Christmas and Paganism

[JohnR77]

If shepherds were truly “watching their flocks by night” then Jesus was born in the springtime. The only time shepherds watched their flock by night was when the lambs were born, and the lambs were born in the spring only.

Mediterranean climates such as Judea’s (like Southern California’s) have mild winters reaching their coolest in late February. Thus December nights can be quite balmy and warm enough to graze sheep. Moreover, December/January would have been an ideal time to graze sheep to take advantage of the winter rains. During the hot months, conditions can be quite barren and the grasses dry. But the end of December was the time when the perennial grasses began to turn green again and the annual grasses had sprouted anew. Thus, climatically the ecclesiastical practice of placing Christ’s birth between December 25 and January 6 is plausible.

Can you give any references for this? I think what you are saying about Roman Emperor Aurelian but it seems to me that many ancient archeological sites are structured to celebrate or at least recognize the winter solstice.

But they do not tie in those celebrations to December 25.

The Winter Solstice was NOT a Roman Civil holiday until 274 AD. The Emperor Aurelian made December 25th a civil holiday because the Christians were already using it to celebrate the Birth of Jesus and he was trying to detract from the Christian celebration!

None of the Sun Cults used December 25th before then. It appears that the Winter Solstice was originally a CHRISTIAN feast that the pagans tried to paganize,
not the other way around.

Yes, epostle, you are correct . No early Christian writer made any connection between the timing of Christmas and a Pagan holiday. The first to make the claim that the timing of Christmas was a Pagan-ization of early Christianity was Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant. He wished to show that this was one of many “degenerations” that transformed pure apostolic Christianity into Catholicism. We can prove now that his accusation was simply false.

Also read
** Here’s a Defense of the Traditional Date for Christmas**

Please read by Dr Taylor Marshall
:
Part 1:
Was Christ Truly Born on Dec 25 – A Biblical Argument for Christ’s Birth in Late December
taylormarshall.com/2011/12/dec-25-biblical-argument-of-birth-of.html

Part 2:
December 25 is the Historical Birthday of Christ: Mary and Tradition
taylormarshall.com/2011/12/december-25-is-historical-birthday-of.html

Part 3
Pope Benedict XVI: December 25 as the Historical Date of the Christ’s Birth
taylormarshall.com/2011/12/pope-benedict-xvi-december-25-as.html

.

 

[guanophore]

But they do not tie in those celebrations to December 25.

No they are all tied to the soltice, usually around Dec. 22.

The light daggers in Chaco Canyon are magnificient!

The pagan practices/observances seem to have more to do with planting than anything else.

 

[vsedriver]

Well said.
I realize that it is tough to explain that to Fundamentalists because they just say “show me where it says his birthdate?” And “it’s a pagan celebration, we should not celebrate it” and “we were warned about worshipping other gods” and “we should not carry other traditions of men as said in the Bible.”
Good to know, though.

Christmas ‘Christ’s Mass’ is the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus. Ask the Fundamentalists if they believe Jesus was born. Was his birth celebrated in scripture? Yes, it was, with singing, people visiting, and the exchange of gifts. So why shouldn’t we celebrate the birth of Jesus if it was OK for shepherds, angels, and magi to celebrate his birth?

There is nothing pagan about Christmas. It is not held on the winter solstice which fluctuates between Dec 21 and 23 but on the fixed date of Dec. 25 after the solstice. Christians were already gaining converts. They had no reason to cater to pagan sensibilities to further Christianity. The early Christians abhorred anything pagan. there are only 365 days in the year, no matter which day was chosen to celebrate the Nativity it would have fallen on some pagan’s feast day.

Most of the Anti-Christmas claims are attempts to discredit Catholic practices.

 

[adamhovey1988]

If shepherds were truly “watching their flocks by night” then Jesus was born in the springtime. The only time shepherds watched their flock by night was when the lambs were born, and the lambs were born in the spring only.

Father Mitch Pacwa answered this your assertion is not entirely true. And he has been the Bethlehem way more times than I have which is exactly zero

 

[JohnGerard]

If shepherds were truly “watching their flocks by night” then Jesus was born in the springtime. The only time shepherds watched their flock by night was when the lambs were born, and the lambs were born in the spring only.

Steve Ray visits the Holy Land often. I remember hearing him on the radio one time explaining that he has been there during December and he has seen for himself that shepherds do watch their flocks at night even in December. I thought that was kindof interesting.

 

[Darryl_B]

Hello all! Firstly, Merry Christmas to all!

I do have a few questions.
How do you explain where Christmas comes from? I hear many claim it is a pagan holiday…

Another thing, I know many say it’s the birthday of Jesus, although I know it’s not literally the exact day, we celebrate it at this time. However, there are some who find it misleading and say no to this. Is there a good way to say something about how Christ is the reason for the season? Is it good enough to say “Merry Christmas! Remember that Jesus is the reason for the season!”

I’ve heard many doing that, plus the old #CHRISTmas, etc.

Thank you!

There are two calendars. One is Roman the other is Jewish. Those who do not know the Jewish Calendar claim that 25th December is a pagan (implied Imperial Roman) festival. It was the puritans who developed all the lies surrounding Christmas and they did that in the 1600’s.

But Jesus Christ was born into a Jewish Calendar, He was born on 25th of Kislev. He was not born into a Roman Calendar, He was born into a Jewish Calendar. Then, the Jewish Calendar date 25th Kislev was transposed into the Roman Calendar. 25th Kislev transposed to the 25th December. Why is 25th Kislev so significant. Because the light has come into the world but men preferred darkness.

 

[GEddie]

There are two calendars. One is Roman the other is Jewish. Those who do not know the Jewish Calendar claim that 25th December is a pagan (implied Imperial Roman) festival. It was the puritans who developed all the lies surrounding Christmas and they did that in the 1600’s.

But Jesus Christ was born into a Jewish Calendar, He was born on 25th of Kislev. He was not born into a Roman Calendar, He was born into a Jewish Calendar. Then, the Jewish Calendar date 25th Kislev was transposed into the Roman Calendar. 25th Kislev transposed to the 25th December. Why is 25th Kislev so significant. Because the light has come into the world but men preferred darkness.

Kislev 25? First day of Hannukah?

That does make perfect sense in terms of “the light”!

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Darryl_B]

Kislev 25? First day of Hannukah?

That does make perfect sense in terms of “the light”!

ICXC NIKA.

When reading John 1?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Steve Ray visits the Holy Land often. I remember hearing him on the radio one time explaining that he has been there during December and he has seen for himself that shepherds do watch their flocks at night even in December. I thought that was kindof interesting.

I live on the same line of latitude and the same approximate altitude as Bethlehem, here in Arizona. The climates are very similar. I have personally witnessed Navajo sheepherders tending their flocks at night in late December.

As others have said, Bedouin sheepherders in Israel are out tending to their sheep at Christmastime. The coldest month of the year in Jerusalem, January, barely gets below freezing. It might have been a little chilly for the shepherds, but guess what? They have access to lots of WOOL, nature’s best insulator, which will not lose its insulating properties even when wet. As did the sheep.

If you’d be okay with going out in a thick wool sweater on a cold night, so would the sheep.

The “no sheep outside in the winter” argument was first propagated by an old Scottish killjoy, the Rev. Alexander Hislop, in a turgid little classic of anti-Catholicism craziness he first published in 1853, “The Two Babylons: Or: The Papal worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and his Wife”, a screed filled with hate for all things associated with Catholicism and the source for most of those crazy “The Pope secretly worships Ba’al” things you find nowadays on websites full of typos and blurry photos.

Hislop, a Free Church of Scotland Minister who had only a nodding acquaintance with history, anthropology, or, apparently, sanity, may have been thinking about the Scottish winters of his homeland when writing that. Jerusalem can get cold, but not Scottish-cold. In addition to that kind of provincialism, Hislop filled his book with voluminous footnotes (many misquotes, out of context, or simply made-up) that convinced many of the credulous by sheer volume, but even Ralph Woodrow, who traffics in this sort of thing now, has disavowed Hislop’s poor scholarship.

The Navajo sheepherders, who face the same approximate weather as the sheepherders in 1st Century Palestine, do, in fact, keep their sheep out in the winter, and the shepherds stay with the sheep at night to prevent coyote attacks…which often come at dark. Yes, I have actually asked real Navajo shepherds about this. Like Navajo shepherds, I would presume the shepherds around Bethlehem would have some shelters they could throw up quickly, or that might have been set up permanently, like lean-tos or rock walls, to herd the sheep into if the winds got bad. In temperate climes, like the middle east, sheep are often kept outside year-around.

Sheep do quite well outside, and don’t like the dust that can build up inside standing barns. Keeping sheep inside in temperate coastal climes like Bethlehem is bad for the sheep’s feet, bad for their metabolic adjustment, and it aids in the spread of disease. If you pen the sheep, you will also have to supply them with hay (which would have been in short supply and an additional cost for the owners of the herd in 1st century Palestine), it would have been more economical to leave them outside and let them graze. The sheep of 2000 years ago were also presumably of tougher stock than modern breeds and more able to survive the cold.

I’m sorry, but this argument is a non-starter against a late December date for Christmas.

 

[Usagi]

Baptized pagan holidays work just fine. Many of the feast days were chosen specifically to fall upon days of celebration for non-Christian activities, like the whole month of May being dedicated to our lady.

Pascha March 20/21 – (Ostara – Spring or The Vernal Equinox)

As your use of “Pascha” indicates, the dating of our Feast of the Resurrection is more likely connected to the Jewish Passover, though the name “Easter” and some of the trappings may well come from a Germanic spring festival or deity. That would be one of those regional developments you mention rather than the universal origin of the feast, though.

It does seem to be the case that the “pagan borrowing” theory of Christian holy days and customs is not as widely held as it once was. Some customs once held up as evidence, like the Christmas tree, have been found to be very late (usually Victorian) additions to the celebration rather than traceable survivals of pre- Christian practice.

Heck, I once read a very convincing explanation that the Jewish holiday of Purim, with its heroes Esther and Mordecai, is a borrowing from a Babylonian feast of Ishtar and Marduk that the Israelites would have encountered during the Captivity. But further research showed that that is a disputed idea among scholars, despite the stunning similarity of names and a claimed coincidence of dates. It seems that these days, we must be just as careful about uncritically accepting the “pagan origins” explanation as of denying it without cause.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Re the supposed adoption of the Solstice, as well as other pagan holidays, it should be remembered that the Winter Solstice was not a religious event for the pagan Romans. It was known, and recognized, and is important as an event for agricultural planning, but it was not associated with any kind of religious observance. The solstice did not “belong” to the pagans.

The other holidays supposedly “stolen” by the Christians did not fall on December 25 (and the Roman calendar had so many holidays and religious observances it would be difficult to pick a day that did not coincide with a day used by the Christians.)

The one that is most frequently cited, the Feast of Sol Invictus (a Syrian sun-god) has only the evidence of an appearance on a Roman calendar long after we have textual evidence for the Catholic celebration of the Feast of the Nativity, and after the emperors began trying to compete with the rising Christian movement by beginning the Neo-Platonist realignment of their deities. The cult of Sol Invictus was not even imported into Rome until centuries after the birth of Christ, and after the initiation of the Christian celebration of the Feast of the Nativity on December 25.

The Historia Augusta in The Life of Elagabalus describes how the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, who reigned from 218-222 AD, came to be called Elagabalus after the name of the Syrian sun god, and was himself initiated as a priest of Sol Invictus, and saw himself as the personal manifestation of the Syrian sun god. (There is no connection between Mithra and Sol Invictus, despite what some neo-pagans claim.) After coming to Rome and being established as the emperor at the age of 14, the Historia states:

4 Elagabalus [established himself] as a god on the Palatine Hill close to the imperial palace; and he built him a temple, to which he desired to transfer the emblem of the Great Mother, the fire of Vesta, the Palladium, the shields of the Salii, and all that the Romans held sacred, purposing that no god might be worshipped at Rome save only Elagabalus. 5 He declared, furthermore, that the religions of the Jews and the Samaritans and the rites of the Christians must also be transferred to this place, in order that the priesthood of Elagabalus might include the mysteries of every form of worship.

From that brief moment of prominence in the Roman pantheon of gods (and the admission that the pagans were attempting to copy the rites of the Christians, by a non-Christian source), Sol Invictus drops out of sight - as did Elagablus, who was assassinated at the age of 18 for being too licentious even for a Roman emperor. Sol Invictus popped up again during the rule of Aurelian (A.D. 270-275). Aurelian did try to re-introduce the worship of Sol Invictus by decree in the year 274. But we have no record of this festival being held on December 25th, although by this date, we have multiple attestations that the Church was already celebrating Christmas on December 25. Aurelian declared that games were to be dedicated to Sol Invictus every 4th year, which by the best evidence was in October 19-22 of their calendar. (A year after this declaration, Aurelian was himself assassinated by his own generals.)

The earliest calendar to mention that a possible December 25 date to celebrate Invictus comes from a text of the Philocalian Calendar, VIII Kal recorded in an illuminated 4th Century manuscript called The Chronography of 354 [A.D.]. In this late manuscript the date is listed in Mensis December (The Month of December) as N·INVICTI·CM·XXX.

This is what the calendar page actually looks like, by the way:



Under Dec. 25 is listed “N·INVICTI·CM·XXX”.

We’re not even sure that December date was even meant to commemorate Sol Invictus - it was not previously a known holiday for that god (The traditional feast days of Sol, as declared by Aurelian and recorded in the early imperial fasti, were August 8th and/or August 9th, possibly August 28th, and December 11th), and the note in the calendar that the day is to be celebrated with 30 chariot races simply states “INVICTI” (unconquered or unconquerable), not “SOL INVICTI” as in other notations on the calendar (for example: on SOLIS·ET·LVNAE·CM·XXIIII (August 28th) and LVDI·SOLIS (October 19-22))

As the number of chariot races dictated to be performed in celebration on that December 25 date were not in multiples of 12 (as in other dates, as multiples of the number of months in the calendar year), it is possible, and even probable based on the evidence, that the December 25 date was to honor a returning earthly general.

We also have no textual evidence from the early Church fathers that there was an intent to copy a pagan festival - quite the opposite, in fact, as they resisted all attempts to combine pagan and Catholic religious practices. Pagan deities were believed by the ECFs, from Paul on down the line, to be actual demons who demanded worship by deluding their pagan followers, and the ECFs would have no truck with that.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Note that shepherds will watch their flocks any time the flock is in the fields and they feel there is danger around; be in from animals or humans. In the lower latitudes sheep are graze in the fields most of the winter months.

This is true. In a poor country like 1st century Palestine, the shepherds had to be wary of rustlers as well as animal predators.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Christmas ‘Christ’s Mass’ is the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus. Ask the Fundamentalists if they believe Jesus was born. Was his birth celebrated in scripture? Yes, it was, with singing, people visiting, and the exchange of gifts. So why shouldn’t we celebrate the birth of Jesus if it was OK for shepherds, angels, and magi to celebrate his birth?

Very true. Some fundamentalist Christians, as well as some Jehovah’s Witnesses, say there is no biblical basis for celebrating birthdays in general, so we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas Yet in addition to the gifts of the Magi and the celebration of Jesus’ birth by the angels and shepherds, throughout the Bible, a birth of a child is seen as a cause for celebration.

Abraham and Sarah both rejoice at the birth of the promised son, name him “laughter” both in admission to their own initial doubt of God’s promise, and for the joy God had given them. They celebrate both the birth and the weaning of that son (Genesis 21:1-8).

Leah rejoices at the birth of Judah (Genesis 29:35). Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz all rejoice at the birth of Obed (Ruth 4:13-17). The Angel tells Zechariah that the birth of John the Baptizer will be a cause of joy to his parents and to many, including those who were there to celebrate his birth (Luke 1:14, 57-58).

Besides the rejoicing over those births recorded in Scripture are the many times God draws a parallel between the joy of birth and the coming of God’s kingdom and God’s steadfastness from our birth: Psalm 71:4-6; Isaiah 46:3-4; 66:7-11; Micah 4:10; John 16:21.

There is even a Biblical basis for giving birthday gifts: Hannah rejoices at Samuel’s birth and gives an annual gift for Samuel in thanks for his birth (1 Samuel 2:1-11, 19)

Scripture also points out specifically that the Birth of the Messiah would be a cause for celebration and joy: Psalm 87; Isaiah 9:1-7; Micah 5:2-5, Zechariah 2:10

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Baptized pagan holidays work just fine. Many of the feast days were chosen specifically to fall upon days of celebration for non-Christian activities, like the whole month of May being dedicated to our lady.

Pascha March 20/21 – (Ostara – Spring or The Vernal Equinox)

Our Lady, Queen of the May-----May 1 (May Day)

Our Lady of Consolation ----- June 20/21 (Summer Solstice)

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. Do you have any textual evidence from the Early Church Fathers that they chose those dates to coincide with supposed pagan celebrations?

The date of Easter was chosen, via Passover, by God Himself in about 1,440 B.C. on Mount Sinai. Except for languages that derived from Germanic, “Easter” isn’t used, a variation of Pesach, from Passover, is.

The anti-Catholic Scottish writer Alexander Hislop, whom I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, claimed that

What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” (The Two Babylons, Ch. 3, sec. 2

So basically, Hislop claimed because two names from radically different cultures sound alike, they must have a common ancestry. This is linguistic nonsense. He also claimed Druids imported the deities to England. How Hislop knew this is a mystery, as the Druids did not have a written language and left no records.

There is no record for a pagan goddess named Ostara, or for Eostre. in any pagan or post-pagan texts until the 8th century A.D., long after the Christian Easter celebration was established. In A.D. 725, the Venerable Bede wrote:

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.
Bede: The Reckoning of Time (Liverpool University Press – Translated Texts for Historians) by Faith Wallis (Apr 1, 1999) p. 54]

The Bede also calls the same goddess Hrethre earlier. As there are quite a few references in the existing pagan literature to all the other gods and goddesses, we have to ask why there are no other mentions of her? He knew that the other other months were named for false pagan gods, and it seems likely that he was conjecturing that this month was as well.

The Bede did not describe anything about the goddess or who worshipped her. In fact, there is not another mention of her in literature for another thousand years. All we can say is that the old English had a month (not a holiday) named Eostra, and that the Bede thought that the month (not the holiday) was named after an otherwise unknown pagan goddess - which is not impossible, as we still use pagan names ourselves for months and days (Thursday = Thor’s Day, January = the month of Janus, etc.) but don’t pattern our worship around those supposed deities.

The linkage of a summer solstice date for the commemoration of Our Lady of Consolation overlooks the fact that there is not just one date this is celebrated. Different countries use different dates - in Rome, it is January 31. In America, it is celebrated on August 28, the Sunday after the Feast of St. Augustine. Its commemoration began among Italian Catholics, who, as noted, celebrate in January.

Re Mary as the Queen of the May, the entire month of May, as a time of growth and renewal, is devoted to Mary, and has been so since medieval times. (Sources: Johannes Nadasi; Theophilus Marianus, 1664; J. X. Jacolet, Mensis Marianus, 1724). This devotion was comprised of about thirty spiritual exercises in honor of Mary. ) Pagan cultures celebrated May with devotions to their female deities, but there is no record that May Day was chosen to subsume pagan celebrations (which had died out by the time it was adopted - why copy from a religion few, if any, people celebrated at that time?

In medieval times, May was devoted to Mary by Alphonsus X, “el sabio,” King of Castille, Spain (1221-1284) with his “Cantigas de Santa Maria” (“Ben venna Mayo”). On each day of this month, special devotions to Mary were organized, so of course the first day would be the beginning of such devotions.

 

[Darryl_B]

I put forward the claim that sol invictus was a pagan festival established to counteract the lure of conversion to Christianity which at the time was making strong headway into the pagan culture of the time. I claim paganism copied Christianity, not vice versa.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I put forward the claim that sol invictus was a pagan festival established to counteract the lure of conversion to Christianity which at the time was making strong headway into the pagan culture of the time. I claim paganism copied Christianity, not vice versa.

I agree. I wasn’t contradicting you.