A Brief History of Christmas
December 21st, 2007 — -From today’s Wall Street Journal, a very good, and succinct History of the holiday, by historian and author John Steele Gordon. A few excerpts:
“In its earliest days, Christianity did not celebrate the Nativity at all. Only two of the four Gospels even mention it. Instead, the Church calendar was centered on Easter, still by far the most important day in the Christian year. The Last Supper was a Seder, celebrating Passover, which falls on the day of the full moon in the first month of spring in the Hebrew calendar. […]
By the time of the Council of Nicea [325 AD], the Christian Church was making converts by the thousands and, in hopes of still more converts, in 354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the church calendar. He also decided to celebrate it on Dec. 25. It was, frankly, a marketing ploy with a little political savvy thrown in.
History does not tell us exactly when in the year Christ was born, but according to the Gospel of St. Luke, “shepherds were abiding in the field and keeping watch over their flocks by night.” This would imply a date in the spring or summer when the flocks were up in the hills and needed to be guarded. In winter they were kept safely in corrals. […]
It is hard to escape the idea that by making Christmas fall immediately after the Saturnalia, the Pope invited converts to still enjoy the fun and games of the ancient holiday and just call it Christmas. Also, Dec. 25 was the day of the sun god, Sol Invictus, associated with the emperor. By using that date, the church tied itself to the imperial system.
By the high Middle Ages, Christmas was a rowdy, bawdy time, often inside the church as well as outside it. In France, many parishes celebrated the Feast of the Ass, supposedly honoring the donkey that had brought Mary to Bethlehem. Donkeys were brought into the church and the mass ended with priests and parishioners alike making donkey noises.
In the so-called Feast of Fools, the lower clergy would elect a “bishop of fools” to temporarily run the diocese and make fun of church ceremonial and discipline. With this sort of thing going on inside the church to celebrate the Nativity, one can easily imagine the drunken and sexual revelries going on outside it to celebrate what was in all but name the Saturnalia.”
[end excerpt.
Read the full article at the WallStreetJournal.com.]
And so, friends and neighbors, I am inclined to think that we’ve moved yet again, from honoring Saturn, (or rebelling from him), to Christ, to… well, I think we should say a prayer in honor of our true Patron Saint, Adam Smith, whose holiday this is, in so many, many, many ways…
But whoever you pray to, and whatever you worship, a happy Christmas - a good, safe and warm holiday - and best wishes to all. Merry Christmas, everyone.
December 21st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
From: Patricia Nell Warren
http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/another_pagan_tweak_on_christmas.php
Fast forward to a moment early in Christian history, when church organizers were trying to decide how their dogmas would interface with the old calendars that everybody still lived by. They wanted Christianity to replace the old ways, but they also wanted to build on the old ways and appropriate the old symbols.
No wonder they decided to have the “divine” Jesus born on December 25.
In my opinion, they chose this moment in the sidereal year because north is the key direction for navigators, and Christianity was intended to be a “new direction.” The New Testament even mentions that a “star that appeared in the sky, and the Wise Men traveled towards the star until they found the divine child.” But this story may be more of a symbol than a historical fact.
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:32 am
ALL Christian feast and festivals are based on older and already existing feasts. It is pretty well documented in Gore Vidal’s Julian The Apostate, which is more or less about that.
Also the first part of this documentary is entirely dedicated to showing how the entire Christian religion and its symbology are based on Astrology and the Egyptian religion of Isis and Osiris.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331&q=zeitgeist&total=2272&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Just forward the first few minutes of the film which give the wrong impression about the rest and enjoy that section. It is an eye-opener.
December 24th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Yes, it is true that much of modern Christianity is based on old Astrology and the Egyptian religion of Isis and Osiris. That is why serious Chrisitians do not celebrate Christmas and Easter. In the Bible (Leviticus 23), God tells about his own holy days. “These are the feasts of the Lord,” he states — and lists his holy days. These days are celebrated with great joy by Christians.
Linda
December 25th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Liam blog message
Happy Holidays or happy Christmas whichever you prefer. My one is technically over already. i have been eating roast fowl, vegetables seeped in ports, dates and chestnuts for two days now. I have done at least 4 bottles of wine, and kilos of fruit glazed in brandy butter and brandy enough to make me start turning a light shade of green, Tomorrow I plan to spend the day watching the my all time fave 8 hour adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby on DVD tucked on the sofa with my dog and a strict diet of broth, green tea and fresh oranges only to see if i can detox from all the rich crap I have
stuffed myslef with to comply with tradition and the social demands of these days, which really leave one feeling like a gross bloated hog.
I could be roasted myslef for Christmas lunch tomorrow…
I wish you all the best Liam.
Warm regards,
Manu.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I enjoyed the article. However, Mr. Gordon says, “In the 1840s, Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol,’ which does not even mention the religious holiday (the word church appears in the story just twice, in passing, the word Nativity never).” While technically true, Dickens does make a clear allusion to the religious aspect of the Holiday when he has nephew Fred say, “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, . . . Christmas among the rest.
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
And later in the story, Marley says to Scrooge, “”At this time of the rolling year . . . I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!” So, here is a clear reference to the Nativity if not an outright denomination of it. Having said that, the article was an informative history of how we arrived at where we are.
December 27th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
A wonderful note, thank you David. I’ll have to pick up Dicken’s shortest book again. Thanks for the very nicely written and thought words above.
Thanks Manu, too, for your good wishes, and Linda for your clarifications of Biblical i’s and t’s.