Did Christmas Copy Paganism?
The Celebration Emerged Organically in the Largely Decentralized, Pre-Constantine Church
The Early Church was much less of a top-down, steeply hierarchical community than what the largest Christian denominations look like in 2023.
Christmas emerged quite organically in this more “anarchist” environment.
No date for Jesus’ birth is given in the Bible, and the formalization of Christmas during the post-Constantine period leads many to think Christmas actually started in the fourth century A.D.
There are also some rough similarities between Christmas and non-Christian celebrations during late December. This “pattern matching” leads many to conclude that Christmas is basically a winter solstice celebration, borrowing its key elements from paganism.
(And, yes, I actually made this meme shown above specially for this Substack post! It’s a bridge I didn’t know I’d ever cross — into the land of making interwebbies memes — but here we are.)
I’m always skeptical of claiming the origins of something deeply Christian are found in the Constantine and post-Constantine Church. I’m very critical of some regressive changes that occurred in the Church due to Constantine and say so in Station 2 of the Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen book.
Christmas pre-dates the flood of paganism into the Church
Turns out, Christmas traces to before Constantine, before the Official Church devolved into fanatically political hierarchy and justifications for violence that resembled paganism.
I recommend two articles to explain this in depth:
Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. … [T]he first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character. (McGowan)
The best evidence for early Christians placing Christmas on Dec. 25 involves “integral age.” It’s a modern term for a belief that a holy person enters the world and leaves the world at the same time of year, so the person’s lifespan is an “integer” — a whole number — of years.
For more on the “integral age,” I recommend another article, plus an ancient text that McGowan cites (the Rosh Hashanah from the Babylonian Talmud):
Christ’s birth is likely a reflection of Christ’s death
The early seekers of Jesus’ date of death landed in the year we call 29 A.D./C.E., on March 25.
We now know this date is wrong …
[T]his is impossible: 25 March 29 was not a Friday, and Passover Eve in A.D. 29 did not fall on a Friday and was not on March 25th, or in March at all. (Tighe)
… but they apparently didn’t know it back then.
After all, they had Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and possibly other calendars all in use, each with its own months and years! Things we take for granted in 2023 — like being confident that pretty much everyone knows it’s 2023! — weren’t valid 18 centuries ago.
So they accepted March 25 for Jesus’ conception/death date. Add nine months, and you hit Dec. 25.
Those translating into the Greek calendar made an additional mistake in converting the date of Passover in 29 A.D. and settled on April 6 as Jesus’ day of death, leading to Jan. 6 as their date for Christmas.
Embrace the real purpose
In a hyperconnected world with a centralized Church, all these errors could be easily, quickly fixed.
But the logistical difficulties of the past show us something more important than centralized, top-down control, and more meaningful than cold compliance and cataloging of citizens.
These more distributed communities of the Early Church tried to create a celebration, the date of which conveyed their beliefs about holiness and the connection between life and death.
And their “mistakes” serve as the evidence that they aimed to define and refine a truly Judeo-Christian perspective, rather than the repackaged paganism that would (sadly) infect later eras.
I think they succeeded! And I encourage everyone to revisit the Early Church’s organic, grassroots, decentralized, good-neighbor-bad-citizen characteristics and the wonderful gifts — including Christmas — they gave to future generations.
What do you think of these rarely discussed histories? What are your impressions of this essay? Share your thoughts in the Comments below!
I will have to read all those linked articles at another time, but still think it's a topic worth considering and so I'll add to the conversation:
I think there is certainly value in trying to get the timeline straight, more so for understanding the unveiling of events in the prophetic timeline, than for being pedantic.
Regarding the idea of borrowing from pagans, I don't necessarily doubt that the 'church' may have made some strategic errors in trying to 'work with' early converts by reappropriating some of their pagan traditions. The letter to the seven churches in Revelation shows the continued practice and adoption of pagan rituals was always a problem. Paul had to constantly warn the early Christians about this danger as well. Then too, being a weakness of human nature to be idolatrous, the role of Christians in the creation and propagation of the Santa Claus farse that now permeates even most Christian Christmas celebrations. indicates we don't need help from the pagans in creating idols in our lives. (See: sttammanylibrary.org/blogs/post/the-legend-of-santa-claus-part-1-the-origin-and-history-of-a-christmas) (I'm also not catholic, although I was raised in that "tradition").
I don't know if we can be sure or not with exactitude of the date of Christ's birth, but the co-opting of Dec. 25 by the capitalists makes me inclined to choose to celebrate the birth of Christ Jan 6 as the Orthodox do, simply to avoid all the trappings and distractions. I have no doubt that if more Christians did that, the 'celebrate the season' advertisements would eventually extend to a longer period, but given that only .5% of the U.S. population is Orthodox (I am not, by the way), it would probably be quite a while before that market would be worth pursuing. Then too, no matter when we chose to celebrate a holy day, Satan would always do his best to co-opt and corrupt it. The sad part is, and what I think needs addressed more is how often we as Christians are so willing to compromise and gladly let him do so. That to me is the more important reason to think about the origins of our celebratory traditions.
I also don't worry much about commonality between pagan and Christian mythos, not only for the very reason mentioned above (Satan co-opting God's pattern), but also because revelation, while officially coming through the Judeo-Christian scriptures, has never been limited to just those people. God called people from all nations and revealed Himself to all through His creation and to all who sought Him with their whole heart. It only stands to reason that all truth seekers would arrive at similar ideas eventually.