Beyond Today of course Cupid, god of love, whose magic arrows caused both human beings and immortals to fall in love. The list goes on and on. While the Romans would call generically on “the gods,” each major deity still had its own cult, and worshippers would pray and conduct religious ceremonies to a specific god or goddess to implore help. Christianity, with its emphasis on one God, was viewed by many Romans as a strange superstition or even a kind of atheism that denied the “gods.” Sadly, a large part of Christianity in the Roman Empire became corrupted. In attempting to retain new converts from paganism and bring in more, devotion to all the various gods was at length replaced by devotion to “saints.” Yet it should be realized that all members of the early Christian Church were regarded as saints, meaning people sanctified or set apart to God. Paul greets the church at Philippi as “all the saints in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:1). However, it wasn’t long before “saints” in the Roman tradition began to take on the meaning of a special class of martyrs or performers of heroic virtue. In the second and third centuries it became common for local congregations to honor the death of a martyr by celebrating the anniversary of his or her demise. The congregations, by this time having accepted the pagan Greek falsehood of the immortality of the soul and having lost the biblical understanding that those dead in their graves “know nothing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10), would then offer prayers to the dead for intercession with God. Thus the meaning of “saint” changed from the biblical use of the word to refer to any member of the Church to referring to a deceased person declared to be a saint by the bishop of Rome or the Pope on the basis of miracles the person had supposedly preformed on behalf of others after death. The evolution from the early Church’s recognition of all members being “saints” to the veneration and worship of the dead is rooted in the early mixture of paganism with Christianity. The populace throughout the Roman Empire was not only accustomed to the worship of the Greek and Roman pantheon, but to cultic worship of local deities. It was an easy step for Christian congregations rife with paganism to replace the customs of local cults with the worship of dead martyrs. Over the centuries the Catholic church canonized saints for any number of events, problems, illnesses and occupations, each celebrated with his or her own feast day. And
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The Good News
creating a caricature of religion. Most people couldn’t care less if its origins are in the Roman Lupercalia or early church doctrines that that had nothing to do with the Bible. It’s this very apathy about how to worship God, and the corresponding moral decay, that is the result of mixing Christianity with paganism. Even some Christians who reject religious holidays with roots in paganism, like Christmas and Easter, see nothing wrong with holidays like Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day and Halloween despite their pagan origin. The reasoning goes like this: Christmas and Easter must be rejected because they are attempts to worship God with pagan customs. The other holidays, however, while they might have once been used to worship God, are now deemed completely secular. And since what God actually forbids is using pagan customs to worship Him, we are free to practice pagan worship customs if they are not now used for worship. Yet this ignores the fact that God told the Israelites to completely eradicate all vestiges The danger in a “harmless” holiday of pagan worship from their presence, not merely from their worship of Him (see DeuBut really, what harm can there be in the celebration of lovers in the name of St. Valen- teronomy 12:2-4). Moreover, our whole life tine? After all, what does it matter that some is to be one of worshipping and honoring God in all we do. The things we participate of the day’s customs stem from pagan rites? God warned ancient Israel, the people He in should be seen in the context of bringing glory to Him. This does not mean we can’t chose to represent true religion, not to mix pagan customs with worshipping Him as the have fun, for God wants us to enjoy life. But our fun is not to be independent of Him. one true God: “When the Lord your God All that we think, say and do should be to cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them God’s honor. Jesus said that His followers would “worand dwell in their land, take heed to yourself ship the Father in spirit and truth” (John that you are not ensnared to follow them, 4:23). The observance of Valentine’s Day after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, is just one of many traditions that must be rooted out of Christian lives if Christianity is saying, ‘How did these nations serve their to return to its true foundation laid by Jesus gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; Christ. GN for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:29-31). In the New Testament, Paul compares Does it matter which days we celebrate? Why do so many mixing paganism with Christianity to worof today’s holidays—including shipping demons: “What am I saying then? many religious observances— have strange and unusual That an idol is anything, or what is offered customs found nowhere in the to idols is anything? Rather, that the things Bible? Many people are shocked which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to to discover the true origins of today’s most popular holidays. Does it matter to God? demons and not to God, and I do not want Check out the booklet Holidays or Holy Days: Does It you to have fellowship with demons. You Matter Which Days We Observe? You can download cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the it or request a free copy to be mailed to you. cups of demons; you cannot partake of the Contact any of our offices listed on page 2, or Lord’s table and of the table of demons” request or download it from our website. (1 Corinthians 10:19-21). Holidays like St. Valentine’s Day continuwww.GNmagazine.org/booklets ally secularize into icons of Western culture, the saints took over the spheres of responsibility previously attributed to the various pagan gods. St. Stephen is the patron saint of stonemasons; doctors are to pray to St. Luke, fishermen to St. Andrew and carpenters to St. Joseph. There are patron saints for farmers, hunters, shoemakers and even comedians. And then there is the patron saint of love and romance, St. Valentine. Some researchers have even suggested that the original Valentine was not a martyred Christian leader at all. Rather, they see in the name Valentine, meaning “worthy, strong or powerful one,” a reference to a deified hero or a Roman god, perhaps even Cupid. While eventually portrayed as a harmless baby, the original Cupid, called Eros by the Greeks, was envisioned as a strong, athletic youth armed with bow and arrow—a mighty hunter. And this image of the mighty hunter may well go way back to the traditional founder of pagan religion following Noah’s Flood, “Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord” (Genesis 10:9).