It's Coming On Christmas...

I haven't done this in about three years, mostly because the subject of Christmas v. "pagan rituals" has faded in interest.  It'll come back again someday, fueled by the Puritanism in the roots of American culture, and passed off (again) as some species of a product of the Enligthenment, wherein we learned not to believe all the folklore that was recovered and resurrected by the Romantics, successors to the Enlightenment (and ultimately far more successful, despite literary theories that the Romantics only lasted for 20 years or so).  Anyway, what follows is the last version of what I had to say, altered slightly to come up to the present and what I've learned in three years (not much, actually).  So, as I said three years ago:  here I go again, having to rejoice by constructing something upon which to rejoice.

I'll see if I can do this with selected quotes, because my perspectives/opinions/approaches changed over the years; which only underlines my point that NO ONE knows where most of our Christmas traditions came from, or why December 25th was picked in Rome as the day to celebrate (and to this good day, most of the "knowledge" that Christmas is "tied to pagan celebrations" comes not from history, but from the Puritans.  Truly.)  So here we go.

Mentions of Christmas celebrations don't begin to appear in the literature until about the 12th century.  There were infancy narratives, to be sure, in the 1st (Luke, Matthew) and 2nd centuries (Infancy Gospel of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas), but nothing else notable shows up until the high Middle Ages.  This is not to say a Christ Mass was not observed for the birth of Christ.  But that didn't start up until the 4th century. (I've been pretty damned exhaustive ("and exhausting!") about this here, if you care to go deeper.) I said I would quote myself:  let me do that.

This book does come down on the side of "Sol Invictus" (actually Natali Invictus) as the date for the Christ mass celebration because it was an important Roman holiday; it says so in passing (the anthology is not a work of scholarship).  To this I would say "Yes, but...." and note two things:  one, the Christ Mass was celebrated in Rome sometime before 354 C.E., which places it after the death of Constantine (and so Rome was officially Christian by then), and: "But even should a deliberate and legitimate "baptism" of a pagan feast be seen here no more than the transference of the date need be supposed."  Such things were quite common throughout Christian history; it wasn't until the Puritans that anyone complained so strongly about it, and their arguments really weren't all that sound.  Here, again, the right view of history is needed.

The church in Rome got along fine without the observance of the birth of Christ in a special mass for several centuries.  The first observance of such a mass was in Alexandria (200 C.E.), which is logical because the Egyptians observed the birthdays of their Pharaohs, who were regarded as gods.  Date of birth would be of obvious significance, and it's no surprise the church in Egypt would decide a special celebration of the Birth of the Christ was in order.  But already we're off track if we think that "special celebration" involved anything like the celebration we have today.  This was a celebration by the church, and that meant a special Mass.  Easter was still the dominant day on the Church calendar (as it remains in the Eastern church); the mass for the Nativity was just an addition to the liturgical calendar.

And it remained such for centuries.  It is only in the medieval church that we begin to get celebrations like the Feast of Fools in December, and more elaborate celebrations among the kings as the period moves on.

That point is worth emphasizing.  The Christ Mass was going on for centuries before it became as important as Easter, and then finally eclipsed Easter in importance (arguably only in the last few centuries; and when we're counting time in millenia....).  So if Christmas took over a pagan holiday, but wasn't that important until at least medieval times, did a tree fall in the forest but nobody was there to hear it? Or, to put it a little more sharply, from what I said earlier than that:

First, let's note there's a disagreement over whether Christmas was set atop "Sol Invictii" (per a comment at Salon) or the Saturnalia.  The two become interchangeable in these arguments, which is tedious but typical.  So:

Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday; Arnobius (VII, 32 in P.L., V, 1264) can still ridicule the "birthdays" of the gods.

The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I.21) says that certain Egyptian theologians "over curiously" assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ's birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. [Ideler (Chron., II, 397, n.) thought they did this believing that the ninth month, in which Christ was born, was the ninth of their own calendar.] 

The first observance was in Egypt, not Rome.  I don't know that anyone thinks of Egypt as a hotbed of observance of Roman customs, especially since the Romans didn't do that much to export their religious customs to the hinterlands of the Empire.  Beyond declaring Caesar the "Son of God," they pretty much left local religious practices alone.  The discussion of the feast at New Advent goes on to conclude (the history is quite complex) that the feast (not the reference to the day of birth) reached Egypt between 427 and 433.  Christianity became the official religion of the Empire in 395.  About the time the Roman Empire was coming apart, in other words.  And this may or may not be wholly accurate, but it is useful in placing Alexandria in historical context:

In the late 4th century, persecution of pagans by newly Christian Romans had reached new levels of intensity. Temples and statues were destroyed throughout the Roman empire: pagan rituals became forbidden under punishment of death, and libraries were closed. In 391, Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and the Patriarch Theophilus complied with his request. One theory has it that the great Library of Alexandria and the Serapeum were destroyed about this time.

Not sure just how popular a Christian holiday placed atop a pagan one would have been, even some 40 years after such events.

Which brings us, with a hop, skip and a bump (why dawdle?), to Christmas today in America:

First, Christmas as we know it in America didn't really get started until the 1820's. It wasn't widely celebrated until the 1860's, and didn't become an official national holiday until 1870. So the "observance" of it (whatever that means) is not all that old. (For a bit of perspective, A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, and many scholars today attribute the "revival" of Christmas celebrations in England to Dickens). And from almost the moment the holiday was observed as a holiday, it was connected to commerce. So the connection between Christmas and shopping, in America, is as old as Christmas in America itself. 

I would just point out that Dickens certainly tied the observance of Christmas in Merrye Olde England to commerce its own self just as tightly as Marley was bound with the chains of his neglect of common humanity.  There is precious little in Dickens’ ghost story that doesn’t focus on, or strongly include, mercantilism.

Most of our favorite Christmas songs (even "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," which I was sure originated as chant) are from the late 18th and 19th centuries (a rare few are older, or the tunes are).  What we consider "traditional" is sometimes no older than our own childhoods.  I also point this out because I don't think there was much nostalgia for the Roman Saturnalia in America in the early 19th century (the country itself was only a few decades old, and while the Republic was modeled on Rome, little else about American life was Roman.).  Yes, there was "soaling" in England for centuries, but that was rooted in the harsh winter everyone was about to endure, and the fact all the land and food from it belonged to the landlord (a knight, a baron, a duke) and the peasants needed a share if they were to be alive to plant again in the spring. The landowners depended on the serfs, so the serfs needed to get through the winter.  Noblesse oblige was never very noble, nor obliging.  It was merely practical.  Gift giving was mostly among peers, by which I mean the peerage.  Peasants, if they were lucky, could have something resembling a feast.  Trees, packages, Christmas caroling?  All products of 19th century England because Victoria's husband was German.  Mostly. And, not coincidentally, a product of: a) the Industrial Revolution, and b) the Romantics.  Coleridge reported from a trip to Germany about the Tannenbaum he saw there with the family he visited.  That did more to spread the custom than even Victoria did.

Now, about the time of year Jesus was born: we don't know.  Literally.  We have absolutely no clue.

This one is a little like the one from my early days:  the "truth" about the 'Christmas star.'  I went to a planetarium in December as a child where they tried earnestly to establish what the star in Matthew was, or could have been.  Was, mostly.  Science wanted its imprimatur, or believers wanted their beliefs substantiated with material fact.  Either way, it was a fool's game.  There was no Xmas Star in first century Palestine.  It's a metaphor.

The entire infancy narrative of Mattew, as well, as Luke, is purely metaphorical.

Basically Matthew and Luke were telling stories relevant to their gospel accounts, and the stories they told of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth are based on the needs of their stories.  So Matthew ties Jesus to the proclamations of the prophets (most notably Isaiah) that the nations would come to the "light" that would be Israel after the restoration from the Babylonian Exile when Israel followed God's way happily and willfully.  Matthew translates that into a prediction of Jesus as Messiah.  Clearly he's aiming at a Hebrew (soon to be Jewish) audience that knew Isaiah & Co.  So the light of a star brings three foreigners (Gentiles) to worship the new king (a new star indicates a new king, at least in non-Hebraic cultures.  Matthew would have known this, living in a non-Hebraic community under Roman rule.).  When they can't find him, the star helps out by moving to where Mary and Joseph are (Jesus, spoiler alert, is 2 years old by now.  This isn't the stable they come to.)  Then Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt (recapitulating the history of Israel in 3 people), and leave Egypt later, guided by an angel (not Moses this time) and relocate in Nazareth so Jesus can be the Nazarene he's already known to have been (Matthew writes after the crucifixion and resurrection. He writes to an audience who knows “Jesus of Nazareth.”).  Relocate because they started in Bethlehem, the city of David identified by Micah.  This, too, is metaphorical (take my word for it, I'm tired ot explaining every detail.  I still have Luke upcoming.)

Matthew gives us no idea when Jesus was born.  Luke comes closer, because we are told shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks.  This leads us to presume it was not winter.  But I don't know what winter is like in Israel (then Palestine).  I know they don't get a blanket of snow, and I assume grass goes fallow.  But there has to be something to feed the sheep, and there wasn't a thriving hay industry at the time.  So I'm not sure we can assume the shepherds penned up the sheep for the winter.  I'm pretty sure they don't in England, where it definitely gets much colder and is snowier.  Let's not assume we know the seasons in 1st century Palestine, or are experts in sheep herding in the 1st century, either.

Not that it matters.  Luke tells us Jesus is born during a census.  That should date things, right?  Except there's no record of such a census.  Again:  think metaphor.  Luke needs to get the Holy Family to Bethlehem for the birth.  Matthew has them there, but Jesus was known to be from Nazareth; so Matthew puts him there by way of Egypt.  Metaphor.  Luke moves them there for the birth by way of imperial decree, the very imperial power which will crucify Jesus as an adult.  Metaphor.  Matthew presages the death, too:  two of the three gifts brought by the Magi are for embalming.  Metaphor.

Luke has shepherds visit the family on the night of the birth, guided there by angels (messengers, literally agents, of God).  Shepherds are low class, basically the bikers of 1st century Palestine; the opposite end of the social spectrum from Magi.  Metaphor.  Luke's gospel will emphasize social justice (God, Mary sings, will bring the powerful down off their thrones, and raise up the lowly).  Jesus is born in a feeding trough, the usual first bed of children of the poorest class (like Joseph).  Metaphor.  This all connects with Luke's emphasis on the first being last, and the last first; with his Beatitudes where the poor are congratulated and the rich are literally damned.

But, you might say, isn't all this metaphor bad?  Shouldn't we have an accurate historical account we can all rely on?  Well, first, how do you think we all live:  by absolute history, or by metaphor?  What is the Christmas celebration except a stew of metaphors?

Is that an offensive version of a fictional scene (as I said, Matthew's Magi never met Luke's shepherds in a stall, while the star beamed down overall)?  Nativity scenes themselves are metaphors, which is why I have two from Peruvian culture (nobody looks Anglo, or Middle Eastern, in either); it's why "tradition" tells us there were 3 "wise men" (Matthew only says there were three gifts), and one was white (of course), one was African, and one was Asian (nationalities have changed over the centuries, depending.). Are cats offensive?  Or metaphorical?  

How about this one?

These are cartoon characters of children; and the Christchild is being admired by a bird. I’ve seen one where Woodstock is the Christchild.  Offensive?  Or cute?  Or just a metaphor meant to make the story of the gospels a little more "real" to us?  Like my Peruvian nativity; or my wooden one, with abstract figures. In the end, that’s all Luke and Matthew were trying to do: make the story seem more real.  But that was 2000+ years ago, and things change.  So as we retell the story, we make it a little more meaningful to us.  We slightly shift the metaphors, because we aren't really talking about a stable or a star or "wise men" or even shepherds.  We're talking about something traditional (those two nativity scenes are actually pretty secular); or we're talking about something ineffable. It’s the ineffable that’s the point. By the way, the traditional is often ineffable, too.

Nativity scenes, by the way, date back to St. Francis.  Creating physical representations of the Holy Family didn't bother a good Catholic like Francis, but Protestants eschewed such "idolatry."  It's why Protestant crosses are bare of a figure, while the Catholic crucifix includes the crucified Christ.  Idolatry and "Papistry" were primary reason Puritans banned Christmas in America, but that didn't last long.  Oddly, even the closest ancestors to the Puritans among Protestants, or the direct ancestors (the Congregationalist side of the United Church of Christ) don't all disdain manger scenes.  Although I know a Congregational church that doesn't use one, and my grandparents Primitive Baptist church didn't go in for them (I'm not even sure my grandparents put up a Christmas tree, now that I think about it.)  Most Protestants, though, don't blink at them, or at the remnant of the medieval mystery plays the church once used to teach biblical lessons to illiterate people (why print Bibles no one could read?), the Christmas pageant, usually complete with at least a few live animals (those are the ones the larger Baptist churches around me advertise every December).  It's all, and always has been, a matter of what makes us happy.

And that's okay.  May it be unto you, according to your faith.