Appendix B: The Historical Roots of
Christmas and Easter
For more information
regarding the pagan roots of Christmas, Easter, and other ecclesiastical
holidays, I refer my readers to the following sources:
Duggan, Joseph P. “Should
Christians Celebrate the Birth of Christ?” Vienna, VA: The Presbyterian
Reformed Magazine 5:3 (1990), 126-130.
Duggan, an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), provides some
information regarding the pagan roots of Christmas.
Grace to You:
http://www.gty.org/IssuesandAnswers/archive/realxmas.htm
This website provides some information regarding the non-pagan roots of St.
Nicholas.
Schneider, Michael and
Kevin Reed. Christmas: A Biblical Critique. Dallas: Presbyterian
Heritage, 1993.
Schneider and Reed discuss the pagan origins of the nativity scene (Yes,
even the nativity scene was adopted from pagan religions. The U.S. postal
stamps bearing Mary and Jesus with a halo around their heads is a concept
borrowed from Babylonian mystery religions.)
Schneider and Reed also
explain the pagan origins of Santa Claus and Christmas trees.
Schwertley, Brian. “The
Regulative Principle of Worship and Christmas.” Lansing, Michigan, 1996.
www.reformed.com/pub/xmas.htm
Brian Schwertley also provides a case for the pagan origins and identity of
Santa Claus, also noting the superstitious Roman Catholic attachment to St.
Nicholas.
www.historychannel.com/
The history channel website offers information under “exhibits & holidays.”
This secular source provides an overview of the pagan origins of Christmas and
its observance throughout the centuries.
Various websites are
readily available that include information regarding the pagan year. Such
articles will explain the winter solstice, which has much to do with the origin of Christmas,
and the vernal equinox, which has much to do with the origin of Easter.
There are detailed histories of the pagan roots of many things
associated with the Christmas holiday, including Santa Claus,
evergreen trees, mistletoe, the yule log, the yuletide
or twelve days of Christmas, and elves. They also provide a
detailed history of the pagan roots of many things associated with the Easter
holiday, including the name Easter, the egg-laying rabbit, eggs,
and the date associated with Easter.
The Origins of Christmas
The name Christmas
derives from the words Christ and mass. Schneider notes that
Christmas is the Roman Catholic celebration of a particular mass in honor of
Christ’s birth:
The Mass is the preeminent feature of Christmas celebration. “In the Roman
Catholic Church three masses are usually said to symbolize the birth of Christ
eternally in the bosom of the Father, from the womb of Mary and mystically in
the soul of the faithful.” The concept of the Mass is embedded in the English
term Christmas, its etymology being traced to the Old English words
Christes maesse, meaning “the mass or festival of Christ.”
Christmas refers to the Mass of Christ. It is the most
important holy day in Roman Catholicism.
In Scandinavia, the great feast of Yule with all its various
ceremonies, celebrated the birth of the winter sun-god.
Similarly the Babylonians celebrated the victory of their sun god on December 25th.
Saturnalia, the feast of the birth of Sol, was the Roman copy of this Babylonian
custom.
The Festival of Saturnalia
was one of the most prominent and popular holidays in the Roman year, running
from the 17th to the 24th of December. It was a week-long
festival with torchlight processions, gift-giving and merry-making, culminating
in a winter solstice feast on December 25, called the Birth of the Unconquerable
Sun. The holiday honored the strength of the sun and the fertility it would
soon bring to the earth. The holiday celebrated the victory of Sol Invictus,
or the unconquerable Sun-god, over darkness at the winter solstice, when the sun
is at its lowest point and the days begin to lengthen.
The Christmas holiday, or
“Feast of the Nativity” first began to be observed in the 4th
century, A.D. It arose as an attempt by the Roman Catholic church to
“Christianize” the pagan holidays of the Romans, which resembled the holidays of
other pagan cultures around the world. Duggan notes why and how the Church of
Rome developed the Christmas holiday:
It was one thing for the church, now popular and dominant in Rome, to persuade
the people to give an outward profession to her religion, but to persuade them
to surrender age-old practices was another matter. The most expedient thing to
do was to let the people keep their old pagan festivals while recasting them in
an outwardly Christian form. . . .
The
pagans were accustomed to emphasize the sun’s youth in that it had just
surmounted its shortest day. The Sun-god was likened to a small child. What
could be better than to substitute the Christ child! Sol Invictus was
also regarded in his role as the unconquerable. Christ, too, was all-powerful.
A hymn once sung in the streets to the pagan god was now replaced by a similar
one to Christ. The old pagan celebration was a great time for gift giving. Now
the gifts were given in the name of Christ.
Similarly, a “Grace To You”
position paper, posted on their website, further notes the syncretistic origins
of the Christmas holiday:
The fathers of the church in Rome decided to celebrate Christ’s birth on the
winter solstice. It was their attempt to Christianize the popular pagan
celebrations. But they failed to make the people conform. Instead the heathen
festivities continued, and we are left with a bizarre marriage of pagan and
Christian elements that characterizes our modern celebration of Christmas.
The “Grace To You” article
notes some of the modern Christmas customs, which find their origins in pagan
rites:
One of their most common customs during that festival [of Saturnalia] was giving
gifts to one another.
As far as we know that is where the idea of exchanging presents came from. The
evergreen wreath also derives from the Saturnalia festival, during which homes
were decorated with evergreen boughs. The Druids of England gathered sacred
mistletoe for their ceremonies and decorated their homes with it. It is
believed that the first Christmas tree was instituted by Boniface, an English
missionary to Germany in the eighth century. He supposedly replaced sacrifices
to the god Odin’s sacred oak with a fir tree adorned in tribute to Christ.
Schneider provides yet
another explanation as to the Church’s original rationale for observing the
Christmas holiday:
[Saturnalia] was for centuries an abomination to Christians. The celebration
was an orgy of pagan revelry. But the Church, instead of standing firm against
paganism, began to compromise. It wanted to "help" weak young Christians who
didn't want to give up the fun and merrymaking surrounding the winter solstice.
So the Church said, "Go on with your fun and celebration. Only now we'll call
it a celebration of the birth of the Son of God. Instead of losing people to
paganism, we'll combine the two and gradually even win some of the pagans of our
day to profess Christianity. Let's not force men to choose between the two.”
Therefore, the Roman
Catholic church took a festival commemorating the birth of a sun god and
“Christianized” it, transforming it into a festival to celebrate the birth of
the Son of God.
Samuel Miller, the 19th
century professor of church history at Princeton Seminary, also provides an
explanation regarding the origins of Christmas:
Its real origin was this. Like many other observances, it was borrowed from the
heathen. The well known Pagan festival among the Romans, distinguished by the
title of Saturnalia, because instituted in honour of their fabled deity, Saturn,
was celebrated by them with the greatest splendour, extravagance, and
debauchery. It was, during its continuance, a season of freedom and equality;
the master ceased to rule, and the slave to obey; the former waiting at his own
table upon the latter, and submitting to the suspension of all order, and the
reign of universal frolic. The ceremonial of this festival was opened on the 19th
of December, by lighting a profusion of waxen candles in the temple of Saturn;
and by suspending in their temple, and in all their habitations, boughs of
laurel, and various kinds of evergreen. The Christian Church, seeing the
unhappy moral influence of this festival; perceiving her own members too often
partaking in its licentiousness; and desirous, if possible, of effecting its
abolition, appointed a festival, in honour of her Master’s birth, nearly about
the same time, for the purpose of superseding it. In doing this, the policy was
to retain as many of these habits which had prevailed in the Saturnalia as could
in any way be reconciled with the purity of Christianity. They made their new
festival, therefore, a season of relaxation and mirth, of cheerful visiting, and
mutual presents. They lighted candles in their places of worship, and adorned
them with a profusion of evergreen boughs. Thus did the Romish Church borrow
from the Pagans some of her most prominent observances; and thus have some
observances of this origin been adopted and continued by Protestants.
The Origins of Easter
Princeton Professor Samuel Miller also explains the origins of Easter:
The festival of Easter, no doubt, was introduced in the second century,
in the place of the Passover, and in accommodation to the same Jewish prejudice
which had said, even during the apostolic age, “Except ye be circumcised, after
the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” Hence, it was generally called
pascha, and pasch, in conformity with the name of the Jewish
festival, whose place it took. It seems to have received the title of Easter in
Great Britain, from the circumstance, that, when Christianity was introduced
into that country, a great Pagan festival, celebrated at the same season of the
year, in honour of the Pagan goddess Eostre, yielded its place to the Christian
festival, which received, substantially, the name of the Pagan deity. The title
of Easter, it is believed, is seldom used but by Britons and their descendants.
Schneider notes that even the gift-giving associated with the Christmas
season tends toward licentiousness and poor stewardship:
But isn't the giving of
gifts a lovely way to remember the birth of our Lord? Surely there is
nothing un-Christian about giving to one another. But has any other aspect
of Christmas become more perverted than this? "We spend money we don't
have, to buy gifts they don't need, to impress people we don't like." What
a mockery and a madness the shopping whirl has become. Could anyone
seriously suggest that what goes on in America around December 25th is
honoring to Jesus Christ, the One who lived a life of simplicity, humility
and self-denial, who condemned ostentation and self-indulgence, who taught
us that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he
possesseth" (Luke 12:15)? Yet people who claim to be Christians spend
hundreds and even thousands of dollars on their Christmases, and at the same
time give little for the work of the gospel in our land or in the needy
mission field. Isn't true Christian giving something that should take place
the year round, out of a true heart of love, and not from compulsion and
with an expectation to receive in return? (Schneider, Christmas,
12-13.)
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Bible Ministries. All rights reserved.
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