"CHRISTMAS (i.e. the Mass of Christ), in the Christian
Church, the festival of the nativity of Jesus Christ. The
history of this feast coheres so closley with that of
Epiphany (q.v.), that what follows must be read in connexion
with the article under that heading.
The earliest body of gospel tradition, represented by
Mark no less than by the primitive non-Marcan document
embodied in the first and third gospels, begins, not with
the birth and childhood of Jesus, but with his baptism; and
this order of accretion of gospel matter is faithfully
reflected in the time order of the invention of feasts. The
great church adopted Christmas much later than Epiphany; and
before the 5th cntury there was no general consensus of
opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether
on the 6th of January, or the 25th of March, or the 25th of
December.
The earliest identification of the 25th of December
with the birthday of Christ is in a passage otherwise
unknown and probably spurious, of Theophilus of Antioch
(A.D. 171-183), preserved in Latin by the Magdeburg
centuriators (i.3, 118), to the effect that the Gauls
contended that as they celebrated the birth of the Lord on
the 25th of December, whatever day of the week it might be,
so they ought to celebrate the Pascha on the 25th of March
when the resurrection befell.
The next mention of the 25th of December is in
Hippolytus' (c. 202) commentary on Daniel iv.23. Jesus, he
says, was born at Bethlehem on the 25th of December, a
Wednesday, in the forty-second year of Augustus. This
passage also is almost certainly interpolated. In any case
he mentions no feat, nor was such a feast congruous with the
orthodox ideas of that age. As late as 245 Origen, in his
eighth homily on Leviticus, repudiates as sinful the very
idea of keeping the birthday of Christ "as if he were a king
Pharoah." The first certain mention of Dec. 25 is in a
Latin chronographer of A.D. 354, first published entire by
Mommsen. [1--In the _Abhandlungen der sachsischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften_ (1895). Note that in A.D. 1, Dec. 25
was a Sunday and not a Friday.] It runs thus in English:
"Year 1 after Christ, in the consulate of Caesar and
Paulus, the Lord Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of
December, a Friday and 15th day of the new moon." Here
again no festal celebration of the day is attested.
There were, however many speculations in the 2nd
century about the date of Christ's birth. Clement of
Alexandria, towards its close, mentions several such, and
condemns them as superstitions. Some chronologists, he
says, alleged the birth to have occurred in the
twenty-eighth year of Augustus, on the 25th of Pachon, the
Egyptian month, i.e. the 20th of May. These were probably
the Basilidian gnostics. Others set it on the 24th or 25th
of Pharmuthi, i.e., the 19th or 20th of April. Clement
himself sets it on the 17th of November, 3 B.C. The author
of a Latin tract, called the _De Pascha computus_, written
in Africa in 243, sets it by private revelation, _ab ipso
deo inspirati_, on the 28th of March. He argues that the
world was created perfect, flowers in bloom, and trees in
leaf, therefore in spring; also at the equinox, and when the
moon just created was full. Now the moon and sun were
created on a Wednesday. The 28th of March suits all these
considerations. Christ, therefore, being the Sun of
Righteousness, was born on the 28th of March.
The same symbolical reasoning led Polycarp [2--In a fragment
preserved by an Armenian writer, Ananias of Shirak.] (before
160) to set his birth on Sunday, when the world's creation
began, but his baptism on Wednesday, for it was the analogue
of the sun's creation. On such grounds certain Latins as
early as 354 may have transferred the human birthday from
the 6th of January to the 25th of December, which was then a
Mithraic feast and is by the chronographer above referred
to, but in another part of his compilation, termed _Natilis
invicti solis_, or birthday of the unconquered Sun. Cyprian
(_de orat. dem._ 35) calls Christ _Sol verus_, Ambrose _Sol
novus noster_ (Sermo vii. 13), and such rhetoric was widespread.
The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to the 6th
of January, accused the Romans of sun-worship and idolatry,
contending with great probability that the feast of the 25th
of December had been invented by disciples of Cerinthus and
its lections by Artemon to commemorate the _natural_ birth
of Jesus. Chrysostom also testifies the 25th of December to
have been from the beginning known in the West, from Thrace
even as far as Gades. Ambrose, _On Virgins_, iii. ch. 1,
writing to his sister, implies that as late as the papacy of
Liberius 352-356, the Birth from the Virgin was feasted
together with the Marriage of Cana and the Banquet of the
4000 (Luke ix.13), which were never feasted on any other day
but Jan. 6.
Chrysostom, in a seermon preached at Antioch on Dec.
20, 386 or 388, says that some held the feast of Dec. 25 to
have been held in the West, from Thrace as far as Cadiz,
from the beginning. It certainly originated in the West,
but spread quickly eastwards. In 353-361 it was observed at
the court of Constantius. Basil of Caesarea (died 379)
adopted it. Honorius, emperor (395-423) in the West,
informed his mother and brother Arcadius (395-408) in
Byzantium of how the new feast was kept in Rome, separate
from the 6th of January, with its own _troparia_ and
_sticharia_.
They adopted it, and recommended it to
Chryostom, who had long been in favour of it, as were the
other three patriarchs, Theophilus of Alexandria, John of
Jerusalem, and Flavian of Antioch. This was under Pope
Anastasius, 398-400. John or Wahan of Nice, in a letter
printed by Combefis in his _Historia monothelitarum_,
affords the above details. The new feast was communicated
by Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (434-446), to Sahak,
Catholicos of Armenia, about 440. The letter was betrayed
to the Persian king, who accused Sahak of Greek intrigues,
and deposed him. However, the Armenians, at least those
within the Byzantine pale, adopted it for about thirty
years, but finally abandoned it together with the decrees of
Chalcedon early in the 8th century.
Many writers of the
period 375-450, e.g. Epiphanius, Cassian, Asterius, Basil,
Chrysostom and Jerome, contrast the new feast with that of
the Baptism as that of the birth _after the flesh_, from
which we infer that the latter was generally regarded as a
birth according to the Spirit. Instructive as showing that
the new feast travelled from West eastwards is the fact
(noticed by Usener) that in 387 the new feast was reckoned
according to the Julian calandar by writers of the province
of Asia, who in referring to other feasts use the reckoning
of their local calendars. As early as 400 in Rome an
imperial rescript includes Christmas among the three feasts
(the others are Easter and Epiphany) on which theatres must
be closed. Epiphany and Christmas were not made judicial
_sine dies_ until 534.
For some years in the West (as late as 353 in Rome) the
birth feast was appended to the baptismal feast on the 6th
of January, and in Jerusalem it altogether supplanted it
from almost 360 to 440, when Bishop Juvenal introduced the
feast of the 25th of December. The new feast was about the
same time (440) finally established in Alexandria. The
_quadregesima_ of Epiphany (i.e., the feast of the
presentation in the Temple, or _hupapante_) continued to be
celebrated in Jerusalem on the 14th of February, forty days
afer the 6th of January, until the reign of Justinian. In
most other places it had long before been put back to the
2nd of February to suit the new Christmas. Armenian
historians describe the riots, and display of armed force,
without which Justinian was not able in Jerusalem to
transfer this feast from the 14th to the 2nd of February.
The grounds on which the Church introduced so late as
350-440 a Christmas feast till then unknown, or, if known,
precariously linked with the baptism, seem in the main to
have been the following: (1) The transition from adult to
infant baptism was proceeding rapidly in the East, and in
the West was well-nigh completed. Its natural complement
was a festal recognition of the fact that the divine element
was present in Christ from the first, and was no new stage
of spiritual promotion coeval only with the descent of the
Spirit upon him at baptism.
The general adoption of child
baptism helped to extinguish the old view that the divine
life in Jesus dated from his baptism, a view which led the
Epiphany feast to be regarded as that of Jesus' spiritual
rebirth. (2) The 4th century witnessed a rapid diffusion of
Marcionite, or, as it was now called, Manichaean propaganda,
the chief tenet of which was that Jesus either was not born
at all, was a mere phantasm, or anyhow did not take flesh of
the Virgin Mary. Against this view the new Christmas was a
protest, since it was peculiarly the feast of his birth in
the flesh, or as a man, and is constantly spoken of as such
by the fathers who witnessed its institution.
In Britain the 25th of December was a festival long
before the conversion to Christianity, for Bede (_De temp.
rat._ ch. 13) relates that "the ancient people of the Angli
began the year on the 25th of December when we now celebrate
the birthday of the Lord; and the very night which is now so
holy to us, they called in their tongue _modranecht (modra
niht)_, that is, the mothers' night, by reason we suspect of
the ceremonies which in that night-long vigil they
performed." With his usual reticence about matters pagan or
not orthodox, Bede abstains from recording who the mothers
were and what the ceremonies. In 1644 the English puritans
forbad any merriment or religious services by act of
Parliament, on the ground that it was a heathen festival,
and ordered it to be kept as a fast. Charles II. revived
the feast, but the Scots adhered to the Puritan view.
Outside Teutonic countries presents are unknown. Their
place is taken in Latin countries by the _strebae_, French
e'trennes_, given on the 1st of January; this was in
antiquity a great holiday, wherefore until late in the 4th
century the Christians kept it as a day of fasting and
gloom. The setting up in Latin churches of a Christmas
_cr`eche_ is said to have been originated by St Francis.
AUTHORITIES -- K.A.H. Kellner, _Heortologie_ (Freiburg im
Br., 1906), with Bibliography; Hospinianus, _De festis
Christianorum_ (Geneva, 1574); Edw. Mart`ene, _De Antiquis
Ecclesiae Ritibus_, iii.31 (Bassani, 1788); J.C.W. Augusti,
_Christl. Archaologie_, vols. i. and v. (Leipzig, 1817-
1831); A. J. Benterim, Denkwurdigkeiten_, v. pt. i. p. 528
(Mainz, 1825, &c.); Ernst Friedrich Wernsdorf, _De
originibus Solemnium Natalis Christi_ (Wittenberg, 1757, and
in J.E. Volbeding, _Thesaurus Commentationum_, Leipzig,
1847); Anton. Bynaeus, _De Natali Jesu Christi_ (Amsterdam,
1689); Hermann Usener, _Religionsgeschichtlicke
Untersuchungen_ (Bonn, 1889); Nik. Niles, S.J., _Kalendarium
Manuale_ (Innsbruck, 1896); L. Duschesne, _Origines du culte
chre'tien_ (3e e'd., Paris, 1889).
-- Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, M.A., D.Th. (Giessen).
Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Fellow of
University College, Oxford. Author of _The Ancient
Armenian Texts of Aristotle_; _Myth, Magic and Morals_;
&c."
-- From the 1912 Enc. Brit., 11th ed., orignally posted by
Curtis Johnson in HOLYSMOKE.
Some things to think about today:
CHRISTMAS SUPERSTITIONS
Midwinter has always been a time when spirits and monsters
were on the prowl. It is also a time that looks forward to
the coming of spring hence a good time for fortunetelling
and weather forecasting. The following is a collection of
only some of the superstitions of the Christmas season.
Some are associated with specific countries.
1) At midnight on Christmas Eve, all water turns to wine;
cattle kneel facing the East; horses kneel and blow as
if to warm the manger; animals can speak, though it's
bad luck to hear them; bees hum the hundredth psalm.
2) In Ireland, it is believed that the gates of heaven open
at midnight on Christmas Eve. Those who die at that
time go straight to heaven without having to wait in
purgatory.
3) A child born on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve is
considered very lucky in some countries, but in Greece
he is feared to be a Kallikantzaroi; in Poland he may
turn out to be a werewolf.
4) The weather on each of the twelve days of Christmas
signifies what the weather will be on the appropriate
month of the coming year.
5) In Germany, a blindfolded goose will touch first the
girl in the circle who will wed first.
6) The branch of a cherry tree placed in water at the
beginning of Advent will bring luck if it flowers by
Christmas.
7) In Devonshire, England, a girl raps at the hen house
door on Christmas Eve. If a rooster crows, she will
marry within the year.
8) You burn your old shoes during the Christmas season in
Greece to prevent misfortunes in the coming year.
9) It's bad luck to let any fire go out in your house
during the Christmas season.
10) It's bad luck to let your evergreen decorations fall or
to throw them away. You should burn them or feed them
to your cow.
11) If the husband brings the Christmas holly into the house
first, he will rule the household for the coming year;
if the wife is first, she will hold sway.
12) If you eat a raw egg before eating anything else on
Christmas morning, you will be able to carry weights.
13) In Hertfordshire, England, a plum cake is stuck on a
cow's horn on Christmas Eve. Cider is then thrown into
her face. If the cakes falls forward, it will be a good
harvest.
14) From cockcrow to daybreak of Christmas morning, the
trolls roam the Swedish countryside, stay indoors.
15) During the recitation of Christ's genealogy at Christmas
Eve Midnight Mass, buried treasure reveals itself.
16) If you don't eat any plum pudding, you will lose a
friend before the next Christmas.
17) If you refuse mince pie at Christmas dinner, you will
have bad luck for a year.
18) A loaf of bread left on the table after Christmas Eve
dinner will ensure no lack of bread for the next year.
19) Eating an apple at midnight on Christmas Eve gives good
health for a year.
20) You will have as many happy months in the coming year as
the number of houses you eat minced pie in during
Christmas.
-- Original from Joe Nicholson at 1:202/911 in "MEMORIES."
Forwarded Dec 05 97 by Alan Hess at 1:261/1000 to
HOLYSMOKE.
A couple of things about the Deity represented today,
"A cult closely associated with sun-worship, and one
popular with the Roman army, was Mithraism. Mithras, a god
with strong solar associations, derived from Zorastrianism,
the official religion of the Persians under the Sassanids.
In the pure Zorastrian faith Mithras was a god of light, the
eye of Ahura Mazda, god of heaven and victor over
Angra-Mainyu the power of darkness. In Mithraism, Mithras
received strong Hellensitic elements and became the very
sun, the heavenly and unconquerable light that protects
mankind against evil. Through his sacrifice of a primeval
bull the young and virile Mithras gave the promise of
eternal life to mankind; through his mediation even the
poorest of mortals could rise to the supreme heaven and
share in a life of everlasting bliss with the godhead. The
background was frankly pagan, yet the compound was so well
blended with attractive ingredients, even to the point of
suggesting spiritual redemption through voluntary
castigations and self-discipline, that it proved a serious
rival to Christianity.
Both doctrines had points in common. Mithras, like
Tammuz and Adonis (the beloved of Venus), spent half the
year in the lower and half in the upper world. Likewise the
sun spends half the year below the celestial equator and
half the year above it. Likewise Christ was born, gave His
moral light to the world, died, and rose again -- but
without any connection with a seasonal drama. Both
Christianity and Mithraism shared a belief in immortality
and the importance of moral purity through suffering. Both
devolved on the idea (although at vastly different ethical
levels) of sacrifice and divine mediation.
That Mithraism had astronomical connections is
suggested by inscriptions and paintings which portray a bull
(representing the dying year of nature being attacked by
other animals. Mithras, wearing a peaked Phyrgian cap and
attire, kneels on the bull, grasps its nostrils with ne
hand, and slits its throat with the other. As the
life-blood flows from the unfortunate animal an outstretched
serpent attacks the fore-hoof, a devouring dog (_Sirius_)
leaps up to the gory neck, and a scorpion nips his genitals
-- doubtless with more effect than the crab who once pinched
the heel of Hercules. Ears of corn (the _Pleiades_) spring
from the brush of the bull's tail Egyptian fashion, and hold
out the promise of new life.
On either side stand Hesperos
and Phosphoros, two divine torch-bearers, one with his torch
inclined upwards, the other with his torch inclined
downwards, whilst the entire scene is often framed by the
twelve signs of the zodiac. The panel probably perpetuates
the time when the vernal equinoctial point fell in the sign
of the Bull which therefore ushered in the solar year, and
when the autumnal equinoctial point fell in the Scorpion.
The two figures seem to present both the evening and morning
aspects of Venus, and their torches, the ascent and descent
of the sun from the celestial equator.
Since the sun reaches its lowest noon-day altitude in
the northern sky on the 25th December, the time of the
winter solstice, this date was chosen for celebrating the
nativity of Mithras. On this day his initiates held
festivals and kindled lights, the gleaming tapers of which
represented the fire of the newborn sun. On this day also
the Syrians decorated the pine trees sacred to Adonis, and
branches of holly and yellow mistletoe adorned respectively
the revels of Saturnus and Diana-Artemis. Thereafter the
sun rose with increasing height in the heavens and heralded
the approach of yet another spring and the promise of summer
fruits. In view of the widespread popularity of this winter
festival, the early Western Church chose December 25 for
celebrating the nativity of Christ. For similar reasons the
festival of His resurrection was celebrated at the time of
the full moon on or next following the vernal equinox."
-- Source: Homer C. King, _The Background of Astronomy_
(Braziller, 1958), pp. 92-94. Originally posted by
Curtis Johnson in HOLYSMOKE.
------------------------------------------------------------
[The middle section, corresponding to 'Thumpety-thump-thump...' in
the original, is adapted from an invocation inscribed on the wall
of the Mithraeum under Santa Prisca.]
Well everyone, it's that day. Today we celebrate a
holiday which is birth date of a man born of a virgin, with
lowly shepherds in attendance. He was a man known as "The
Way," "The Truth," "The Light," "The Life," "The Word," "The
Son of God," and "The Good Shepherd." In fact, he was often
pictured carrying a lamb on his shoulders. Sunday, his
Lord's Day, is considered sacred to him, and has been for
some time. Today we celebrate his life with the traditional
methods surrounding him: gifts, hymns, candles, bells, and
perhaps even communion. This man died and was put into a
rock tomb, but rose from it after only three days. Because
he rose, his followers believe that there will someday be a
day of judgment where nonbelievers will perish, and
believers will go to paradise forever. That's right, today
is THE Taurobolia in which we celebrate the Messiah Mithra.
{A}
Ooops, waitaminit . . . I think I was confused there.
Give me a second . . .
No, the man/Deity I speak of is someone different.
Because of him, we know of a loving father God who is
omniscient and concerned for our welfare, since we are his
children. Because of him, we can look forward to the
Kingdom of God, Heaven, and don't have to worry about Hell,
since we know we will rise again after we die . . . he is
often called the Sun, and he was later made the supreme
Deity of the Roman Empire in his title of Sol Invictus. We
know of his angels and archangels, and we know of Satan.
But our beliefs, which concentrates on works rather than on
faith, will sustain us. I'm speaking of, of course, our
faith in Zarathushtra, and our religion of Zoroastrianism.
{B}
Dang, that's not quite right either.
Okay, he was a Deity that was killed without a bone
being broken. He is our symbol of immortality, and he and
his father are one: he is the manifesting son of God. He is
known as the light of the world, and is the way, the truth,
and the life by name and in person. He is the one true
plant (vine?). He came down from Heaven, and in him has
been assigned Eternity. He is a light that drives away the
darkness. He was baptized by someone known as the Baptizer,
and was born in a place associated with bread. He is known
as the good shepherd, and is often depicted with a lambing
crook. He is the Lamb and the Lion, and is identified with
the cross and referred to as the Crst. He is part of the
Trinity . . . he is a son of a virgin and the son of the
Supreme Deity. He was carried off by the Evil One to the
mountain top, where they contended. A star indicated his
birth, and he is known as both the bringer of peace and he
who brings the sword. As a child, he taught in the temple,
and later had twelve followers, attested to in the
revelations written by another. I'm speaking of, of course,
the God Horus. {C}
All right, I've got it this time . . .
This Deity/Savior was immaculately conceived and born
of a spotless virgin (attended by angels and shepherds),
through the agency of a holy ghost and in accord with
prophecy. At birth he was presented with frankincense,
myrrh, etc. While an infant, he was threatened with death
by the ruling tyrant, but his parents fled with him, the
tyrant slaughtering all the male children under two years of
age. He was saluted and worshipped as the savior of men,
and lived a life of humility and practical moral usefulness.
He wrought many astounding miracles, including healing the
sick, restoring the sight of the blind, casting out devils,
raising the dead to life, and so on. He was finally
crucified between two thieves. Afterwards, he descended to
Hell, rose from the dead, and ascended back to Heaven in the
sight of all men, as his biblical history declares. I'm
speaking, of course, of our savior Vrishna. {F}
Dammitalltohell.
He was born of a spotless virgin and led a life of deep
humility and piety. He retired to the wilderness and fasted
for forty days, was worshipped as a God, and was finally
crucified between two thieves, after which he was buried and
descended into Hell, but rose the third day. His name was
Quexalcote . . . {F}
Uh . . .
He was born of a virgin, who was visited by an angel to
tell her that she carried the young godling. He is
considered to be god incarnate. His human father was a
carpenter, though the child was of royal descent. He was
called `Savior' and was without sin. He was crucified
between two thieves. We shall meet him again on the great
and final day of judgment. His name was, of course, Krishna
. . . {F}
Well, something's clearly wrong here . . .
. . . no, this isn't getting anywhere
. . . nor is this (flipping through list of Saviors many crucified):
Well, to hell with it. Let's all just get drunk and go
naked. Where's my presents? Happy and safe holidays to you
and yours. <G>
SOURCES: (Though there are many sources listed here, they
all in reality come from {D}, which has many
articles and much information reprinted in the
collection. I recommend it highly.)
{A} Information for this came from Volume 2, Issue
9, edition of The Edelen Letter, from September
1992.
{B} Information for this came from The World Bible,
Edited by Robert O. Ballou.
{C} Churchward's book Of Religion, first published
in 1924.
{D} The Book. Also called: The Book Your Church
Doesn't Want You To Read, edited by Tim C.
Leedom, ISBN 0-8403-8908-6.
{E} Ye Gods by Anne Baumgartner.
{F} Kersey Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified
Saviors, Truth Seeker Co., New York, 1875.
'NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS' PARODY
--- SCIENTIFICLY EXPLAINED NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS ---
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as
Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
edge of the wood-burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory
pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific
title,of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual
hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically
through their cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our
nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumbrous advantage
of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion
of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I
felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for
the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing the
fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a
miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by an octet of diminutive
specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a miniscule, aged chauffeur
so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that
he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his undulate motive power
traveling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity
than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath
musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet
by his or her respective cognomen ... "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al.
- guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through
which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of
each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved
- with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the
smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the
ebon residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had
accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor
I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he
bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging
amiability. The capillaries of his molar regions and nasal aptenance
were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the
former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the
latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub-
and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot,
and their ambient hirstute facial adornment appeared like small,
tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smokingpiece whose gray
fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive
of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than
it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent
abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit
syrup in a hemispherical container.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned hosiery with articles of merchandise extracted from
his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face,
placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory
organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking,
and forthwith affected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the
smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his
conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted
oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded
to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the
seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting
exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond
the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletides to the planetary
constituence, and to that self-same assemblage my sincerest
wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable
period between sunset and dawn."
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
Mithras (as opposed to rash immitations like Jesus, etc.):
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Mithra, Superstar
Mithras the Sun God Filksong
(Sung to the tune of Frosty the Snowman)
Mithras the Sun-God
Was a jolly happy soul,
And he slew a bull
On solstice day
So the world would not get cold.
Mithras the Sun-God
Is a solar myth they say,
But the Gnostics know
He obeyed the crow
And he killed that bull one day.
The Sun required a sacrifice
To keep from getting dim,
And when Mithras slew the bull, old Sol
Came down to feast with him.
Mithras the Sun-God
He saved the world from Night,
And his immolation
Also brought salvation
To the men who sought the Light.
_Pater accipe, Sancte accipe
Thuricremos leones,
Per quos thuradamus,
Per quos consumimur
Ipsi, O Meithra!_
Mithras the Sun-God
Asia Minor was his home,
But his chosen priest
Travelled from the East
And established his cult at Rome.
Mithras the Sun-God
Had an initiatory cult,
Through seven degrees
They sought Light and Peace
In a subterranean vault.
There must have been some magic
In that Phrygian cap he wore,
For when they placed it on their heads
His initiates were reborn.
Jesus the Sun-God
Made Mithras go away,
But he waved goodbye
Saying 'Don't you cry,
I'll be back again some day!'
Christopher Columbus,
Geuiseppe Desa,
Hung Sin-tsuan,
Jan Bockelson,
Jemima Wilkenson,
Jesus Christ,
Joan of Arc,
Maitreya,
Orix Bovar,
Rabbi Menachem Schneerson,
Sabbatai Zebi . . . {D}>
Akditi, Juck-Shilluck,
Ahriman, Kumani,
Ajbit+Alom-Bhol, Mahaskti,
Amon Re, Num,
Aten, Manibozho,
Bochica, Marduk,
Brahma, Maui,
Coyote, Pachacamac,
Dohit, Parica,
Gamab, Radogast,
Inti, Tengri,
Jar-Sub, Yahveh . . . {E},
Adad of Assyria,
Adonis, son of the virgin Io of Greece,
Alcides of Thebes,
Atys of Phrygia,
Baal & Taut `The Only Begotten of God' of Phoenecia,
Bali of Afghanistan,
Beddru of Japan,
Budha Sakia of India,
Cadmus of Greece,
Chrishna of Hindostan,
Crite of Chaldea,
Deva Tat, and Sammonocadam of Siam
Divine Teacher of Plato,
Fohi and Tien of China,
Gentaut and Quexalcote of Mexico,
Hesus of Eros, and Bremrillah, of the Druids,
Hil and Feta of the Mandaites,
Holy One of Xaca,
Indra of Tibet,
Ischy of the island of Formosa,
Ixion and Quirinus of Rome,
Jao of Nepal,
Mikado of the Sintoos,
Mohamud/Mohomet of Arabia. {F}
Odin of the Scandinavians,
Prometheus of Caucasus,
Salivahana of Bermuda,
Thammuz of Syria,
Thor, son of Odin, of the Gauls,
Universal Monarch of the Sibyls,
Wittoba of the Bilingonese,
Xamolxis of Thrace,
Zoar of the Bonzes,
Zoroaster and Mithra of Persia,
Zulis/Zhule/Osiris/Orus of Egypt,
__Another Fundy Dogma Card.__
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(C) Copyright 1998 by Richard Smith. Permission to repost
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