Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The Increase of Cotton and Gangrene
As I have pointed out earlier, there is no consensus on exactly how and when the celebration of Christmas started.
There were a variety of Roman festivals around December that many point to as early predecessors of the Christmas feast. The festival honoring the god of agriculture (Saturn) was celebrated on December 17 during the Republic Era and transformed over the years from a day of merry-making to a full week or more of decadent revelry during the late Empire Era. Most cultures in the Mediterranean had festivals celebrating the winter solstice (which on the Julian calendar being used at the time fell on December 25), and the Romans were no exception. In A.D. 274 the Feast of Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) was established to mark the shortest day of the year. A week later the Romans would celebrate the first new moon of the new year.
Little is known about how (or whether) these festivals impacted the earliest celebration of the birth of Jesus. During his life, celebration of one's birthday was indeed more of a pagan practice than a religious one (cf. Mark 6:21-29). There is no record of the apostles or the early church leaders doing anything significant to mark the day of Jesus' birth. In fact, the earliest record of December 25 as a church festival was after the last great persecution (the document dates to A.D. 354, but refers to a Roman practice in A.D. 336). While there is no historical evidence that anyone in the pre-reformation era made the connection between Saturnalia, Sol Invicta or any Roman feast and the Christian celebration of Christmas, modern scholars point to the coincidence of the dates to demonstrate that they must be related. The first recorded observation of this alleged link was in 1687 by Increase Mather, a Puritan preacher (and father of Cotton).
For one and a half millennia, the religious significance of this festival was minimal at best. From the 5th to the 16th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated the "Feast of Fools,"which mimicked the practices of Saturnalia, but no one ever tried to associate this with Christmas. In the early 7th century, the pope ordered that churches be decorated for the feast. The tradition of Christmas trees may have developed subsequent to this. In the colonial times, celebration of Christmas was actually banned. However, the state of Alabama declared Christmas a legal holiday in 1836, and its popularity has spread like gangrene ever since.
On the flip side, it appears that most of the traditions and practices of the various pagan festivals around the winter solstice have run their course. While the vestiges of human sacrifices may be found in the baking of gingerbread men, or perhaps the remnants of orgies found in the expectation of a kiss under the mistletoe, I hardly think that our modern celebrations rival the debauchery of Mardi Gras (which ironically stems from a religious holiday.)
Don't get me wrong... I don't think I've proven anything. For that, you'll have to wait until Thorsday.
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There were a variety of Roman festivals around December that many point to as early predecessors of the Christmas feast. The festival honoring the god of agriculture (Saturn) was celebrated on December 17 during the Republic Era and transformed over the years from a day of merry-making to a full week or more of decadent revelry during the late Empire Era. Most cultures in the Mediterranean had festivals celebrating the winter solstice (which on the Julian calendar being used at the time fell on December 25), and the Romans were no exception. In A.D. 274 the Feast of Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) was established to mark the shortest day of the year. A week later the Romans would celebrate the first new moon of the new year.
Little is known about how (or whether) these festivals impacted the earliest celebration of the birth of Jesus. During his life, celebration of one's birthday was indeed more of a pagan practice than a religious one (cf. Mark 6:21-29). There is no record of the apostles or the early church leaders doing anything significant to mark the day of Jesus' birth. In fact, the earliest record of December 25 as a church festival was after the last great persecution (the document dates to A.D. 354, but refers to a Roman practice in A.D. 336). While there is no historical evidence that anyone in the pre-reformation era made the connection between Saturnalia, Sol Invicta or any Roman feast and the Christian celebration of Christmas, modern scholars point to the coincidence of the dates to demonstrate that they must be related. The first recorded observation of this alleged link was in 1687 by Increase Mather, a Puritan preacher (and father of Cotton).
For one and a half millennia, the religious significance of this festival was minimal at best. From the 5th to the 16th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church celebrated the "Feast of Fools,"which mimicked the practices of Saturnalia, but no one ever tried to associate this with Christmas. In the early 7th century, the pope ordered that churches be decorated for the feast. The tradition of Christmas trees may have developed subsequent to this. In the colonial times, celebration of Christmas was actually banned. However, the state of Alabama declared Christmas a legal holiday in 1836, and its popularity has spread like gangrene ever since.
On the flip side, it appears that most of the traditions and practices of the various pagan festivals around the winter solstice have run their course. While the vestiges of human sacrifices may be found in the baking of gingerbread men, or perhaps the remnants of orgies found in the expectation of a kiss under the mistletoe, I hardly think that our modern celebrations rival the debauchery of Mardi Gras (which ironically stems from a religious holiday.)
Don't get me wrong... I don't think I've proven anything. For that, you'll have to wait until Thorsday.
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