Dis­cov­er­ing The Pagan Ori­gins Of Christmas

Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi

Few peo­ple real­ize that the pagan ori­gins of Christ­mas has noth­ing to do with Jesus(P) and cel­e­brat­ed in Europe long before any­one there had heard of Jesus(P). No one knows what day Jesus(P) was born on. From the Bib­li­cal descrip­tion, most his­to­ri­ans believe that his birth prob­a­bly occurred in Sep­tem­ber, approx­i­mate­ly six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlike­ly that Jesus was born in Decem­ber since the Bible records shep­herds tend­ing their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlike­ly to have hap­pened dur­ing a cold Judean winter. 

So why do Christ­mas cel­e­brate Christ’s birth­day as Christ­mas, on Decem­ber 25th ? 

Pagan Ori­gins Of Christmas

The answer lies in the pagan ori­gins of Christ­mas. In ancient Baby­lon, the feast of the son of Isis (god­dess of nature) was cel­e­brat­ed on Decem­ber 25. Rau­cous par­ty­ing, glut­to­nous eat­ing, drink­ing and gift-giv­ing were tra­di­tions of this feast.

In Rome, the Win­ter Sol­stice was cel­e­brat­ed many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their win­ter hol­i­day Sat­ur­na­lia”, hon­our­ing Sat­urn, the god of agri­cul­ture. In Jan­u­ary, they observed the Kalends of Jan­u­ary, which rep­re­sent­ed the tri­umph of life over death. This whole sea­son was called Dies Natal­is Invic­ti Solis, the birth­day of the Uncon­quered Sun.

The fes­ti­val sea­son was marked by much mer­ry­mak­ing. It is in ancient Rome that the tra­di­tion of the Mum­mers was born. The Mum­mers were groups of cos­tumed singers and dancers who trav­elled from house to house enter­tain­ing their neigh­bours. From this, the Christ­mas tra­di­tion of car­olling was born.

More can be said about the pagan ori­gins of Christ­mas. In north­ern Europe, many oth­er tra­di­tions that we now con­sid­er part of Christ­mas wor­ship were begun long before the par­tic­i­pants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of north­ern Europe cel­e­brat­ed their own win­ter sol­stice, known as Yule. Yule was sym­bol­ic of the pagan sun god, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the short­est day of the year. As the sun god grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was cus­tom­ary to light a can­dle to encour­age Mithras and the sun to reap­pear next year. Huge Yule logs were burned in hon­our of the sun. The word Yule itself means wheel”, the wheel being a pagan sym­bol for the sun. Mistle­toe was con­sid­ered a sacred plant, and the cus­tom of kiss­ing under the mistle­toe began as a fer­til­i­ty rit­u­al. Hol­ly berries were thought to be a food of the gods.

The tree is the one sym­bol that unites almost all the north­ern Euro­pean win­ter sol­stices. Live ever­green trees were often brought into homes dur­ing the harsh win­ters as a reminder to inhab­i­tants that soon their crops would grow again. Ever­green boughs were some­times car­ried as totems of good luck and were often present at wed­dings, rep­re­sent­ing fer­til­i­ty. The Druids used the tree as a reli­gious sym­bol, hold­ing their sacred cer­e­monies while sur­round­ing and wor­ship­ping huge trees.

In the year 350 AD, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be cel­e­brat­ed on Decem­ber 25. There is lit­tle doubt that he was try­ing to make it as pain­less as pos­si­ble for pagan Romans (who remained a major­i­ty at that time) to con­vert to Chris­tian­i­ty. The new reli­gion went down a bit eas­i­er, know­ing that their feasts would not be tak­en away from them. Christ­mas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most his­to­ri­ans agree, began in Ger­many, though Catholics and Luther­ans still dis­agree about which church cel­e­brat­ed it first. The ear­li­est record of an ever­green being dec­o­rat­ed in a Chris­t­ian cel­e­bra­tion was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Ger­many. A promi­nent Luther­an min­is­ter of the day cried blas­phe­my : Bet­ter that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ“The con­tro­ver­sy con­tin­ues even today in some fun­da­men­tal­ist sects. Discovering The Pagan Origins Of Christmas 1

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