Pagan Holidays

As we are approaching another holiday on 2/14/22, I want to discuss the paganism behind valentine’s day. In the early days of Rome, February was the month in which people celebrated Lupercalia, a festival honoring the birth of Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of the city. As Lupercalia evolved and time went on, it morphed into a festival honoring fertility and the coming of spring. Eligible men would draw a name and the couple would pair off for the rest of the festival, and sometimes even longer. This sounds very similar to what many recognize as “cupid” to symbolize love during valentine’s day today. As Christianity progressed into Rome, the practice was decried as Pagan and immoral, and done away with by Pope Gelasius around 500 C.E.

Around the same time that the love lottery was being eliminated, Gelasius changed the love lottery to a lottery of the Saints. Instead of pulling a pretty girl's name from the urn, young men pulled the name of a saint. The challenge for these men was to try to be more saint-like in the coming year, studying and learning about the messages of their individual saint. During this time, Gelasius also declared St. Valentine the patron saint of lovers, and his day was to be held every year on February 14. As valentine’ day began to progress over the years, giving out chocolate and valentines cards became popular as a way to define love towards your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.

This is why its very important to understand and really research where a lot of these holidays originated from and how they started, because you may not know what you are really celebrating. The other holidays, like Easter and Christmas, also tie to pagan roots and in reality, do not glorify the Heavenly Father. With Easter, Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre.” Hot cross buns are related to “Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it.” Eventually, “defiant cake-baking pagan women” were successful and a cross was added to the buns to Christianize them. Eostre is a Saxon word meaning a “goddess of the Saxons”, in honor of whom sacrifices were offered about the time of the Passover, so essentially, the people who lived at this time were worshipping a false God/Idol. They would also consider this time as a rebirth by invoking the Goddess of Spring and fertility.

Lastly, Christmas is followed with the tradition of gift giving and remembering how Jesus died for our sins, but why is it celebrated on 12/25? Why do we need a certain day to remember Jesus and how he died, when this is something that you should do every day. Also, the bible never said that Jesus was born on 12/25, so where did this day come from? The reason being is because before the arrival of Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many people rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight. The churches at this time, chose December 25th in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival, so they would give gifts, drink, and perform fertility rituals underneath sprigs of mistletoe. Besides feasting, drinking, and exchanging gifts during Saturnalia, Romans also hung small metal ornaments on trees outside their homes and each of these little ornaments represented a god, either Saturn or the family’s personal patron saint. They also worshipped the false God Saint Nick, which represents Satan, who was a Bishop that would give gifts to the poor and little children. Sounds like the same type of celebrations that center around Christmas, today right?

In the bible, Jesus talks about not following human tradition or doing what the world does:

Colossians 2:8- “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Jeremiah 10:1- “Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus, says the Lord: Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity.”
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John 8:32- “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”