Keeping Christ in Christmas

[~Brian~]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/20/rol...tin/index.html

It's about time somebody said something. I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting ****ing sick and tired off all the PC bull****. Its Christmas people and I'm Catholic in a 75% Roman Catholic country- I'll be damned before I ****ing say Happy Holidays.

[Kiel]

Happy Holidays from someone who ISN'T in your self-centered 75%.

[ozthunder]

I'm a diehard Catholic..but 75%? What country are you from?

[Scapegoat]

christmas was originally a pagan holiday, christ was not born on december 25th

Christmas was usually a celebration akin to mardi gras and was full of debauchery. That was until the catholic religion took in the holiday to bring in more pagans to the church and then the puritans put an end to the celebration in its entirety.

[Scapegoat]

The True Origins of Christmas


I. When was Jesus born?

A. Popular myth puts his birth on December 25th in the year 1 C.E.

B. 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.

C. The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as follows:

a. In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of Rome’s reign, etc.

b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.

c. Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign.

d. If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28th year of reign).

e. Augustus took power in 727 AUC. Therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC.

f. However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth.

D. Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association – writing in the Catholic Church’s official commentary on the New Testament[1], writes about the date of Jesus’ birth, “Though the year [of Jesus birth is not reckoned with certainty, the birth did not occur in AD 1. The Christian era, supposed to have its starting point in the year of Jesus birth, is based on a miscalculation introduced ca. 533 by Dionysius Exiguus.”

E. The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus birth on March 28. Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought Jesus was born on November 18. Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.



II. How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C. In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

E. 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, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”[3] Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.[4] However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

G. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.”[5]

H. As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation.”[6] On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped. Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.



III. 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”.[7] Pagans had long worshipped 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.[8] The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[9]

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).[10]

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”[11] 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, 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.

sorry, but I'm not entirely sure where this is from...

[~Brian~]

Originally Posted by ozthunder

I'm a diehard Catholic..but 75%? What country are you from?

haha, well maybe my 75% is off just a bit..

[ozthunder]

Very correct. It's called Natalis Invictus.

<=== did a term paper on it and the diety it was founded after.

[ozthunder]

lol...dude..Saturnalia stopped around the first century- that is so dated. At least post the correct pagan stuff.

[Scapegoat]

I didn't remember the name of the pagan holiday. I don't study religions

All I know is that Christmas, much like most christian/catholic holidays were stolen from other religions in an attempt to convert followers of said religions

But the name you mentioned before sounds familiar... I had a fever last night around 1 am while I was watching the history of Christmas on tv...

[05Accent]

Merry Christmas. is all i have to say!

[ozthunder]

Actually, you should read into the politics of them. Sol Invictus was the first monotheistic deity of the Roman rite, and when Constantine transferred, he allowed the transition from one to another. Stole is harsh; evolved is much more historically accurate.

[05suby]

i can care less. ill say what i want. **** like this is getting out of hand. religion is a joke and i think causes to many problems in this world. but i celebrate christmas and will say merry christmas. i dont care if you are jewish, muslim or whatever. you can have your holidays. just quit trying to take mine and tell me what to call it. we dont do it to yours when you come into the country. this political correctness **** is bull****.

[~Brian~]

Originally Posted by 05suby

i can care less. ill say what i want. **** like this is getting out of hand. religion is a joke and i think causes to many problems in this world. but i celebrate christmas and will say merry christmas. i dont care if you are jewish, muslim or whatever. you can have your holidays. just quit trying to take mine and tell me what to call it. we dont do it to yours when you come into the country. this political correctness **** is bull****.

Thank you. That is exactly my point.

[CHAOS]

Merry Christmas to all you mother****s.

[ozthunder]

CHRISTIANITY

Christmas is only weeks away, and yet the faithful don’t know what the true origins were. The date (December 25th) fell on the Winter Solstice of the old, Julian calendar. That day was obviously the day of the “sun”- thus it became a day for sun god worship- culminating with the celebration Sol Invictus- Natalis Invicti. Nature dictated when the day would be, and it was quite a popular holiday because of such. So naturally, when Christianity needed to settle on a day for Christmas, a past-used holiday may come into play. But why?

Many anthropologists believe Christ to have been born closer to spring- maybe even during Passover. Christmas was selected because it offered many facets; balance (one holiday in the winter, one in the spring), a populous (those who observed the holiday before), and ease of “scheduling”. No really big transitions had to be made; Christ was born- the sun was born; a new rebirth for mankind, a new rebirth for the world through the sun. What more would be needed to legitimize the holiday with regards to the connection to Sol? Natalis Invicti and Christmas show how syncretism is vital within all religions. This theory may seem sound, however the current Pope does not believe it is. Pope Benedict XVI believes that Xmas was arrived at simply by counting nine months after the “conception” date, that being March 25. He theorizes that due to this, it is quite possible that the date was arrived at before the cult of Sol Invictus claimed it. Regardless, it is a stunning example of one culture giving way to another culture- but was this just a cultural phenomenon?

Politics are everything- and that remains true within religions. The canon was decided through politics. The doctrine of the church was decided through politics. And the days of celebration and feasts were decided through politics. Many may believe that to be heresy or blasphemy to say that, but it is true. There are many books written about the first seven great councils of the church- starting with the one that Constantine called to ease relations of “who” or “what” Christ was (which turned out to be of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, thus making official the Holy Trinity). Politics planted Christ onto that date; and why not? It allowed for a great audience, and it further showed the political power of both religion and the Roman state, and how both of them intertwined. We saw through numismatics how religions would spread by coinage; well this is how the empire spread through religion.

The “reborn” figure of Jesus is also quite compelling when looked at with relation to Sol Invictus. The sun was rising, as was Christ from hell and onto earth and then heaven. This idea of resurrection was not new; the sun resurrected every morning, every dawn. With Christ you had man; man was resurrected, and man was promised a final redemption, a final resurrection. We can see that the theology of Sol Invictus can parallel Christ’s from different perspectives. That is not to say that Sol was Christ, or even vice versa, but there are so many acute similarities that there should be a witness to those. We take the idea of Christ for granted, and for believers, He was the truth, the light, the way; because of that, early Christian believes called him “Sol Iustitiae”, which relates him to creator of the Sun, the world, and everything in it.

But we must realize that rarely doesn’t something happen that is entirely “unique” within history. Christ and Sol Invictus are not wholly unique from many different perspectives; Aurelian himself thought they had shared a bit in common. Revelation of the historicity of Christology may deepen the faith of some, and it may question the faith of others. However I believe it is integral to know and understand that there was monotheism before Christ (and not just Judaism), and because of that deity, we have many traditions and religious aspects today.

“The celebration of the birth of the sun god, which was accompanied by a profusion of light and torches and the decoration of branches and small trees, had captivated the followers of the cult to such a degree that even after they had been converted to Christianity they continued to celebrate the feast of the birth of the sun god. The Church Fathers of the Fourth Century saw this as a danger, and shifted the celebration of the birth of Christ to that day and informed the Christians that from then on it would be held in honor of the true Sun god, Sol Iustitiae, who had created the world and everything in it. This change must have taken place between 354 and 360 (A.D.)”- p.175

If you want references, I can copy/paste them too.

[05Accent]

whoot Merry Christmas.

[05suby]

oh and if you dont like it ****ing deal with it. people bitch way to much about other peoples religion and political correctness. cool you dont celebrate, thats awesome. celebrate what you want just stop bitching if someone says merry christmas. you never hear about people bitching because someone said happy hanukkah, well maybe radical christians, but they are ****ing crazy anyway.

[Scapegoat]

Originally Posted by ozthunder

Actually, you should read into the politics of them. Sol Invictus was the first monotheistic deity of the Roman rite, and when Constantine transferred, he allowed the transition from one to another. Stole is harsh; evolved is much more historically accurate.

evolved?

They took the local holidays and renamed them for themselves in order to convert more people to the religion. After that the church "evolved" the holidays according to whatever beliefs were dominate at the time.

And then we get to the 20th century where the holidays "evolved" again by commercialism.

[05suby]

i dont care where the origins are from and how it started. i celebrate it end of story. do i celebrate it because of jesus, no. i celebrate it because its a time of year were my family can get together.

[ozthunder]

Why don't you read first? B/c I actually do study religions- in both pagan and Judeo-Christian terms- and stealing is much less appropriate then evolved, b/c it is not historically accurate.

Do some reading first. You're smart, just don't let your feelings get in the way of the facts of the historical situation.