Christmas is Pagan Argument

[Doom]

So, last night at Midnight Mass, we were given the common fake, false history of Christmas in the homily.

You know how it goes, "there was a pagan festival that was on December 25, so the early Church decided to compete by copying that festival and giving it a Christian meaning."

The specific pagan festival supposedly being copied changes depending on the day, some say it was Saturnalia (like Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory) others say, no it was the Nordic festival of Yule, others, like my priest last night, say it was the feast of Sol Invictus,

The mere fact that the "pagan origin" theorists can't even agree on which specific pagan festival Christmas was supposedly copied from should tell you that there is nothing to it. If it was based actual scholarship, everyone would tell exactly the same story every time, the fact that this isn't the case is a sign that it is all made up.

Allow me to refute these one by one.

Saturnalia had no fixed date, but it appears to have been based on a lunar calendar and to have been celebrated somewhere between late September and early October, there is no evidence it was ever celebrated in December, let alone on the specific data of December 25.

So, Sheldon Cooper is wrong.


Now, Sol Invictus. For this, we know the exact history, before Julian the Apostate, Sol Invictus was celebrated on October 18. Then Constantine came along and Christmas, which had probably been celebrated for a while secretly, became a big public festival for the first time. When Julian the Apostate took over and wanted to destroy Christianity, he realized that Christmas, which was already becoming a big deal, needed to be destroyed, so he moved Sol Invictus to December 25 to compete with Christmas, Literally the exact opposite of what the popular myth says. Or at least most historians think it was probably Julian, but it might have been even later, there is no question among legitimate historians over this point, we know the Roman calendar reasonably well, and we know that Sol Invictus was celebrated on October 18 for centuries and that Christmas was celebrated on December 25 long before Sol Invictus was moved there.

Now, Yule. No one knows when the feast of Yule was held, it was probably not held on the same day every year, because again just as with Saturnalia, and along the Celtic festival of Samhain which is supposedly the origin of Halloween, it was based on a lunar calendar and the date seems to have been set by some public authority declaring every year "well, this looks like a good time to celebrate it". It was never celebrated on December 25 until after the Christianization of Scandinavia in the 13th century when the king of Norway decreed that Yule would be moved to December 25 to combine it with Christmas, which they had already been celebrating for centuries by that point.


So, in short, all the supposed pagan origins of Christmas were either never celebrated in December at all, or if they were, they were moved to December 25 AFTER Christmas had already taken that spot.


There does not appear to be any evidence of any kind of pre-Christian celebration of the winter solstice before the rise of Christianity. It might seem counterintuitive to some, but it seems the ancient pagans simply had no interest in the winter solstice at all, they didn't seem to regard as a significant date.

[anawim]

Well done, Doom. Well done.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I'm sorry you got drivel for a homily. This is what happens when you're current on 19th Century thought.

[Doom]

I'm sorry you got drivel for a homily. This is what happens when you're current on 19th Century thought.

It all comes from Gerald Massey, who even at the time he published was denounced as a pseudo-historian. Why so many people, including Christians, still take Massey's nonsense seriously is beyond my capacity to comprehend.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Because it fits the anti-Catholic narrative. Which doesn't explain why you heard it in a Catholic homily.

[Doom]

But it is only half a step, if even that, to go from "Catholicism is pagan" to "Christianity is pagan", the logical end of this kind of reasoning is stuff like the Da Vinci Code where all of Christianity is a total hoax and you end up with either atheism, Gnosticism or some kind of New Age nonsense. It's basically a suicide mission for any Protestant or fundamentalist to adopt this kind of reasoning. The same people who say "Christmas is pagan" also say that Jesus himself either didn't exist at all or that we can know nothing about him because the gospels plagiarize the legend of (pick one or more) Isis, Horus, Krishna, Heracles, Perseus, Romulus, or the Egyptian sun god Ra. Bonus points if you can claim that it was really easy to con ancient people into going from "sun worship" to "son worship" because these words are homophones in a language that wouldn't even exist for another 1,000 years. Double bonus points if you attribute this homophonic transition to Constantine.

[Stella]

So next question. On what basis do we celebrate Christ's birth on the 25th December?

[Stella]

But it is only half a step, if even that, to go from "Catholicism is pagan" to "Christianity is pagan", the logical end of this kind of reasoning is stuff like the Da Vinci Code where all of Christianity is a total hoax and you end up with either atheism, Gnosticism or some kind of New Age nonsense. It's basically a suicide mission for any Protestant or fundamentalist to adopt this kind of reasoning. The same people who say "Christmas is pagan" also say that Jesus himself either didn't exist at all or that we can know nothing about him because the gospels plagiarize the legend of (pick one or more) Isis, Horus, Krishna, Heracles, Perseus, Romulus, or the Egyptian sun god Ra. Bonus points if you can claim that it was really easy to con ancient people into going from "sun worship" to "son worship" because these words are homophones in a language that wouldn't even exist for another 1,000 years. Double bonus points if you attribute this homophonic transition to Constantine.

I'm less cynical when it comes to the mingling of pagan/Christian myths because it seems to be how God operates anyway. Afterall, we know that His laws are written on the human heart and it's quite logical that He would build upon the worship that pagans developed in their search for the divine to prepare for His next 'projects'.

I was recently reading about the Church's inroads into Chinese spirituality which had for a long time forbidden Catholics from the Confucian practice of venerating their ancestors. Then in 1939 one of Pope Pius XII's first decrees was to allow Chinese Catholics to re continue the practice. The colonialist thinking that all things Catholic must stem from European tradition and all things pagan have no relevance to Christianity, still pervades the ideology of some today. For that reason, I believe the Church sets a good example by re-connecting the history of God with His pre Christian involvement with people. Hence I wouldn't denounce a homily of that nature.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is besides the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

[Doom]

The earliest reference to Christ being born on December 25 is in the writings of Hegessipus who argued that Christ was conceived on March 25 and was therefore born on December 25, 9 months later. He based his calculation on the fact that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was in the temple on Yom Kippur, which is held between late September and early October, and that Luke says Christ was conceived 6 months later, which places the Annunciation in late March or early April, so December 25 is an entirely reasonable estimate. Hegessipus lived 150 years before Constantine. This was long before Christianity was even fully legal, let alone longer before there could ever have been a cynical plot to win over pagans by stealing a holiday.

You will not find the writings of the Fathers even one writer arguing that Christians need to steal a pagan holiday, rather the entire argument over the date of Christmas, and December 25 is not the only proposed day and is even today not the only date that is observed, was over which day was the right day.

There is absolutely no basis for the claim.

[Stella]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is besides the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

That position begs a lot more questions though. Is it pure coincidence that Christians developed customs out of the blue that essentially mirror old pagan customs. ie. Odin the long bearded old man flying through the sky on an eight legged horse delivering gifts to children. Or wassailing like the carollers going from door to door singing to banish evil spirits. Or decorating the trees for winter solstice.

To deny any pagan inculturation in the Christmas tradition needs to explain the many similarities.

[Doom]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is beside the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

Or that any popular Christmas customs do. The arguments of "pagan influence" are either completely made up out of whole cloth or are generic customs that all human beings in all cultures practice, for example, the exchanging of gifts. The fact that non-Christians gave each other gifts on such and such an occasion does not mean in any way that Christians "copied" the practice. Giving gifts is a universal human impulse, even animals give each other gifts, for example, penguins give each other rocks as part of the mating process. Do penguins copy pagan practices?

[Doom]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is besides the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

That position begs a lot more questions though. Is it pure coincidence that Christians developed customs out of the blue that essentially mirror old pagan customs. ie. Odin the long bearded old man flying through the sky on an eight legged horse delivering gifts to children. Or wassailing like the carollers going from door to door singing to banish evil spirits. Or decorating the trees for winter solstice.

To deny any pagan inculturation in the Christmas tradition needs to explain the many similarities.

The legend of Santa Claus didn't even come into existence until the 19th century and is largely the creation of Clement Moore who invented most of the modern ideas of Santa in his popular poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" in 1823. The modern image of Santa Claus as the guy with the beard in the red suit was invented by the Coca-Cola company in the 20th century. Before this popular advertising campaign, Santa commonly wore either green or brown and was often shown wearing a bishop's miter. Isn't that a little late to claim a derivation from Norse mythology (which, by the way, wasn't even written down until 300 years after the Christianization of Scandinavia and we don't even know if those legends are authentic pre-Christian legends or if they were made up out of whole cloth by the anonymous 12th-century scribes who wrote them down)?

Christmas trees originated in France and Germany between the 14th and 16th centuries and are derived from the late Medieval custom of "Eden trees" which were used in the "Adam and Eve" plays (similar to the Passion Plays that are still held even today around Easter) that used to be held on Christmas day. They needed a tree for the forbidden fruit, and over time the custom arose of decorating the tree before the play. Exactly when the decorated Eden tree in the center of the town evolved into the modern custom of having trees in one's home to decorate began no one knows for sure but it appears to have begun in the late 16th century in Germany and then quickly spread from there. They arrived in the New World in the 19th century when Germans began moving to the United States and brought the custom with them. It didn't become common in the United States until the 20th century]y.


There is zero evidence of ANY pagan festival being held for the winter solstice at all before Constantine, and there is absolutely no evidence that any culture anywhere ever practiced the decoration of trees before the Medieval custom of Eden Trees developed in the High Middle Ages.


You need to start reading real scholarship and learn to be less gullible. Everything I have just said is found in a nice little book on the origin of common Christmas customs published by Oxford University Press and contains extensive footnotes and citations proving its claims, something no "Christmas is Pagan" book can claim, those books have no footnotes and cite no sources, and the information in these books appears to be, in most cases, completely invented out of whole cloth,

[Stella]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is beside the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

Or that any popular Christmas customs do. The arguments of "pagan influence" are either completely made up out of whole cloth or are generic customs that all human beings in all cultures practice, for example, the exchanging of gifts. The fact that non-Christians gave each other gifts on such and such an occasion does not mean in any way that Christians "copied" the practice. Giving gifts is a universal human impulse, even animals give each other gifts, for example, penguins give each other rocks as part of the mating process. Do penguins copy pagan practices?

It's not the case that the pagans 'influenced' Christian rituals/holidays or even that Christian holidays deliberately replaced pagan events, but just that's how it worked out naturally and divinely. Making the connection only makes awe for God even more I reckon.

[Stella]

The usefulness (or lack thereof) of assimilating pagan festivals is besides the point, since as Doom correctly (sigh) points out, there is no good evidence that Christmas derives from anything pagan.

That position begs a lot more questions though. Is it pure coincidence that Christians developed customs out of the blue that essentially mirror old pagan customs. ie. Odin the long bearded old man flying through the sky on an eight legged horse delivering gifts to children. Or wassailing like the carollers going from door to door singing to banish evil spirits. Or decorating the trees for winter solstice.

To deny any pagan inculturation in the Christmas tradition needs to explain the many similarities.

The legend of Santa Claus didn't even come into existence until the 19th century and is largely the creation of Clement Moore who invented most of the modern ideas of Santa in his popular poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" in 1823. The modern image of Santa Claus as the guy with the beard in the red suit was invented by the Coca-Cola company in the 20th century. Before this popular advertising campaign, Santa commonly wore either green or brown and was often shown wearing a bishop's miter. Isn't that a little late to claim a derivation from Norse mythology (which, by the way, wasn't even written down until 300 years after the Christianization of Scandinavia and we don't even know if those legends are authentic pre-Christian legends or if they were made up out of whole cloth by the anonymous 12th-century scribes who wrote them down)?

You are stuck on an objection to a strawman that Christianity is the new paganism, but who is claiming that? Christianity has unique roots in Christ and the Scriptures but Christ didn't come in a vacuum. The benevolent old man giving gifts from his bounty has a long and universal history connected with the divine, unknown Creator.

Christmas trees originated in France and Germany between the 14th and 16th centuries and are derived from the late Medieval custom of "Eden trees" which were used in the "Adam and Eve" plays (similar to the Passion Plays that are still held even today around Easter) that used to be held on Christmas day. They needed a tree for the forbidden fruit, and over time the custom arose of decorating the tree before the play. Exactly when the decorated Eden tree in the center of the town evolved into the modern custom of having trees in one's home to decorate began no one knows for sure but it appears to have begun in the late 16th century in Germany and then quickly spread from there. They arrived in the New World in the 19th century when Germans began moving to the United States and brought the custom with them. It didn't become common in the United States until the 20th century.

In his Angelus address in 2003 Pope JPII gives a more universal explanation of the meaning of the Christmas tree relating it to the principle of evergreen.

2. Next to the crib, as in St Peter's Square, we find the traditional "Christmas tree". This too is an ancient tradition that exalts the value of life, for in the winter season the evergreen fir becomes a sign of undying life. Christmas gifts are usually placed on the tree or arranged at its base. The symbol thus also becomes eloquent in a typically Christian sense: it calls to mind the "tree of life" (cf. Gn 2: 9), a figure of Christ, God's supreme gift to humanity.

3. The message of the Christmas tree is consequently that life stays "evergreen" if we make a gift of it: not so much of material things, but of life itself: in friendship and sincere affection, in fraternal help and forgiveness, in time shared and reciprocal listening.

There is zero evidence of ANY pagan festival being held for the winter solstice at all before Constantine, and there is absolutely no evidence that any culture anywhere ever practiced the decoration of trees before the Medieval custom of Eden Trees developed in the High Middle Ages.

You need to start reading real scholarship and learn to be less gullible. Everything I have just said is found in a nice little book on the origin of common Christmas customs published by Oxford University Press and contains extensive footnotes and citations proving its claims, something no "Christmas is Pagan" book can claim, those books have no footnotes and cite no sources, and the information in these books appears to be, in most cases, completely invented out of whole cloth,

Could it be that your view is colored by the remnants of American Puritanism which not only banned the Christmas tree but Christmas itself for a long time citing elements of paganism?

[peregrinator]

That position begs a lot more questions though. Is it pure coincidence that Christians developed customs out of the blue that essentially mirror old pagan customs. ie. Odin the long bearded old man flying through the sky on an eight legged horse delivering gifts to children. Or wassailing like the carollers going from door to door singing to banish evil spirits. Or decorating the trees for winter solstice.

You mean it raises questions, not that it begs questions although assuming those practices are pagan or that there is an unbroken tradition of them from pagan times into the Christian era might be begging the question.

[Doom]

Could it be that your view is colored by the remnants of American Puritanism which not only banned the Christmas tree but Christmas itself for a long time citing elements of paganism?

Sorry but no it doesn't work that way. You don't get to cite fictional, invented tales of alleged pagan customs that never actually existed in anything other than in fiction, such as an alleged pre-Christian pagan custom of decorating trees for the winter solstice (something which as far as we can tell no pagan culture ever observed at all) and alleged parallels between Santa and Odin (a fake Norse legend, as I know because I read the original sources and they contain no such legend about Odin) as the alleged origin of Christmas customs and then complain when I point out that there is absolutely no basis for any of your claims.

And by the way, be careful about what the Puritans condemned, they also said that Transubstantiation and nativity scenes were pagan. Well, were they?

[peregrinator]

I'd be very surprised if the Puritans banned Christmas trees specifically - it just wasn't a popular custom in the United States at the time. It didn't spread outside of German immigrant communities until the mid-19th century.

[Riverboat]

All of this is enormously interesting, but I'm still trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth from the homily that engendered this thread. What kind of priest has the effrontery to bring this up in a Christmas homily?

[gherkin]

I assume he didn't intend anything bad. It was probably just supposed to be some interesting history. Maybe some poor judgment and maybe some mistaken ideas, but on the bright side there's no heresy involved in making a simple historical error.