By Stephen Smoot
Approximately 2000 years ago, a miracle of God placed the Son of God in the body of Mary. She and her husband Joseph traveled from one part of the Roman dominion to the region called by that Empire Judaea.
There, Mary and Joseph took refuge in a stable due to no vacant accommodations available. A guide star shone far and wide bringing in three Magi, the traditional name for priests in the ancient Zoroastrian faith. There, they brought gifts and offered allegiance to Jesus Christ, King of the Jews.
In the Bible, each of the Gospels shares a different point of view on the birth of Christ. None, however, names a specific time of year in which the blessed event took place. Yet the Mass of Christ, or Christmas, takes place yearly on December 25.
The timing of the Gospels tends to back their accuracy on the subject. Christ died in 33 AD (AD stands for Anno Domini, or, the Year of Our Lord. The Western calendar centers on the birth year of Christ.) The Gospel According to St. Mark emerged about 40 years after His death. Those of St. Matthew and St. Luke came 50 to 70 years after His crucifixion. That of St. John, the most philosophic and metaphysical, came last.
Earnest men intent on accurately chronicling the greatest events of their lives wrote about a figure that passed within living memory. It is appropriate to assume their accuracy on the events surrounding the birth of Christ.
Sometimes atheists like to point to an important aspect of the Christmas holiday as a “gotcha.” Like the Puritans who settled New England and a few other faiths, they will dismiss the holiday as one derived from more ancient Roman and other traditions, rather than the actual birthday of Christ. Unlike those, they will use this to try and break apart the foundation of Christian belief.
Before going further, know this. God is more powerful than a calendar and more mighty than human tradition. It matters not when Christians choose to celebrate the birth of Christ or why they originally chose to do it during the darkest and coldest time of the year. If a day is devoted to the purposes of God, it is holy regardless of context.
That said, the Roman origins partly behind Christmas are quite interesting.
The figure of Saturn in Roman mythology occupies almost the same lofty role as Jupiter, their version of Zeus, king of the gods. His bailiwick in the polytheistic system lay in controlling time, wealth, and, most importantly, agriculture. Going back to prehistory, peoples developed the idea of figures and rituals to thank divinities for the former harvest and also to ensure bountiful crops in the coming year.
In Roman mythology (and Greek with a different name,) Saturn ruled the cosmos as the son of the sky (Uranus) and the Earth. Though a powerful ruler, he grew obsessed with a prophecy that stated that one of his children would overthrow him, so he endeavored to eat all of his offspring. One, Jupiter, escaped his father’s wrath.
Interestingly, this tradition expanded across the Mediterranean along with the Phoenician god Ba’al, defined as a demon in Christian tradition. Ba’al rituals involved the sacrifice of infant children. Interestingly, the action of the Lord to stay the hand of Abram after the Lord orders him to sacrifice his son would seem to be a way that the ancient Jewish religion set itself apart from other faiths.
Many Romans would pair Saturn with a feminine figure, Ops, the goddess of abundance. This pairing mimics the Phoenician pairing of Ba’al with the older fertility and agriculture goddess Astarte.
Livy states that the festival was officially established in 217 BC. Romans chose to celebrate the divinity of Saturn during the winter solstice, but with different traditions of the length of the holiday. Some celebrated for a week or longer the last day of advancing darkness, the solstice, and the first day with lengthening hours. By the time of Augustus, the legal holiday was limited to three days so that the civil offices and courts could return more quickly to their labors.
Many Americans observe Christmas Eve to make it a two day holiday, while Britain and some nations from her former Empire celebrate “Boxing Day” where traditionally family servants and others receive gifts. The full 12 days of Christmas run from December 25 through January 6, known in different cultures as “Old Christmas,” “Three Kings Day,” or “Epiphany.”
Style of celebration depended on the discipline and morals of those participating. Cicero remembered in a letter written in 45 BC hosting a visit from Julius Caesar during Saturnalia.
“He was anointed: took his place at the table. He was under a course of emetics, and so ate and drank without scruple and as suited his taste. It was a very good dinner, and well served, and not only so, but well cooked, well seasoned food, with rare discourse. A banquet in a word to cheer the heart.”
Cicero also related that he entertained 2,000 that arrived with Caesar.
Also, “the staff were entertained in three rooms in very liberal style. The freedmen of lower rank and slaves had everything they could want . . . we didn’t talk a word about politics.”
Without the distasteful detail of purge inducing substances, this Saturnalia dinner seems to resemble the joyful gathering of friends and family that Americans would identify with Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter.
Saturnalia traditions over time grew to embrace the idea of inverting the social order. Masters of households allowed servants and slaves to don the garb of aristocrats and playfully issue orders. In a play called Saturnalia written in the late Western Roman Empire, the character Saturn declares “during My Week, the serious is barred” but he encouraged “drinking, noise, and games of dice . . . singing naked, the clapping of frenzied hands.” Suetonius, the Roman historian of elite scandals, referred to “the banquet’s drunken revel.” Women were thrown into the arena to fight to the delight of male spectators.
Saturnalia’s decline from religious ritual into mass drunken and illicit revelry matched the decline of the disciplined and orderly Roman Republic into the increasingly degenerate Roman Empire.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, some of the first discussions on the birth date of Christ appear in Alexandria around 200 AD. The Egyptian city founded by Alexander the Great served as a center of early Christian leadership and thought. At first, research and discussion eyed dates between March and May as the most likely.
An early sect founded by Basilides about a century after the death of Christ, celebrated both the birth of Christ and the Epiphany on either January 6 or 10. By the fifth century, a December Christmas and January Epiphany had spread throughout Christendom.
With the papacy in its early centuries only a first bishop among equals, no central authority made decisions on the various developing Christian traditions. One cannot ascribe any single reason why Christmas took on some of the trappings of the Saturnalia celebration.
Certainly, some Christians would see celebrating the birth of Christ as vital no matter what time of year and would set aside time for worship. Practical minded Christians feared the allure to young people of the increasingly hedonistic culture of Rome, and Saturnalia in particular. One could see the idea coming naturally of a “replacement” celebration emphasizing God, faith, and family instead of drinking, eating to the point of nausea, and dangerous promiscuity.
In the Western Christian tradition that grew with the Roman Catholic Church, those leading the faith and making its decisions endeavored to make the transition from a polytheistic world to a Christian one easier. Over time, ancient festival and feast days associated with polytheistic religions or other traditions were turned to godly purposes.
This served as a practical compromise between the Roman Catholic Church and the peoples they wished to convert to the faith. The people met the Church halfway by observing the Catholic holidays, such as Nov 1’s All Saints Day, and preserving some of the older cultural traditions practiced for centuries minus the pagan ritual and belief. Today, peoples and nations influenced by some old Celtic practices continue with Hallowe’en while some Spanish cultures have Day of the Dead.
At the end of the day, the act of gathering in fellowship, joy, and generosity while preaching and teaching about peace and love models how Jesus Christ Himself conducted his ministry. He taught about the meaning of God’s love. He fed the people until they had their fill. He encouraged people to give generously, especially to those in need. He gave inspiration and hope to those who had none.
In the modern era, Christmas serves as a fading reminder that at least in one season of the year, humans recognize that God’s expectations of mankind are sovereign. Even many non believers acknowledge the need for these principles.
And He also eventually shared the path of redemption, how every person can escape the divine consequences of sin through true repentance of wrongs done. Christ brought the threads together into an ideal simple to understand, if often difficult to execute in practice.
For those still wondering “what Christmas is all about” or who have grown jaded and cynical due to human misdeeds and evils, here is the purpose:
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy. Which shall be to all people./ For unto you is born this day in the City of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord/And this shall be a sign to you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying/ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
It does not matter the day people celebrate the arrival on Earth of humanity’s Savior and His Good News, so long as that very same humanity gets the fundamentals right.
