Once again we approach the Christmas Buying Season, where fat old people who need jobs really bad, put on fake beards and hair and red suits with white cuffs and try to make trusting children believe that they’re magical people who live at the North Pole and give free stuff to them once a year.
This bizarre practice evolved out of the life and death of a Jew who was nailed to a cross by the Romans in what is now Israel, some 2000 years ago. Nailing to crosses was the alternative form of Roman execution to being simply tied to one, and while more painful, was considered kinder because you died faster. Just FYI.
The Jew was preaching peace and love, but the Romans thought he was instigating a slave rebellion. All Jews at that time were Roman slaves. To make matters worse for the Jew, the temple priests saw him as a threat and helped convince the Roman authorities to get rid of him, which they did.
But, not before he became famous for his teachings and all sorts of stories sprang up that he was a great healer and maybe a Divine Being and could perform miracles. Superstition was big in those days, people would believe most anything and then swear by it as fact.
So after he was killed, people kept on saying that they saw and spoke with him, saw him rise up into the sky and so forth, and this Jew, named Jesus son of Joseph, became a religion that kept growing until the Romans, never to miss out on a good thing, abandoned their old gods, adopted Jesus worship and turned their old pagan temples into Jesus churches.
From there, the Romans started adding new gods to the pile again, since they never were happy with just one. First they came up with The Trinity, called the father, the son, and the holy ghost, whatever that one is. Not satisfied with that, they started calling some of their priests “Saints”, and told the sheeple that they could pray to these “saints” and they would “intercede” with God for them.
The longer the Roman Church, now called the Catholic Church, was around, the more complications and rules they added to their dogma and the more restrictive and demanding they became, until finally groups of believers started splitting off and creating kinder and more lenient versions of this religion, which is where Protestants come from. Protest.
One of the so-called saints that was proclaimed was a 4th Century Greek bishop named Nicholas. He would give anonymous gifts to the poor on the supposed birthday of Jesus the Jew, each year, and after he died he was declared a saint by whoever was leader of the Catholics at that time.
He was forgotten until the 19th Century, when a famous poem was written describing his clothing and a sleigh filled with toys for kids and pulled by magic flying reindeer. That made Nicholas a star and he’s been one ever since. From 4th Century Greek bishop to 21st Century merchandising tool and most recognized symbol of the dead Jew except the crucifixion cross. A cartoon.
Here’s something to consider. The Romans took the peace and love teachings of a Jew that they tortured to death and transformed them into a global system of power, wealth and control. I don’t know about you, but for all the bad things said about Jews being greedy and money-hungry, it looks to me like the Italians have them beat by miles.