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You may want to tell me, "Oh, we've heard about Saint
Nicholas the Roman Catholic for decades, so what do you have
that's new?" Well I have a great deal, so keep reading, because
you probably have never heard what I'm going to relate to you. I
cannot remember it ever being written about in any Church of God
publication(but possibly it has at some time, somewhere).
This truth I discovered way back in the winter of 1961/62,
when I was discovering all the false pagan adaptions and
adoptions in our common Christianity. I was at the local library
investigating all the books I could find on the subject of our so
called "Christian feasts."
A fascinating and well documented book I found was by
Francis Weiser of the Roman Catholic church, called "Christian
Feasts and Customs."
He relates the truth about how we got our modern Santa
Claus, the fellow with the jolly "OH,OH" - white beard, and
coming from the land of the north, with its ice and snow. This
friendly guy was one of the many gods that man invented. We shall
let Weiser tell us the story, and discover the English founders
of the USA nation were not so religiously pure as many want to
believe.
Quote:
"After the Reformation, the feast and veneration of Saint
Nicholas, the patron of little children, were abolished in many
countries. Soon people in those countries forgot the saint who
had once been so dear to them. Only here and there a trace of him
would linger on; as, for example, in the pageant of the 'Boy
Bishop' in England, and in the name Pelznickel (Fur Nicholas),
which many people in western Germany gave to their Christmas Man
(Pelsnichol - now among the Pennsylvania Dutch).
When the Dutch came to America and established the colony of
New Amsterdam, their children enjoyed the traditional 'visit of
Saint Nicholas' on December 5, for the Dutch had kept this
ancient Catholic custom even after the reformation. Later, when
England took over the colony and it became New York, the kindly
figure of Sinter Klaas(pronounced like Santa Claus) soon aroused
among the English children the desire of having such a heavenly
visitor come to their homes, too.
"The English settlers were glad and willing to comply with the
anxious wish of their children. However, the figure of a Catholic
saint and bishop was not acceptable in their eyes, especially
since many of them were Presbyterians, to whom a bishop was
repugnant. In addition, they did not celebrate a feast of saints
according to the ancient Catholic calendar.
"The dilemma was solved by transferring the visit of the
mysterious man whom the Dutch called santa Claus from December 5
to Christmas, and by introducing a radical change in the figure
itself. It was not merely a 'disguise', but the ancient saint was
completely replaced by an entirely different character. Behind
the name Santa Claus actually stands the figure of the
pagan Germanic god THOR(after whom Thursday is named). Some
details about THOR from ancient German mythology will show the
origin of the modern Santa Claus tale:
"THOR was the god of the peasants and the common people. He was
represented as an elderly man, jovial and friendly, of HEAVY
BUILD, with a LONG WHITE BEARD. His element was the FIRE, his
color RED. The rumble and roar of thunder were said to be caused
by the rolling of his CHARIOT, for he alone among the gods never
rode on horseback but drove in a chariot drawn by two white
goats(called - CRACKER and GNASHER). He WAS FIGHTING THE GIANTS
OF ICE AND SNOW, AND THUS BECAME THE YULE- god. He was said to
live in the 'northland where he had his palace among the
icebergs. By our pagan forefathers he was considered as the
cheerful and friendly god, never harming the humans, but,
rather, helping and protecting them. The FIREPLACE in every home
was especially sacred to him, and he was said to come down
through the chimney into his element, the fire."
Well, that is how we came to acquire our present modern Santa
Claus. The so called religious "puritans" did not stay very
pure(if they really ever were) for very long, but even added more
paganism and falsehoods to the established false festivals.
Ah, as Paul Harvey says, "Now you know the.....rest of the
story."
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