Evergreens adorn the window-frames, candles flicker welcomes through the panes, mistletoe hangs high above the door, the large log burns within the fireplace, and twinkling with its ornaments of tinsel, crystal, cookies, candy-canes, popcorn garlands and the rest, the tree stands tall, a wonder to the mind.
A goblet raised in merry toast, the warmth of friends and hearth against the cold, while outside voices, young and old, softly carol sacred songs. A moving star seems brighter than the rest against the dark blue sky. Soon, season’s gifts will be exchanged and children will have guessed a red-clad figure from a sleigh climbing down their chimney way while in their beds they lay.
And central to the seasons’ sense there is a simple créche, the touching recreation of a great event, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.
The decor, spirit, practices and other accouterments of the season have a long association with the Christian faith. But nearly forgotten, or purposely ignored, are the origins of these antique customs. The most hallowed feast in Christendom is, in fact, an amalgam of religious and folkloric traditions which antedate the birth of Christ. The modern celebration of Christmas subtly blends elements from Near Eastern, Roman and Celtic religious beliefs which were current when the church was struggling to establish itself in a pagan, often hostile world.
The most obvious of the pagan elements of Christmas is the date on which the feast is celebrated. There was no consensus among the early Christians on the actual date of Christ’s birth; some solemnized the event in March, April, May or September, generally towards the end of the month, but the majority of Eastern Rite groups co-celebrated the Nativity and the Epiphany on January 6. As the church secured its position, however, the need for regulation of feast – days became pressing and in the fourth century, Dec. 25, was decreed as the universal date for the commemoration of the nativity of Christ.
No historical precedent in Christianity mandated the choice. Rather, it was adopted because the majority of Roman Rite (i.e., Western) congregations of the church were already celebrating the nativity on Dec. 25 in conjunction with pre-Christian traditions which held the day and the period around it sacred.
Earliest among these in terms of Christianity’s contact was the Jewish Festival of Lights, which observed the restoration and re-dedication of the Temple of the Maccabees after their victory over the Syrians in 165 B.C. As part of the purification ritual, the Jews had lit a lamp with the meager supply of consecrated oil found in the Temple. There was sufficient oil only for one day. The flame, however, persisted for eight days.
The event, seen as miraculous, has been commemorated yearly during the eight days of Channukah, beginning on the 25th day of Kislev and ending on the second of Teveth. This fixed period in the Jewish calendar fluctuates within the month of December in the Christian calendar.
Likewise important in this context is the ancient Egyptian tradition of celebrating in December the birth of Horus, the falcon — headed god who was the offspring of Isis and the dead Osiris through a miraculous conception. Horus came to symbolize the rebirth of light and life; the symbol of his nature was the sun.
Even more germaine is the cult of Mithra. This deity, who had been one of numerous genii in the Persian pantheon, achieved such a following over the centuries that he replaced Ahura – Mazda (Ahriman) as the supreme being in the Aryan religion; it was thus that he became the inheritor of the former god’s attributes and was worshipped as the lord of creativity and nature.
The birth date of Mithra was celebrated on Dec. 25 as the birth of the sun; in the symbolism of the Greeks and Romans, who were later cultists, the worship of Mithras (as they called him) was synonymous with that of the solar disc. Mithras had many followers and his cult competed with Christianity when both entered the arena of the Roman Empire.
The Romans, great absorbers of other cultures, adopted the Mithraic religion during the reign of Trajan. Soon thereafter they intertwined the observance of the sun’s birth and their own Saturnalia, itself a combination of the Brumalla and Juvenalia rites of an earlier time. Homage was paid to Saturnus in memory of the period when he ruled the world with liberality.
Upon the voicing of the cry of ‘Saturnalia! l0 Saturnalia!’ by the Pontifex (High Priest), processions set out through the city, to the accompaniment of hymns and revelry. Houses, temples and public buildings were garlanded with laurel and evergreens, animal and other customes were donned, gifts of wreaths, candles and figurines associated with the cult were exchanged, and great feasts were commonplace even for the poor, who were the recipients of charitable donations from the wealthy.
It was the custom during Saturnalia for social barriers to be breached. Forgotten was the master – servant relationship; a mock king was chosen from the lower sector to oversee the orgiastic revels. Freedom of action was the mark of Saturnalia, which lasted from Dec. 17-24.
Upon the adoption of Mithraism, the Saturnalia culminated in the Birth of the Invincible Sun (Natalis Solis Invicti) on Dec. 25. Together, these feasts comprised the Roman celebration of the winter solstice.
The renewal of the sun was also the basis for important festivities among the Celtic peoples of Europe — from the Northlands to Iberia to the British Isles. The Celts called their season feast Jul (probably from Hweol, the Sun — Wheel). In the Nordic tradition Yule was presided over by Odin the Teutonic Woden), the supreme deity, who rode his eight-legged horse Sleipnir through the winter sky dispensing rewards to the meritorious and punishments to the evil. Households were visited during the solstice observance by the hearth-goddess Hertha Bertha or Percht), who entered via chimneys to foretell the future through a bard, or other keeper of oral lore.
Yuletide was a fire festival and sympathetic magic played an important role in its observance. Since the feast heralded the rebirth of the sun (after its death at Samhain, the later Halloween) and the attendant lengthening of the daylight hours, the festivities were characterized by extensive use of candles of massive size and the burning of the large Yule-log, lit from remnants of the previous year’s log kept for good luck and continuity of life. The great fires of Yule, indoors and out, warmed the cold winter momentarily and made night seem like day in mimesis of the Sun’s restored potency.
It was indeed the ‘time of happy talking.”
Similarly magical were the customs associated with mistletoe. A parasitic plant which was abundant on the sacred oaks of the Celts, mistletan was considered magical because it grew above the soil on the host tree, was an extremely hardy evergreen, and turned a golden color when dry; it was the mythical ‘golden bough’ and the Druid who cut it for ritual use had to employ a gold instrument and keep the branch from touching the ground. The efficacy of the mistletoe preserved, it was used in many religious rites, including the kissing under it to ensure fertility in the female. The plant itself was used as an aphrodisiac as well.
The evergreen tree, too, had its magical aspect for the Celts, a people among whom tree — worship was universal and fundamental.
Such evergreens as were designated for use during the Yule festival were decorated with golden apples and other symbols of the earth’s fruition to ensure the abundance of produce in coming seasons. The Romans had also decorated evergreens (Vergil mentions Bacchic masks hung on pines) and the Celtic contact with Rome may have enhanced or otherwise affected the Yule tradition, as in the Germanic areas.
It is not difficult to see how in the light of such predominant pagan customs the church elected to superimpose the nativity of Christ upon the winter solstice and related celebrations centered on Dec. 25. It had found these traditions ingrained even in its clergy, as typified by St. Cyprian’s glowing words in the third century: ‘O, how wonderfully acted Divine Providence that on the day on which the sun was born. . . Christ should be born!’
The preemption of the season by Christianity is seen in the writings of St. John Chrysostom in the early fifth century: ‘They call Dec. 25 the Birthday of the Unconquered: Who is so unconquered as our Lord?. . . or, if they say that it is the birthday of the sun: ‘He is the Sun of Justice.’
The prelate continues with an apologia of the Church’s takeover of the Mithraic, Roman Celtic and other pagan practices associated with Christmas: ‘On this day also the birthday of Christ was lately fixed in Rome in order that while the heathen were busy with profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their sacred rites undisturbed.’
No matter what the rationale, the church has avowed its adoption and adaptation of non-Christian traditions in the context of Christmas; while many of these are peripheral to the Christian meaning of the feast, they participate in the aura of holiness which surrounds the nativity of Christ and enhance its uniqueness, making of Christmas a truly universal holy day.
Robert Lima is Professor Emeritus of Spanish & Comparative Literature, and Fellow Emeritus of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State. He has published 28 books in various genres and over 150 articles. Academician of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española and Corresponding Member of the Real Academia Española, he has been dubbed Knight Commander in the Order of Queen Isabel of Spain by King juan Carlos I. His latest book is “SELF,” a poetry collection.
