How Much Do You Know About Christmas?

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show hosts. Thank you for choosing W

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FOURCY Radio. Well, Merry Christmas
and welcome. This is Bill Martinez and

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we are alive. Great to have
you with us, sharing a part of

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your holiday with us. I hope
you'll get a cup of hot coco and

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bring the family around and watch the
special presentation about how much do you know

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about Christmas? You know about its
origins? It's many beloved traditions. Do

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you know where the idea of stalking
stuffers comes from? Or how lights found

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their way onto the Christmas tree?
Or why we all have jolly, red

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suited, white haired images of Santa
Claus in our heads? Well? The

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American Minute creator and historian Bill Fetterer
is with us to talk about the holiday's

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rich and unique history. Plus we're
going to recall some memorable miracles of the

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holiday period and Christmas, especially Bill
Fetterer, welcome back. Good to have

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you with us. How are you
Merry Christmas to you? Hey? Bill,

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Great to be with you, Hey. How special is this that we

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get to enter into millions of households
today on this Christmas Day to talk about

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to talk about Christmas and help people
realize this, maybe some of the things,

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the traditions that we take for granted, where they came from and why

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they're so special. And maybe in
the process of doing this, Bill,

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we can re embrace the special attributes
of this holiday. It is exciting and

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I would love to get into its. Matter of fact, I put together

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a book on this. It's called
there Really is a Santa Claus The History

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of Saint Nicholas and Christmas Holiday traditions. And the first question I asked is

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why December twenty fifth, And if
you'd like I could get into that.

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Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Let's go right down. We've we've

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got a little bit of time together, and we're gonna have a lot of

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fun with our audience and they're going
to be taking notes, no doubt and

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sharing it with everybody and just say, hey, do you realize how smart

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I am and all these things I
know about Christmas now that I didn't know

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before. Yeah. Well, the
first two centuries of Christianity, the date

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everyone was concerned with was Passover,
and the Hebrew calendar had it as a

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lunar date, the ninth their different
Hebrew months. But the Romans began to

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convert to Christianity, and so the
Christians in Greece and Rome would ask the

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the Hebrews when Passover is. But
as more and more of these Greeks began

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to convert to Christianity, they raised
the question when was his birthday? Hebrews

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did not celebrate birthdays. Matter of
fact, we were visiting in Turkey and

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we were the family and my wife
asked the woman of the house when her

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birthday was. She goes in the
back room, shuffles through some papers,

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and comes out with it. I
mean she didn't even have it memorized.

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Wow. My son worked in Korea
for several years and everyone turned a year

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older on January first. They did
not celebrate birthdays, and so this was

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sort of a Greek thing, and
so it's a little bit of a detective

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story, but it's quite fascinating for
the Book of Luke. Chapter one says

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in the time of Herod, and
Herod died anywhere probably around one BC,

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maybe too earlier than that. In
the time of King Herod, there was

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in Judea a priest named Zacharai who
belonged to the priestly division of a Bye

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Joe. What's this priestly division of
Abijah. King David divided the Levite priests

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into twenty four divisions, and Abija
was number eight. And we also have

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to notice the first division was Jehoe
Arab and that's going to come into the

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picture in a moment. So we
have these twenty four divisions, but we

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don't know when they took their turn. And so the Dead Sea scrolls are

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discovered, and then the Hebrew University
nineteen sixty two and cesarea discovers the scrolls

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with the twenty four priestle division schedule. Family took two weeks a year six

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months apart to do the work at
the temple. But then another part of

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the detective story is, well,
when do we start keeping track and a

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clue comes with the date of the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and

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the Jerusalem Talmud and Differentjewish records say
that the priestly order that was on duty

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when the temple was to destroy was
Jehoe Arab, and it was destroyed the

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first week of August in the year
seventy a d. So, if Jehoi

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Arab is the first division, they're
on duty the first week of August,

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and the Baija division is eight weeks
later, that would be the last week

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of September. Right now, this
is an important week because this is the

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David Towman and the Feast of Tabernacles, and this is when zachar I,

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the father of John the Baptist,
would have been in the temple. The

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Angel appears to him, tells him
that his wife's going to conceive. He

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goes home, she conceives, and
so the Byzantine write Church celebrates September twenty

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third as the conception of John the
Baptist. Is this important well, the

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Book of Luke says that in Elizabeth, six months of pregnancy is when the

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Angel appeared to marry and she conceived, and so the date of the denunciation,

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when the angel appeared to Mary and
she conceded. The Holy Spirit is

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March twenty fifth, right, So
September, last week of September, zacharriies

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on duty, his wife gets pregnant. Six months after the last week of

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September is the last week of March. And if Mary conceived the last week

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week of March, then nine months
later is the last week of December or

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December twenty fifth. So there's a
biblical historical way to verify the December twenty

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fifth date. People say, well, wasn't that Saturday Aalite? Well,

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Saturnalia was December twenty second, so
why would you pick December twenty fifth?

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And then you people say, well, what about sheeps in the field?

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And the climate in right exactly,
Helm is pretty warm. It's so like

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Flagstaff, Arizona, And so it
is what not that far conceivable that December

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twenty fifth is the actual date.
Now, some people may think otherwise,

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and we don't want to get into
arguments because there's enough thing to argue over

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the church today. But there is
evidence that very well could be December twenty

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fifth. Right now, Well,
you bring up the argument because that's I've

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heard that that you know, the
shepherds wouldn't necessarily be out in the field

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during the month of December, right, Yeah, So in Jerusalem and Bethlehem,

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which is six miles away, it
gets down to forty in the winter

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and high of almost sixty in the
winter, so it's fairly moderate. And

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then you can go on to farm
websites. I went to one. It

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was a farm in London and called
the Warhorse Valley Country Farm Park, and

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it says lambs are born around one
hundred and forty five days or four point

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five months after the U falls pregnant. Lambing can start as early as December

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and go on as late as June, so it's not like a fixed season.

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And December is one of the days
the months. Yeah, so it's

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not it's not out, it's not
out of the zip code, so to

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speak. Right, right, right, and so, but one of the

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things I talk about in my book
is everything on planet Earth is dated to

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Jesus' birthday exactly. And now you
had the Pagans would well, actually it's

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even in the Bible. They would
date things according to the reign of kings

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in the you know, tenth year
of King Hezekiah or the fourteenth year of

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Tiberius Caesar, and so they were
dating things according to Diocletian, who was

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a terrible emperor who killed Christians.
And in the fifth century there was a

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monk, Dionysius Exegus, and he's
going through his monk records keeping track of

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dates, and he's like, why
are we dating things to this Diocletian who

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killed Christians. So he counts that
as best as he can figure to the

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birth of Christ, and it catches
on and it becomes the dating system for

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the whole world. Wow. And
so I love the quote so of Clarence

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Manion. But so even those that
want to get away from it and say

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let's call it BCE before Common Era
or CE Common era, it's like,

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okay, when did it change from
before Common era to common era the birth

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of Christ? They can't it away
from it. So here's ago from Clarence

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Manion. He's the dean of the
Notre Dame School of Law. Back in

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nineteen fifty one, he writes a
best selling book, Keys to Peace.

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But he says, the long march
of measured time suddenly stopped and didn't about

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face and started to march in another
direction and do a different drum straight through

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the ensuing centers of Christ and Christendom
BC before Christ and ad Anno Domini the

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Year of Our Lord, each mark
the only reliable milestones on the path world

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history. The end of the first
time change the beginning of the second came

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together on the night that Christ was
born in Bethlehem. Well first Christmas Day

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thus stands as the great divide for
the timing and recording of all people and

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things and events that have lived or
taken place on this earth, the one

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place of a long, long trail
of time where the magnetic needle of history

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stands vertical and points up exactly.
Wow, how significant? How significant?

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Bill? I mean that that is
just so significant. No other person,

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no other figure in the history of
the world has done this, Only Jesus.

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Yeah, so you know twenty twenty
three what ad Ono Doomedy in the

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Earth of Our Lord drink is just
fascinating that it can be so obvious,

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yet some people miss it. And
now I have in my book and the

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title of the book is there really
is a Santa Claus. The History of

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Saint Nicholas and Christmas Holiday Traditions.
I go through Saint Nicholas's story and if

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you'd like, I can go through
that for them. Yeah, let's do

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it. I mean, we're doing
this for audience. They've got their cup

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of cocoa. This is Christmas Day, and you know we're giving them some

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history and probably something they wow,
they did not know about. So again

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bringing it back into focus. So, yes, let's talk about Saint nich.

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So the church was born into a
one world anti Christian government, the

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Roman Empire. I don't know.
You were me starting a group. We

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said, give it a couple of
years where there or not being an attacked.

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No, immediately the church is attacked. Eleven of the twelve apostles are

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martyred. The twelfth one, John
was thrown in oil but survived. And

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then you have three centuries of government
persecution of Christians. They're thrown to the

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lines. They had churches and catacombs, caves, they dig in the hillside,

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and they'd have to meet in secret. Every time they met for church.

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They risked their lives. Yes,
and so you had a emperor,

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Diocletian, and he is so cruel. He erects a monument to the extermination

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of Christianity. The story is he
loses some battles with Persia, and he

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asked his generals why, and they
said that it was his fault because he

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had neglected having the Roman army worship
the Roman gods. So Diocletian says,

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okay, army, get back to
worshiping the Roman gods. Well, this

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is the third century AD, lots
of Christians in the military because the previous

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emperor, the Gallanius, had been
a little lax, and the Christians could

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not go back to worshiping Roman gods, so they're perched. Once all the

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Christians were purged out of the military, Diocletian decided to use the military to

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force the entire Roman Empire to return
to worshiping the Roman gods and started this

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worst persecution where they'd arrest the pastors, to down the churches, cut out

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their tongues, destroy the scriptures,
and it just went on and on.

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So it was during this time that
Nicholas was alive. So Saint Nicholas is

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the most popular Greek Orthodox saint.
He is to the Greeks what Saint Peter

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is to Roman Catholics, right,
And there are more Greek Orthodox churches named

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after Nicholas than anybody else. And
so the story is that he lived in

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a town called Patawa Asian minor today
that's Turkey, and a movement swept through

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Christianity called Pietism or monasticism, where
they have the monasteries, and it was

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if you really became a Christian,
you would give away all your money and

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live in a cave as a hermit
and just enjoy your personal relationship with God,

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or join a monastery, take vows
silence so we won't even hear from

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you again, enjoy your personal relationship
with Jesus. And so Nicholas does this,

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but he wants to give away his
money anonymously because he wants the credit

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to go to God, not to
him. So he would sneak into the

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town at night time and throw money
in the window of poor people. Supposedly

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it landed in a shoe or a
stocking that's driven by the fireplace. And

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one story that was popular was a
merchant in the town had gone bankrupt,

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and back then the creditors would not
only come and take your house and lands,

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they would take your children. The
merchant had three daughters. He knew

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if they were taken it would be
terrible life, maybe sex trafficking, and

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so the father had an idea.
He thought if he could hurry up and

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marry his daughters off, the creditors
wouldn't take him. Unfortunately, he did

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not have money for a dowry,
which was needed in that area of the

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world, for he recognized his wedding. Nicholas, here's the problem. Throws

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money in the window. The oldest
daughter has a dowry, gets married,

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big buzz talk to the town,
throws money in for the second daughter,

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and when he does it for the
third, by this time the dad's expecting

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it. He runs outside and catches
Nicholas. Nicholas makes the father promise not

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to tell where the money came from, because he wanted the credit to go

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to God. And so that's the
origin of the tradition of secret gift giving.

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On the anniversary of Nicholas's death,
which was December sixth, three forty

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three a d. The midnight visits
from Saint Nicholas the stockings by the fireplace

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and all the rest. So he
again is like the founding father of the

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Greek Orthodox Church. And one of
the little sort of silly trivia things is

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he's the patron saint of pawnbrokers exactly. Nicholas has these bags of gold he

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threw in the windows for these daughters. Well, pawn broker's shops will have

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three gold balls hanging in front of
their shop or on their sign to symbolize

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those three bags of gold that Nicholas
threw in the window. And pawnbrokers say,

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well, we help families out in
their time of financial need. It's

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like, yeah, a little bit
of a stretch, but whatever. So

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Nicholas, once he gives away all
his money, he decides to join a

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monastery, goes over to Zion in
Jerusalem, and before he takes his fine

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vows and the Lord tells him not
to hide his light under a bushel.

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So he goes back to Asia Minor
today that's Turkey, gets off at a

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big city called Myra today that's dem
Ray, Turkey, and unbeknownst to him,

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the bishop had died and the church
leaders could not decide who their next

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bishop was going to be. And
one of them has a dream that the

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first one the church the next day
would be named Nicholas and he was to

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be their bishop. Well, Nicholas, sure enough, first one on the

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door, they ask his name,
and they say, you're supposed to be

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the bishop. He was not too
happy because the Roman emperor Diocletian was arresting

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bishops and killing them. So it's
like you be the bishop, No,

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no, you, and he agrees. He's arrested, he's put in jail,

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and while he's in jail, the
church is praying, and Diocletian is

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struck with that intestinal disease so painful. He abdicates the throne on May first,

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three oh five AD. I mean, here's an emperor. By this

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time, they're calling them sells a
god with the little g sprinkling goldust in

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their right exactly, yes, worship. So this was like a god resigning.

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The next emperor, Galerius, continues
the persecution. He's struck with an

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intestinal disease. He dies in three
eleven AD, and now there's no emperor,

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and there's four generals who decide to
fight it out. To are defeated

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comes down to Constantine and max Centchius. Constantine leaves Britain, where he had

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been stationed, and he's marching toward
the Milvian Bridge in Rome and reportedly sees

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the sign of Christ in the sky, which is the first two Greek letters

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for the name Christ. So we
abbreviate states with two letters. You know

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California is CAA. Well, the
Greeks would abbreviate names with the first two

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letters, and the first letter of
the name Christ is written as an X,

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called the Kai, and the second
letter that makes the erth sound for

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corre is written as a big P, and it's called grow. So the

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chi row is written as a big
X and a P, and so over

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the centuries it got shortened just to
the kai the X. It was called

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the Christ's cross or chriss cross,
and it became a form of a written

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oah. So you would sign at
the Christ cross today that's sign at the

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X exactly. Then they would you
get X miss, So it's not X

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crossing out Christ. It's the Greek
letter Kai, which stood for Christ,

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yes exactly yes. And then it
was on the bottom of Valentine's where you'd

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put the X be a sign before
Christ that you're going to keep your word,

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and the O symbolies the kiss to
show sincerity. Constantine legalizes Christianity in

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three thirteen AD Edict of Milan.
Christians come out of the catacombs meeting these

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nice marble Basilicas and Nicholas is let
out of jail, and he preaches against

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paganism. So nearby was the Temple
to Diana at Ephesus, one of the

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Seven Wonders of the ancient world,
twice as big as the Parthenon, one

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hundred and twenty seven, huge pillars, and temple prostitutes. It was the

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Las Vegas of the Mediterranean. Even
the apostle Paul preached against Diana worship in

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Acts chapter nineteen, and the all
the great is Diana, the goddess of

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the Ephesians, and they chanted for
two hours. Right, So Paul preaches

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against Diana worship. Nicholas preaches against
Anna worship, and they tear the temple

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to Diana down. So he would
have been a preacher today against all the

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sexual agenda that's going on. Exactly. He preached against exposure of unwanted infants.

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It was the Roman version of abortion. So the Roman mother would bear

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the child, lay it at the
father's feet. If the father picked it

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up, they would keep it.
But if the father thought it didn't look

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healthy or they didn't have enough money, the mother would have to put the

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baby in a basket and set it
out in the woods and expose it to

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the elements and let it die.
And as these Christians became more and more,

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the Roman women would put their baby
in a basket and put it on

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the Christian's doorstep and knock on the
door and then run away, and then

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the baby would be saved. And
Nicholas preached against exposure of unwanted infants.

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He preached against divination. That's where
they would cut open an animal and look

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at its gizzards and try to predict
the future, and then he the aryan

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heresy star. It's amazing, Bill, how they come up with some of

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these traditions. It's like, who
thought of that? Who thought of cutting

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up an animal and look at his
intestines and try to come up with some

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you know, I guess you know
too leaves? You know, reading tea

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leaves was too ordinary, or casting
lots was just too ordinary. We're just

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going to open up an animal,
right, yeah? I mean the Romans

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actually had courses for their priests on
how to interpret a liver. It's like,

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okay, and then you had what
was it In one of the books

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in the Old Testament it says,
you know, the king of Babylon is

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marching toward a fork in the road, and he offers a sacrifice and consults

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his priests as to go which way
or the other, and he decides he's

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going to go towards Jerusalem and Sacket
you know. But that's what they would

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do, this divination, and Nicholas
preached against it, and then the Aryan

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heresy. So a bishop named Arius
said Jesus was a created being a little

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less than God. He writes a
catchy song. The Visigoths, who are

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immigrants into Rome, converted to this
Arianism, and it's splitting the Church,

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and since Constantine had made the Church
the de facto religion of the Roman Empire,

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it's splitting the Roman Empire. Political
fallout. So Constantine orders and pays

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for all the bishops from around the
world to come together for the first time.

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It's called the Consul of Nicea.
Settled the heresy with the Nicean creed

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and they excommunicate areas. And the
tradition is that Nicholas was there because Nicee

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it was close to Myra, and
that Nicholas slapped Areas across the face for

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starting the Arian heresy. John the
old nick had a little temper covered the

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town. Yeah, and uh,
and well he's he's the one that's marking

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who's naughty or nice. So's he's
in control of that. Yeah, yeah,

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and so't worry about. The Greeks
have lots of stories, some are

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00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.079
more believable than others. But one
of them is that there was a famine

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the they get Nicholas. He goes
to the docks because of the port city

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and talks some of the sailors into
unloading their grain. They're coming from the

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Egypt, Egypt, North Africa through
an area Asia minor over to Rome.

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Talks about unloading their grain to feed
his people, promising God would bless them

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on their return trip. They said
that the grain that was left had multiplied,

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sort of like the little and the
meal barrel that lied. And then

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another story is there was a storm
sailors and fishermen could not get back safely

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to the docks. They get Nicholas. He prays the sea becomes calm,

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sort like Jesus prayed and the sea
became calm. And so he's the patron

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saying of sailor in addition to podbrokers. And then he confronted corrupt politicians.

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Wow, and so there was a
governor who was doing corrupt dirty under the

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table stuff behind closed doors, and
some three soldiers had found out about it,

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and he decided he's going to execute
the soldiers. Or like today,

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maybe there's a corrupt politician and somebody
knows about their dirt, and lo and

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behold they find them suicide or on
a body house or something. Right exactly,

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Nicholas hears about the execution, goes
down to the city square, breaks

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through the crowd, grabs the sword
out of the executioner's hand and throws it

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down. And then in front of
everybody, by the knowledge given him by

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the Holy Spirit, he begins to
tell what this corrupt governor was doing.

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The governor knows that nobody could know
the details other than God, and so

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he begs Nicholas to pray for him, and so lots of stories about him.

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Nicholas dies December sixth, three p. Forty three AD, and being

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the most popular Greek Orthodox saint,
they had the tradition of gift giving on

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the anniversary of his death December sixth. And then you have Justinian is a

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Byzantine Roman emperor Christian. He builds
a church and names it after Nicholas in

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Myra Demra, Turkey, and then
Vladimir the Great, the Emperor of Russia,

312
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and he decides to get rid of
his pagan gods, throwing in the

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Dunipa River. He's going to convert
to Monotheism. Some Jews come to him

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and present their faith, and he
goes, yeah, but you offended your

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God, and he kicked out of
Jerusalem. Some Muslims go to him,

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and it says in the First Chronicle
of Russia that Vladimir listened intently when the

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Muslim told him that Paradise was filled
full of virgins, because he was fond

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of women. And when they told
him he could no longer drink, he

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said, we cannot have this religion, because drink is the joy of the

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Ruses the Russians. I think it's
funny that Russia didn't convert to Islam because

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Vladimir liked to drink. But then
some Greek Orthodox ambassadors came and they spoke

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Greek, the language of the New
Testament. Their land was where John spoke

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and Paul spoke, and some ambassadors
went to Constantinople into that Hagia Sophia Church,

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one hundred and sixty five feet high, one hundred and two foot across

325
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dome, four acres of golden mosaics. They said, we felt like we

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were walking into heaven. And so
Vladimir converts to Greek Orthodox Christianity and adopts

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Nicholas as the patron saint of Russia. That's why so many churches and tzars

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are named Nicholas, right exactly.
And then, am I doing okay?

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Time wise? No, you're doing
good. We got about twenty minutes remaining,

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so just go right on through this. This is awesome, Bill,

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Thank you so much for doing this
well. The next is Islam began to

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invade and take control of the Mediterranean. In the year eight forty six AD,

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eleven thousand Muslims invaded Rome, Italy, and they trashed the big basilica

334
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of Saint Peter's, and they trashed
the bones of Saint Peter and the church

335
00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:27.640
Saint Paul's outside the walls. They
trashed the bones of Saint Paul. So

336
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now it's in the year ten eighty
seven and the Muslims are invading the Eastern

337
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Roman Empire, and all seven churches
mentioned in the Book of Revelation are wiped

338
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out. Ephesis, Smyrna, Bergimum, Tattira, Sardis, Philadelphia later to

339
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:48.440
see, I always got to concentrate, and they're coming toward Myra, and

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the Christians don't want the bones of
their famous Saint Nicholas destroyed, so they

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move them over to Italy, a
little town on the Adriatic Sea called bai

342
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b Arii. And the pope that
dedicates the church is Urban the Second.

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Now people may not be up on
their pope names, but that's the same

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Urban, the Second that goes to
the Consul of Claremont in ten ninety five

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AD and begs these European kings to
send help to the Greeks. They do.

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It is called the First Crusade,
yeah, exactly. And then Richard

347
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the Lionheart led the Third Crusade.
Saint Louis led the seventh and eighth Crusades,

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corresponding with the Mongolian Hulugu Khan,
you know, the son of Genghis

349
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Khan and right, and the Huligu
Khan sacked bag Dad and they weren't supposed

350
00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:47.759
to spill the Khalist's blood because he
was royalty, so they wrapped him in

351
00:27:47.799 --> 00:27:52.000
a Persian blanket and had the horses
trample him to death. Anyway, Hulugu

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Khan was pretty tough, but so
you had these crusades. But now you

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have the remains of Nicholas in Italy
along with his gift giving traditions, and

354
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the Italians like it so much that
the gift giving starts to overshadow the birth

355
00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:18.960
of Jesus. And so Saint Francis
of Assisi he's known for, you know,

356
00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:23.559
getting rid of all the wealth and
heyes, his poor Franciscan friars who

357
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would walk barefoot and war, you
know, burlap sacks, and they would

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preach the simple Gospel and so they're
so Saint Francis of ASSIZI invented the cresh

359
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scene, the Nativity scene. Right. All the gift giving is fine,

360
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:44.200
but we can't got to get back
to the reason for the season. The

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Son of God was born in a
manger and became man and Manuel God with

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us. And then we got the
Reformation in fifteen seventeen with Martin Luther and

363
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he ends the Saints stays because by
this time there is a Saint's date for

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00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:03.119
every day of the year. Yeah, because there was a money It was

365
00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:07.000
a money raiser for them, fun
campaign, right, yeah, well they

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would it was seriously, it was
because Cologne would have the They said,

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well, the three wise men,
you know, somehow got their bones and

368
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they buried them there. But you'd
have all these pilgrims would come and it

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was the big income to the city. Yeah. Anyway, churches were filled

370
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full of relics and sepulchers and statues
and side altars. And Martin Luther considered

371
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this a distraction. So he ends
the Saints stays in all these Protestant countries.

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But the Germans like the gift giving
associated with the Saint Nicholas day.

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So Martin Luther was all the gift
giving to December twenty fifth and says,

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all gifts come from the Christ Child. And the German pronunciation of Christ Child

375
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is Chris Chris kindall like kindergarten.
Kindergarten means child, Chris means Christ.

376
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And so my daughter worked in Germany
for ten years, and yeah, every

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December twenty four they would say the
Chris Kindle's coming, the Chris Kndle's coming,

378
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the Christ Child's coming in because that's
when the kid can get the present.

379
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And Martin Luther did something else.
He put lights in the tree and

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so if I can go down a
little rabbit trail. We're all familiar with

381
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Saint Patrick in the fifth century evangelizing
the Druid Pagans in Ireland, and he

382
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was originally from Rison well, from
Britain. In the seven hundreds, you

383
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have Saint Boniface, also called Winfred, and he goes through the woods to

384
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Germany and goes to these Germanic tribes
who are worshiping Thor. That's where you

385
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:45.839
get the word Thorsday, right,
Thursday. Thursday is Thursday, and Thor

386
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:48.319
was a pagan god. So the
Quakers refused to say Thursday. They would

387
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:53.960
say Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, fifth day. Anyway, so

388
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Thor lived in an oak tree,
and Saint Boniface had an axe, and

389
00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:04.640
he chops down Thor's tree. Someone
said we'll stop him, and somebody else

390
00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:07.680
said, well, if Thor is
really a god, he can protect his

391
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:12.519
own tree, right, And so
in Fritzlar, Germany, there is a

392
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.000
statue of Saint Boniface standing on the
stump of a big oak tree. It's

393
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:22.319
a bronze statue with his axe in
his hand, and with his other hand

394
00:31:22.359 --> 00:31:25.599
he's holding a little church. Because
he brought the church to the Germans and

395
00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:30.559
then Boniface pointed at an evergreen tree, and he said, let this little

396
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:34.119
child of the forest be a home
tree tonight. It's the call it the

397
00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:38.119
tree of the Christ Child because it
points toward Heaven. Its leaves are evergreen,

398
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:41.519
symbolized machalaze in life, and it's
in the shape of a triangle.

399
00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:47.039
So the same way that the Patrick
used a three leaf clover to teach the

400
00:31:47.079 --> 00:31:52.119
Trinity to the illiterate Druids, Boniface
used the three sides of the evergreen tree

401
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:56.240
to teach the Germanic tribes of the
Trinity, so that the evergreen tree was

402
00:31:56.400 --> 00:32:02.799
symbolic of Germans converting to Ristianity.
But in the fifteen hundreds, Martin Luther's

403
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:07.319
coming home and the story is that
he sees lights in the sky twinkling,

404
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:13.319
and he puts the candles in the
branches of the tree and tells his children

405
00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:16.960
this is like the sky above Bethlehem
on the night of christ Birth. And

406
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.160
then also he could have seen the
Honika lights, because the Jews at this

407
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:27.119
time of year would have their manora, which goes back to one sixty five

408
00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:32.680
BC. And for those not familiar, Jews are taken captive to Babylon under

409
00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:37.960
Nebukinezer. Yeah, they sires of
Persia. Lets them go back there rebuild

410
00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:43.839
a temple. Persia's unconquered by Alexander
the Great. He dies, four generals

411
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:49.599
divide up his empire, and the
Seleucid Empire is Persia, which includes the

412
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:53.240
Holy Land. And there was a
Seleucid king and tiakes Epiphanes and he wants

413
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:58.680
to wipe out the Jewish faith,
and these Jews do a guerrilla warfare one

414
00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:04.480
sixty five BC only drive these Seleucids
out. And they go into the temple

415
00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:08.039
that had been trashed for a few
years, and they take the oil that

416
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:13.240
takes a week to prepare on one
little flask, and they poured in the

417
00:33:13.319 --> 00:33:19.039
candle oubra, the seven oil candlestick, and it miraculously stays lit for eight

418
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:22.160
days until they get the new oil
prepared. And so that is why there's

419
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:27.920
eight candles in the monora. Plus
the ninth is the shamash, which you

420
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:32.000
used to live for the others exactly. So the thought is that Martin Luther

421
00:33:32.079 --> 00:33:36.440
could have seen the Hanuka candles twinkling
in the windows of the Jews, and

422
00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:38.839
maybe that gave him the idea to
put the candles in the light of the

423
00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:45.400
Christmas tree, and then we go
to England. Am I doing okay?

424
00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:50.480
Yeah, we're doing good. I'm
taking notes, buddy. And by the

425
00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:52.200
way, all this is in a
book and it's called there really is a

426
00:33:52.279 --> 00:33:58.400
Santa Claus. The History of Saint
Nicholas and Christmas Holiday traditions. England has

427
00:33:58.440 --> 00:34:04.640
Henry the Eighth the Reformation, but
not because he had his spiritual experience like

428
00:34:04.680 --> 00:34:08.559
Martin Luther. He just wanted another
wife, ended up having six wives and

429
00:34:08.679 --> 00:34:13.920
rather than focus back on the christ
child like Martin Luther, Henry the Eighth

430
00:34:13.960 --> 00:34:17.119
brings back an old Roman holiday,
saturn Aulia. Now you have to remember

431
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:23.800
Britain was a Roman colony since fifty
five BC when Julius Caesar first invaded and

432
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:29.559
the Romans had a festival at the
end of the year Saturn was there got

433
00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:37.400
a feasting and plenty in merriment,
and in England they sort of christianized it,

434
00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:43.760
but it was a lewd party.
It was drinking, carousing, wostling

435
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:45.719
where you'd drink some spiced ale and
throw the rest of it on an apple

436
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:50.199
tree for a nice harvest the next
year, and gaming and you know,

437
00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:53.239
trying to pick up a date.
I don't know. It was a party

438
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:58.119
times, sort of like a Marty
Graus. People forget Marty Grass used to

439
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.760
be a religious day. It was
the day before Lent when you would fast

440
00:35:01.800 --> 00:35:07.000
forty days before Easter until christ Resurrection. But now it's this lude party in

441
00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:09.960
New Orleans. That's sort of what
happened in England with Henry the Eighth and

442
00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:15.400
now the god Saturn. If you've
ever seen the Christmas Carol with Charles Dickens,

443
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:21.480
there's the Spirit of Christmas present,
yes, and there's this big guy

444
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:24.360
with robes on, a wreath in
his hair, goblet of wine, grapes

445
00:35:24.360 --> 00:35:28.840
all around, a happy ho ho
party guy. And you're looking at him,

446
00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:31.840
asking yourself, who is this guy? He sort of looks like Santa,

447
00:35:32.199 --> 00:35:36.320
but he also looks like some Roman
god. Well it was Saturn,

448
00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:39.360
but they christianized him and called him
Father Christmas. They could not call him

449
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:46.440
Saint Nicholas because saints were outlawed because
of the Reformation, and so the Puritans

450
00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:52.719
movement began, and they wanted to
purify the Church of England, and they

451
00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:59.800
did not like Christmas, and they
there's a Puritan leader Cotton Mather, and

452
00:36:00.199 --> 00:36:07.159
he writes on Christmas Day in the
year seventeen twelve, he says, can

453
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:10.360
you and your conscience think that our
Holy Savior is honored by mad mirth and

454
00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:15.519
long eating and hard drinking and lewd
gaming and rude reveling by a mass fit

455
00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:22.159
for none other than a Saturn or
a Bacchus or a night of Mohammedan Ramadan.

456
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:25.000
You cannot possibly think so that at
the birth of our Savior, for

457
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:29.119
which we owe as high praises to
God, we take time to please the

458
00:36:29.159 --> 00:36:32.360
hellish legions and do actions that have
much more of Hell than of Heaven in

459
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:39.760
them. And so the Puritans were
so strict they for bad Shakespeare from mentioning

460
00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:45.960
God in his plays. They considered
it casting pearls before swine, taking God's

461
00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:47.519
name in vain, to mention God's
holy name in front of a bunch of

462
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:53.320
drunk theater goers in these And so
that's when Shakespeare wrote Midsommar's Night's Dream and

463
00:36:53.400 --> 00:37:00.960
These Little Fairies. And then Shakespeare
wrote Twelfth Night, which was this Carnivales

464
00:37:00.320 --> 00:37:06.440
drunken festival. And I'll tell you
about the Twelfth Night in a moment.

465
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:14.559
But in sixteen forty four, the
Puritans tore down Shakespeare's theater, and so

466
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:19.880
the Pilgrims, which branched off the
Puritans, they come to America, Massachusetts,

467
00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:23.719
and the captain of the Mayflower,
Christopher Jones, writes in his ship's

468
00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:30.519
log December twenty fifth, sixteen twenty
at harbor in Plymouth Christmas Day, but

469
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:37.559
not observed by these colonists, they
being opposed to all Saints Days, et

470
00:37:37.639 --> 00:37:40.320
cetera. A large party went ashore
this morning to Fell Timber to begin building

471
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:44.800
their first building, and so on
and so forth. Now the next year

472
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:51.159
a second boatload of Pilgrims came,
and Pilgrim Governor William Bradford writes one more

473
00:37:51.199 --> 00:37:55.039
incident, rather amusing. On Christmas
Day, the Governor called the people out

474
00:37:55.079 --> 00:38:00.920
to work as usual, but most
of the new company excused themselves and said

475
00:38:00.920 --> 00:38:06.159
it went against their consciences to work
on that day. So the governor told

476
00:38:06.199 --> 00:38:07.719
them, if they made it a
matter of conscience, he would spare them

477
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:13.679
till they were better informed. So
he went with the rest to work and

478
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:15.039
left them. But on returning from
work at noon, he found them at

479
00:38:15.039 --> 00:38:19.440
play in the streets, some pitching
the bars, some at stool ball and

480
00:38:19.519 --> 00:38:22.679
such like sports. So the governor
went and took away their games and told

481
00:38:22.679 --> 00:38:28.800
them it was against his conscience that
they should play while others work. If

482
00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:30.719
they made keeping the day a matter
of devotion, let them remain in their

483
00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:36.360
houses, but there should be no
gaming and reveling in the streets. And

484
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:44.679
in sixteen fifty nine the Puritans had
a five shilling fine for anybody caught celebrating

485
00:38:44.760 --> 00:38:50.400
Christmas. So the Pilgrims, Puritans, and most Presbyterians did not sell or

486
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:57.119
break Christmas, but others did,
particularly the Germans and French, and especially

487
00:38:57.199 --> 00:39:00.920
the Dutch. Yes, so most
of what we have with Saint Nicholas comes

488
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:08.400
from the Dutch. The Dutch pronunciation
of Saint Nicholas is Saint Nicklaustic Claus St.

489
00:39:08.519 --> 00:39:14.559
Claus is the Dutch pronunciation of Saint
Nicholas. And if we can look

490
00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:17.280
at the Dutch, it sort of
gets even more fun. You know,

491
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:22.480
there's a Catholic saying Saint Peter's at
the gates of Heaven, while the Greeks

492
00:39:22.760 --> 00:39:27.719
do us. Similar with the Book
of Revelation, where Jesus will return at

493
00:39:27.719 --> 00:39:30.280
the end of the world to judge
the living and the dead, riding a

494
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:35.639
white horse, and the saints will
come back with him riding white horses.

495
00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.639
And Saint Nicholas is a saint,
so he will be one of those riding

496
00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:44.679
a white horse. But he's so
special to the Dutch he gets to come

497
00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:49.000
back once a year for a little
mini judgment, a little check up on

498
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:51.960
the kids, make sure you're on
the right track. So he was naughty

499
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:55.800
to use nice, and so to
this day in Holland, the Netherlands,

500
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:04.760
Saint Nicholas comes dressed as a bit
riding a white horse, and you begin

501
00:40:04.840 --> 00:40:09.719
to see the change where the Lamb's
Book of Life and the Book of Works

502
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:15.159
turns into the Book of the Naughty
and the Nice, right exactly. The

503
00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:19.440
saints come from where heaven, the
celestial city, the new Jerusalem that turns

504
00:40:19.480 --> 00:40:23.280
into the North Pole and Norway.
They didn't have horses, so he's riding

505
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:29.760
a reindeer. The angels turn into
the elves. So you see what started

506
00:40:29.800 --> 00:40:36.440
with biblical theme sort of gets a
little bit off. And so the Dutch

507
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:43.039
settle New York in sixteen twenty four. It's actually was called New Amsterdam,

508
00:40:43.639 --> 00:40:47.840
and the Dutch founded a church and
the name of the church was the Saint

509
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:57.039
Nicholas Dutch Reformed Church, and it
lasted for centuries. It was the oldest

510
00:40:57.320 --> 00:41:05.800
continuous congregation in America. And they
built a big cathedral in New York City

511
00:41:06.840 --> 00:41:13.079
right at the corner of Fifth Avenue
and forty eighth Street, and even Teddy

512
00:41:13.199 --> 00:41:19.960
Roosevelt attended there. And then as
New York City became more financial, church

513
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:25.119
membership dropped and the church elders sold
it for millions of dollars to Standard Oil

514
00:41:25.159 --> 00:41:30.679
Company excuse me, Sinclair Oil Company, who tore the cathedral down and built

515
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:36.440
an oil building. The congregation merged
with the Marble Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church,

516
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:42.800
where people like Norman Vincent Peel was
the pastor, and even Donald Trump went

517
00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:50.599
there. So in New York is
where we have a transition of the Saint

518
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:55.159
Nicholas. So we went from the
real Greek saint and then we went to

519
00:41:53.920 --> 00:42:00.239
the Dutch. He's still a bishop, coming once a year. But in

520
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:06.599
New York you have Washington Irving and
he would write these fanciful history stories like

521
00:42:06.719 --> 00:42:10.719
Rip van Winkle and Legend of Sleepy
Hollow. And he created the name Gotham

522
00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:16.639
for you know, New York City
all Bunyan's blue Ox, right, So

523
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:20.679
it's like it's got some history mixed
in with some fancy ful stuff. Well,

524
00:42:20.719 --> 00:42:25.000
he writes Dietrich Knickerbocker's A History of
New York from the Beginning of the

525
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:30.239
New World to the end of the
Dutch Dynasty in eighteen o nine. Dietrich

526
00:42:30.280 --> 00:42:35.519
Knickerbocker is a fictitious name, but
it was so popular that you have the

527
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:43.159
New York Knicks basketball team right exactly, And so he writes in his Dietrich

528
00:42:43.239 --> 00:42:46.280
Nickerbocker's History of New York. Saint
Nicholas rolled over the housetops, drawing forth

529
00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:50.960
magnificent presents, dropping them down the
chimneys of his favorites. Now he visits,

530
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:53.159
but one night a year rattles down
the chimneys, confining his presence merely

531
00:42:53.239 --> 00:42:59.639
to children's stockings. In the morning
found mysteriously filled. But Washington Irving described

532
00:42:59.639 --> 00:43:05.400
st was dressed not as a bishop, but in a typical Dutch outfit of

533
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:09.480
a leather belt, a long pair
of trunk hose, a stocking hat,

534
00:43:09.920 --> 00:43:16.079
and even added in there a large
pipe, and laying his finger beside his

535
00:43:16.360 --> 00:43:21.079
nose, gave a significant look mounting
his wagon and returned over the tree tops

536
00:43:21.079 --> 00:43:25.159
and disappeared. And so now in
New York, eighteen twenty three, you

537
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:30.199
have another addition to the story.
Clement Moore. Yes, he is a

538
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:37.000
Hebrew professor and at the Episcopal Seminary. Matter of fact, his family donated

539
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.760
the land for the Episcopal seminary.
There is a park in New York called

540
00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:45.760
the Clement Moore Park at tenth Avenue
and twenty second Street. And he writes

541
00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:52.159
a poem for his six children titled
a Visit from Saint Nicholas. And we

542
00:43:52.199 --> 00:43:53.480
all know it. It was a
night for Christmas, and all through the

543
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:55.800
house not a creature was staring,
not even a mouse. The stockings were

544
00:43:55.840 --> 00:44:00.119
hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be

545
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:04.800
there. And by wondering I should
appear, But a miniature slay, a

546
00:44:04.880 --> 00:44:07.199
tanier ran deer in a little old
drivers were lively and quick. I knew

547
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:10.400
in a moment it must be Saint
Nick. So he still calls Saint Nicholas.

548
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:15.719
But he uh is a chevy plump
right job the elf. I laughed

549
00:44:15.719 --> 00:44:19.400
when I saw him, in spite
of myself. So he shrunk in size.

550
00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:25.079
Now he's just an elf. And
then two more installments. In the

551
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:31.119
next one is Thomas Nast. He
is a Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly

552
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:37.519
Magazine. And you know him because
he invented the Republican elephant and the Democrat

553
00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:45.159
mule exactly. And Thomas Nast did
a cover for Harper's Weekly Magazine during the

554
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:51.320
Civil War of Santa Claus addressing the
Union troops with a north pole sign of

555
00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:55.039
the background and it was a political
jab at the south to say St.

556
00:44:55.119 --> 00:45:01.480
Nicholas is associated with the North right. And finally you have Coca Cola and

557
00:45:01.519 --> 00:45:07.320
they hire an artist, had An
Sunblum, and you know him because he

558
00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:14.360
invented the Quaker oats man and Antiminma
surrup and he does a painting of Santa

559
00:45:14.400 --> 00:45:21.159
Claus, Saint Nicholas drinking coke,
and Coca Cola pioneered mass marketing. It's

560
00:45:21.199 --> 00:45:24.360
the best trademark name in the world. And every year for thirty three years,

561
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:29.639
Hadn't Sunblum did another painting of Santa
Claus. But now he's full grown

562
00:45:29.679 --> 00:45:34.480
again and he's got rosy cheeks,
ruddy complexion, a nice, huggable grandfather

563
00:45:35.039 --> 00:45:38.320
and that's the image spread around the
world. But we remind ourselves that if

564
00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:44.679
you peel back all the layers,
there really was a man who lived in

565
00:45:44.719 --> 00:45:51.639
the fourth century over an Asia minor
who loved Jesus and went into the ministry

566
00:45:52.360 --> 00:45:57.440
and was imprisoned by the government for
his Christian heth and he gets out.

567
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:01.760
He preaches against the pagan sexual emmord. He preaches against exposure of unwatered infants.

568
00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:06.800
He would have been a pro life
preacher. He preaches defending the Trinity

569
00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:10.079
at the Consulate. I see it. But we remember him most because he

570
00:46:10.239 --> 00:46:15.440
was generous and helped poor families in
their time and need, but he wanted

571
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:21.159
the credit to go to God alone. Wow, there's the full circle of

572
00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:25.320
it. What a tradition. Bill, You know how this all has evolved,

573
00:46:25.800 --> 00:46:30.559
And it's amazing. It's as if
you know, you know, the

574
00:46:30.920 --> 00:46:36.639
divine hand of Providence is about this
story in a way, even though some

575
00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:39.000
may resist and say, well,
you know, you know there's some pagan

576
00:46:39.119 --> 00:46:45.079
influence in that, but you know, but how it ties back into our

577
00:46:45.159 --> 00:46:51.679
Christian roots. It's amazing, isn't
it. Well it is. I mentioned

578
00:46:51.800 --> 00:46:57.880
the Twelve Days of Christmas back in
the in the year five sixty seven a

579
00:46:58.079 --> 00:47:05.559
d. There was a dispute.
Western Europe wanted to celebrate December twenty fifth

580
00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:10.199
as the holiest day, and Eastern
Europe wanted to celebrate January sixth, Epiphany,

581
00:47:10.320 --> 00:47:14.679
the visit of the Three Wise Men, the revealing of Christ to the

582
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:19.400
world. They could not decide which
day was holier, so they decided to

583
00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:24.559
make all twelve days from December twenty
fifth to January sixth the twelve days of

584
00:47:24.639 --> 00:47:30.440
Christmas, right, and they call
them holy days. And over the centuries,

585
00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:34.760
holy day got pronounced holiday. And
so when they say don't say Merry

586
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:37.119
Christmas, just say happy Holidays.
It's like a happy holiday means holy day.

587
00:47:37.119 --> 00:47:39.039
And what are the holy days?
What the twelve days of Christmas?

588
00:47:39.159 --> 00:47:45.400
You can't get everybody Now in Western
Europe, Christmas December twenty fifth, for

589
00:47:45.480 --> 00:47:51.079
two thousand years was the most important
day. So Clovis, the King of

590
00:47:51.079 --> 00:47:55.159
the Franks, is baptized with three
thousand of his soldiers on Christmas Day in

591
00:47:55.199 --> 00:48:00.280
the year four ninety six AD,
and so this is when France becomes Christian.

592
00:48:01.079 --> 00:48:08.719
And then five ninety seven AD in
Britain, ten thousand Anglo Saxons are

593
00:48:08.760 --> 00:48:15.119
baptized and become Christian by Saint Augustine
of Canterbury near the banks of the swalle

594
00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:22.960
Inlet near the Sheppey and mainland of
Kent right. And then Charlemagne is crowned

595
00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:29.559
Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in
the year eight hundred. His grandfather was

596
00:48:29.639 --> 00:48:37.480
Charlemagne who stopped the Muslims from invading
France. And then you have Saint Stephen

597
00:48:37.639 --> 00:48:44.039
of Hungary is crowned King on Christmas
Day in the year one thousand, and

598
00:48:44.079 --> 00:48:49.840
then King Mesico the second Lambert is
crowned King of Poland on Christmas Day in

599
00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:53.880
the year ten twenty five. William
the Conqueror is crowned King of England in

600
00:48:53.960 --> 00:49:00.840
Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in the
year ten sixty six a d. And

601
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:06.239
there's literally dozens and dozens of kings
that are crowned on Christmas Day. And

602
00:49:06.280 --> 00:49:10.159
then Columbus sails to the New World
and his main ship, the Santa Maria,

603
00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:16.519
is shipwrecked on Haiti on Christmas Eve
fourteen ninety two, and so he

604
00:49:16.639 --> 00:49:24.079
leaves forty sailors and names the settlement
Le Navidad. And then you have Revolutionary

605
00:49:24.119 --> 00:49:34.559
War and George Washington crosses the Delaware
River on Christmas Day evening seventeen seventy six

606
00:49:35.199 --> 00:49:39.199
and he wins the Battle of Trenton, so Trenton, New Jersey. The

607
00:49:39.239 --> 00:49:46.559
British had hired German Hessian troops and
sort of the legend is that these German

608
00:49:46.639 --> 00:49:52.639
troops were not on their peak alertness
because the Germans like to celebrate Christmas,

609
00:49:53.159 --> 00:49:59.000
and some dispute that, but others
don't. And well, we got about

610
00:49:59.039 --> 00:50:04.639
a minute left, and it would
it be possible in this last minute together

611
00:50:05.599 --> 00:50:08.639
you mentioned the twelve Days of Christmas. And for some people that have not

612
00:50:09.119 --> 00:50:15.079
been able to understand and heard what
the twelve days of Christmas and what each

613
00:50:15.360 --> 00:50:20.320
each present represents, can you do
something real quick to kind of summarize the

614
00:50:20.360 --> 00:50:23.960
twelve days of Christmas to give us
a rap on this on this show.

615
00:50:24.559 --> 00:50:31.280
So there was a famous song written
in sixteen twenty five called in those twelve

616
00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:37.800
Days, and they think this is
what turned into our song, But it

617
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:42.039
said in those twelve days, In
those twelve days, God's powers made all

618
00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:45.920
things. What is that which is
but one God alone in heaven and earth

619
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:52.119
says it's on his throne? What
are they that are but two the Old

620
00:50:52.159 --> 00:50:55.360
Testament and the New What are they
put obered three to three persons of the

621
00:50:55.400 --> 00:50:59.719
Trinity? What are they but over
four? The four Sweet Evangelists? What

622
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:01.880
are they? Five? The five
Senses, the six Days that we labor,

623
00:51:02.559 --> 00:51:07.159
the seven Liberal Arts, and the
eight Beatitudes? And nine uses with

624
00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:12.360
sacred tunes? What are they?
Which are but ten ten statutes which God

625
00:51:12.400 --> 00:51:15.239
gave Moses? What are they but
our but eleven eleven thousand virgins suffered for

626
00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:20.159
the sake of Jesus. What are
they about our but twelve twelve attending on

627
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:23.920
God's Son? You know, the
twelve Apostles. That was a really popular

628
00:51:23.960 --> 00:51:29.320
song, and so they think that's
what morphed into our song. Well,

629
00:51:29.400 --> 00:51:31.840
there it is. Well, as
we wrap things up, remind everybody of

630
00:51:31.880 --> 00:51:36.960
the books we've been featuring and talking
about here and how they can get their

631
00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:39.199
hands on your book. Well,
thank you, Bill. My website is

632
00:51:39.239 --> 00:51:45.400
americanminute dot com americanminute dot com and
the title of the book is there really

633
00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:51.920
is a Santa Claus The History of
Saint Nicholas and Christmas Holiday Traditions. Well,

634
00:51:51.920 --> 00:51:54.159
Bill Fetter, I cannot thank you
enough. Merry Christmas, Thank you

635
00:51:54.280 --> 00:52:00.039
for making this Christmas so special and
reminding us of all these rich traditions.

636
00:52:00.360 --> 00:52:05.400
I know, for those of us
that were taking notes and paying attention,

637
00:52:05.920 --> 00:52:13.119
that Christmas is going to have an
even deeper meaning because of this background that

638
00:52:13.159 --> 00:52:16.440
we've had in all these traditions,
how they developed, and how after everything

639
00:52:16.480 --> 00:52:20.840
is all said and done, it
still points to the Christ Child, doesn't

640
00:52:20.840 --> 00:52:25.360
it. Amen? Amen, there's
Mark. Chapter ten says the son of

641
00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:30.440
Man came not to be served,
but to serve, and to give his

642
00:52:30.519 --> 00:52:34.719
life a ransom for many. God
is adjust God. He cannot change.

643
00:52:34.719 --> 00:52:37.000
His nature was his and forever will
be just, which means he has to

644
00:52:37.039 --> 00:52:39.960
judge every sin. If God does
not judge us in by his default,

645
00:52:40.039 --> 00:52:44.440
his silence would be given consent to
the sin. If God gives consent once

646
00:52:44.519 --> 00:52:46.599
in one time, he denies himself, and he cannot deny himself, so

647
00:52:46.639 --> 00:52:50.559
we could never be loved back.
But he came up with a plan before

648
00:52:50.559 --> 00:52:52.559
the foundations of the world, and
his own son would become the lamb and

649
00:52:52.599 --> 00:52:55.679
take the judgment. So God is
just and that he judges every sin.

650
00:52:55.719 --> 00:52:59.639
But he's loving that he provided the
lamb to take the judgment. The lamb

651
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:02.559
is God Odd's way to love you
without having to judge you plan. He

652
00:53:02.599 --> 00:53:06.280
came up with it so he can
love you for the rest of etornity.

653
00:53:06.280 --> 00:53:07.719
You can love him back and not
have to worry about being judged by him,

654
00:53:07.719 --> 00:53:10.559
because all the judgment you deserve went
on. Jesus, the Lamb of

655
00:53:10.599 --> 00:53:15.079
God, who was born at Christmas, takes away the sins of the world.

656
00:53:15.679 --> 00:53:17.440
He is the American men A creator
and historian. Bill Fetter has been

657
00:53:17.440 --> 00:53:21.559
our guest. Bill again, Merry
Christmas. Thank you so much for being

658
00:53:21.559 --> 00:53:23.119
with us. Take care, God
bless oh. Merry Christmas to all,

659
00:53:23.159 --> 00:53:27.599
and to all a good night as
you got it, and our thanks to

660
00:53:27.639 --> 00:53:30.880
you for sharing a part of your
Christmas Day with us. May God bless

661
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:34.199
you and Keepe you may make His
face shine upon you. May He be

662
00:53:34.280 --> 00:53:37.280
gracious unto you and give you peace. Thanks again for being with us.

663
00:53:37.320 --> 00:53:51.000
Merry Christmas, everybody,