Is Christmas Pagan?

[Guitar's Cry]

Not sure why so many atheists seem to desperately want Christmas to be Pagan.

It's not. Just get over it. Your anti-Christian apologetic is wrong. It's just more Reformed anti-Catholic propaganda. Why is this so unacceptable? And if you love Paganism so much, just become a Pagan.

If Christians don't like critical commentary on their traditions, they can stop the "War on Christmas/Keep Christ in Christmas" rhetoric and let people enjoy the holiday traditions that aren't explicitly Christian.

 

[Altfish]

No they aren't. They are all from secular, peer-reviewed journals.

You have no rational arguments to support your position, you just made that up so you can cling to your emotionally satisfying myths.

It's the Secular Humanist M.O. though, so no point in expecting any different when it comes to the history of religion

I couldn't access the journals apart from the extract/summary.but one you linked to a site with the christian fish on - I'm sorry but that is not a secular site.
To be honest, I don't give a hoot how Xmas on 25/12 started, it is not important.
I based my comment on this wiki page, which gives both alternative and even suggests the date was decided as early as the 3rd Century.

It still remains that Pagans (and others) had festivals in December which no longer occur and have been superseded by Xmas.

btw Will you please stop saying things like "You have no rational arguments to support your position, you just made that up so you can cling to your emotionally satisfying myths" - you have no basis for claiming such.

 

[Rival]

If Christians don't like critical commentary on their traditions, they can stop the "War on Christmas/Keep Christ in Christmas" rhetoric and let people enjoy the holiday traditions that aren't explicitly Christian.

I've not heard such a thing over here. Most Christians I know accept that their religion was influenced by outside sources, but Christmas is at its heart Christian. I'm not sure why so many folks have a hard on for denying this.

 

[Augustus]

"Perhaps that's why pagan traditions remained even as Christianity took hold. The Christmas tree is a 17th-century German invention, University of Bristol's Hutton told LiveScience, but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said."

Ronald Hutton, a historian at Bristol University

So the most "pagan" things about Christmas are:

1. The 19th C "flying Santa" invented in America in the poem "The night before Christmas" may indirectly have origins in pre-Christian folk tales via the Romantic tradition (Saint Nicholas was actually a gift giver in Christian hagiography, this originates from him paying the dowry to stop some women being sold into prostitution. He became popular in the West as a legacy of the crusades. It's quite an interesting story)

2. Using seasonal flora to decorate is "pagan"

It's not exactly overwhelming is it...

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So the most "pagan" things about Christmas are:

1. The 19th C "flying Santa" invented in America in the poem "The night before Christmas" may indirectly have origins in pre-Christian folk tales via the Romantic tradition (Saint Nicholas was actually a gift giver in Christian hagiography, this originates from him paying the dowry to stop some women being sold into prostitution. He became popular in the West as a legacy of the crusades. It's quite an interesting story)

2. Using seasonal flora to decorate is "pagan"

It's not exactly overwhelming is it...

Well, the Scandinavian nisse might also be pagan. But only might be.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I've not heard such a thing over here. Most Christians I know accept that their religion was influenced by outside sources, but Christmas is at its heart Christian. I'm not sure why so many folks have a hard on for denying this.

I think because not everyone is Christian but so many Christmas activities are fun and beautiful, and celebrating in the heart of winter or the end of the growing season is important to humanity. Where Christmas traditions are not explicitly Christian, they are secularized and become part of the modern culture and no longer just Christian. The pushback (whether you see it or not) from modern Christians with this prompts critical analysis of the traditions.

Keep Christ in Christmas - Family Programs

Who Started The "War On Christmas"?

 

[Rival]

I think because not everyone is Christian but so many Christmas activities are fun and beautiful, and celebrating in the heart of winter or the end of the growing season is important to humanity. Where Christmas traditions are not explicitly Christian, they are secularized and become part of the modern culture and no longer just Christian. The pushback (whether you see it or not) from modern Christians with this prompts critical analysis of the traditions.

Keep Christ in Christmas - Family Programs

Who Started The "War On Christmas"?

But none of this makes them Pagan

 

[Guitar's Cry]

So the most "pagan" things about Christmas are:

1. The 19th C "flying Santa" invented in America in the poem "The night before Christmas" may indirectly have origins in pre-Christian folk tales via the Romantic tradition (Saint Nicholas was actually a gift giver in Christian hagiography, this originates from him paying the dowry to stop some women being sold into prostitution. He became popular in the West as a legacy of the crusades. It's quite an interesting story)

2. Using seasonal flora to decorate is "pagan"

It's not exactly overwhelming is it...

I mean, the arguments against it are:

1. December 25th was chosen due to a belief that people died when they were conceived and people really wanted Spring to be Christ's conception date because it was a rebirth of nature.

2. Martin Luther really liked how the moon looked through evergreen trees and decided that since they were triangular, he could convince people it was a good Christian thing to do.

Overwhelming.

Of course, that is snarkily simplistic to match the quoted post.

 

[1213]

Santa Clause Christmas trees elves etc..................................is it Pagan?

Santa Claus = Saint Nicholas, not pagan.

Christmas = Christ's service, not pagan.

Trees = God's creations, not pagan.

Elves = Don't really know what they are, may pagan thing. I don't think they are necessary and I don't think they belong to Christ's mass.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

But none of this makes them Pagan

No, but it explains why people get "hard ons denying that Christmas is at heart Christian."

What makes elements of Christmas pagan is:

1. The modern Christmas season is a nearly month long (and this year, two months, it seems!) celebration centered on, but not contained to, the 25th. This is by no means disimiliar to Yule, the celebration of which lasted from November to January.

2. The Christmas tree was conceived in Germany by various sources, partially based on the myth of Saint Boniface chopping down a sacred Oak (of, guess who? Pagans!) and having a conifer grow in its place. Martin Luther justified Christmas trees due to their triangular shape corresponding to the Trinity, though bringing in evergreens to the home was a pre-Christian custom.

3. Santa Claus is an amalgam of things: Saint Nicholas (both in name and gift-giving), the Scandinavian Nisse (who also gave gifts), the god Odin (who flew through the air during Yule and punished bad folks), and in America, Thomas Nast (who also gave Democrats and Republicans their animals!).

4. Gift-giving is a cross cultural tradition not relegated to Christianity.

5. Feasting, drinking, and revelry (including telling ghost stories) are by no means Christian, though they became part of Christian celebrations. They are main features of agricultural winter celebrations.

 

[Augustus]

I couldn't access the journals apart from the extract/summary.but one you linked to a site with the christian fish on - I'm sorry but that is not a secular site.

Which site?

They are all from peer-reviewed journals accessed via scholarly databases, not website articles.

btw Will you please stop saying things like "You have no rational arguments to support your position, you just made that up so you can cling to your emotionally satisfying myths" - you have no basis for claiming such.

You did dismiss out of hand multiple peer-reviewed articles you haven't read as they were "religiously biased".

Should I view that as a rational argument?

It still remains that Pagans (and others) had festivals in December which no longer occur and have been superseded by Xmas.

Why would that mean that Christmas was deliberately in December to usurp these?

 

[clara17]

Santa Clause Christmas trees elves etc..................................is it Pagan?

Christmas is honoring, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, so it is not pagan.
but religion is pagan, churches are pagan, most customs, traditions, etc are all modern versions of ancient pagan practices.

God does not look at a person who is doing something intending to honor him,
and judge them as doing the opposite, just because others who did the same thing in the past did it to honor false gods.
"God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Sam 16:7

 

[Rival]

churches are pagan

Huh?

 

[Augustus]

1. December 25th was chosen due to a belief that people died when they were conceived and people really wanted Spring to be Christ's conception date because it was a rebirth of nature.

Fortunately they wrote about such things, so we know they did think like that whether it makes sense to us or not.

That 2nd C folk in the Middle East and north Africa thought differently to modern Westerners isn't all that surprising.

2. Martin Luther really liked how the moon looked through evergreen trees and decided that since they were triangular, he could convince people it was a good Christian thing to do.

Traditions that developed in the Germany of the early modern period are unlikely to be "pagan" as there weren't really any pagans.

That it reflects some ancient tradition that survived unbroken for 2000 years is a nice idea, but very improbable.

Finding symbolism and beauty in nature is simply a universally human phenomenon. That people in the same place independently found different symbolisms in the limited number of things in their own environment is what you would expect.

You define things that are universally human as "pagan", but I can't say I agree with that view.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Fortunately they wrote about such things, so we know they did think like that whether it makes sense to us or not.

I am fine with their different way of thinking, but it doesn't really solve the problem of Christmas being partly composed of pagan elements. It just means that the date lines up with what theologians were theologizing about back then. It wasn't the only date being considered. And that it lines up with the Winter Solstice is suggestive that having a Christian festival during this time was important.

Traditions that developed in the Germany of the early modern period are unlikely to be "pagan" as there weren't really any pagans.

I am quite sure they willingly gave up all their pagan customs completely in those centuries after Charlemagne politely asked them to. Likely, the traditions developing in Germany didn't arise from nowhere and claiming they were simply new Christian traditions without any folk influence is totes sus. "Hanging of the Greens" is a good example. Consider also that one of the reasons given for conifers being the chosen tree is the story of Saint Boniface chopping down a sacred Oak to have a conifer grow in its place.

That it reflects some ancient tradition that survived unbroken for 2000 years is a nice idea, but very improbable.

Kind of like Christianity?

Traditions do change, but that doesn't mean some don't survive, especially when the tradition is tied to some psychological need or is an element of the environment it grew it.

Finding symbolism and beauty in nature is simply a universally human phenomenon. That people in the same place independently found different symbolisms in the limited number of things in their own environment is what you would expect.

Indeed! Such as growing green things in winter. But this does show a connection to original pagan traditions. In other words:

1. Christmas is the most popular winter festival of the Western world.
2. Certain elements such as conifers, gift-giving, supernatural beings that ride the sky judging folks (and doing good deeds or giving gifts) or visiting your home and requiring offerings have very separate origins from Christian mythology (even if there are traditions that developed in Christian celebrations) and reflect the mythology of other cultures.
3. Other cultures had winter festivals that coincided with Christmas.

Therefore, some of the trappings of Christmas can be seen as having pagan origin, regardless of whether it was convergent evolution.

You define things that are universally human as "pagan", but I can't say I agree with that view.

That's okay. How do you define "pagan"?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Is there any evidence for this?

We can probably date 25 Dec as Christmas back to the 3rd C, but AFAIK no evidence of celebrations this early. Even the dating requires a degree of inference from sources rather than being directly stated.

I compiled some of the more recent scholarship on the issue in this thread: Christmas 25 Dec: Scholarly views

Always interested in additional sources though.

It's getting harder and harder to find the websites that document that there were in the third century competing dates for the Feast of the Nativity, and that December 25 was one of these dates, meaning that it was celebrated on that date by some of the churches but not all. Increasingly, websites are focusing in more on the fact that it was in the fourth century that the church in the west decided as a whole to celebrate it on December 25, so that everyone would be on the same page. An early second century date would of course put a December 25 Christmas decades before the formation of the holiday of Sol Invictus. Here's what I've been able to find for you.

It was Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 CE) that spoke of Christmas being on December 25. "Hippolytus, a younger contemporary of Clement, does state that the Nativity had occurred on December 25 (Commentary on Daniel, IV.23.3). And, although the statement may be a later interpolation, he reiterated several decades later (in AD 235) that Jesus was born nine months after the anniversary of the creation of the world, which Hippolytus believed to have been on March 25 (Chronicon, 686ff). The Nativity thus would be on December 25." Sol Invictus and Christmas

Here is another good reference: "Third century theologians reckoned that the world was created on the spring equinox, and four days later, on March 25th, light was created. Because Jesus coming signaled a new beginning, or new creation, it made sense to assume that Jesus conception would have also been on March 25th. This would place the birth date of Jesus nine months later, in December." Is December 25 the Actual Birth date of Jesus? - Jerry Robinson Ministries

Here is another one. "But the December 25th date could have come from Roman Catholic historian, Sextus Julius Africanus. In AD 221, he dated Jesus’s conception to March 25—nine months before December 25." Is December 25 the Actual Birth date of Jesus? - Jerry Robinson Ministries

"Was there any theological reasons for choosing December 25th as the birth date of Jesus? Third century theologians reckoned that the world was created on the spring equinox, and four days later, on March 25th, light was created. Because Jesus coming signaled a new beginning, or new creation, it made sense to assume that Jesus conception would have also been on March 25th. This would place the birth date of Jesus nine months later, in December." Is December 25 the Actual Birth date of Jesus? - Jerry Robinson Ministries

Crosswalk sums up the development of Christmas as follows: "It was not until the third century that various pockets of Christians began to show interest in the date of Christ’s birth, and it would take another century for the Church to begin celebrating it with some uniformity." The "pockets" refer to the variety of dates used in the third century, December 25 among them. "Uniformity" refers to what I was saying about the western church settling on Dec 25 for all the churches. Was Jesus Really Born on December 25th?

This website has a section on the second century, and says, "Interestingly, the Church later recognized March 25th [ALSO used by the chruch at that time as 1. they day for the creation of the world and 2. the day of Jesus resurrected -- Easter] as the Annunciation (the date that Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce the birth of Christ and also believed to be the moment of conception (notice the pro-life implications) and December 25th as the birthday of Christ." It also says, "Most Christians assume that the Annunciation was determined by taking the date of Christmas and counting back nine months. On the contrary, it was probably the reverse." IOW, the feast day that honored the conception of Jesus came first, followed by establishing December 25 as the feast day of the Nativity as being nine months later -- the time of a pregnancy.

I'm sure if I spent a couple of hours perusing the internet, I could find more, and better, sites to document this. It's not worth that sort of effort to me. I hope this will be good enough.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No they don't predate saturnalia, saturnalia began to be celebrated some 300 to 400 years before Christmas was even thought of. Saturnalia began to be celebrated around 133bc, Christmas not until the 3rf century ad

I misspoke. I meant Sol Invictus.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No substance?! Pagan winter celebrations were about enjoying the harvests of the old year while they remained and finding hope in the return of the sun for a new birth in the spring while in the safety and comfort of your community.

That's right. The substance of the pagan holy days in December was the return of the Sun. Christmas has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the return of the sun. It is utterly divorced in content from Winter Solstice.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

That's right. The substance of the pagan holy days in December was the return of the Sun. Christmas has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the return of the sun. It is utterly divorced in content from Winter Solstice.

I disagree, at least in the Northern hemisphere. Even if we don't pay lip service to be grateful for the return of brighter days, I think we are. Winter is tough, and we really begin celebrating well in advance of December 25th as the last vestiges of summer and fall give way to bleak cold and snow.

 

[Sheldon]

That's right. The substance of the pagan holy days in December was the return of the Sun. Christmas has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the return of the sun. It is utterly divorced in content from Winter Solstice.

You mean other than being held on the same dates, and using similar iconography, and symbolism? Or the fact those pagan festivals were widespread for centuries before those same cultures adopted monotheistic Christianity?