistletoe are out, lets examine some other druidic symbol • of Christmas. The Yule log burning in the hearth, is not just there to singe Santa's testicles as he burns down the chimney, it has its origins in the winter solstice fire festivals of Europe. The ashes of the Yule log were ground into a powder and spread over the lields to promote the speedy growth of the crops of the following spring. While the log burned it was supposed to protect the house from fire and thunder. Christians would reject the significance of 1heYule log as a religious symbol. Trees, Wreathes, holly, and mistletoe, the fun decor of Christmas actually existed before Christ. By plastering up <111 this greenery at Christmas we are actually
On the Julian calendar, the winter solstice fell on the twenty-fifth on December. Tt was al this tinie of year that prnctitioners of the Mithrnic religion would retreat into :;hrines to practice the Nativity of the Sun ul midnight they would . proclaim "The virgin has brought forth' The light is wax• ing!" Mithru would , ascend to the l.ky . in a mule-drawn chariot bringinl,! forth the gift of light to his followers. The birth of Mithrn was reprc• scnted in Egypl as a newborn child who would be brought forth and worshipcll.
ing it into a pagan fertility festival. Now that all the bushes are out of my house and out of Christmas I have to
MORECHRISTMAS TORIESSTARTINGON PAGE10
, Nu fun trees, jolly elves. presents, cutesy babies. or midnight mass. what is Christmn coming to? "Leo the Great rebuked the pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnised becauseof the birth of the new sun, as it was called, and 1101because of the nativily of Christ." Sources: The Golden Bough: A Study In Magic And Religion by J.G. Frazer Sarnn Claws by Robert Knox