Buckle up kiddies, Aunt Shad is gonna explain why the common belief of Christmas’ pagan origins is fallacy.
To begin with, one has to understand the culture of the early church in
order to understand how they approached pagan practices. clergy were
extremely concerned with the mixing of religions, especially ritualistic
practices, because of the threat it posed to the unadulterated church.
remember, much of the early church’s doctrines and teachings were
written by “doctors” (scholars) who researched scrupulously,
particularly in matters of salvation history, in ordet o examine what
did and did not belong in the church’s teachings. thus, they examined
the old testament: which includes the failings of the Mosaic Jews. the
one thing they struggled to do generation after generation was to remain
faithful to God. why is this important? well, one of the major reasons
they continued to fail at monotheism for centuries was because Jewish
men took pagan wives: these women eventually corrupted the conviction of
the Jewish men’s belief in monotheism. It was the prophet Ezra who
eventually figured out this forumla for disaster, and became known for
being extremely strict when it came to marriages. The early doctors
of the Church, being the indepth scholars they were, noticed this trend.
They would not want it to be repeated. In fact, there are many
testaments in early Church history to being complete abandon of paganism
a requirement in conversion: the most obvious and well-known would be
King Charlemagne, who was renowned for his complete and brisk conversion
of the pagan Franks. As he swept through towns, any and all pagan
symbols were swept away, burned, or removed completely. Perhaps the
greatest reason the Church did not assimilate pagan practices was to
prevent converts from feeling tempted. It’s certainly logical–
constantly being reminded of your former beliefs would certainly create a
longing or pull towards what you had left behind. Thus, the Church very
much believed in starting fresh, on a clean slate. Using Pagan
holidays/customs to draw in converts is a fallacy within itself. It
simply wasn’t in the early Church’s “purity” culture– they were
obsessed with keeping the religion untainted. Just check out how many
negligible heresies the Church openly sought to squash. If they were
truly concerned with just getting people to convert, they probably would
have let a few heresies slide here and there to keep people content
with the Church. This was the furthest thing on its mind.
Moving
on to the very common claim that most Christian holidays (Christmas,
Easter, etc) are based around pagan holidays. This is just plain false.
The misconception became widely circulated in the 19th century, with the
publication of Alexander Hisop. To begin with, Yule was a celtic
pagan celebration. Doesn’t make much sense for the Church to center the
celebration of Christmas on a day devoted to one tiny section of west
Europe. In fact, the current date of Christmas on Dec 25th wasn’t set
until the Middle Ages, past the time when most of Europe was converted
into SOME form of Christianity. One such quote that has sparked such belief in Christmas being pagan is the following: “It
was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the
birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity.
In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part.
Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians
had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the
true Nativity should be solemnised on that day.” (Christianity and
Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Ramsay MacMullen. Yale:1997,
p. 155)
Many seized this passage as proof of paganism being the
root of Christmas. However, context (as we all know) is super important.
Bishop Bar-Salibi (the author) was an Eastern Orthodox bishop, writing
to his flock to attempt to explain why WESTERN Catholics celebrated on
the 25th instead of the EAST’S tradition of Jan 7th. He had only a
cursory knowledge of Western Catholic culture and wrote sparingly, not
particularly well thought-out or with much research. It is by far no
means “proof” or an official statement as to how or why the celebration
came about.
Early Christians adapted a LOT of traditions from
Judaism. Of course, not just any traditions could be assimilated– that
was left to the Apostles, and eventually the early Church, to decide
what still applied to Christians and what was no longer okay to
celebrate (Council of Jerusalem circa 50 AD, according to Acts). As it
was, Hanukkah did not originate from Mosaic Judaism: i.e., the part that
Christians were told to no longer follow. It was a way for the Jews to
remember and celebrate the second dedication of the Temple after the
Maccabean revolt. The celebration always lasted 8 days, starting on the
25h day of the Jewish month of Kislev. The month of Kislev on the Jewish
calendar overlaps the month of December on the Julian/Gregorian
calendar. In fact, sometimes the overlap is so close, that Hanukkah is
celebrated at the same time Christians are celebrating Christmas. Now,
Hanukkah was very much a celebration focused on light, a “rebirth” for
the (earthly) kingdom, and a refreshed covenant with God. It made sense
that Early Christians would therefore feel close to it. However, early
Christians were shunned by the Jews, often kicked out of the culture
completely. They lost track of the Jewish calendar over time, and thus
it’s only natural that they fell into using the Julian calendar as other
Christian Gentiles did. They instead celebrated Hanukkah on December
25th–which was pretty close to Kislev 2th anyways. And–here’s the
kicker– there are 8 days between Dec 25th and Jan 1st, meaning it
perfectly wrapped up the end of the Christian cultural year with
re-dedication (new years revolutions, anyone?). Christmas became the
christened version of Hanukkah in the beginning. This went on for
several centuries in the Early Church.
So how did the Christian
Hanukkah become associated with Christ’s nativity? Very early Christians
believed that the world was created on Nissan 14, which is about March
25 on the Julian calendar. These Jewish Christians not only associated
the beginning of the world on that date, but also the beginning of the
new world: meaning the conception of Jesus Christ. To this day, the
Catholic Church (and Lutheran, Anglican) celebrate the Annunciation of
Mar 25th. Pregnancies last for about 9 months, so count that far ahead
from the date: you get to December 25th. Early Doctors/Fathers such as
Saints Ireaneus and Sextus Africanus firmly defended this date. Thus, it
was only natural for Christians to adapt their version of Hanukkah into
a celebration of Christ’s nativity. Eventually the 8-day feast was
overshadowed by 12 days, but that’s another discussion irrelevant to
this one.
So you’ve got two explanations as to how Christmas came
to be: the widely-circulated suggestion of it being based on pagan
practices, mostly prompted by 19th-century misconstructions; versus it
naturally originating from the course of intermingling of Jewish and
Gentile-born early Christians. The latter is supported by a lot of
official documentation by the church, including published works by
several saints/scholars close to the time of origin.
Some might
continue to suggest it was still influenced by pagan holidays. Such as
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birth of the Unconquered Sun). However, this
was proposed on Dec. 25th by the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian in 275
AD– AFTER the dates of published works from the aforementioned Saints
Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD) and Sextus Africus (160 – 240 AD). Thus, early
Christians (many of Jewish heritage) were celebrating December 25 as a
date closely associated with Christ long before Aurelian dedicated the
birthday of the sun. Why do this? Remember that the early Christians
were actively persecuted for many centuries by the then-Pagan empire.
Still the religion was gaining traction. Aurelian could have easily set
the date with the mind to upstage the rising tide of Christianity.
In
fact, many scholarly sources indicate that the winter soltice was NOT a
hotbead for sun-worshiping for pagans. Here’s the most succinct quote: “Thomas
Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian’s dedication of a
temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274) probably took
place on the ‘Birthday of the Invincible Sun’ on December 25, the cult
of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter
solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect.” (Michael Alan Anderson) The principle dates for sun-worship were actually in August…not December.
And
again, culture context is KEY. The Christians were being actively
persecuted BY the Pagans in the early Church days. Is it really that
likely that those same pagans would take kindly to them adopting their
practices–or that the Christians would WANT to assimilate the culture
that was trying to wipe them out? Not likely.
Accepting that
Christmas was not pagan-based, let’s move on. What about the supposedly
pagan customs ingrained in it? Like the Christmas Tree (hey trey)? Yes,
the Franks and Scandinavians worshipped trees. But there is no credible
documentation found that suggests they even brought them into their houses
(in fact, this probably would have been sacrilegious, esp to the Norse:
trees were only ever to be chopped down for absolute necessity, so
having one around for ornamentation would be disrespectful). St.
Boniface was glorified for the legend of his chopping down of the
(pagan) Donor Oak to prevent human sacrifice, and this act was quite
evangelized. The Germans watched in horror, fearing Thor would strike
them down for this brazen act. Boniface, seeing this, took action. He
indicated a small fir sapling growing close to the roots of the former
sacrifice tree, and used it as a teaching tool: the fir was triangular
in shape, representing the trinity; it was always green, representing
God’s never-ending love for His people; and the needles always point
upwards as God. Boniface suggested that God placed the fir there as a
symbol to the pagans. It is then said that Boniface took a tree into the
later-constructed church, an ever green similar to the fir, during the
winter as a reminder. Of course, the modern Christmas tree came
later, during the time of the Protestant reformation. It was in Germany,
in an attempt to recreate St. Boniface’s tree. Martin Luther is said to
have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree, in an attempt to
recreate in his chapel the starlight he saw, shining between trees in a
forest, while walking home one winter night.
There are other
supposedly Pagan symbols used in Christmas celebrations, but most of
those aren’t as widely used or accused as the Christmas Tree.
TL;DR: Christmas comes from Jewish customs, not pagan.
Pretty sure this is universal for ex-Christians during this time of year…..
You’re gonna lose your mind when you find out where Christmas comes from
The appropriation of a pagan celebration of the winter solstice by the catholic church because they were too lazy to figure out when jesus was born and too stubborn to change it once they were told.
Tell me you’ve never researched how December 25th was decided without saying it
Please, inform me.
Sure thing.
The claim that Christmas is pagan never came from pagans originally, it first comes from a Moravian Protestant named Paul Ernst Jablonski in the 17th century, who made the claim simply because he was mad at the Vatican due to effects of the Thirty Years War, and was reinforced by a Scottish Presbyterian named Alexander Hislip in his book The Two Babylons where he claimed Roman Catholicism was just Babylonian paganism with Christian dressings. So it wasn’t even pagans making the claim that Christians stole or appropriated their festivals, it was Protestants fighting against the Vatican and they said Roman Catholics gave December 25th as the date of Christ’s birth arbitrarily. Also, pagan simply means non-Christian, and pagan beliefs varied wildly between countries, cities, and ethnic groups, so to claim that Christian has some pagan cultural influences is pointless, because we know that early Christians baptized pagans and any practices they had that weren’t in service of demons or idols could be retained as long as they were turned towards God, so something like the yule log, might have originated in Norse pagan cultures, but there isn’t anything inherently satanic about burning wood, and they could keep that activity in celebration if they wanted, so whats the problem?
As for December 25th, it goes back to 45BC when Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, where December 25th was intended to be the shortest day of the year, which has funny parallels with the Incarnation (the sun and the Son being their weakest on Dec25). In 274AD, Emperor Aurelian established a new empire feast named the Feast of the Unconquerable Sun and set it on December 25th, to symbolize the sun coming back from weakness and becoming stronger. The earliest evidence for liturgical celebration of Christmas is 336AD in Rome, so this is why people say Christmas ripped off a pagan festival. Problem is is that Latin Christians were celebrating Christmas on December 25th fifty years before Aurelian’s feast. Aurelian, who didn’t like Christians and sentenced them to death, likely did this to further persecute Christians in Rome.
So why did Christians choose December 25th? After Judaism split off of Christianity, the idea of when to celebrate the Christian Passover became an important question. It was the common belief in the early church that the Last Supper was not a Passover meal, but He was crucified on the day the Passover meal would be held. Greek Christians needed to know when to celebrate the Christian Passover, and they decided on the 14th of Artemision (spring) in the second century. In the fourth century the Greeks adopted the Roman calendar and the 14th of Artemision becomes April 6th. Eastern Christians end up with April 6th, Latin Christians wanted the historical death of Christs death, and came up with March 25th.
There is an ancient Jewish rabbinical idea of important Biblical figures (martyrs and prophets) dying on the same date they were either born or conceived on. So if you apply that to the above dates, and you add nine months. If Christ died on March 25th, then He was conceived on March 25th, nine months later is December 25th (the date of Christs incarnation according to the flesh). If Christ died on April 6th, add nine months, and you get January 6th, Theophany, Christs birth of water and the Holy Spirit. So ironically, both dates are correct “birth dates” for the Lord.
So if you’re going to call the same people who regularly fast, walked across the world to spread the Gospel, preached daily for years on end, did baptisms and liturgies and homilies regularly, if you’re gonna call THOSE people lazy, you need to explain why they would go through all this trouble to establish a date of celebration.
broke: Mary is good and Martha is bad because Martha did silly things like housework while Jesus was at her house instead of paying attention to Him.
woke: The Lord admonished Martha not because she was doing housework, but because she was being too uptight and unfairly rebuked Mary in an embarrassing way in front of their guests. It was unfair of Martha to assume Mary wasn’t serving the Lord just because Mary was doing so in a different way than Martha.
b e s p o k e: Martha and Mary’s dispositions aren’t opposed–they’re complementary. Martha’s strength is in serving the Lord through activity. She keeps everything running when He is at her house (Luke 10:40), and when she hears that He is coming to see them after Lazarus has died, she rushes to meet Him before He even gets to their house (John 11:20). Mary’s strength, however, is in serving the Lord through contemplation. She sits at Christ’s feet and learns from Him (Luke 10:39), and when her brother dies she stays in the house observing the mourning rites, coming only when He asks her to (John 11:28-29). But John tells us that Jesus loved both Martha and Mary (John 11:5). It’s also important to note that both sisters express the same faith upon seeing Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, and again in verse 32). The sisters display the active and the contemplative life, both of which are important for our journey towards salvation. Mary and Martha should both have our love and respect as disciples of Christ and great saints.
Hey! Update on this! She’s doing MUCH better and I actually saw her live at PAX East this year (2022) – she gave a talk at a panel and answered questions and she was doing great, and she was telling us how she’s slowly relearned everything she forgot. Just to alleviate the worries I see in the notes 💖
She’s still making videos!
Here’s the one from today (she didn’t turn her camera on because she had to put her hair in rollers):
This post wuickly went from OH SH*T to THANK GOD so fast
“Homemaking is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government, etc. exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? The homemaker’s job is one for which all other’s exist.”
