THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN BABYLON

Apostle Dr. Gabriel Sanchez Velazquez and his wife

The Christmas of 1970 was the first Christmas that I experienced being married to my lovely wife. I remember well that it was already the 20th of December, and I did not have money to buy a Christmas tree. I felt so pained as if my family had not eaten in a whole week. Finally I bought the smallest one that I could find at a street stand, and with embarrassment I took it home. But by the Christmas of 1971, (the year that my firstborn son was born) I bought a tree so big that it reached the ceiling. We have a family photo with this tree surrounded by many gifts that we brought for our baby, since he was born on the 8th of November of that year.

Have you noticed how much anxiety there is to buy, place and adorn the Christmas tree in each house? Satan makes the people feel that in the house where there is no tree during the Christmas season, there is no life, there is no love...in short there is no home. But did you know that the Babylonians did the same many thousands of years ago before the Savior of the world was born?

A Babylonian legend greatly spread during antiquity, said that Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, affirmed that on the patio of her palace there was a dead tree trunk, that on the night that her son Tammuz was born became a leafy pine tree. She said that the dead trunk symbolized her then dead husband, and the leafy pine tree that came out of the dead trunk symbolized her son Tammuz, who was the incarnated Nimrod, the “sun god”.

So that by imperial decree of Semiramis, soon in all of Babylonia, a tree was adorned in the brightest way during every Christmas season. It was decorated with cherries because cherries are red and heat is red, they are round and the sun is round. In this way each Babylonian family believed they had a religious representation of the god Tammuz in their own house. And nobody wanted to be left without the blessing of Tammuz.

William S. Walsh in his book Curiosities of The Popular Customs on page 242 says: “The Druids, the Egyptians, and the Romans adorned their sacred trees with red cherries during the Saturnalia” (the Roman Christmas).

It is noteworthy to specify that the Christmas tree:

         1. Was an idol. It represented Tammuz.

         2. Wasn’t any tree, but a sacred tree.

         3. The way of adorning it, joins oneself to those who do it with the                     spiritual purpose of having the “sun god” in their house.

Ethel L. Urlin in her book Holidays, Saints, and Holy Days on page 222 asserts: “And just like other pagan rites were absorbed by “Christianity”, so was the use of the Christmas Tree. The Christmas tree sums up the ideas of worship with bright balls in the symbol of the sun... and all of the pagan winter holidays have been incorporated in the Christmas day.”

There hasn’t been lacking those who would argue that in the Bible is mentioned THE TREE OF LIFE.  We, however, have a trait of honesty. Nobody with common sense would identify the Christmas Tree with THE TREE OF LIFE. On the contrary, the green leafy trees among the Canaanites are always tied to pagan worship. There are numerous Biblical passages that make reference to the green tree being associated to

The Christmas tree representing Tammuz.

idolatry. Deuteronomy 12:2 says: “You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills, and UNDER EVERY GREEN TREE.”

The fall of Samaria is associated with the apostasy of Israel. II Kings 17:10 says: “They set up for themselves sacred pillars and wooden images on every high hill and under every green tree.”

On this point we don’t pretend to assert that those who adorn their house with a Christmas tree, worship the tree. But we do affirm that the Christmas tree has been an idol, a motive for worship. Consequently, returning to an idolatrous practice has a spiritual cost. One should understand that is deals with an abominable practice in the eyes of God.  Remember:

         -  The Christmas tree has originally been a symbol of a false god,                        representing Tammuz.

         -  It has been a motive of worship.

         -  People use the tree without understanding the spiritual                                   consequences that it has. It is more than a decoration, it has spiritual        strongholds.

Think: Apart from the force of the custom, what other reason is there to perpetuate the practice of putting up a Christmas tree during the Christmas season?

The force of the tradition cannot be stronger than our love for the eternal Word of God. “What would they say about us” if we loose ourselves from this practice should not determine if we follow or don’t observe a religious tradition from which the Lord Jesus with the gospel has liberated us.