For today's Christian, the origin of Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus as recorded in the Bible. Nothing more and nothing less.
Few people realize that the origins of Christmas were pagan & celebrated in Europe & Eurasia long before anyone there had ever heard of Jesus.
Why celebrate his birthday?
Only pagans celebrated birthdays in the time of Jesus and the only mention of a birthday in the New Testament is of Herod's wife who demanded the head of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, as her birthday present. Jews did not celebrate birthdays at that time, neither did the first Christians. There is no record of the early Church celebrating Christmas until at least the 3rd century.
Although it has become a most beloved holiday in modern times, there is no mention in the Bible of December 25 being the day of Jesus's Birth. The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’ birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate.
No one knows what day Jesus actually was born on.
From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since even the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter.
Most of what we witness on December 25th each year has absolutely nothing to do with the day of Jesus' birth, which probably occurred in late summer or early fall about 2,000 years ago. In fact, most of the customs and traditions of Christmas actually pre-date the birth of Jesus, and many of them are downright deceptive in their meaning and origin. Here are a couple examples:
In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
December 25th was also the ancient "birthday" of the son-god, Mithra, a pagan deity whose religious influence became widespread in the Roman Empire during the first few centuries A.D. Mithra was related to the Semitic sun-god, Shamash, and his worship spread throughout Asia to Europe where he was called Deus Sol Invictus Mithras. Rome was well-known for absorbing the pagan religions and rituals of its widespread empire. As such, Rome converted this pagan legacy to a celebration of the god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god during the winter solstice period. The winter holiday became known as Saturnalia, and began on December 15th. The Romans held this seven-day celebration in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture. The winter solstice often fell around December 25 on the Julian calendar—following these seven days of feasting, revelry, and merrymaking. The festival was characterized by gift-giving, feasting, singing and downright debauchery, as the priests of Saturn carried wreaths of evergreen boughs in procession throughout the Roman temples. During this period, Roman schools and courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week long celebration.
To commemorate the lengthening of days marked by this solstice, many Romans also enacted rituals that glorified Mithra, the god of light from ancient Persia. The origins of Mithra were older than the Romans, yet they had integrated him into their mythology nonetheless.
In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors.
Variations of this pagan holiday flourished throughout the first few centuries after Jesus , but it probably wasn't until 336 AD that Emperor Constantine officially converted this pagan tradition into a "Christian" holiday that was first known as The Feast of Nativity in order to keep the nominal Christians as well as pagans and secular humanists happy. Constantine, himself a life-long pagan, made what I believe to be a brilliant political move in embracing Christianity throughout the Empire, and utilizing the unifying power of Jesus' message (especially to the poor) in making it the official Roman religion. As part of the transformation, Constantine ensured a more seamless transition by keeping the traditional pagan celebrations and simply giving them new Christian names. Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it--and they were successful. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, rape and sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.
In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity.
The Origins of Christmas Customs
A. Christmas Trees
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.[1] Pagans had long worshiped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.
B. Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.[2] The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[3]
C. Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).[4]
D. Santa Claus
a. Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century.
b. Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil”[5] who sentenced Jesus to death.
c. In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.
d. The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.
e. In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th.
f. In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, “Sinter Klaas” or Santa Claus.
g. Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…” Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.
h. The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus. From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly. Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock. Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world. All Santa was missing was his red outfit.
i. In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face. The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.
E. Rudolph
In 1939, Robert May, an advertising agent working for the Montgomery Ward department store, developed Rudolf, the ninth, red-nosed reindeer as a highly lucrative sales ploy. Santa Claus and his reindeer did much to advance the capitalistic interests of the commercial sector, and in-store displays featuring Santa became common place.
F. The Yule Log
The Yule log came from Scandinavian mythology. The winter months were long and hard, so a huge tree was found, cut down, hauled into the house, and lit afire in honor of Thor, the Viking god of war. It was believed that Thor would bless them with prosperity during the following year in reward for this ceremony held during Yule, which is the Anglo-Saxon word for the months of December and January. The Anglo-Saxons called December “the former Yule” and January “the after Yule.” When most of the Scandinavians converted to Christianity, the burning of the Yule log became a part of the Christmas celebration, and the word Yule became synonymous with Christmas. The burning of the Yule log is still practiced today, though it is more prominent in European celebrations and has lost its Scandinavian meaning except with the handful of neo-pagans who seek to revive the old ways.
Happy Holidays!!!
Sources
[1] Clement Miles, Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance, New York: Dover Publications, 1976, pp. 178, 263-271.
