The Festival of January 1st

It came from Pagan Rome!

1ST of JANUARY AND THE Roman CALENDAR by Keith Hunt IN THE BOOK "DAYS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL FAITHS" we read: Quote: "January let has not always been New Year's Day. Under the old Julian calendar, the year began on March 25th, This seems strange to us, for we always expect things to begin at carefully marked-off points, March 25th does not sound like the beginning of anything. But to the people who were familiar with the old calendar it was every bit as normal as the twenty-first of June is to us as the beginning of summer, or the day after Labor Day as the beginning of the school term, IT IS MORE THAN LIKELY THAT THIS IDEA OF NEW YEAR'S DAY WAS A CARRYOVER FROM THE JEWISH CUSTOM OF STARTING THE YEAR AT THE TIME OF THE FULL MOON AFTER THE SPRING EQUINOX. When the Gregorian calendar came into use, New Year's Day was moved up to its present date. That was in the sixteenth century in ROMAN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES - France for example. But ENGLAND, AND, OF COURSE, HER COLONIES, held out against the change until 1752. Consequently, there were one hundred fifty years in the life of this continent in which March 25th was New Yearns Day," End quote THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA SAYS ON JANUARY: Quote: "JANUARY, the first month of the year, is named for Janus, a Roman god, ACCORDING TO LEGEND, NUMA POMPILISUS ADDED JANUARY AND FEBRUARY TO THE END OF THE 10-MONTH ROMAN CALENDAR ABOUT 700 B.C. He gave the month 30 days, In 46 B.C., JULIUS CAESAR ADDED A DAY, AND MADE JANUARY THE FIRST MONTH." End quote UNDER THE ARTICLE "NEW YEAR'S DAY" THE AFOREMENTIONED ENCYCLOPEDIA WRITES: Quote: "IN ANCIENT ROME, the first day of the year was given over to honoring Janus, the god of gates and doors and of beginnings and endings. The month of January was named after this god. Janus had two faces, and looked both ahead and backward. On the first day of the year, the Roman people looked back to what had happened during the past year and thought of what the coming year might bring. Romans gave one another presents on New Year's Day. Many persons brought gifts to the Roman emperor and wished him goad fortune. At first, the gifts were simply branches of bay and palm trees but later more expensive presents were given, NEW YEAR'S DAY BECAME A HOLY DAY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN A.D. 487, when it was declared the Feast of the Circumcision. AT FIRST, parties were not allowed on this day, because the pagans had followed that custom, This WAS GRADUALLY CHANGED, and celebrations could be held again." End quote Now we begin to see WHERE the celebration of JANUARY FIRST originated - with the PAGAN Roman Empire! Notice, the "professing" Christian church did not adopt the celebration of January lst until 487 A.D. and then with reservations, The First of January as the START of the year came to us from the old Roman Empire - NOT from the Bible, or God. Let us look a little further into the origin of our present-day calendar. Under the article "CALENDAR" in the WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA we find this: Quote: "THE ROMANS apparently borrowed their first calendar from the Greeks. The earliest known Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to have ignored the remaining 60 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December, The last six names more taken from the words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten, Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar about 738 B.C. To make it correspond to the solar year, the Romans added a short month of 22 or 23 days every second year. Politics soon crept into the calendar, One king added two months - Januarius and Februarius - at the end of the year. He hoped to collect more taxes during the extra months. Public officials used the months to stay longer in office. By the time of Julius Caesar, about 700 years later, the calendar was about three months ahead of the schedule fixed by the seasons. THE JULIAN CALENDAR. In 46 B, C., JULIUS CAESAR ASKED THE ASTRONOMER, SOSIGENES TO REVIEW THE CALENDAR and suggest ways for improving it. Acting on Sosigenes' suggestions, Caesar ordered the Romans to disregard the moon in calculating their calendars. He divided the year into 12 months of 31 and 30 days, except for February, which had only 29 days. Every fourth year, it would have 30 days,. HE ALSO MOVED THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR FROM MARCH 1 TO JANUARY 1. To realign the calendar with the seasons, Caesar ruled that the year we know as 46 B.C, should have 445 days, The Romans called it 'the year of confusion." The Romans renamed Quintilis to honor Julius Caesar - giving us July, The next month, Sextilis, was renamed August by the Roman Senate to honor the emperor Augustus. According to tradition, Augustus moved a day from February to August to make August as long as July. The Julian calendar was widely used for more than 1,500 years" End quote Further investigation shows that most of the western world use the GREGORIAN calendar, worked out in 1580's by Pope Gregory XIII. Going to the ENCYCLOPEDIAS, we find the following: Quote: "THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR was designed to correct the errors of the Julian calendar, In 1582, on the advice of astronomers, POPE GREGORY XIII corrected the difference between sun and calendar by ordering 10 days dropped frost October. The day that would have been October 5, 1582 became October 15. This procedure restored the next equinox to its proper date. To correct the Julian calendar's error regularly, the pope decreed that February would have an extra day in years that could be divided by 400 (such as 1600 and 2000) but not in other century years - such as 1700, 1800 and 1900," End quote With all the evidence as noted above, we can now see that our present calendar was given to us by the PAGAN Roman Empire. It was adopted by the large ROMAN CATHOLIC church and given to the western world. The Catholic Church did NOT GO TO the Bible to see if God ever gave a calendar for us to follow. A BIBLE DICTIONARY will give you the scriptures on hundreds of topics that are contained in the word of God, Under "Calendar" you will find very little about the calendar used by the western world today, but you will find a great deal on the calendar instituted by God through the Israelite leaders. We would like to add one last comment: The calendar of God is not 'Jewish'. The seven-day week is not 'Jewish.' God gave the Israelites a FEW points, but He told them (the leaders in Israel) to formulate a calendar, which they did. It was what became known as the Jewish Sanhedrin that had authority over the calendar. See my studies "Calendar" on my Website.             ONCE  AGAIN  WE  SEE  HOW  THE  ROMAN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  HAS  DECEIVED  THE  WORLD  WITH  ITS  ADOPTED  FESTIVALS  FROM  BABYLON  DOWN  THROUGH  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE,  INTO  THE  ROMAN "CHRISTIAN"  CHURCH,  AND  ONTO  AS  IT  IS  TODAY,  THE  WORLD.  YOU  CAN  WATCH  ON  TV  STARTING  IN  THE  EAST,  THE  ROMAN  NEW  YEAR,  THEN  AS  IT  SPREADS  ACROSS  EATERN EUROPE,  WESTERN  EUROPE,  BRITAIN,  AND  ACROSS  INTO  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONS.  THE  WORLD HAS  PARTAKEN  OF  THE  WINE  OF  HER  SPIRITUAL  FORNICATIONS.  THE  WORLD  HAS  BECOME  DRUNK  ON  CHRISTMAS  AND  JANUARY  1ST.  IN  VARIOUS  WAYS  THE  WORLD  PARTICIPATES  IN  THESE  TWO  MAIN  FESTIVALS  AS  PROCLAIMED  BY  THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  AND  HER  HARLOT  DAUGHTERS. ..................... Written in 1980