Pagan Origins of Christmas
The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop

Pagan Origins of Christmas

Pagan Origins of Christmas

The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important
may be singled out for elucidation--viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day,
Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption.
Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to
the festival in honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes
it that that festival was connected with the 25th of December? There
is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or
the time of the year when He was born.

How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as
Christmas-day? Why, ...Long before the ...Christian era ...a
festival was celebrated among the
heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of
the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven;

Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed.
This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an
astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the
sun's yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is
indubitably evidence that the festival in question had a much higher
reference than this--that it commemorated not merely the figurative
birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day
of the grand Deliverer.

* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is
distinguished from the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian
myths somewhat differed; but yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it
is evident that some marvellous power was attributed to the mistletoe
branch;
There can be no doubt... that the Pagan festival at the winter
solstice...was held in honour of the birth
of the Babylonian Messiah.

Pagan Origins of Christmas

The Two Babylons
Alexander Hislop
http://www.biblebelievers.com/babylon/sect31.htm
Chapter III
Festivals
Section I. Christmas and Lady-day
If Rome be indeed the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Madonna
enshrined in her sanctuaries be the very queen of heaven, for the
worshipping of whom the fierce anger of God was provoked against the
Jews in the days of Jeremiah, it is of the last consequence that the
fact should be established beyond all possibility of doubt; for that
being once established, every one who trembles at the Word of God must
shudder at the very thought of giving such a system, either
individually or nationally, the least countenance or support.
Something has been said already that goes far to prove the identity of
the Roman and Babylonian systems; but at every step the evidence
becomes still more overwhelming. That which arises from comparing the
different festivals is peculiarly so.

The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important
may be singled out for elucidation--viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day,
Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption.
Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to
the festival in honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes
it that that festival was connected with the 25th of December? There
is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or
the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there, implies
that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been
on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His
birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by
night in the open fields. Now, no doubt, the climate of Palestine is
not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though
the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from
December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for
the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later
than about the end of October. *

* GILL, in his Commentary on Luke 2:8, has the following: "There are
two sorts of cattle with the Jews...there are the cattle of the house
that lie in the city; the cattle of the wilderness are they that lie
in the pastures. On which one of the commentators (MAIMONIDES, in
Misn. Betza), observes, 'These lie in the pastures, which are in the
villages, all the days of the cold and heat, and do not go into the
cities until the rains descend.' The first rain falls in the month
Marchesvan, which answers to the latter part of our October and the
former part of November...From whence it appears that Christ must be
born before the middle of October, since the first rain was not yet
come." KITTO, on Deuteronomy 11:14 (Illustrated Commentary), says that
the "first rain," is in "autumn," "that is, in September or October."
This would make the time of the removal of the flocks from the fields
somewhat earlier than I have stated in the text; but there is no doubt
that it could not be later than there stated, according to the
testimony of Maimonides, whose acquaintance with all that concerns
Jewish customs is well known.
It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ
could have taken place at the end of December. There is great
unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge,
Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings, in his "Jewish Antiquities,"
who are all of opinion that December 25th could not be the right time
of our Lord's nativity, the celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very
decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful
disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the
following;--"At the birth of Christ every woman and child was to go to
be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long
journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a
business, especially for women with child, and children to travel in.
Therefore, Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, at
the time of Christ's birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with
their flocks in the night time; but this was not likely to be in the
middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter wind was not so
extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the
gospel, 'Pray that your flight be not in the winter.' If the winter
was so bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to
lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in." Indeed, it
is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties *
that the day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined, ** and that
within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever
heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century
was far advanced did it gain much observance.

* Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER's Manual of
Presbytery. Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into
the Worship of the Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival
was observed in that Church, and adds--"It seems improbably that they
should celebrate Christ's nativity when they disagreed about the month
and the day when Christ was born." See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his
Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of Christ's birth is
uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could not have
been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob's complaint
to Laban, "By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night."
Now the whole force of Jacob's complaint against his churlish kinsman
lay in this, that Laban made him do what no other man would have done,
and, therefore, if he refers to the cold nights of winter (which,
however, is not the common understanding of the expression), it proves
just the opposite of what it is brought by Mr. Ryle to prove--viz.,
that it was not the custom for shepherds to tend their flocks in the
fields by night in winter.
** GIESELER, CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. Christi), writing
in Antioch about AD 380, says: "It is not yet ten years since this day
was made known to us". "What follows," adds Gieseler, "furnishes a
remarkable illustration of the ease with which customs of recent date
could assume the character of apostolic institutions." Thus proceeds
Chrysostom: "Among those inhabiting the west, it was known before from
ancient and primitive times, and to the dwellers from Thrace to
Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and well-known," that is,
the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch in the east,
on the very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was perfectly
well-known in all the European region of the west, from Thrace even to
Spain!

How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as
Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long
before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the
heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of
the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be
presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the
number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was
adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This
tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very
early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the
year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of
Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of
the Pagans to their own superstition. "By us," says he, "who are
strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable
to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and
Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new
year's day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are
celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to
their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the
Christians." Upright men strive to stem the tide, but in spite of all
their efforts, the apostacy went on, till the Church, with the
exception of a small remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition.
That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, is beyond all doubt.
The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still
celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian
title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, "about the
time of the winter solstice." The very name by which Christmas is
popularly known among ourselves--Yule-day --proves at once its Pagan
and Babylonian origin. "Yule" is the Chaldee name for an "infant" or
"little child"; * and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan
Anglo-Saxon ancestors, "Yule-day," or the "Child's day," and the night
that preceded it, "Mother-night," long before they came in contact
with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character.

* From Eol, an "infant." In Scotland, at least in the Lowlands, the
Yule-cakes are also called Nur-cakes. Now in Chaldee Nour signifies
"birth." Therefore, Nur-cakes are "birth-cakes." The Scandinavian
goddesses, called "norns," who appointed children their destinies at
their birth, evidently derived their name from the cognate Chaldee
word "Nor," a child.
Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed.
This festival has been commonly believed to have had only an
astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the
sun's yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is
indubitably evidence that the festival in question had a much higher
reference than this--that it commemorated not merely the figurative
birth-day of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birth-day
of the grand Deliverer. Among the Sabeans of Arabia, who regarded the
moon, and not the sun, as the visible symbol of the favourite object
of their idolatry, the same period was observed as the birth festival.
Thus we read in Stanley's Sabean Philosophy: "On the 24th of the tenth
month," that is December, according to our reckoning, "the Arabians
celebrated the BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD--that is the Moon." The Lord Moon
was the great object of Arabian worship, and that Lord Moon, according
to them, was born on the 24th of December, which clearly shows that
the birth which they celebrated had no necessary connection with the
course of the sun. It is worthy of special note, too, that if
Christmas-day among the ancient Saxons of this island, was observed to
celebrate the birth of any Lord of the host of heaven, the case must
have been precisely the same here as it was in Arabia. The Saxons, as
is well known, regarded the Sun as a female divinity, and the Moon as
a male. *

* SHARON TURNER. Turner cites an Arabic poem which proves that a
female sun and a masculine moon were recognised in Arabia as well as
by the Anglo-Saxons.
It must have been the birth-day of the Lord Moon, therefore, and not
of the Sun, that was celebrated by them on the 25th of December, even
as the birth-day of the same Lord Moon was observed by the Arabians on
the 24th of December. The name of the Lord Moon in the East seems to
have been Meni, for this appears the most natural interpretation of
the Divine statement in Isaiah lxv. 11, "But ye are they that forsake
my holy mountain, that prepare a temple for Gad, and that furnish the
drink-offering unto Meni." There is reason to believe that Gad refers
to the sun-god, and that Meni in like manner designates the
moon-divinity. *

*See KITTO, vol. iv. p. 66, end of Note. The name Gad evidently
refers, in the first instance, to the war-god, for it signifies to
assault; but it also signifies "the assembler"; and under both ideas
it is applicable to Nimrod, whose general character was that of the
sun-god, for he was the first grand warrior; and, under the name
Phoroneus, he was celebrated for having first gathered mankind into
social communities. The name Meni, "the numberer," on the other hand,
seems just a synonym for the name of Cush or Chus, which, while it
signifies "to cover" or "hide," signifies also "to count or number."
The true proper meaning of the name Cush is, I have no doubt, "The
numberer" or "Arithmetician"; for while Nimrod his son, as the
"mighty" one, was the grand propagator of the Babylonian system of
idolatry, by force and power, he, as Hermes, was the real concocter of
that system, for he is said to have "taught men the proper mode of
approaching the Deity with prayers and sacrifice" (WILKINSON); and
seeing idolatry and astronomy were intimately combined, to enable him
to do so with effect, it was indispensable that he should be
pre-eminently skilled in the science of numbers. Now, Hermes (that is
Cush) is said to have "first discovered numbers, and the art of
reckoning, geometry, and astronomy, the games of chess and hazard"
(Ibid.); and it is in all probability from reference to the meaning of
the name of Cush, that some called "NUMBER the father of gods and men"
(Ibid.). The name Meni is just the Chaldee form of the Hebrew "Mene,"
the "numberer" for in Chaldee i often takes the place of the final e.
As we have seen reason to conclude with Gesenius, that Nebo, the great
prophetic god of Babylon, was just the same god as Hermes, this shows
the peculiar emphasis of the first words in the Divine sentence that
sealed the doom of Belshazzar, as representing the primeval
god--"MENE, MENE, Tekel, Upharsin," which is as much as covertly to
say, "The numberer is numbered." As the cup was peculiarly the symbol
of Cush, hence the pouring out of the drink-offering to him as the god
of the cup; and as he was the great Diviner, hence the divinations as
to the future year, which Jerome connects with the divinity referred
to by Isaiah. Now Hermes, in Egypt as the "numberer," was identified
with the moon that numbers the months. He was called "Lord of the
moon" (BUNSEN); and as the "dispenser of time" (WILKINSON), he held a
"palm branch, emblematic of a year" (Ibid.). Thus, then, if Gad was
the "sun-divinity," Meni was very naturally regarded as "The Lord
Moon."
Meni, or Manai, signifies "The Numberer." And it is by the changes of
the moon that the months are numbered: Psalm civ. 19, "He appointed
the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth the time of its going down." The
name of the "Man of the Moon," or the god who presided over that
luminary among the Saxons, was Mane, as given in the "Edda," and Mani,
in the "Voluspa." That it as the birth of the "Lord Moon" that was
celebrated among our ancestors at Christmas, we have remarkable
evidence in the name that is still given in the lowlands of Scotland
to the feast on the last day of the ye
r, which seems to be a remnant
of the old birth festival for the cakes then made are called
Nur-Cakes, or Birth-cakes. That name is Hogmanay. Now, "Hog-Manai" in
Chaldee signifies "The feast of the Numberer"; in other words, the
festival of Deus Lunus, or of the Man of the Moon. To show the
connection between country and country, and the inveterate endurance
of old customs, it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, commenting on the
very words of Isaiah already quoted, about spreading "a table for
Gad," and "pouring out a drink-offering to Meni," observes that it
"was the custom so late as his time [in the fourth century], in all
cities especially in Egypt and at Alexandria, to set tables, and
furnish them with various luxurious articles of food, and with goblets
containing a mixture of new wine, on the last day of the month and the
year, and that the people drew omens from them in respect of the
fruitfulness of the year." The Egyptian year began at a different time
from ours; but this is a near as possible (only substituting whisky
for wine), the way in which Hogmanay is still observed on the last day
of the last month of our year in Scotland. I do not know that any
omens are drawn from anything that takes place at that time, but
everybody in the south of Scotland is personally cognisant of the
fact, that, on Hogmanay, or the evening before New Year's day, among
those who observe old customs, a table is spread, and that while buns
and other dainties are provided by those who can afford them, oat
cakes and cheese are brought forth among those who never see oat cakes
but on this occasion, and that strong drink forms an essential article
of the provision.

Even where the sun was the favourite object of worship, as in Babylon
itself and elsewhere, at this festival he was worshipped not merely as
the orb of day, but as God incarnate. It was an essential principle of
the Babylonian system, that the Sun or Baal was the one only God.
When, therefore, Tammuz was worshipped as God incarnate, that implied
also that he was an incarnation of the Sun. In the Hindoo Mythology,
which is admitted to be essentially Babylonian, this comes out very
distinctly. There, Surya, or the sun, is represented as being
incarnate, and born for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the
gods, who, without such a birth, could not have been subdued. *

* See the Sanscrit Researches of Col. VANS KENNEDY. Col. K., a most
distinguished Sanscrit scholar, brings the Brahmins from Babylon
(Ibid.). Be it observed the very name Surya, given to the sun over all
India, is connected with this birth. Though the word had originally a
different meaning, it was evidently identified by the priests with the
Chaldee "Zero," and made to countenance the idea of the birth of the
"Sun-god." The Pracrit name is still nearer the Scriptural name of the
promised "seed." It is "Suro." It has been seen, in a previous
chapter, that in Egypt also the Sun was represented as born of a
goddess.
It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated
at the winter solstice. That festival at Rome was called the feast of
Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence
it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five
days; * loose reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had
a temporary emancipation, ** and used all manner of freedoms with
their masters.

* Subsequently the number of the days of the Saturnalia was increased
to seven.
** If Saturn, or Kronos, was, as we have seen reason to believe,
Phoroneus, "The emancipator," the "temporary emancipation" of the
slaves at his festival was exactly in keeping with his supposed
character.

This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken
festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other
words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon. "It was the
custom," says he, "during the five days it lasted, for masters to be
in subjection to their servants, and one of them ruled the house,
clothed in a purple garment like a king." This "purple-robed" servant
was called "Zoganes," the "Man of sport and wantonness," and answered
exactly to the "Lord of Misrule," that in the dark ages, was chosen in
all Popish countries to head the revels of Christmas. The wassailling
bowl of Christmas had its precise counterpart in the "Drunken
festival" of Babylon; and many of the other observances still kept up
among ourselves at Christmas came from the very same quarter. The
candles, in some parts of England, lighted on Christmas-eve, and used
so long as the festive season lasts, were equally lighted by the
Pagans on the eve of the festival of the Babylonian god, to do honour
to him: for it was one of the distinguishing peculiarities of his
worship to have lighted wax-candles on his altars. The Christmas tree,
now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan
Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir;
the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir
referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and
great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed
into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine
son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognised as
the "Man the branch." And this entirely accounts for the putting of
the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and the appearance of the
Christmas-tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, "The seed of the
woman," which name also signified Ignigena, or "born of the fire," he
has to enter the fire on "Mother-night," that he may be born the next
day out of it, as the "Branch of God," or the Tree that brings all
divine gifts to men. But why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire
under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be remembered
that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new
incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces),
on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the great god,
cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a huge
tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut down almost to the ground.
But the great serpent, the symbol of the life restoring Aesculapius,
twists itself around the dead stock, and lo, at its side up sprouts a
young tree--a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined
never to be cut down by hostile power--even the palm-tree, the
well-known symbol of victory. The Christmas-tree, as has been stated,
was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the very
same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the
Christmas-fir; for that covertly symbolised the new-born God as
Baal-berith, * "Lord of the Covenant," and thus shadowed forth the
perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, not that after having
fallen before his enemies, he had risen triumphant over them all.

* Baal-bereth, which differs only in one letter from Baal-berith,
"Lord of the Covenant," signifies "Lord of the fir-tree."
Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as
the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the
Natalis invicti solis, "The birth-day of the unconquered Sun." Now the
Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut
down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus--the slain
god come to life again. In the light reflected by the above statement
on customs that still linger among us, the origin of which has been
lost in the midst of hoar antiquity, let the reader look at the
singular practice still kept up in the South on Christmas-eve, of
kissing under the mistletoe bough. That mistletoe bough in the Druidic
superstition, which, as we have seen, was derived from Babylon, was a
representation of the Messiah, "The man the branch." The mistletoe was
regarded as a divine branch *--a branch that came from heaven, and
grew upon a tree that sprung out of the earth.

* In the Scandinavian story of Balder, the mistletoe branch is
distinguished from the lamented god. The Druidic and Scandinavian
myths somewhat differed; but yet, even in the Scandinavian story, it
is evident that some marvellous power was attributed to the mistletoe
branch; for it was able to do what nothing else in the compass of
creation could accomplish; it slew the divinity on whom the
Anglo-Saxons regarded "the empire" of their "heaven" as "depending."
Now, all that is neceesary to unravel this apparent inconsistency, is
just to understand "the branch" that had such power, as a symbolical
expression for the true Messiah. The Bacchus of the Greeks came
evidently to be recognised as the "seed of the serpent"; for he is
said to have been brought forth by his mother in consequence of
intercourse with Jupiter, when that god had appeared in the form of a
serpent. If the character of Balder was the same, the story of his
death just amounted to this, that the "seed of the serpent" had been
slain by the "seed of the woman." This story, of course, must have
originated with his enemies. But the idolators took up what they could
not altogether deny, evidently with the view of explaining it away.
Thus by the engrafting of the celestial branch into the earthly tree,
heaven and earth, that sin had severed, were joined together, and thus
the mistletoe bough became the token of Divine reconciliation to man,
the kiss being the well-known token of pardon and reconciliation.
Whence could such an idea have come? May it not have come from the
eighty-fifth Psalm, ver. 10,11, "Mercy and truth are met together;
righteousness and peace have KISSED each other. Truth shall spring out
of the earth [in consequence of the coming of the promised Saviour],
and righteousness shall look down from heaven"? Certain it is that
that Psalm was written soon after the Babylonish captivity; and as
multitudes of the Jews, after that event, still remained in Babylon
under the guidance of inspired men, such as Daniel, as a part of the
Divine word it must have been communicated to them, as well as to
their kinsmen in Palestine. Babylon was, at that time, the centre of
the civilised world; and thus Paganism, corrupting the Divine symbol
as it ever has done, had opportunities of sending forth its debased
counterfeit of the truth to all the ends of the earth, through the
Mysteries that were affiliated with the great central system in
Babylon. Thus the very customs of Christmas still existent cast
surprising light at once on the revelations of grace made to all the
earth, and the efforts made by Satan and his emissaries to
materialise, carnalise, and degrade them.

In many countries the boar was sacrificed to the god, for the injury a
boar was fabled to have done him. According to one version of the
story of the death of Adonis, or Tammuz, it was, as we have seen, in
consequence of a wound from the tusk of a boar that he died. The
Phrygian Attes, the beloved of Cybele, whose story was identified with
that of Adonis, was fabled to have perished in like manner, by the
tusk of a boar. Therefore, Diana, who though commonly represented in
popular myths only as the huntress Diana, was in reality the great
mother of the gods, has frequently the boar's head as her
accompaniment, in token not of any mere success in the chase, but of
her triumph over the grand enemy of the idolatrous system, in which
she occupied so conspicuous a place. According to Theocritus, Venus
was reconciled to the boar that killed Adonis, because when brought in
chains before her, it pleaded so pathetically that it had not killed
her husband of malice prepense, but only through accident. But yet, in
memory of the deed that the mystic boar had done, many a boar lost its
head or was offered in sacrifice to the offended goddess. In Smith,
Diana is represented with a boar's head lying beside her, on the top
of a heap of stones in which the Roman Emperor Trajan is represented
burning incense to the same goddess, the boar's head forms a very
prominent figure. On Christmas-day the Continental Saxons offered a
boar in sacrifice to the Sun, to propitiate her * for the loss of her
beloved Adonis.

* The reader will remember the Sun was a goddess. Mallet says, "They
offered the largest hog they could get to Frigga"--i.e., the mother of
Balder the lamented one. In Egypt swine were offered once a year, at
the feast of the Moon, to the Moon, and Bacchus or Osiris; and to them
only it was lawful to make such an offering. (AELIAN)
In Rome a similar observance had evidently existed; for a boar formed
the great article at the feast of Saturn, as appears from the
following words of Martial:--

"That boar will make you a good Saturnalia."
Hence the boar's head is still a standing dish in England at the
Christmas dinner, when the reason of it is long since forgotten. Yea,
the "Christmas goose" and "Yule cakes" were essential articles in the
worship of the Babylonian Messiah, as that worship was practised both
in Egypt and at Rome. Wilkinson, in reference to Egypt, shows that
"the favourite offering" of Osiris was "a goose," and moreover, that
the "goose could not be eaten except in the depth of winter." As to
Rome, Juvenal says, "that Osiris, if offended, could be pacified only
by a large goose and a thin cake." In many countries we have evidence
of a sacred character attached to the goose. It is well known that the
capitol of Rome was on one occasion saved when on the point of being
surprised by the Gauls in the dead of night, by the cackling of the
geese sacred to Juno, kept in the temple of Jupiter. In India, the
goose occupied a similar position; for in that land we read of the
sacred "Brahmany goose," or goose sacred to Brahma. Finally, the
monuments of Babylon show that the goose possessed a like mystic
character in Chaldea, and that it was offered in sacrifice there, as
well as in Rome or Egypt, for there the priest is seen with the goose
in the one hand, and his sacrificing knife in the other. *

* The symbolic meaning of the offering of the goose is worthy of
notice. "The goose," says Wilkinson, "signified in hieroglyphics a
child or son"; and Horapolo says, "It was chosen to denote a son, from
its love to its young, being always ready to give itself up to the
chasseur, in order that they might be preserved; for which reason the
Egyptians thought it right to revere this animal." (WILKINSON's
Egyptians) Here, then, the true meaning of the symbol is a son, who
voluntarily gives himself up as a sacrifice for those whom he
loves--viz., the Pagan Messiah.
There can be no doubt, then, that the Pagan festival at the winter
solstice--in other words, Christmas--was held in honour of the birth
of the Babylonian Messiah.