Did the Romans Invent Christmas?

[RZM]

It was a public holiday celebrated around December 25th in the family home. A time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees. But it wasn’t Christmas. This was Saturnalia, the pagan Roman winter solstice festival. But was Christmas, Western Christianity’s most popular festival, derived from the pagan Saturnalia?

-snip-

The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in AD 312 ended Roman persecution of Christians and began imperial patronage of the Christian churches. But Christianity did not become the Roman Empire’s official religion overnight. Dr David Gwynn, lecturer in ancient and late antique history at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that, alongside Christian and other pagan festivals, ‘the Saturnalia continued to be celebrated in the century afterward’.

-snip-

Saturnalia has a rival contender as the forerunner of Christmas: the festival of dies natalis solis invicti, ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’. The Philocalian calendar also states that December 25th was a Roman civil holiday honouring the cult of sol invicta. With its origins in Syria and the monotheistic cult of Mithras, sol invicta certainly has similarities to the worship of Jesus. The cult was introduced into the empire in AD 274 by Emperor Aurelian (214-275), who effectively made it a state religion, putting its emblem on Roman coins.

-snip-

Devout Christians will be reassured to learn that the date of Christmas may derive from concepts in Judaism that link the time of the deaths of prophets being linked to their conception or birth. From this, early ecclesiastical number-crunchers extrapolated that the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy following the Annunciation on March 25th would produce a December 25th date for the birth of Christ.

Personally I favor the last hypothesis here. There was an interesting article about that one in a biblical journal a few years ago. I'll post it if I can find it

http://www.historytoday.com/matt-salusbury/did-romans-invent-christmas

[DissedByBush]

1. Jesus was most likely born in late September

John the Baptist was born in the Spring, and Luke says Jesus was born six months later.

Shepherds didn't keep their sheep in the field in late December. They were normally in before October.

Other things, such as the time of tax collection, and a pregnant woman being put outside in the dead of winter, also point to Fall.

Couple this with Church habit of Christianizing pagan holidays (it was a good idea), and the possibility of coincidence between the Dec 25 celebration date for the birth of Jesus and various Winter Solstice related festivities seems less likely.

[RZM]

2. I remember hearing March

Not sure where. I think it was a documentary of some kind.

I found the article arguing that the date domes form Jewish traditions having to do with dating things 9 months after a prophet's death. I'll post it tomorrow. That article argues that the trappings of Christmas are very pagan, but the date itself comes from Jewish traditions.

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. You are assuming he was born at all.

Where is the contemporary evidence that the story told in the Gospels is anything but a legend?

[canetoad]

4. There's no contemporary evidence at all

But many historians agree that the weight of the (much later) documents of Paul/Saul, Mark and John (may or may not be the 'beloved disciple'), probably point to a historical figure existing around the time of the Biblical Jesus.

Whether this figure was begat by God, walked on water and performed the rest of the miracles is a topic for the religious forums. Given the times, the oral tradition, the Roman occupation - it's not outside the bounds of imagination that contemporary written evidence of the Jesus figure does not exist.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke are without doubt the latest written of the synoptic gospels that eventually were incorporated into the canon known as the New Testament. Others exists (Thomas, Mary) but did not 'make the grade' in the final compilation.

The Messianic tradition is an ancient component of Hebrew writings. It's not too much a stretch of the imagination that these traditions were applied to a populist, minor political figure of the times and the rest of the story is....well, you know.

[RZM]

5. Well said

Also, Roman sources do talk about religious conflicts in Judea at that time. These are certainly important aspects of the gospel stories. Given the divisions in the Jewish community back then, it makes sense that reformers/dissidents could emerge, gain a following, and be killed in turn.

There's simply no way to know. But I do find it plausible that the gospel version of Jesus is based on a real figure from that time. It's also plausible to assume that the Roman chroniclers of the time would see no reason to talk about a particular figure whose time was short and was probably one in a long line of challengers to the established order. Perhaps observers of the scene there thought: 'Oh yeah, another one of those guys. Big deal.'

Could also be that the gospels are simply made up. But I think it's more likely they are at least partly based on real events. An interesting question, which you allude to, is (assuming there was a real Jesus archetype) to what degree did he assume the messianic identity during is life and how much was added to the story later.

[canetoad]

6. As to being made up

I would say 'poeticised' may be a more appropriate description. There are roughly 25-30 books or epistles that didn't make it into the offical NT. I doubt whether the inclusion of any of them would have had a significant effect on the path taken by the early church; to me, that seems to have been defined by the writings of Paul.

Now Paul is a fascinating character. No other single person had a greater influence on early church teachings but I find him rigid, misogynistic, homophobic, domineering and overbearing. His so called conversion happened at a time when the person known as James, brother of Jesus, was the ad hoc leader of the early jewish christians. Paul's miraculous vision and conversion quite whipped the ground away from under the feet of James as the group leader. Without his contribution the early christian group would quite possibly have faded away.

We can only assume how deeply tied to the messianic tradition the historical Jesus was; certainly the words attributed to Jesus have him denying several times that he is the messiah of Jewish tradition. Likewise, there are no writings that suggest his brother James considered Jesus to be the messiah. The whole Jesus as the messiah of Jewish tradition seems to have originated with Paul. While this obviously made Paul a target for the occupiers, it also provided him a degree of fame and adoration. My personal opinion is that Paul was the earliest recorded Master of Spin.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Fascinating.....

I gotta hang around this group more..