Easter Sunday weekend ci iin a diakdiak iin ni tumna gam te ah ki
lim bawl pha diak hi. USA gam sung bang ah holiday dang khempeuh sang iin
Easter Sunday ni iin business a tuamtuam te in khak kim zaw uh aa biak inn ah a
kikhawm ngei khol lo te nangawn in hanciam iin kikhawm uh hi. Business a ki
hong a om vet lo phial cih ding hi. Easter Sunday bang zah tak iin thupi hiam
cih ih kikup kawm iin Good Friday leh Holy Sabbath te thu zongh tomno khat
kikum ni.
Good Friday:
Christian te in Good Friday, Holy Friday, Great Friday or Easter
Friday, ci iin ih Topa Zeisu Khazih in ei leitung mi te mawhna hang aa
bawlsiatna, satna, ling lukhu a khukhna, singlamteh tung aa sihna hong thuakna
te phawkna tawh a kiphuan tawm Christian te in thupi a sak mahmah uh ni khat
ahi hi. Topa Zeisu hong sih ni peen Friday ni, kiginni (Preparation
Day) hi. ("Now when evening had come, because it was the
Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath----" Mark 16:42) Zomi
te in Friday ni peen ni nga ni ih ci mawkmawk hi. Laisiangtho in Friday ni peen
ni guk ni or kiginni ci hi.
Topa Zeisu hong sih ni, Friday ni ahihmanin kum khat iin Friday ni
khat seh tawm iin kum sim iin khat vei phawkna bawl ding iin Laisiangtho sung
ah Pasian in hong sawlna mun khat zongh ah om lo hi napi leitung mi te in a zat
den kum sim aa kibawl pawi or ni thupi khat ahi hi.
Holy Sabbath:
Holy Sabbath day peen Easter Friday khit, Kiginni khit, a ziing
ciang, hi aa kaal khat sung aa ni masak ni (the first day of the week), Easter
Sunday, ni maa, Saturday ni ahi hi. ("--------it was the Preparation Day,
that is, the day before the Sabbath----" Mark 15:42) -Holy
Sabbath- "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week,
----" Mark 16: 9 KJV
Saturday, Sabbath, seventh day, ni a thupitna Laisiangtho in
teltak iin gen aa Pasian in ni sagih ni siiangtho sak iin tawlnga hi; Sabbath
ni siangtho aa na tan ding phawk in; Sabbath ni peen mihing (ganhing a hi lo)
te a ding aa kibawl hi aa Sabbath ii Topa ahi Mihing' Tapa, Topa Zeisu a um leh
a muang te khempeuh in Pasian' ni sagihni sianthosak ding ahi hi.
"Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because
in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." Genesis
2:3
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord your God". Genesis 20:8-10
”The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son
of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath". Mark 2:27, 28.
Zomi te in Saturday ni peen ni guk ni ih ci mawkmawk hi.
Laisiangtho in Saturday ni peen ni sagih ni or Sabbath ni ci aa Pasian in
thupha pia iin siangtho sak hi.
Mihing te phuah tawm hi het lo, Pasian ngiat in a sianthosak leh
siangtho aa kep ding hong vai khak, kaal sim aa ih phawk aa ih sianthosak ding
Sabbath ni (Saturday) hinapi Pasian thu thei leh thu um mi a tamzaw in a thu
don loh uh Pasian ni thupi mahmah khat ahi hi.
Easter Sunday:
Christian te in Topa Zeisu thawh kik ni ci iin a thupi ngaihsut
mahmah uh, lei tung mihing te ii seh tawm pawi or ni thupi diak khat ahi hi.
Biak inn ah a kikhawm ngei khol lo te nangawn a kikhop ni uh hi thei aa a ki
thupi seh mahmah ni khat ahi hi. Gualzawhna tawh ih Topa Zeisu han sung pan aa
hong thawh kik phawkna mihing seh tawm, kum sim aa a ki thupi bawl mahmah ni
khat ahi hi.
"Now when the Sabbath was past, --- Very early in the
morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb ---Do not be
alarmed. You seek Jesus of Narareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not
here.---" Mark 16:1-6
Zomi te a tam zaw in Sunday ni peen ni pi ni ih ci hi. Laisiangtho
in Sunday ni peen ni khat ni (kaal khat sung aa ni masa ni) ci aa Topa Zeisu
thawhkikni ahi hi.
Topa Zeisu' thawh kik ni phawkna iin kum khat sung ah Sunday ni( kaal
khat pan ni masa peen ni, the first day of the week, ni khat seh tawm iin
phawkna bawl ding iin Laisiangtho sung ah Pasian in hong sawlna mun khat zongh
ah om lo hi napi leitung mi te in a zat den kum sim aa kibawl pawi or ni thupi
khat ahi hi.
U te nau te aw, ih Topa Zeisu Khazih in gimna thuak iin singlamteh
tung ah hong sihna phawkna tawh Good Friday ih thupi bawl mah bang iin leh ih
Topa Zeisu Khazih hansung pan gualzo aa hong thawh kikna pawi Easter Sunday ih
thupi bawl te a thupi mahmah ahih zah khat iin mihing te seh tawm phuat tawm ni
thupi te ih thupit bawl zah beek iin Pasian in a sianthosak, mihing te in ih
zuih ding leh ih kep ding aa a hong piak, kaal sim aa siangtho tak aa ih zat
ding Holy Sabbath Day zongh phawk ciat ni. A kua maciat in Easter Sunday nuam
tak iin a zangh thei ciat ding in Topa'n thupha hong pia ciat ta hen.
Easter is a time for
bunny rabbits, colored eggs, hot cross buns, and springtime apparel. Where did
Easter come from? Here is the fascinating story of how it originated.
Few people realize that ‘Easter’ is not the resurrec-tion of
Christ; in fact, the only time the word is found in the Bible (in Acts 12:4),
it is only ‘Easter’ by mistransla-tion. The word in the original Greek is
‘Passover.’
Jesus died at the time of the Passover feast. But the Passover
is not Easter, and Jesus did not die at Easter time. Here is information you
will want to know. It comes from a publication entitled, “Easter: Where
It Came From,” printed many years ago, by Southern
Pub-lishing Association. An old man is speaking:
“The children had gathered around the huge, open fireplace. The
lights were turned out and the shooting flames of the great wood fire lit their
faces. Farther back, in a huge rocker, sat the Wise Man. In the daytime a very
prosaic figure known as grandpa. On the special nights, when the children were
allowed to ‘stay up,’ the fire light played on what seemed like the very soul
of the old man, his face, and he became a mystic form, infinitely removed and
yet very close to them. They called him the Wise Man then.
“This Easter night the children begged for the
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story of Easter. They did not understand the first part of what
he told, but afterward they understood nearly all of it.
“Here is what they learned:
“Sunday was held sacred centuries before Sinai. December 25 was
highly honored; the time of Easter was religiously observed; and Lent was a
time for healing— all thousands of years before the coming of the Babe to
Bethlehem!”
“After the Flood, the Garden of Eden was no longer on the earth.
You remember the Lord had placed angels with flaming swords at its gates. As
the people came to the gates to worship God, their faces were to-ward the west,
for the gates were on the east side of the Garden. When Eden was taken up to
God’s dwelling place, and no one knows just when that was, Satan had so
confused some that they worshiped the things that God had made instead of God
himself. The next bright-est thing men saw was the sun, and they began to
wor-ship it. God at creation had given them the Sabbath, to remind them every
week that He had made everything, but Satan has always tried to make men forget
the Sab-bath, so they would forget the true God.
“One of Noah’s great grandsons was called Nimrod. Nimrod was a
great leader, and was the first empire builder. His wife, history says, was
named Semiramis, and she was a very great queen. Satan was working to
counterfeit God’s plan of salvation; and, when Nimrod died, the people said he
was a god. Semiramis told them that he was indeed the sun god, and that his
spirit was still living, dwelling, in the sun.
“In order that the people should love her as queen as long as
she lived, Semiramis told them that hers was the spirit of the moon; and, when
she died, she would dwell in the moon as Nimrod already dwelt in the sun.
46 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
“Satan was laying the foundation for every sys-tem of falsehood
and error the world has ever known. The sun god, under different names, was
worshiped in Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as conquering na-tions were
conquered by the religion of their captives.
“Every year when the cold season began, the people believed
their sun god was leaving them. They came to learn that his lowest dip on the
horizon, about December 21, was followed by his gradual return, until in
midsummer he was directly overhead at noonday. It was on the 25th of December
that they noticed, each year, the coming back, a little, of their god. This day
they called the birthday of the sun. It was this belief in the annual journey
of their god that Elijah alluded to in his conflict with the priests of Baal,
the Syro-Phoenician sun god [1 Kings 18:19-40].
“After the death of Nimrod, Semiramis never married again—indeed
how could the queen of heaven marry an ordinary man? But some years later she
gave birth to a son. His name was Tammuz, and he was born on the 25th day of
December! There was wild rejoicing in the nation over which Semiramis was
queen. She told the people that the spirit of the sun, her husband Nimrod, was
the father of Tammuz, and thus through her sin, Satan persuaded the people of
the counterfeit birth of Jesus; for Jesus was really born of a virgin.
“Tammuz was hailed as the Son of the Sun, and the first letter
of his name became in time the symbol of sun worship. Human sacrifices to the
sun god were of-fered on this initial letter, made of wood, known as the cross.
His birthday, December 25, was honored more and more, and the first day of the
week was called the Sun’s day, or Sunday. The people forgot God’s Sabbath, and
honored the day of the sun. To honor Semiramis they set aside a time in honor
of the moon. This was the
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first full moon after the vernal equinox, or the twenty-first of
March. The first Sunday after this full moon was indeed a gala day.
“While yet a young man, Tammuz, a hunter like his supposed
father, was killed by a wild boar. What weeping there was in the kingdom! And
the forty days before the time of the celebration for the moon were set apart
as days of weeping for Tammuz.
“God’s people were constantly being tempted to follow this
religion instead of that of the Bible. Often Satan succeeded in his purpose. In
the eighth chapter of Ezekiel we read of the women’s weeping for Tammuz and the
people’s turning their backs on the temple of God and worshiping the sun toward
the east. They also wor-shiped the moon goddess, making cakes to the queen of
heaven (Jer. 7:18-19). These were round cakes on which had
been cut a cross.
“The great distinguishing mark of the heathen
was Sunday and the mark of God’s people was the Sab-bath (Eze.
20:12-20]. Side by side through the centu-ries were God’s people
worshiping Him, obeying His com-mandments, keeping His Sabbath; and the heathen
were worshiping the sun, keeping Sunday, offering their chil-dren in the fire
as a sacrifice to the sun, or crucifying their human victims to turn away his
supposed anger.
“One writer in a noted periodical says that ‘Sun-day was the
wild, solar holiday of all pagan times.’ It was on this day that the worst
features of sun worship were practiced. Too often Israel did these things too,
but God constantly sent them messages to obey Him.
“Finally Christ, the Son of God, was born. The exact day of His
birth no one knows, but it was probably in October. He was just thirty-three
and a half years old when He was crucified, in April, at the time of the
Pass-over. How Jesus loved His people! He loved them so much
48 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
that He was willing to suffer abuse and mocking, scourg-ing and
death. Remember that Tammuz was exalted by Satan to be the great rival of
Jesus, and the symbol of the cross was the sign of sun worship. Through all the
years it had seemed that the sun god was greater than the true God, for Israel
alone followed God, but often even Israel followed the sun god.
“Oh yes, Jesus loved His people! He came into
a world that had forgotten Him, its Creator, suffered every insult at its
hands, and finally died upon the symbol of sun worship, ‘even,’ says Paul, ‘the
death of the cross’ (Phil. 2:8).
“What rejoicing then by the demons! The Son of God, delivered by
His own people and crucified by the sun-worshiping Romans on the symbol of sun
worship! Oh the condescending Jesus! How He must have loved His peopIe!”
“The old man’s face softened, and the children saw tears in his
eyes. After a time he went on. His eyes were shining now.
“But God honored that sacrifice! On the third day after His
crucifixion, the first day for sun worship, while the spirits of demons were in
the wildest orgy of celebration over their victory; for, through many men,
Satan’s angels all rejoiced in the victory of false worship on that very day
set aside and honored by the name of the sun—God raised His Son from the grave
a conqueror! As after Creation He had rested, so after redemption He rested in
the tomb on His Sabbath; and now, on the day of the sun, He was raised, eternal
victor over the sun worship and all false systems of worship. That was why God
raised Him on Sunday. Once more the Sabbath is God’s sign between Him and His
people. His disciples kept it while they lived.
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“But Satan was not yet through with the world. First, he
persecuted God’s people, and then he tempted them again. The heathen were still
keeping Sunday; and, as the Christians were scattered throughout the world,
Satan whispered in the ears of God’s people that they should try to gain favor
by being more like the heathen. Was not Christ born toward the end of the year?
The exact date was uncertain. Why not call it the same date as the birth of
Tammuz? So December 25 became Christ-mas.
“Again, Christ was crucified and resurrected
in the spring, near the time of the moon festival. Why not have the same time
as the heathen, and even do as they did, but call it in honor of Christ’s
resurrection. The cakes to the queen of heaven became the hot cross buns. The
forty days of ‘weeping for Tammuz’ became Lent; and at the close of Lent came
Easter Sunday, a counter-feit masterpiece.”
“The voice was silent for a time. The old
man’s face darkened as he seemed to see, in the embers of the fire, a sinister
event against which he would cry out. Suddenly there rang out in the stillness
the trumpet-like tones that had called to the men on the battlefield, when as a
drummer boy, he had snatched up the colors where a dying bearer had fallen, and
rallied a regiment that had nearly broken.
“Oh the cowards! The cowards! They allowed the flag of God, His
holy Sabbath, to trail in the dust. They trampled it under their feet; they
exalted the sun’s day; they broke the command of God, and all in the name of
the One who had given His life to save His people from that very thing!
“Oh, how Jesus in heaven must have wept when His so-called
followers, to gain influence, set up the mark of rebellion against
heaven—Sunday. And how He must
50 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
weep today when people profess to honor His
resurrec-tion by trampling on His day and honoring the flag of the defeated
foe. God forgive our nation if she ever passes a law to do that, if she ever
passes a national Sunday law.”
“ ‘Now all these
things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.’ 1 Corinthians 10:11-12 . .
“It was by associating
with idolaters and joining in their festivities that the Hebrews were led to
transgress God’s law and bring His judgments upon the nation. So now it is by
leading the followers of Christ to associate with the ungodly and unite in
their amusements that Satan is most successful in alluring them into sin. ‘Come
out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the
unclean.’ 2 Corinthians 6:17.
“God requires of His people now as great a distinction from the
world, in customs, habits, and principles, as He required of Israel anciently.
If they faithfully follow the teachings of His Word, this distinction will
exist; it cannot be otherwise. The warnings given to the Hebrews against
assimilating with the heathen were not more direct or explicit than are those forbidding
Christians to conform to the spirit and customs of the ungodly.”
—Patriarchs and Prophets, 457-458
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Additional Historical Facts about Easter
Easter began long before the time of Christ.
Eas-ter was the Ishtar celebration. Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtoreth were all the
same. Under various names, a single pagan goddess was worshiped in different
coun-tries. As we trace the historical background of this goddess, we can see
where Easter got its name, how our modern practice of sunrise worship
originated, and why it is always commemorated at a certain time each spring.
The story of Easter also helps explain how Sunday sacredness began and the
origin of vir-gin worship.
In the following quotations, you will learn that, cen-turies
before the birth of Christ, Satan encouraged men in religious beliefs and
practices which imitated the coming Saviour’s resurrection, and prepared the
world for the religious apostasy which would occur after the time of Christ.
Here you will find a pagan god described, who was resurrected each spring on
“Easter,” a day which was dedicated to Ishtar, the mother goddess; she was also
called the Queen of Heaven who interceded with the gods on behalf of mankind.
This mother goddess was variously known as Astarte, Ishtar,
Ashtoreth, Cybele, Demeter, Ceres, Aphrodite, Venus, and Freya.
“Astarte was the most
important goddess of the pa-gan Semites. She was the goddess of love,
fertility, and
52 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
maternity for the Phonicians, Canaanites,
Aramaeans, South Arabs, and even the Egyptians. Her name was Ishtar in
Babylonia and Assyria, where she was also the goddess of war. Some Old
Testament stories call her Ashtoreth, and describe the construction of her
altar by King Solomon and its destruction by King Josiah. Astarte was
identified with the planet Venus. The Greeks called her Aphrodite, and the
Romans knew her as Venus.”—World Book, Vol. 1, 782.
ASTARTE IN PHOENICA—Astarte was the goddess of the ancient
Phoenicians. She loved Adoni (Adonis), who was slain by a boar (a wild pig),
but rose from the dead and then ascended to heaven in the sight of his
worshipers.
ASTARTE IN SYRIA—In Syria, Astarte was the Great Mother goddess
and queen of prostitutes. Her wor-ship culminated at the vernal equinox. This
is about March 21 of each year, when the day and night are of equal length; we
today call it the first day of spring. The well-known historian, Will Durant,
explains how her lover was celebrated with sexual orgies, by the pagans, on
March 21:
“Religious prostitution flourished, for in Syria, as throughout
western Asia, the fertility of the soil was symbolized in a Great Mother, or
goddess, whose sexual commerce with her lover gave the hint to all the
reproductive processes and energies of nature; and the sacrifice of virginity
at the temples was not only an offering to Astarte, but a participation with
her in that annual self-abandonment which, it was hoped, would offer an
irresistible suggestion to the earth, and in-sure the increase of plants,
animals, and men.
“About the time of the vernal equinox, the festival of the
Syrian Astarte, like that of Cybele in Phrygia, was celebrated at Hierapolis
with a fervor bordering upon
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madness. The noise of flutes and drums mingled
with the wailing of the women for Astarte’s dead lord, Adoni; eunuch priests
danced wildly, and slashed themselves with knives . . Then in the dark of the
night, the priests brought a mystic illumination to the scene, opened the tomb
of the young god, and announced triumphantly that Adoni, the lord, had risen
from the dead. Touch-ing the lips of the worshipers with balm, the priests
whispered to them the promise that they, too, would some day rise from the
grave.”—Will Durant, History of Civilization, Vol. 1, 296-297.
ASHTORETH IN ISRAEL—The Israelites referred to Astarte as
“Ashtoreth.” In the Bible, the prophets of God denounced the worship of
Ashtoreth, but many of the people worshiped her and her consort, Baal, the sun
god. This worship was done amid groves of trees, on the summits of mountains.
Here they worshiped sacred stones, practiced divination, and engaged in orgies
as part of their worship of Ashtoreth and Baal. Because the myth of Astarte
included the idea of a resurrected sun god, the sacred grove worship was
carried on at daybreak as the sun was coming up.
The northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria) was de-stroyed because
of such idolary. Later, King Josiah of Judah marched through it and tore down
the altars to Baal, ‘and them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun,
and to the moon, and to the planets.’ He ‘defiled Topheth . . that no man might
make his son or his daugh-ter to pass through the fire to Molech’; and he
smashed the altars that Solomon had built for Chemosh, Milcom, and
Astarte (see 2 Kgs 23:2, 4, 10, 13).
ISHTAR IN SUMERIA AND BABYLONIA—Ishtar was the love goddess of
the Babylonians. Her worship came down from earliest times in Sumeria, where
her lover was Tammuz. She was the goddess of mothers and
54 prostitutes, and of love and war.
“Though her worshipers
repeatedly addressed her as ‘The Virgin,’ ‘The Holy Virgin,’ and The Virgin
Mother,’ this merely meant that her amours were free from all taint of
wedlock.”—Will Durant, History of Civilization, Vol. 1, 235.
Ishtar was said to be the daughter of Sin, the moon god. Her
lover was Tammuz, the sun god. She was called the “Queen of Heaven” by her
worshipers and their priests. According to the ancient myth, when Tammuz was
slain by a wild animal, Ishtar raises him to life. Because of this, a yearly
spring festival was held in honor of Ishtar, the mother goddess.
“[This is the] myth of Ishtar and Tammuz. In the Sumerian form
of the tale, Tammuz is Ishtar’s younger brother; in the Babylonian form, he is
sometimes her lover, sometimes her son; both forms seem to have entered into
the myths of Venus and Adonis, Demeter and Persephone, and a hundred scattered
legends of death and resurrection . . To the Babylonians it was sacred history,
faithfully believed and annually com-memorated by mourning and wailing for the
dead Tammuz, followed by riotous rejoicing over his resur-rection.”—Ibid.,
238-239.
ISHTAR IN SUMERIA—Even earlier in history, the
Sumerians worshiped Innini, or Ishtar. Here is Durant’s description of this
mother goddess, who interceded for men with the gods.
“[The city] Uruk worshiped especially the virgin earth goddess
Innini, known to the Semites of Akkad as Ishtar—the loose and versatile
Aphrodite-Demeter of the Near East. Kish and Lagash worshiped a Mater Dolorsa,
the sorrowful mother-goddess, Ninkarsag, who, grieved with the unhappiness of
men, interceded for them with the sterner deities.”—Ibid., 127.
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CYBELE IN PHRYGIA—The myths surrounding Cybele were so much like
those of Greece, that the Greeks called their goddess, Rhea Cybele, and
considered the two divinities one. In Greece, her temple was at Athens. As
usual, she resurrected her lover, Attis, each spring at the vernal equinox.
DEMETER IN
GREECE—Throughout the Near East, this mother goddess was variously known as
Astarte, Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Cybele, Demeter, Ceres, Aphrodite, Venus, and
Freya.
She had a special lover (sometimes called her son; and, in one
case, her daughter). Thus, for example, we have Isis and Horus, the sun god
(Osiris was the son), in Egypt (in later Egypt, Osiris was called Serapis);
Ishtar and Tammuz, in Babylon and Sumeria; Cybele and Attis, in Phrygia;
Aphrodite and Adonis, in Syria; Atys and Bendis, in Asia; and Anaita and Haoma
(later called Mithra), in Persia.
She also had a special son (who was sometimes the same as his
father). So we have Isis and Osiris, in Egypt; Ishtar and Tammuz, in Babylonia;
Astarte and Adonis, in Syria; Demeter and Persephone (and daughter), in Greece;
and Cybele and Attis, in Phrygia.
In Greece, she is called Demeter; and she obtained the yearly
resurrection, each spring, of her daugher (not a son in this instance),
Persephone.
“Essentially it [the myth of Demeter and Persephone] was the
same myth as that of Isis and Osiris, in Egypt; Tammuz and Ishtar, in
Babylonia; Astarte and Ado-nis, in Syria; Cybele and Attis, in Phrygia. The
cult of motherhood survived through classical times to take new life in the
worship of Mary, the mother of God.”— Will Durant, History of
Civilization, Vol. 2, 178.
ARTEMIS IN IONIA—Ephesus was the major city
56
of Ionia; and its temple of Artemis (called
Diana in Acts 19) was famous, for it was the largest Greek
temple ever built.
CERES, IN POSEIDONIA—The temple of Ceres stood
on the site of an earlier temple to Poseidon. Here Ceres was venerated.
VENUS OF THE ROMANS—Venus (also called Aphrodite) was equivalent
to the earth fertility and love goddess of the other Near Eastern nations.
According to some stories, her son was Aeneas, the ancestor of the Romans;
according to others, Cupid. In Rome, every month was dedicated to a god, and
April belonged to Venus. She was worshiped as the Mother goddess of their race,
since they were supposed to be descended from her through Aeneas. Later, they
dedicated their days to gods and borrowed, from the Persians, the sacred sun
god, Mithra, on that day.
ANAITA AND MITHRA OF
PERSIA—As we pass down through time, we come to Persia and the goddess
Anaita—the love, or earth, goddess. Their chief god was the sun god,
Ahura-Mazda, who later became known as Mithra (also called Mithras). Under the
name, Mithra, he became the most important god in Rome before Christianity won
out.
“For a while, under Darius II [521-486], it [the wor-ship of
Ahura-Mazda] became the spiritual expression of a nation at its height . .
Underneath the official wor-ship of Ahura-Mazda, the cult of Mithra and Anaita—
god of the sun and goddess of vegetation and fertility, generation and
sex—continued to find devotees; and in the days of Artaxeres II [404-359 B.C.]
their names began to appear again in the royal inscriptions. There-after Mithra
grew powerfully in favor and Ahura-Mazda faded away until, in the first
centuries of our era, the
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cult of Mithra as a divine youth of beautiful counte-nance—with
a radiant halo over his head as a symbol of his ancient identity with the
sun—spread through-out the Roman Empire, and shared in giving Christ-mas to
Christianity [footnote on the same page]. Christ-mas was originally a solar
festival, celebrating, at the winter solstice, the lengthening of the day and
the tri-umph of the sun over his enemies. It became a Mithraic, and finally a
Christian, holy day.”—Will Durant, His-tory of Civilization, Vol. 1, 372.
The leading gods of ancient Persia were Mithra, the sun god;
Anaita, the nature goddess; and her lover Haoma, who rose to life again. Later,
the dying-rising Haoma became transformed into the dying-rising Mithra, the
saviour god who, in the hands of Satan, became the chief counterfeit of
Christianity in the Roman Empire after the time of Christ. Mithra wor-ship was
a carefully contrived counterfeit of Chris-tianity, which Satan suggested to
the minds of men over the centuries.
But then, in the fourth century A.D., when Chris-tianity won
over Mithraism, Mithraic and Ishtar ele-ments of worship were incorporated into
Christian worship also.
Mithra was always shown with a solar halo around his head; so
portraits and statues of Christ, Mary, and the saints also had halos around
their heads.
Because worshipers of Ishtar presented her with two fertility
symbols—eggs and bunny rabbits—these be-came part of the Christian Easter
service.
Because sunrise on Sunday morning, at the begin-ning of spring,
was next to December 25th, the holiest day in the Mithraic calendar, the
practice of Easter sun-rise services continued on into Christianity.
Because Mithra was worshiped on the first day of
58 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
the week, which the Persians and Romans called
the sun day, Sunday sacredness—which is nowhere to be found in the Bible—came
into the Christian church.
Because Mithra, the sun, “died and rose to
life” each year on December 25 (when the sun became low-est in the sky), the
birth of Christ began to be celebrated on that date (although it is clear from
facts in the Bible that He was born in the fall of that year).
Because the Istar (Astarte, Astoreth, etc.) celebra-tion was
held each spring on a Sunday, close to the vernal equinox, the ascension of
Christ was changed from 40 days after the time of Passover (as told us in the
Bible) to the annual Easter celebration.
All this began centuries before in paganism, with the Ishtar and
Tammuz legend.
We have carefully considered what ancient, secu-lar historical
records reveal. Here are facts from another ancient historical record, the
Bible:
At the beginning of earth’s history, God created the entire
world in six days and rested on the seventh day and sanctified it, setting it
apart as a special day for men to worship Him on (Gen 2:1-3). This
is God’s own day to worship Him on.
Jesus Christ created all things (Col 1:16, John 1:3, Heb
1:2); and He calls Himself the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8,
Mark 2:28). It is His day—the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10).
He made it for man—all mankind—(Mark 2:27), not just
for the Jewish race. God gave the Sabbath at the foundation of the world (Gen
2:1-3); and His followers kept it before it was given on Mount Sinai (Ex
16). On Mount Sinai He spoke and wrote His law, so that all the world might
more clearly know it (Ex 20:8-11). In the fourth commandment,
we find the seal of the law and
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the sign that He is our Creator (Ex
20:11) and our Re-deemer (Eze 20:12) and that we
belong to Him (Eze 20:20).
Jerusalem was destroyed and His people were led into captivity
because they were so proned to idolatry and refused to obey Him and keep His
Sabbath (Jer 26:1-6, 52:1-13).
While here on earth, Jesus gave a careful
example of obedience to the Sabbath day which He had given man-kind (Luke
4:16) and rebuked man-made changes in His laws (Matt 15:9, 6). He
magnified the law and made it honorable (Matt 5:17-18).
Just before His death He predicted the destruction of Jerusalem
thirty-nine years later, in A.D. 70, and at the end of the world (Matt 24).
He also cautioned His followers to continue to carefully observe the Sabbath
even when those terrible events should come to pass years, and even centuries,
later (Matt 24:20).
He carefully instructed His disciples to keep His day holy; and
He wanted them to “remember the Sabbath day” (Ex 20:8) long
after He had returned to Heaven. His followers faithfully kept it after His
death (Luke 23:56) and later in their missionary work (Acts
13:14-16, 40-46;16:12-15; 17:1-4). They declared that we ought to obey
God rather than men (Acts 5:29). And Paul could sincerely say of
himself and his follow believers: “Do we then make void the law through faith?
God forbid: yea we establish the law” (Rom 3:31). The Word of God was
being fulfilled in order that the Gentiles would one day faithfully keep the
Sabbath that the Jews were desecrat-ing (Isa 56:3-7).
The Bible predicted that a great desolating power was to arise
in later centuries that would seek to de-stroy the atonement and God’s laws
from among His people (Dan 7:8, 20-21, 25; 8:9-12).
60 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
The attempt, by this power, to change God’s laws, and especially
His law regarding time, was specifically predicted in Daniel 7:25. Only
God can change the law, and so Paul predicted the rise of a man who would call
himself God (2 Thess 2:3-4). With boldness this power would
sit in the temple of God and call itself God (2 Thess
2:4) and boastfully admit what it had done, de-claring it to be a mark
of its authority—and, indeed, is it not? You see, it’s like this: I acknowledge
and honor God’s authority when I obey His commands and encourage oth-ers to do
so. I declare my independence of God when I set aside His law and refuse to
keep it. But I set myself up as a rival god when, having set aside His law, I
estab-lish in its place a counterfeit and then require others to keep it in
place of the law that God commanded!
“Whom ye obey, his servants ye are” (Rom 6:16). God’s
Word declares that obedience to this man-made god, by keeping his counterfeit
day of worship (while knowing that there is not one word or hint in all the
Scriptures to keep that false day in place of the true Sabbath) will soon bring
upon oneself the Mark of the Beast (Rev 13:16-17, 14:6-12). Only
the remnant who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus at that
time resist it (Rev 13:8, 14:6-12, 12:17). In fact, the Bible
predicts a return to the true Sabbath. God’s people will rebuild the torn-out
place in the law of God by again keeping His true Sabbath (Isa
58:13-14). And thank God, the assuring prophecy is given that the
saved of all ages will one day soon honor the holy Sabbath of God throughout
all eternity in the new earth (Isa 66:22-23).
Sunday is never called sacred or holy anywhere in the Bible. It
is never called the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day. Sunday is only mentioned eight
times in the Bible. The first time is Genesis 1:5, where the first
day of cre-
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ation week is spoken of. The next five times
refer to Jesus’ appearances, on Sunday, to His disciples after His rest in the
tomb on the Sabbath (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1-2, 9; Luke 24:1;
John 20:1, 18-19). Jesus went and found them and told them the
good news that He was alive. There is nothing here about Sunday sacredness. The
seventh time is in Acts 20:7-8, where Paul speaks to the
Ephesian leaders. A few verses later (Acts 20:15-38), he
speaks to another group in the middle of the week, but that doesn’t make that
day anymore sacred than the Sunday preceding it. For only a direct command of
God can make a day holy. Repeatedly in Acts, Paul kept the Sabbath holy (Acts
13:14-16, 40-46; 16:12-15; 17:1-4) just as his Master had done before
Him. Acts is as si-lent on Sunday sanctity as is Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John.
The eighth and last text is found in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, where
Paul instructs the believers to do their bookkeeping at home on
Sunday mornings. The first working day of the week was a good day for this,
since Friday they were so busy preparing for the Sabbath.
—But what about the “Lord’s Day”? John the Rev-elator saw Christ
in vision on the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10). What day was that? The
Bible does not say it was Sun-day; but, from statements elsewhere in the Bible,
we can know what day it was.
The “Lord’s Day,” both in Greek as well as English, means “the
Day of the Lord.” The Sabbath is the day unto the Lord (Ex 20:10, Lev
23:3, Deut 5:14), His own day (Isa 58:13). Jesus is
the Creator who gave us the Sabbath” (Eph 3:9, John 1:3, Col 1:16, Heb
1-2, Gen 2:1-3). John heard Him call Himself, “the LORD of the Sabbath
day” (Matt 12:8, Mark 2:28). John well-knew which day was the
Lord’s Day. This day is the memorial day of the Creator (Gen 2:1-3, Ex
31:17), the memorial
62 Christmas, Easter, and Halloween
day of the Redeemer (Eze 20:12, 20).
It is the Lord’s Day . . a day that God wants to share with you. He plans to
keep it with you throughout all eternity to come (Isa 66:22-23). Come,
worship Him on the best day—His day—the only day of worship your
God ever gave you.
For much more information on how a variety of pa-gan customs
came into the Christian church in the first three centuries, read our
book, Mark of the Beast.
“Little by little, at first in stealth and silence and then more
openly as it increased in strength and gained control of the minds of men, ‘the
mystery of iniquity’ carried forward its deceptive and blasphemous work.
“Almost imperceptibly the customs of heathenism found their way
into the Christian church. The spirit of compromise and conformity was
restrained for a time by the fierce persecutions which the church endured under
paganism.
“But as persecution ceased, and Christianity entered the courts
and palaces of kings, she laid aside the humble simplicity of Christ and His
apostles for the pomp and pride of pagan priests and rulers; and in place of
the requirements of God, she substituted human theories and traditions.
“The nominal conversion of
Additional Facts about Easter 63
Constantine, in the early part of the fourth
century, caused great rejoicing; and the world, cloaked with a form of
righteousness, walked into the church.
“Now the work of corruption rapidly progressed. Paganism, while
appearing to be vanquished, became the conqueror . . and superstitions were
incorporated into the faith and worship of the professed followers of Christ.”
—Great Controversy, 49-50
“The religion which is current in our day is not of the pure and
holy character that marked the Christian faith in the days of Christ and His
apostles. It is only because of the spirit of compromise with sin, because the
great truths of the word of God are so indifferently regarded, because there is
so little vital godliness in the church, that Christianity is apparently so
popular with the world.”
—Great Controversy, 48
