CHRISTMAS
IS DECEMBER 25TH A PAGAN
HOLIDAY?
DECEMBER 2, 2019 PHILIPMT LEAVE A COMMENT
A quick
Google search will find millions of articles connecting the date of Christmas
to a pagan Roman festival. They come from websites on history, news, and theology, to name a few. Their claim isn’t a new one,
by any stretch. One of the first assertions of this connection between a
festival of the sun and Christmas came from the Syriac Orthodox Bishop Jacob
Bar-Salibi, writing from Mesopotamia in the 12th century (see Bibliotecha orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae 2:164). But does that claim stand up to historical
scrutiny?
Clarifying the Question
At the
outset, I want to ensure that we frame the question well. The question that I’m
going to answer is not, “Was December 25th the exact day of Jesus’
birth?” That’s a muddy question to attempt to answer for a number of reasons.
It raises issues of whether shepherds would be in the field on a December night
and the precision of numerous points of evidence we’ll address in a bit.
Another
question that is beyond the scope of this article is whether modern Christmas
traditions like the Christmas tree, Yule log, mistletoe, etc. are pagan
adaptations. I’m also not going to wade into whether the adaptation or
overhauling of pagan holidays or practices pose a moral problem for Christians.
Instead, I will answer the question, “Did the early church adopt a
pagan holiday or did they have other reasons for adopting the December 25th
date for Christmas?”
I would
affirm that the church had solid non-pagan reasons for adopting the December
25th date for Christmas. Some of these reasons have more validity to me than
others, but I find the evidence for non-pagan origins of the December 25th date
of Christmas compelling. Unlike other posts along these lines, I have tried,
where possible, to link to original source material so readers who wish to
check my research can do so.
The Early Christian Resistance to Paganism
Early
Christians detested the thought of amalgamating their faith with Roman paganism
or any other sort of non-Christian faith. Owing to its Jewish origin and the
writings of the New Testament, early Christians held a strong position against
syncretistic efforts, choosing rather to suffer persecution than to add Christ
to the Roman pantheon or adapt Christian teaching or practice to that of the
pagan culture. Some early examples of this trend are worth noting.
In the
Epistle to Diognetus, a writer who merely designates himself as a “disciple”
writes one of the early examples of Christian apologetics (probably mid- to
late-second century). In his second chapter, the writer explains why Christians hold pagan
practices in “contempt.” Justin Martyr is another early example of Christian
apologists (early- to late-second century). Time-and-again, Justin excoriates
pagan practices, leaving no room for any sort of amalgamation with pagan
practices (see particularly his “First Apology” chapters 9 and 24). A third early exemplar of this anti-pagan
tradition in the early church is Irenaeus (mid second to early third century).
In his second book of “Against Heresies,” one of his arguments that he deploys to attack the Gnostic teachings of
Valentinus is that they have been derived from pagan mythology. Irenaeus
expects his readers to detest any sort of substitution of Christian
nomenclature, theology, or practice with that of paganism.
But while
the early Christians resisted syncretistic practices, the cults of the day
exercised little discretion in borrowing from Christian traditions. In fact,
one of the early offenders in this regard was the cult of Mithras. Mithras was
a cult that gained popularity in the Roman empire during the first century
alongside Christianity. Details of the cult remain sparse, leading to many
scholarly conjectures about its origins and practices. While scholars debate
whether the early Christian apologists had an accurate understanding of
Mithraism, we do have two indications of a syncretistic effort within the
Mithras cult. For example, during the second century, Justin Martyr accuses Mithraism of borrowing the Christian elements of
the Eucharist. And later Tertullian (late second to early third century) suggests that Mithraism
and other pagan traditions, as servants of Satan, are attempting to borrow
Christian practices as their own.
Academics in
the field of history of religions frequently argue that
because Mithraism pre-dated Christianity (Mithras was the Persian sun god, with
extant references before the time of Christ), Christians must have adopted and
adapted elements of the cult in their own worship and theology. But all of the
scholarly work on Mithraism admits several important elements:
1.
Mithraism was not static, but
evolved rapidly as it encountered Roman culture and religions. Even the
amalgamation with Sol Invictus was part of this evolution. To posit that
Mithraism, favored by the emperors of the era, incorporated Christian elements
to draw Roman citizens away from Christianity makes more sense than the
persecuted church adapting Christianity to Mithraism (or the early generation
of Jewish disciples adapting Judaism to Mithraism).
2.
Mithraism lacks robust extant primary
sources for study. We do have some extant references and know
that some writers in the ancient world provided far more detail on the cult.
Because many of the details are lacking, academics are left to interpret
history, to fill in the blanks.
3.
Because of the evolving nature and because we
don’t have many sources to research, later summaries of
the practices and beliefs surrounding Mithras and Sol Invictus have been
interpolated into the historic practices of the cult. The best
way to unravel the connection is to examine the trail of historical evidence
surrounding specific elements where overlap is alleged to find their source.
This article attempts to do this with the most notable of alleged
Mithras/Christianity overlaps.
In short,
early in Christian tradition we find deep-seated resistance to any sort of
syncretistic amalgamations of Christian worship and practice (particularly of
Mithraism). Instead, we find that Roman paganism (particularly Mithraism) was well
positioned to absorb unique Christian practices for their own.
Which Came First?
We’ve thus
far established that it seems plausible that the Mithras cult borrowed from
Christianity rather than the other way around. So what does this have to do
with the date of Christmas? The legend of “pagan Christmas” suggests that
Christians borrowed the December 25th date from Natalis Invicti,
the birth of Sol Invictus–a sister cult to that of Mithras. In order for this
legend to be true, we need evidence that supports (a) prior pagan celebrations
on December 25 and (b) later Christian celebrations on December 25. Instead,
here’s what we find when we examine the source material:
1.
A pagan holiday on December 25th is is
poorly attested.
·
Many sources (see this one in the Washington Post, for a more popular
example) point to the Roman Emperor Aurelian as “the Father of Christmas”,
alleging that he launched the holiday of Natalis Invicti in AD
274. This late third century date for Natalis Invicti, however, is
unsubstantiated. We know that Aurelian returned to Rome in triumph and
dedicated a temple to the Sun (for extensive research on this temple and
related imagery, see Roger Pearse’s articles). Beyond those facts, we
find nothing about December 25th in the three key primary sources on Aurelian (Historia Augusta, “The Deified
Aurelian”, XXV.6; Sextus Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus XXXV; Eutropius, Abridgement of Roman History IX.13–15). As best I
can tell by chasing the primary sources, historians who posit the AD 274 origin
of the December 25th celebration are reading more recent practices back into
what may have happened in 274.
·
So what is that more recent source that is read
back into Aurelian’s temple dedication? The first indication of the Natalis
Invicti celebration on December 25th comes from a mid 4th century calendar that features key
dates celebrated by the Roman government in the year 354. There it notes
“N·INVICTI·CM·XXX.” Even here, we should note that the description here is not
incredibly specific, lacking the word “SOL”, which appears elsewhere in the
calendar. “CM·XXX” indicates an event that involved 30 races in the Roman circus.
It should also be noted that later in the same document, when listing Christian observances, the same
date is listed as the “birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.” In summary, the
“Chronography of 354” is by no means a straightforward document. While the
dates included in the chronography surely began at an earlier time, this is the
first possible historical instance of a pagan December 25th celebration; however,
this is not the first historical instance of December 25th being noted as the
birthday of Jesus.
2.
A Christian tradition supporting
December 25th as the birthdate of Jesus Christ has much earlier attestation in
ancient literature.
·
Hippolytus (late-second to early-third century)
states that “the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in
Bethlehem, was December 25th [lit. eight days before the Kalends of January],
Wednesday” (see Commentary on Daniel, page 140 and an additional discussion on the text tradition).
·
Another example here is an early tradition that Telesphorus (early to late second century) set
the date for “the season of nativity”. The textual evidence here
is challenging, but most of the other details in the “Book of Popes” (this
early part attributed to Jerome, late fourth to mid fifth century) aligns well
with the records of Irenaeus and Eusebius.
3.
Questionable sources are often cited
as evidence for a “pagan Christmas” background.
·
One such example is the quotation alleged to be
from Augustine: “We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the
birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.” It would be possible to read
this statement either as an admission that December 25th was initially adopted
to subvert earlier pagan tradition or as a defense of
Christian tradition’s non-pagan foundations. But even here, I can’t find any
primary source for this quotation.
·
Another category in question is the iconography
surrounding Sol Invictus. While some sources on the topic draw on coinage or
inscriptions for primary information on Sol Invictus and how it may integrate
with Christianity, many of the alleged icons are questionable, at best.
·
A variety of claims about Christian/Mithraic
parallels that work well on memes or in rapid-fire YouTube comments don’t stand
up to careful analysis. This list of four alleged parallels with some helpful documentation will
help kickstart some helpful research.
·
I’ve seen a number of sources pointing to more
ancient Juvenalia or Saturnalia celebrations as the source for the December
25th date of Christmas; however, the dates for these festivals occurred earlier
in December.
In summary:
While Christians in the fifth century and beyond showed gradually greater
degrees of syncretism, careful historians will be hard-pressed to make the case
that even in the second and early third centuries–before the legalization of
Christianity–that Christians were already adopting and adapting the pagan
religions of Rome. Further, the earliest sources that specifically refer to the
Christian celebration of Christ’s birth and not to any pagan festival.
So if
December 25th wasn’t a pagan holiday, where else could it have come from? Let’s
look at three intriguing possibilities.
