Pagan Christmas

I have heard it for most of my life. Christmas, they tell me, is pagan in its origins. Oh, the more generous ones admit that it is only in its date selection. You know, "The pagans at the time had a holiday for the god, Saturn, called Sol Invictus, a celebration of the death of the old and the birth of the 'unconquerable Sun,' so the Christians converted the pagan holiday to the celebration of the unconquerable Son." Others are, of course, far less kind and hang everything on pagan origins .. including the actual birth of Christ.

Of course, there are some ignored facts that cause problems with this notion. While the Puritans in early America did assign pagan origins to Christmas (the reason why they banned Christmas celebrations in America), it turns out that the early church had different ideas. The first Christmas celebration didn't occur until A.D. 336, but that's not because of ambiguity of the date or anything. It was because they didn't celebrate birthdays; they celebrated death-days. Irenaeus (130-202) held to the December 25th date. Hippolytus's Commentary on Daniel from the early 3rd century named December 25th as the birthday of Christ. (Hippolytus also names March 25, 29, as the day of Christ's death.)

There was a belief in early Christendom that people died on the day they were conceived. The early church knew the date of Christ's death because it was at Passover. If He died on the date of His conception, then, they could calculate His birth, according to Augustine, by adding "nine months and six days, which are reckoned, as it were, ten months for the travail of women." They set the date of His death and conception as March 25, so "He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th." Clement of Alexandria wrote between A.D. 193 and 215 that Jesus was born on December 24th or 25th. (Hippolytus also believed that Jesus was conceived on the anniversary of the creation of the world.)

There is the other angle to consider. It turns out that the supposed pagan event that Christians stole from -- Saturnalia -- occurred on December 17 and lasted a week. That would mean that the celebration they hoped to steal was over by the time they stole it. The other possible pagan source is Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, celebrated on December 25th, but that celebration didn't begin until A.D. 354, after, the first Christmas celebration. Coupling this information with the fact that there is no historical evidence that the religious celebration of Sol antedated the Christian celebration of Christ's birth, we could well come to the belief that Christmas is not pagan in origin (although it could be argued that the Solis Invictus festival was a rip off of Christmas).

Now, it may be inconvenient for some to conclude that the early church celebrated Jesus's birth on December 25th because they actually believed that He was born on December 25th. It might shake some up to conclude that Christmas could be an actual celebration of Christ's actual birth. And, to be fair, the Puritan complaint that excessive revelry takes away from the worship of Christ is a demonstrated fact these days. Still, I would have to conclude that Christmas is not of pagan origins and that those who make the argument that it is don't generally do so out of a deep regard and concern for Christ. Which, of course, would be the point of an actual celebration of the birth of the King of kings -- a deep regard and concern for Christ.