Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

A spot of history .. yule .. christianity .. superstition .. that stuff .. bits and pieces ..

Christmas is both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. [...] December 25–Christmas Day–has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1870.
http://www.history.com/content/christmas

History of Christmas .. .. The Christmas celebrated today is a mix of old and new traditions .. a good site ..

Background: This gentleman was mentioned in the video ..

Sextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He is important chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.

His name indicates that he was an African. Suidas calls him "a Libyan philosopher", while Gelzer considers him of Roman descent[1] Julius called himself a native of Jerusalem – which some scholars consider his birthplace[2] – and lived at the neigbouring Emmaus. His chronicle indicate his familiarity with the topography of Palestine. [...]

Whether Julius Africanus was a layman or a cleric remains controversial. Tillemont argued from Julius' addressing the priest Origen as "dear brother" that Julius must have been a priest himself but Gelzer points out that such an argument is inconclusive. Statements calling him a bishop only appear in the fourth century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextus_Julius_Africanus

The Wheel of the Year brings us to Yule, and the god (who died at Samhain) is reborn of the Virgin Goddess. The God is represented by the sun which returns after this darkest night of the year to once again bring fertility and warmth to the land. The holiday spectacle of colored lights on houses and trees at Christmas is a modern version of the pagan custom of lighting candles and fires as acts of sympathetic magicck to lure back the waning sun. Today it is still a custom in Ireland and Norway to have lights burning all through the house on Yule night to not only lure back the sun, but also to honor the Virgin Goddess who gives him birth. Yule is the most widely celebrated of all the Sabbats because its customs and lore have so deeply invaded popular cultures and the mainstream religions, and virtually every culture in the northern hemisphere in some way once acknowledged the return of the sun at its weakest point. Anthropologists E. W. Budge states that Yule was first celebrated as a religious festival 12,000 years ago.

Yule's importance was obvious to early human civilization. As the nights grew darker and longer, and the days colder and shorter, it was important that the sun be lured back to the earth. The festival was important because it kept them in tune with the cycle of the seasons, marked by the New Year, allowed them time to gather with friends and family, and to worship their gods and goddesses in joy and thanksgiving.

Yule was a Sabbat of primary importance in the Norse and Roman traditions, and from these ancient roots our modern Yule customs began. For both of these civilizations, this was the time of the New Year, when the Goddess turned the Wheel of the Year to its beginning point again. Yule is an Old Norse word which literally means "wheel," and the Sabbat was often referred to as Hweolor-tid, the "turning time."

In the Norse tradition, Yule is a twelve-night-long celebration, a idea that probably came from the pagan Near East where it eventually became incorporated in the Christian myths. The first Eve of Yule (the night before Soltice) is called Mother Night, and this is the night when Norse pagans sit up and wait for the rising and rebirth of their Sun Goddess, Freya. It is also a night for spirit contact and celebration with one's ancestors in much the same way as the Celts observe Samhain. The Norse goddess, Holde, guardian of the spirit world, opens her doors at Yule to all sincere believers. The finial night of observance, called "Twelfth Night," became for a while a sort of nineth Sabbat on the Norse pagan calendar.

The popular winter song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" has its roots in the blending of Norse and Celtic Yule customs. A very old and lengthy Scottish nursery rhyme is "The Thirteen Yule Days."The poem tells us what a wealthy Scottish King once sent his lady love on each of the celebratory days. Within the ballad, the number three, a number sacred to the Celts, is prominently featured:

DAY 1 A PAPINGOE
DAY 2 THREE PARTRIDGES
DAY 3 THREE PLOVERS (A GAME BIRD)
DAY 4 A GREY GOOSE
DAY 5 THREE STARLINGS
DAY 6 THREE GOLDSPINKS
DAY 7 A BROWN BULL
DAY 8 THREE MERRY DUCKS A-LAYING
DAY 9 THREE SWANS A-MERRY SWIMMING
DAY 10 AN ARABIAN BABOON
DAY 11 THREE HINDS (HOUNDS) NERRY HUNTING
DAY 12 THREE MAIDS MERRY DANCING
DAY 13 THREE STALKS OF CORN

In ancient Egypt, the Winter Soltice was not only a time to celebrate the rebirth of their Sun God Ra, but to commemorate the creation of the universe as well. In Egyptian mythology it is taught that in the beginning there was nothing but Nun, the primordial black sea of chaos often likened to the womb of the Mother Goddess. From this ocean of unrest Ra was born, and he in turn gave birth to other dieties. After the great exertion he cried the dark tears given to him by Nun, and each tear became the men and women of Egypt. In sun-parched north Africa, December marked the beginning of the short rainy season. If it rained on the eve of the soltice, it was considered to be a special blessing from Ra whose tears were once again bringing new life to Egypt on the night of his rebirth.

One of the most venerated of all these reborn sun gods was Mithras, whose cult spread far beyond his native Rome and into Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor. His festival day, the soltice, was called Natalia Solis Invicti, or the "Birthday of the Invincible Sun." Some scholars go so far as to argue that, but for a few quirks of history and politics, the pagan cults who worshiped Mithras might have been as widespread and accepted today as Christianity. It is no accident that some of the myths surrounding him are similar to the Judeo-Christian ones which surround Jesus. Mithra was born to a virgin mother, was the sun (son) personified, was the child of the God of all Gods, and his followers continually pray for his return which will herald new life and life eternal for all humankind.

The tradition of Yuletide gift-giving comes from Roman pagans who called Yule by the name Saturnalia, a festival to honor the God Saturn. It was also a New Year's festival where gifts were given in honor of loved ones who had died in the previous year. Early Roman explorers and conquorers carried this tradition throughout Europe, where it remained part of the Yule celebration.

From another Roman sun diety (one shared with Greek neighbors), Apollo, we get the custom of hanging bay around our homes at Yule.
http://psychicinvestigator.com/demo/yules.htm

FRONTLINE: from jesus to christ: why did christianity succeed ...
- 21 Dec

We begin with a small group from the backwaters of the Roman Empire and after two ... How is it able to somehow at one and the same time hold on to the Jewish .... But the bishops are able to take advantage of Constantine's mood and his ...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/legitimization.html

Continuing from the early Republic and the great influx of foreign slaves to the very end of the Empire with massive migratins of foreign residents, along with all their differing ideas and cultures, its not at all surprising that religion would be altered just as much as the social climate. The single God concept (monotheism) was nothing new to Romans either, though Christianity did initiate a change in philosophy where that God stood above both the Emperor and Rome itself.

Christianity had many similarities to other cults that had already gained widespread acceptance. Mithraism, derived from eastern Zoroastrism was a belief in the son of the sun who also came to earth to rescue mankind from itself. The similarities in the stories of Jesus and Mithras cannot be overlooked as an aid in Christian growth. Mithras was extremely popular in the Legions, and as the army traveled throughout the empire, the acceptance of the monotheistic concept (and the story of the son of god coming to earth to save humanity) traveled with it. The cult of Dionysus, one of the old gods of both Greeks and Romans, also had enough similarities to aid a slow conversion to Christianity. Perhaps even the Imperial cult (emperor worship) played its own part. Augustus himself was considered the son of a god (Julius Caesar) and transcended his human existence to become a divine being after his death. The Roman people had certainly been exposed to enough religious ideas bearing similarities to Christ to make the possibility of the Son of God and Savior of humanity a believable and relatively easy concept to adopt.
http://www.unrv.com/culture/spread-christianity.php

Charlemagne (pronounced /'??rl?me?n/; Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great) (2 April 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 which temporarily made him a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France, Germany (where he is known as Karl der Große), and the Holy Roman Empire.

The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I. The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. [...]

By the 6th century, the Franks were Christianised, and Francia ruled by the Merovingians had become the most powerful of the kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire. But following the Battle of Tertry, the Merovingians declined into a state of powerlessness, for which they have been dubbed do-nothing kings (rois fainéants). Almost all government powers of any consequence were exercised by their chief officer, the mayor of the palace or major domus.

In 687, Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, ended the strife between various kings and their mayors with his victory at Tertry and became the sole governor of the entire Frankish kingdom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

In the fourth century the Church set Christmas on December 25, not because they believed their founder was born then, but because they wanted to absorb and Christianize the existing midwinter ancient pagan feast, the festival of Saturnalia.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message691530/pg1

Constantine's vision .. [...] There is no way to "prove" the event, of course, but what is important is that Constantine believed it to be true.

His conversion helped Christianity in many ways. Followers were safe from persecution, and Christian leaders were given many gifts by the Emperor. Constantine's adherence to Christianity ensured exposure of all his subjects to the religion, and he had no small domain. He also made Sunday an official Roman holiday so that more people could attend church, and made churches tax-exempt. However, many of the same things that helped Christianity spread subtracted from its personal significance and promoted corruption and hypocrisy. Many people were attracted to the Church because of the money and favored positions available to them from Constantine rather than from piety. The growth of the Church and its new-found public aspect prompted the building of specialized places of worship where leaders were architecturally separated from the common attendees, which stood in sharp contrast to the earlier house churches which were small and informal.

Constantine believed that the Church and the State should be as close as possible. From 312-320 Constantine was tolerant of paganism, keeping pagan gods on coins and retaining his pagan high priest title "Pontifex Maximus" in order to maintain popularity with his subjects, possibly indicating that he never understood the theology of Christianity. From 320-330 he began to attack paganism through the government but in many cases persuaded people to follow the laws by combining pagan worship with Christianity. He made December 25th, the birthday of the pagan Unconquered Sun god, the official holiday it is now--the birthday of Jesus. It is likely that he also instituted celebrating Easter and Lent based on pagan holidays. From 330-337 Constantine stepped up his destruction of paganism, and during this time his mother, Helen, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and began excavations to recover artifacts in the city. This popularized the tradition of pilgrimages in Christianity.

Whether or not his conversion was "genuine," Constantine's reign was extremely important to the Christian church. After his vision, he immediately declared Christianity legal in the Edict of Milan. He completely abandoned paganism and put his full force of favor towards advancing the cause of the Church of Christ. He provided Christianizing legislation on such matters as the observance of Sunday, the confiscation of the temple treasures, and the exemption of some clergy from taxes. He funded Christian leaders and the construction of churches, some of which he dedicated to his mother. Most Christian leaders greatly admired Constantine for the works he did for the church and Christian cause.

While Constantine's idea of an integrated Church and State, (now called Constantinism), began having sway in the empire upon his conversion, it became significantly stronger through several events. In 316, a sect of Christians called the Donatists asked Constantine as emperor to settle a dispute they were having with the church in North Africa over the personhood of Christ. (Ironically, this was resolved by Constantine favoring the N. African church.) This was the first time that a political leader had power in the religious sphere. In 324, Constantine defeated his co-emperor in the west, Licinius, leaving Constantine dominion over the east and the west to uproot paganism where tolerant Licinus had not. He also called together and presided over the Council of Nicaea that 300 bishops attended, which again dealt with the Arian controversy about the nature of the divinity of Jesus. The Council issued an official statement of creed affirming Jesus' complete divinity, and the decision was enforced politically by Constantine. the dispute over the personhood of Christ. They drafted the Creed of Nicaea, the predecessor to the Nicene Creed, a proclamation of faith still used by many Christian denominations today.
http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/easteurope/ConstantineConverts.html

Happy Yule.