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The Blood-thirsty God

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.
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The Greek Kronos and the Roman Saturn were the same god; 1both symbolized Nimrod. As god of the harvest, he was typically represented as holding a scythe. Kronos/Saturn was the god of time 2as well and as such he was also frequently shown holding babies.3 Kronos - Saturn Saturn’s chief holiday was Saturnalia. In December, the path of the sun stands still on the southern sky for five days. Ancient priests told the superstitious people that the sun was dying and must be propitiated with costly sacrifices. Saturn, as the god of time, was implored to continue time. The people were thus compelled to offer the things most precious to them, their children, in order to prolong time. Saturn, god of time and god of the harvest, reaped his harvest of souls in the burned bodies of these young children.

In mythology, Kronos ate his own children. Therefore, the proper sacrifice with which to appease Kronos would, of course, be children. While indications are that this was not a daily ritual, it certainly occurred at times of national peril such as famine or war. The victims were generally heavily veiled (to prevent the parents from seeing when it was their child’s turn) and loud music with drums was played to drown out any screams that may be heard. Carthage in particular was infamous for child sacrifice. "Special ceremonies during extreme crisis saw up to 200 children of the most affluent and powerful families slain and tossed into the burning pyre. During the political crisis of 310 B.C., some 500 were killed." 4"Saturn had become the champion of African paganism . . . indeed as Baal-Hammon in Phoenician Carthage, he was the object of child sacrifice, disclosed by the discoveries in the Tophet, or open-air sacrificial grounds of the old Punic city."5 "The champion deity of North African paganism was Saturn to whom the Phoenician god Baal-Hammon was assimilated. Although a fertility god, Saturn-Baal . . . was nonetheless ruthless in the sacrifices he exacted." 6

The Romans quit offering human sacrifice early on7and the Senate officially outlawed the practice in 97 BCE.8However, blood was still spilled via gladiators during the saturnalia celebrations. 9 . "The gladiatorial shows were sacred" to Saturn. 10. Ausonius stated that "the ampitheatre claims its gladiators for itself, when at the end of December they propitiate with their blood the sickle-bearing Son of Heaven." 11 The fact that the gladiators were themselves considered sacrifices to this blood-thirsty god is affirmed by Justus Lipsius, when commenting on Ausonius’ quote: "Where you will observe two things, both, that the gladiators fought on the SaturnSaturnalia, and that they did so for the purpose of appeasing and propitiating Saturn." 12

The principle on which these [gladiatorial] shows were conducted was the very same as that which influenced the priests of Baal. They were celebrated as propitiatory sacrifices . . . in the light of the real history of the historical Saturn, we find a more satisfactory reason for the barbarous custom when such multitudes of men were "Butchered to make a Roman holiday." When it is remembered that Saturn [Nimrod] himself was cut in pieces, it is easy to see how the idea would arise of offering a welcome sacrifice to him by setting men to cut one another in pieces on his birthday, by way of propitiating his favor. 13

On the modern calendar, December 21 is the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year in the "Northern Hemisphere." However, on the early Julian calendar, the winter solstice fell on December 25. , 14 ,15The Romans called this Brumalia from the Latin word bruma, for short. On December 25 was held the feast of Sol Invictus, after which the days again begin to lengthen. The later Romans referred to this day as the "birthday of the Invincible Sun" or dies natalis Solis Invicti. 16Saturnalia immediately preceded Brumalia and it was a time of riotous merry-making.

Thus, the various ancient celebrations honoring Nimrod/Saturn and Tammuz during Saturnalia Santa Clause - Saturnand its cultural equivalents have become absorbed into the modern celebration of Christmas. 17 These include the Twelve Days of Christmas; snacks and "goodies" left out in the evening; holiday "punch" in a special wassail bowl; Christmas trees decorated with lights (originally candles made from the fat of the burned bodies of children offered in sacrifice); Christmas trees hung with balls (anciently decapitated heads of sacrificial victims) and crowned with a star; parties with noise-makers; gift exchanges; Yule logs; feasting; kissing under the mistletoe; the "Christmas goose"; Yule cakes; the boar’s head/ham as the main dish of Christmas dinner; holly berries (the food of the gods); evergreen boughs; caroling; "Advent" candles; the imagery of the "Christ-child" (actually Tammuz, the Babylonian messiah); Christmas cards (a modern evolution of sending season’s greetings and blessings), etc. Even the imagery of Father Christmas/Santa Claus bears a striking resemblance to Saturn: an old man, with a long beard, surrounded by children.

The imagery of Saturn: an evil, child-sacrifice demanding old man, carries on in modern society in two more guises. Every December, Saturn, the god of time, reappears as "Old Father Time." father time and baby new yearThe child-victim is Baby New Year. Notice that in this modern cartoon of Old Father Time with Baby New Year, all of the characteristics of Saturn are in place: the scythe, the watch, as a symbol of Time, and, of course, the child-victim. The smile behind Father Time’s beard makes this seem like innocent fun: symbols that contain no reference to evil, just a fun way to represent the passage of time.

A far more chilling representation of Father Time with Baby New Year can be found in this illustration from the 19th century.Father Time/Saturn, as the god of Time, is standing in front of a large clock, holding his scythe. The old years, 1886-1888, are passing away as full-grown bodies wrapped in burial shrouds. The New Year, 1889, is coming in as a young child. While the picture is quite dark, light from the fire is lighting the little boy while on either side are swirls of smoke from the burning fire at his feet (below the view of the picture.) Notice that the new years still to come, 1890-1892, are portrayed as child sacrifice victims, all of whom are heavily veiled. All of the grotesque elements of this hideous god are contained in this one "innocent" illustration.

father time ushering in the new year (young children)

The other way in which Saturn’s imagery exists in modern society is as the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper is typically seen only around Halloween. He is widely understood as a symbol of death itself. Very few, if any, in modern society have recognized in either the Grim Reaper or Old Father Time the pagan connection to the cruelest, most evil of all the gods. However, an ancient would immediately recognize both as being none other than Saturn because the emblems which identified Saturn are the same which identify Old Father time and the Grim Reaper: scythes and something to mark the passage of time.

grim reaper - saturn

As Christianity was absorbed into pagan Rome, both Christianity and paganism combined to form a new, amalgamated religion. This new religion, headed by the papacy, retained the pagan celebrations, now christened with new, "Christianized" names. Christianity was very quick to immerse itself in paganism which did not change its religious practices. As early as the third century, Tertullian lamented how quick the Christians of his day were to give up their pure faith while the pagans remained very faithful to their religion:

By us who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and [annual] festivals, once acceptable to . . . [Yahuwah], the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.18

This is a fascinating quote because religious observances are dependent on their calendars for establishing when to celebrate. Tertullian was listing the Creator’s luni-solar holy days: Sabbaths, new moons, and annual feasts. He stated that these celebrations were acceptable to Yahuwah, while lamenting the fact that they had been given up for pagan holidays, calculated on the pagan, Julian calendar!

A baker combines yeast with dough to make bread. The end product, bread, does not resemble either the yeast or the dough. It is a new product made of them both. In this way, the amalgamation of paganism with Christianity has flowed through the papal Church and now permeates all of Christendom. Pure apostolic piety is a thing of the past, as is the overt paganism of the ancients. However, the product of this corrupt union is seen in the Christianity of today. The new end-result is "Christian Babylonians."

There are many excuses given by sincere, conservative Christian Babylonians today for clinging to pagan holidays honoring Saturn.

  • "Christmas is a wonderful time for spending with family. We are so busy throughout the year this is really our only chance to get together."
  • "Christmas is a great time to witness! People are more open at this time of year so I use it as an opportunity to share about Christ with my neighbors."
  • "Christmas is the only holiday that really focuses on Christ."
  • "Christmas is fun! What is wrong with that?"
  • "Christmas is my only opportunity to really show my appreciation to the people important to me."
  • "I know that Christ was not really born then, so it is alright for me."

The pagans were ignorant of the true Eloah of Heaven. They practiced these rituals honoring Nimrod because they did not know any better. Can Christians today make the same claim? Scripture teaches that "the times of this ignorance Yahuwah winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent." 19 To know that Christmas is a pagan holiday, to know that the modern rituals are identical to the ancient rituals that honored Saturn/Nimrod, and yet to claim exemption from sin because one knows, is extremely inconsistent.

There are many, devout Christians who do not celebrate Easter or Christmas because of their pagan origins. There are others who do not celebrate birthdays either because they know that the celebration of one’s own birthday is the highest Satanic holiday of the year. 20Yet, through ignorance these same sincere people worship on other pagan holy days. It does not matter whether the day of the week is the first day or the seventh day; if a pagan calendar is being used to keep track of time, it is calculating pagan worship days.

The very strongest deceptions are those closest to the truth. Saturday, the seventh day of the pagan calendar is assumed to be the Biblical Sabbath, but it is not. In a complicated twist, Satan has produced Sunday as The Counterfeit Worship Day. The purpose of this double deception is to deceive all who truly desire to honor their Maker either by worshipping on the "Lord’s Day" or the seventh-day Sabbath. In this way, attention is diverted from the truth that Saturday itself is a counterfeit which honors the cruelest, most blood-thirsty of all the gods: Saturn. Honor and worship is thus stolen from the Creator and given to His enemy.


1 Hislop,op. cit., pp. 31-35; "Saturn", Ecyclopedia Britannica; "Saturnus, Saturnalia,"The Oxford Classical Dictionary, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 955-956.

2  "The connection between the sun and Saturn probably arose from both being taken as symbols of Time.  The return of the sun to the beginning of the zodiac marked the completion of the year.  Saturn, the slowest moving of all the heavenly bodies, accomplished its revolution . . . in about 30 years, a complete generation of men.  Saturn therefore was in a peculiar sense the symbol of Time, and because of Time, of Destiny" (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, James Orr, gen. ed., [The Howard-Severance Co., 1915], Vol. I, p. 298.)

3  Fuss, op. cit., pp. 359-360.

4  Roy Decker, Religion of Carthage, "Human Sacrifice."

5 Quodvoltdeus of Carthage, translation and commentaries, Thomas Macy Finn, (New Jersey: The Newman Press, 2004), p. 14.

6 Ibid., p. 115.

7 While the Romans frowned on human sacrifice as barbaric, there are, nevertheless, specific instances of human sacrifice that occurred as late as 216 and 113 BCE.  Other human sacrifices referred to by Livy (2.42) and Pliny the Younger (Epistle, 4.11) would seem to indicate that whatever the official "reason" for the "execution," these were in reality sacrifices to appease the gods because of bad omens.

8  Robert Drews, "Pontiffs, Prodigies, and the Disappearance of the Annales Maximi," Classical Philology, Vol. 83, no. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 289-299.

9  While Saturnalia was originally held on December 17, the riotous behavior associated with this popular holiday early on led to a lengthening of the celebration, first to two, then three, and five days.  In Cicero’s time, Saturnalia lasted for seven days.

10 Fuss, op. cit., 359.

11 Ausonius, Eclog. i. p. 156, quoted in Hislop, op. cit., p. 153.

12 Lipsius, tom. ii. Saturnalia Sermonum Libri Duo, Qui De Gladiatoribus, lib. i. cap. 5 as quoted in Hislop, ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 VIII Kal. Ian, or eight days before the first of January: i.e., December 25 when counting inclusively as the Romans did.  Pliny the Elder stated that the winter solstice (bruma) began at the eighth degree of Capricorn, the eighth day before the calends of January: "horae nunc in omni accessione aequinoctiales, non cuiuscumque die significantur —omnesque eae differentiae fiunt in octavis partibus signorum, bruma capricorni a. d. VIII kal. Ian."  (See Naturalis Historia, Lib. 18, 221.)

15  "The times of the Birth and Passion of Christ . . . were little regarded by the Christiansof the first age.  They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, on the 25th of March, which when Julius Cæsar corrected the calendar was the vernal Equinox . . . and the birth of Christ on the winter Solstice, Decemb. 25, . . . and because the Solstice in time removed from the 25th of December, to the 24th, the 23d, 22d, and so on backwards." (Sir Isaac Newton, Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, 1733, Part I, Ch. XI, p. 144, emphasis and spelling original.)

16 See Chronography of AD354 where VIII Kal. Jan. is referred to as the "birthday of the Invincible Sun" (dies natalis Solis Invicti).

17 For specifics on the rites of Saturnalia and how it is now embraced by all of Christendom, see Hislop, op. cit., "Christmas and Lady-Day," pp. 91-103.


18 Tertullian, De Idolatria, c. 14, Vol. I, p. 682 as quoted in Hislop, op. cit., p. 93, emphasis original.

19 Acts 17:30, emphasis supplied.

20 "After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht [May 1] and Halloween."  Anton S. LaVey, The Satanic Bible, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1992), p. 96.