Christ = Jesus Christ, king of Jews.
Mass = the celebration of the Eucharist.
Nothing pagan in that.
As i said, the name is Christian, the festival is borrowed from various pagan mid winter festivals
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Is Christmas Pagan?
- Thread starter Riders
- Start date
As i said, the name is Christian, the festival is borrowed from various pagan mid winter festivals
Nah, they are what christianity has added to the sacred origins of mid winter festivals
stvdv
Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
Is Christmas Pagan?
And I like Christmas Carols way better than the Corona Carols they brainwash us with nowadays.
I know that Christmas is about Jesus. I need not know more than that.
And I like Christmas Carols way better than the Corona Carols they brainwash us with nowadays.
I suspect this pagan connection maybe more presumed than actual.
The earliest legend of the origin of a fir tree becoming a Christian symbol dates back to 723 AD, involving Saint Boniface as he was evangelizing Germany.[138] It is said that at a pagan gathering in Geismar where a group of people dancing under a decorated oak tree were about to sacrifice a baby in the name of Thor, Saint Boniface took an axe and called on the name of Jesus.[138] In one swipe, he managed to take down the entire oak tree, to the crowd's astonishment.[138] Behind the fallen tree was a baby fir tree.[138] Boniface said, "let this tree be the symbol of the true God, its leaves are ever green and will not die." The tree's needles pointed to heaven and it was shaped triangularly to represent the Holy Trinity.[138]
The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[139][140] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[6][141] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[7][142] Professor David Albert Jones of the University of Oxford writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[8]
Christmas tree - Wikipedia
People always ask if Christmas is pagan like that's a bad thing. Yeah, it's pagan, so what? Christianity is pagan. 
Christmas' religious origins are harmless, it seems to me. The consumerism it has come to represent is much more concerning.
Christmas' religious origins are harmless, it seems to me. The consumerism it has come to represent is much more concerning.
74x12
Well-Known Member
Dec 25th being the day when the day begins to be longer after becoming shorter all winter. This to sun worshipers signified the moment when the sun god came back to life each year. So for them the sun dies that night(shortest day in the year) so that morning is especially significant because that's when the days begin to grow longer. This was also why Ezekiel saw the women weeping for "Tammuz" in the temple. (Ezekiel 8:14) Tammuz was a god said to die each year. So, the pagan women would weep each year when he dies and then there would be celebration when he comes back to life the next day. So the day was very significant to various pagan beliefs.
You can even see how some ignorant people might have been worried the days would continue to become shorter and shorter. So they were happy when the days began to grow longer each year.
However, I can see how Christians could point to this also a sign of birth of Jesus the "Son" of God and the light of the world being born into the world. So it's solar significance wasn't lost on pagans and can reasonably be adapted by Christians for their own beliefs as well. I don't really care one way or the other because it's just another day. I don't see that Christ was actually born on Dec 25th. I haven't celebrated Christmas for years but I don't blame people who do.
Christmas is as Christian as it gets! There may be some pagan elements in it's roots, but nothing exists in a total vacuum.
I just hope people have a happy holiday season!
I just hope people have a happy holiday season!
Christmas ended up based on the much more ancient and widely found tradition of a midwinter celebration. Christmas was enthusiastically pagan long before it was Christian.
The birthday of Jesus was not apparently a matter of concern to the early church. We find Clement of Alexandria suggesting May 20 in the 3rd century, and we find the observance of Dec 25 in Rome 336 CE, which is the same date as the pre-existing midwinter festival of Sol Invictus (the 'Unconquered Sun'). In parts of the Eastern church the Epiphany, the Baptism and the birthday of Jesus all came to center on Jan 6 (which I think is still observed in some places).
But that's all invention. If there was an historical Jesus, his birthday is one more thing we don't know about him.
Meanwhile, let the Saturnalia roll!
Augustus
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Your understanding is very common, it's not right though (well at least it's not supported by any substantial evidence)
[Theories on the pagan origins of xmas are] essentially a product of the sixteenth-century Reformation, which inspired some Protestant, and in particular Calvinist, scholars to attack the historical basis of feasts like Christmas in new and pathbreaking ways. The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research - C. P. E. Nothaft
The dating of Christmas to 25 Dec pretty clearly predates the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, and emerges in a time when Christians were being persecuted for their refusal to adopt pagan practices. The "stole it from the pagans as a marketing stunt" theory assumes a later origin in a Christian Empire.
What is certain is that Early Christians liked to do complex calendrical computations, as we have evidence which shows this.
We know from late 2nd C sources such as Clement of Alexandria that Christians were interested in identifying Jesus’ birthday. At this stage numerous dates were proposed, none of which were the 25th Dec. They weren’t just proposing random dates though, but calculating using different theological methodologies.
The disagreement is not surprising as Orthodoxy only develops over time, and prior to this there is often some degree of variance and competition. There is no Biblical dating for Christmas after all.
If we know people were trying out different ways to calculate the date in the 2nd C though, it wouldn’t be surprising if sooner or later one of these methods ‘won’ and gained pre-eminence, this happens in all religions with an orthodoxy.
Thanks to the paschal table of Hippolytus, we can be sure that 25 March played an important role in Christian chronology as the date of the crucifixion since at least the early third century, thus laying the ground for an influential calendrical tradition in the Western church...
Because our calculations above show that Hippolytus believed that the very first Passover occurred on March 29, Thursday, the 5th day of the week, he must have therefore marked Sunday, March 25 as the first day of creation. This agrees exactly with what the anonymous computist said about his predecessors. Therefore, Chronicon §686-688 appears to claim that Jesus was born 5502 years and 9 months from this point, which corresponds with December 25…
TC Schmidt - Calculating December 25 as the Birth of Jesus in Hippolytus’ Canon and Chronicon
Since it was established early on that Jesus died on 25 March, and since it was also assumed, based on Luke’s annunciation narrative, that he was born in winter, early Christians would have been tempted to re-interpret 25 March as the day of conception, whereby they could then arrive at 25 December as the date of the nativity. The attractiveness of 25 March and 25 December – the vernal equinox and the winter solstice – as cardinal points in the life of the Savior was naturally further underscored by a widespread solar symbolism, which viewed Christ as the “sun of righteousness” and is clearly present in chronological texts such as De pascha computus and the aforementioned On the solstices. CP Nothaft - Early Christian Chronology and the Origins of the Christmas
Overall, there is currently no way of definitively knowing the origins of the Christmas date as the Calculation Theory does rely on some degree of inference from 3rd/4th C evidence rather than being directly attested to. Alternative theories seem to have much greater problems though. Firstly a paucity of evidence in their favour, yet substantial evidence against. Secondly, that early Christians were persecuted for their refusal to adopt pagan customs and were not united under a common leadership capable of enforcing such a move without dissent, making the lack of apparent resistance to overt ‘paganisation’ notable. The ‘pagan’ links were not made until many centuries later, and didn’t become commonplace until the era of Protestant anti-Catholic polemic.
Whether one finds the Calculation Theory persuasive or not, the commonly expressed (near) certainty that 25 Dec is a deliberate appropriation of a pagan feast is not something that is justified by any evidence.
Augustus
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1. Sol Invictus, as some new henotheistic god, didn’t actually exist. It’s just plain old Sol/Helios from before. Invictus is just an epithet attached, like adding Christ to Jesus and Sol was far from the only god to have this epithet attached to their name.
2. The idea that there was a major tradition for Sol on 25 Dec to be ‘stolen’ is highly dubious as there is no real evidence for it. It likely post-dates Christmas and may even be a response to Christmas initiated by Julian the Apostate.
3. Counterintuitively, celebrations for the ‘Unconquered Sun’ were not traditionally tied to solar events with festivities for Sol recorded on multiple dates in August and early December recorded so it is not correct to assume it must have been centred on the solstice.
We have no firm evidence for a festival for Sol on December 25th until Julian wrote his hymn to Helios in December of 362. The entry in the calendar of 354 is probably for Sol, although only the epithet invictus is used (above, n. 4), and probably dates to 354, although it was possibly added later. Circumstantial evidence suggests that a festival of Sol on the winter solstice was not yet included in such calendars in the late 320s. As the Christian celebration of Christmas on December 25th can be attested in Rome by AD 336, at which point it may already have been well-established and the celebration of Sol on that day cannot be attested before AD 354/362 and had not yet entered the calendar in the late 320s, it is impossible to postulate that Christmas arose in reaction to some solar festival. There is quite simply not one iota of explicit evidence for a major festival of Sol on December 25th prior to the establishment of Christmas, nor is there any circumstantial evidence that there was likely to have been one. There is only Julian’s overly emphatic insistence that the celebration was as old as Numa… which is a fabrication and his convoluted explanation for the date is impossible.
S Hijmans - Usener’s Christmas: A contribution to the modern construct of late antique solar syncretism
According to Wikipedia (with my emphases),
Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. On 25 December AD 274, the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official religion alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree about whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol, a revival of the cult of Elagabalus, or completely new. The god was favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until the last third-part of the reign of Constantine I. The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387, and there were enough devotees in the fifth century that the Christian theologian Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.
See above. And according to my Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, entry 'Christmas', Dec 25 "was probably chosen to oppose the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti".
The two citations above would suggest (but not specify) that at least since Aurelian, Dec 25 was the special time. The first also doesn't rule out celebrations of the sun at other times, though Dec 25 may have been the special day. I note your:
Circumstantial evidence suggests that a festival of Sol on the winter solstice was not yet included in such calendars in the late 320s.
but that wouldn't make the ODCC reference wrong.
Augustus
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Which is why it's best to look at the evidence yourself rather than trust wikipedia..
From the same author who Wiki cites above in one of your bolded points:
That this all-important imperial deity was a major factor in the adoption of the winter solstice for the birthday of Christ is accepted as a given.15 And yet the evidence for all this is surprisingly, even disconcertingly, meager. This is true not only of the relationship between a solar festival on December 25th and Christmas but also concerning Sol himself, his cult, and his religious role in late antiquity.
That a specific cult or festival of Sol played the role in the establishment of Christmas on December 25 that Usener postulates for it is ultimately based on three pieces of evidence. The first is the date itself, December 25th and evidence that there was a pagan solar festival on that day. The second is a very late and polemically anti-catholic gloss on the 12th century Syriac scholar Bar Salibi.16 The third is an out-of-context passage from an anonymous homily of unknown date, but believed to be of the early or mid fourth century A.D. Usener and others also adduce many examples of solar imagery linked to Christ - as the true light, the sun come down to earth, the sun of justice, the true sun, etc. - but none of these offer any direct evidence of an important festival for Sol on December 25th giving rise to the establishment of Christmas.
If you'd like to see the evidence in more detail: Usener's Christmas: A Contribution to the Modern Construct of Late Antique Solar Syncretism, in: M. Espagne & P. Rabault-Feuerhahn (edd.), Hermann Usener und die Metamorphosen der Philologie. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2011. 139-152
The source above shows the lack of evidence for this position.
As the source above explains, there is no real evidence for this position.
Further:
A closer look at the four-day ludi for Sol entered in the Calendar of 354 for October 19th - 22nd provides us with additional evidence that these must be the games instituted by Aurelian [As opposed to the 25 Dec games]...
To summarize, the Calendar of 354 mentions the following three festivals of Sol:
- - August 28: Sol and Luna; 24 chariot races;
- - October 19-22: Ludi Solis, 36 chariot races;
- - December 25: Natalis Invicti, 30 chariot races.
The standard norm for Roman festivals at this time was 24 chariot races. Of the 63 race-days listed in the Calendar of 354, 59 had 24 races, the only exceptions being February 25th and June 1st, when only 12 races were held, December 25th with 30 races, and October 22nd with 36 races.34 The 36 chariot races of October 22 thus represent the highest number of the year, which further suggests that this was not an annual, but a rarer, quadrennial celebration.35
This means that in the early fourth century, when Christmas was established by the church on December 25th, anyone surveying the calendar of festivities in honour of Sol would identify the period from October 19th to October 22nd as far more important than December 25th, and the festival of August 28th as far older.36 If the aim was to “neutralize” the cult of Sol by “taking over” its major festival, December 25th seems the least likely choice. It is true, of course, that December 25th, the natalis invicti, was the traditional date for the winter solstice and as such the most logical of the three dates to serve as birthday of Christ, if that was the way the “selection process” went. But this leads us to a different consideration. As we have seen, none of the traditional religious feast days for Sol were connected in any way with a specific astronomical date, such as one of the solstices or equinoxes.
What evidence do you believe best support this case that teh 25 Dec was the major celebration since the time of Aurelian?
The only one of those to refer to Sol Invictus is Dec 25
It doesn't mention Invictus, though. So the argument is available that Invictus is the midwinter sun.
Augustus
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That doesn't even mention Sol, just 'birth of the unconquered'. Invictus was an epithet applied to many gods.
The source also postdates the likely dating of Christmas on the 25th.
Points like this are addressed in the attached article above.
An argument not yet based on any evidence, that still assumes they stole the minor Sol festival, that still assumes people willing to die to avoid pagan practices also gladly appropriated them at the same time, etc.
Why not? Constantine had been on the Imperial throne since 306 and the atmosphere for Christians grew much lighter in his time.
Later the RCC certainly appropriated local festivals and customs into its missionary work.
Augustus
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Because there is evidence 25 Dec predates Constantine.
There was a North African sect called the Donatists who split form the Church in 312 and seem to have their origins a decade or so earlier during the (pre-Constantine) Diocletian persecutions (perhaps not coincidentally given their austere approach to religion, there was a Muslim Kharijite revolt against the Umayyads in the same Berber region that the Donatists developed in many years later).
During the persecutions, the Romans had demanded Christians hand over their scriptures. Some groups caved in to the pressure, the Donatists, who were a very strict sect, did not.
They even believed a priest who had accepted the demands of the authorities to hand over their scriptures was no longer fit to deliver holy sacraments as they held a belief that a priest must be free of sin.
There is also evidence that they refused to adopt innovations, as we have records from Augustine showing they refused to adopt the celebration of Epiphany on 6 Jan in line with the rest of the Church. That their refusal to celebrate Epiphany was noted, yet not their refusal to adopt Christmas strongly suggests that they did celebrate Christmas on the 25th Dec.
This is important for 2 reasons:
1. It points towards a North African tradition going back to at least the start of the 4th C
2. Given the nature of their sect and their hardline attitudes, it makes it somewhat unlikely that they would accept a date that was clearly an attempt to appropriate a Pagan holiday as some kind of marketing ploy. This was still a time when people were being killed for refusing to adopt pagan customs after all. This makes it more likely that there was a Christian reason to favour the 25th.
I've already posted evidence that Christians were calculating Christmas dates long before this too.
Many centuries later, yes.
The whole "stole it from the pagans" idea seems mostly to be based on confirmation bias, late sources and anti-Catholic polemics 1000+ years later.
What do you think is the most persuasive evidence in favour of "stole it from the pagans"?
Again, I believe that the answer is simple. Jesus was Jewish and the Jews did not celebrate birthdays.....anyone's birthday. That was a pagan custom and one that the Jews were commanded not to adopt because of its spiritistic roots and customs. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)
Birthdates were used to cast horoscopes in astrology (a forbidden practice) and the "birthday" cake was topped with lighted tapers to ward off evil spirits as were the "wishes" for the birthday child. All customs in birthday celebrations are of pagan origin just like Christmas is. Christians are not to mix true worship with paganism....because it was spiritually "unclean" in God's eyes.
Jesus would not have celebrated his own birthday and he would not approve of those who use a pagan celebration to honor his birth.....the only birthdays recorded in scripture were pagans who used the occasion to end someone's life. Pharaoh had his bakers head removed and Herod's birthday was the catalyst for the murder of John the Baptist.
Historian William S. Walsh quoted from early Christian writings on the subject, saying: “Thus Origen, in a homily on Leviticus xii 2, assures his hearers that ‘none of the saints can be found who ever held a feast or a banquet upon his birthday, or rejoiced on the day when his son or his daughter was born. But sinners rejoice and make merry on such days.”’
There are no birthdates recorded in scripture.....
M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, adding: “In fact, the later Jews at least regarded birthday celebrations as parts of idolatrous worship.”
Spiritism puts one in contact with the demons.
“The Greeks believed that everyone had a protective spirit or daemon who attended his birth and watched over him in life. This spirit had a mystic relation with the god on whose birthday the individual was born. The Romans also subscribed to this idea. They called the spirit the genius. This notion was carried down in human belief and is reflected in the guardian angel, the fairy godmother and the patron saint.” (The Lore of Birthdays, Ralph and Adelin Linton)
Since all the first Christians were Jews, what does that suggest?
The apostle Paul wrote....
"14 Do not be mismatched with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? 15 Or what harmony does Christ have with Belial, or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement does the temple of God have with idols?" (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
Paul then went on to quote from the Hebrew scriptures....
"For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I will dwell among them and walk among them;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
17 Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.
“And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
18 And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)
The one thing God did not tolerate among his people was the adoption of pagan beliefs and customs....he punished his people most severely for doing that....he hasn't changed his mind about what he abhors. (Psalm 97:10)
You cannot "Christianize" paganism....you only end up "paganizing" the Christianity.
Birthdates were used to cast horoscopes in astrology (a forbidden practice) and the "birthday" cake was topped with lighted tapers to ward off evil spirits as were the "wishes" for the birthday child. All customs in birthday celebrations are of pagan origin just like Christmas is. Christians are not to mix true worship with paganism....because it was spiritually "unclean" in God's eyes.
Jesus would not have celebrated his own birthday and he would not approve of those who use a pagan celebration to honor his birth.....the only birthdays recorded in scripture were pagans who used the occasion to end someone's life. Pharaoh had his bakers head removed and Herod's birthday was the catalyst for the murder of John the Baptist.
Historian William S. Walsh quoted from early Christian writings on the subject, saying: “Thus Origen, in a homily on Leviticus xii 2, assures his hearers that ‘none of the saints can be found who ever held a feast or a banquet upon his birthday, or rejoiced on the day when his son or his daughter was born. But sinners rejoice and make merry on such days.”’
There are no birthdates recorded in scripture.....
M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, adding: “In fact, the later Jews at least regarded birthday celebrations as parts of idolatrous worship.”
Spiritism puts one in contact with the demons.
“The Greeks believed that everyone had a protective spirit or daemon who attended his birth and watched over him in life. This spirit had a mystic relation with the god on whose birthday the individual was born. The Romans also subscribed to this idea. They called the spirit the genius. This notion was carried down in human belief and is reflected in the guardian angel, the fairy godmother and the patron saint.” (The Lore of Birthdays, Ralph and Adelin Linton)
Since all the first Christians were Jews, what does that suggest?
The apostle Paul wrote....
"14 Do not be mismatched with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? 15 Or what harmony does Christ have with Belial, or what does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement does the temple of God have with idols?" (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
Paul then went on to quote from the Hebrew scriptures....
"For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I will dwell among them and walk among them;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
17 Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.
“And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
18 And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)
The one thing God did not tolerate among his people was the adoption of pagan beliefs and customs....he punished his people most severely for doing that....he hasn't changed his mind about what he abhors. (Psalm 97:10)
You cannot "Christianize" paganism....you only end up "paganizing" the Christianity.
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I can confirm that. Plus, it saves us a ton of money.
Funny though, I'm encountering more people who stopped celebrating Xmas, not because of it's pagan roots, but because they're fed up with the entire circus of shopping and hypocrisy around it.