It's not just Jehovah's witness' don't celebrate Christmas, they can't

Jehovah's witnesses say don't celebrate Christmas as they concider it pagan and non-biblical, points I have sympathy with but that isn't their only problem.

Nicaea

Seventeen hundred years ago (well sixteen hundred and ninety nine if you want to be specific, the first council of Nicaea attempted to forge a consensus in Christian theology. One of the major leaders of those we deem heretics was Arius and his followers the Arians.

Arius argued that Jesus was created by God and was a separate being from God, opposed to being part of God. He denied the trinity and arguably made the case for three gods rather than the single triune entity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

According to folklore the following happened:

The actual fact of the event is a little unclear wikipedia states:

Nicholas's name appears on a total of three early lists [of those who attended Nicaea], one of which, Theodore the Lector, is generally considered to be the most accurate. According to Jona Lendering, there are two main possibilities:

1. Nicholas did not attend the Council of Nicaea, but someone at an early date was baffled that his name was not listed and so added him to the list.Many scholars tend to favor this explanation.

2. Nicholas did attend the Council of Nicaea, but, at an early date, someone decided to remove his name from the list, apparently deciding that it was better if no one remembered he had been there.

The actual legend of St. Nicholas punching Arius is a little inflated:

The story didn't appear until the fourteenth century, a thousand years after the death of St. Nicholas and the events of Nicaea. There are various extra tales around the events and the concerning the punch itself, the original version of the tale says that St. Nicholas only slapped the person in question.

The person in question is an interesting point to, the tale stated that St. Nicholas slapped 'a certain Arian'. One can assume that implies Arius but its not explicitly stated.

Though the facts of the matter are vague, two points seem to favour it;

Firstly the very fact that St. Nicolas only appears in one of the three lists, though it could be argued he was added to it, it's also possible he was delisted from the other two for his behaviour.

Secondly, atleast by later morality St. Nicholas' actions are wrong. This being the case, why would someone make up? Though on the other hand the Church and violence aren't always as separate as we would like.

Eitherway, it isn't Christmas for theologians until we start getting Nicaea memes, the one I posted is definitely my favourite.

Post Nicaea

Pop-Christian history teaches that as Emperor Constantine ended the debate early which favoured neither side but that was that. Amongst certain Christians, some claim Constantine perverted Christianity that day; Constantine was the power behind the council and the council decided on one of the first creeds of the Church the truth is actually worse.

Whilst Arius lost the Nicaea debate, the Arians weren't finished.

The Arianism didn't die out immediately it wasn't until the end of the fourth century that it died out amongst the Romans. Worse Arianism spread to Europe and survived for quite a time not dying out until after the eighth century

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Whilst Arianism died out it tried to return several time after the protestant reformation, it didn't really come back until the 1870s in the form of the Jehovah's witnesses. Though I strongly suspect that many witnesses don't realize it, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a non-trinitarian group.

They have many interesting views about who Jesus is, amongst them believing that Jesus and the archangel Michael, the prince who protects are the same being; with Jesus being the physical manifestation and Michael, the pre-incarnate versions of the same being.

The watchtower is the control of the Jehovah's witnesses and control the translation of their version of the bible. The watchtower can't accept Christman because they cannot accept Santa. They can't have a festival that is symbolically inextricable from St. Nicolas, the man who punched Arius. If the watchtower permitted the celebration of Christmas they would have to accept St. Nicholas and in doing so would allow in the figure that has come to represent the opposition to Arianism.