If December 25th
being Jesus' birth is of pagan origin, why do non-Catholics receive corporate
giveaways/presents if this would mean a contamination from a pagan celebration?
The conception
that Christmas had pagan foundations started to be viral in the 17th century
with the English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians, who abhorred all Catholic
things.[1]
They detested the
feast days, specifically the Christmas feast with its joyous observances,
celebrations and customs. Given that the Bible did not provide specific date of
Jesus’ birth, the Puritans contended that it was a sinful device of the Roman
Catholic Church that should be eliminated.
Subsequently,
Protestant preachers like the German Paul Ernst Jablonski attempted to
establish unverifiable works that December 25 was actually a pagan Roman feast,
and dissuaded that Christmas was yet another example of how the medieval
Catholic Church ‘paganized’ and corrupted ‘pure’ early Christianity.[2]
About the same
time, the Jesuit Jean Hardouin with his odd theory of widespread counterfeit
that positioned in disbelief every historical source known, supported the
Puritans. However, his research was largely questioned given his illogical
assertions. For example, he claimed that all the Church Councils that
transpired before Trent were fabricated and almost all the classical texts of
ancient Greece and Rome incorrect, developed by monks in the 13th century.
These contentions are obviously ridiculous, given the innumerable source
documents reversing his “opinion”.
These two primary
personalities claims for Christmas having pagan origins fantasize that the
early Church chose December 25 so as to divert Catholics from Roman pagan
festival days. The first claim pretends that it replaced the ancient Roman
holiday of Saturnalia, a time of feasting and raucous merry-making held in
December in honor of the pagan god Saturn.
It’s interesting
to note that the Saturnalia festival always ended on December 23 at the latest.
It is baloney for the Catholic Church to move away the attention of her
faithful from a pagan celebration, and choose a date two days after that party
which had already ended and anyone who desired had already made much of it.
Christmas
established before the pagan Sun festival
The second
assertion is that the Catholic Church allegedly instituted Christmas on
December 25 to replace a solar feast made up by Emperor Aurelian in 274 AD, the
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birth of the Unconquered Sun).
The piece of
evidence that Christmas penetrated the world calendar (the instituted Roman
calendar) in 354 – which was after the establishment of the pagan feast – does
not essentially mean the Church preferred that day to substitute the pagan
holiday. There are two major grounds which harmonize with this conclusion:
1.) The detractor
must not simply presuppose that the early Christians only started to celebrate
Christmas in the 4th century. Until the Edict of Milan (a proclamation
that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the
Roman Empire), Catholics were persecuted and convened in catacombs (where the
most important pontiffs of the third century would be buried), Therefore, there
was no public festivity. But they celebrated Christmas among themselves prior
to that Edict, as hymns and prayers of the first Christians corroborate.[3]
2.) Emperor
Aurelian launched the festival of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun in an
attempt for a rebirth of a dying Roman Empire. In all probability, the
Emperor’s action was a reaction to the growing attractiveness and strength of
the Catholic religion, which was celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25,[4] rather than the other way around.
There is no
substantiation that Aurelian’s celebration preceded the feast of Christmas.
Aside from which, the establishing of this festival day (which never won
popular support and soon died out) was an effort to give a pagan significance
to a date already of importance to Roman Catholics.
Dates derived from
the Scriptures
Albeit the
Christmas date was not made official until 354, undoubtedly it was established
long before Aurelian established his pagan feast day.
The conception of
St. John the Baptist is the historical anchor to identify the date of
Christmas, taken from the detailed and meticulous computations on dates
developed by the First Fathers of the Church.
The early
tractatus De solstitiia[5] chronicled in the traditions that the
Archangel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the High Temple when he was serving
as high priest on the Day of Atonement (Luke 1:8). This put the conception of
St. John the Baptist during the feast of Tabernacles in late September, as the
Archangel Gabriel said (Luke 1:28) and his birth nine months later at the time
of the summer solstice.
Given that the
Gospel of Luke affirms that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary
in the sixth month after John's conception (Luke 1:26), this put the conception
of Jesus at approximately the time of the spring equinox, that is, at the time
of the Jewish Passover, in late March. The Lord’s birth would thus be in late
December at the time of the winter solstice.
These dates based on Tradition and
Scripture,[6] which can be relied on, is
confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, whose authors were very concerned of
calendar dates, significant for establishing when the Torah feasts should be
commemorated. The data acquired in the Scrolls make it possible to identify the
Temple’s rotating task of priests during Old Testament times and demonstrate
unquestionably that Zechariah served as a Temple priest in September, hence
corroborating the tradition of the Early Church.
The Catholic
Church established March 25 as the date of Our Lord’s Conception long before
Aurelian made a decision to make his solar feast. For example, around 221 AD,
Sexto Julio Africano (The Father of Christian Chronography) wrote the Chronographiai confirming
that the Annunciation was March 25.[7] As soon as the date of the Incarnation was
ascertained, it was a simple matter of adding nine months to arrive at December
25 as the Jesus’ birth. This date would not be made official until the late 4th
century, but it was founded long before Aurelian and Constantine, which had
nothing to do with pagan festivals.
The first Catholic
apologists and Fathers of the Church, who existed very close to the time of the
Apostles, were completely aware of the dates connected to the birth of Our Lord
Jesus Christ. They had all the calendar sources at hand and would not consent
to any falsehood to be brought in the Catholic liturgy. The date of Jesus’
birth was transmitted by them as being December 25, on a Sunday.
Dealing with the
verse of Luke 2:7, Our Lord was born on a Sunday, because this was the first
day of the world. Jesus was born on Sunday night, in keeping with the order of
His wonders, so that the day on which He said “Let there be light, and there
was light,” was the same day on which, at night, the light shone in darkness
for the upright of heart, that is, the sun of justice, Jesus Our Lord.”
References:
[1] Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.. Christmas Was Never a
Pagan Pagan Holiday
Thomas Talley, The
Origins of the Liturgical Year, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), p.
88.
[2] Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year,
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), p. 88.
[5] The tract is entitled 'De solstitiia et aequinoctia
conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu Christi et iohannis baptista,'
in Ibid., p. 93-94. Talley also provides other historical documents of early
Church writers showing that the dates of the Conception and Death of Our Lord
had been established very early.
[6] Shemaryahu Talmon, Professor Emeritus at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem and a top Scroll scholar, published an in-depth study
of the Temple’s rotating assignment of priests in 1958 and the Qumran scrolls
to see the assignment during New Testament times. Martin K Barrack, "it Comes From Pagans" Second Exodus online
[8] Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in Scripturam
Sanctam, Paris: Vives 1877, Luke 2:7, vol 16, p. 57
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