CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE (1779-1863) was an American author and Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature as well as Professor of Divinity and Biblical Learning at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. Best known for his poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, first published in 1823. Later the title would become known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
His other works was a pro-Federalist pamphlet published in 1804 as an attack against religious views of Thomas Jefferson. Moore claimed that Jefferson’s notes on Virginia “appear to have a tendency to subvert religion and establish a false philosophy”. It was a false presumption, using Jefferson quote from a letter to John Adams that professed Jefferson's realistic reasoning towards general Christian religion. It is why he created his own "Bible" so he could focus upon the teaching of Jesus.
Jefferson was against the rituals established by the First Council of Nicaea (325) and later embellished by the Roman Catholic Church (West) which aided in the great division of the Christian Church (called "Great Schism" 1054) into West and East (Constantinople - Byzantine) ....
"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. and the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors." — Thomas Jefferson, Ltr to John Adams, 11 April 1823
When Clement was 30 years old he compiled a Hebrew lexicon, the first work of its kind in America. Clement was 43 years old when wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, but was 65 years old when he finally went public that he was the author and only published it at the request of his children.
It was ironic that a religious man would give Saint Nicholas a fantasy tale and then evolve into Santa Claus (non-secular version).
YouTube video of A Visit from St. Nicholas:
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