Christmas is not a Pagan holiday and neither is Toyotathon

Christmas is not a pagan holiday. Never has been. Never will be.

I get it though. Very few things make blush in embarrassment quite like how some Christians handle our Holy Days. It is partially the byproduct of our faith giving so much freedom in this area. I have to be careful here because Scripture clearly calls me to not look down on others who regard such days differently than I (Romans 14:13-23). The goal being “peace” and “mutual upbuilding” not pushing my secondary convictions on other who are led differently in how they order their calendar. So, I tread here lightly and not with a heavy foot like some of my Puritan forefathers.

Of all the holidays, none get stolen from Grinches quite like Christmas. So much that there apparently is a war declared on it.

We often get angry and uncharitable when we see an “X” replace Christ’s name in “Christmas.” (despite it meaning the exact same thing historically).  On the other hand, some believers are indistinguishable from the world in how they sell out to materialism and avarice with little to no focus on Christ. It’s apparently a war that can be easily lost because there are so many ways we lose it. So little Scripture. So little worship. So little focus on the things that matter.  So little marveling at the glory of the incarnation.

If it is a war, then it is not the one that our Aunts on Facebook think it is. 

This can be a tricky topic because I do think there is a war, a conflict, about Christmas and in particular who it belongs to. I think this in part is because of the ignorance that surrounds the origins of Christmas. We do not know where it started and therefore do not know what it is meant to get at. I think there is a legitimate attack on these origins by secularists who claim ignorantly that “Christmas was originally a pagan holiday.” This is quoted like a self evident truth from the Constitution. This despite no evidence.  Its meant like a trump card something like saying “Jesus wasn’t white” as though that proves anything except that the person speaking cares a lot about the color of peoples skin.

A simple truth: celebrating the incarnation of Jesus at Christmas is an ancient practice rooted in Biblical and historical reasons.

In other words, Christmas is not a pagan holiday no more than Toyotahon.

While there has been growth in tradition, lore, and expression of our celebration, the practice is is rooted in Biblical history separate from any pagan influence. This relatively new claim by secularists does not stand under even the lightest historical scrutiny. The accusation is really based around the idea that the date of Christmas was borrowed from pagan holidays like Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, Brumalia, and European feasts like Yule or that certain elements were stolen or borrowed. Some have grown up thinking this as Secularist and non-believers looked for reasons to steal a holiday back that never belonged to them.

The narrative is that Christians moved the celebration of Christ’s birth to the place of these other pagan festivities in order to encourage pagans to convert.

On one level that makes sense to me as a Christian. We are a people big on redemption and why not bring good out of the bad? I would not see it as terrible for early believers to baptize these holidays and give them new meaning as people moved from darkness to light.

We might redeem Toyotathon next if heathens keep on heathing.

The danger would always be to know which heathen ideas remain or are being continued to be smuggled and which ideas are faithful to Christ. Thats always the danger with syncretism. Christmas decorations could be trappings for paganism one might suspect. Who knows what were things incorporated into Christmas from pagan beginnings and what the lingering consequences might be. Halloween 2.0

The problem with this narrative good or bad is that it is completely bogus. It’s a farce. It’s a lie. There is nothing about this that is rooted in what actually happened.

The first thing to consider is why the December 25th date for Christ’s birth. What is the actual reason the early Church gave for that date?

To that end we look to John Chrysostom (347-407) who was called the “Golden mouthed preacher” and was a leader of one of the largest Churches in the world at the time. Calvin over a thousand years later would quote his handling of the Greek Scriptures and I did extensive work with his sermons in my graduate studies. He pastored in the metropolitan city of Constantinople and was known as one who preached the whole Bible without pulling any punches (which often got him into trouble with the ruling class). His homily “On the day of the Birth of our Savior Jesus Christ” states that the December 25th date of Christ’s birth as universally known “from the beginning in the Western Church.” That would mean from within the first century since the Bible itself contains the record of the Gospel going to the West and Churches being planted there (Acts 16). Chrysostom argues against those who deny this date with three proofs of the December 25th date.

He NEVER mentions any pagan celebration in his exposition on the dating of Christ’s birth, but instead appeals to Scripture, History, and Tradition. These same reasons are echoed by a chorus of historical sources.

That evidence begins with the census mentioned in Luke 2, which state it occurred during December. He furthers this argument from Scripture by encouraging anyone who questions it to search the ancient records, which were kept in public libraries of Rome.

Ironically, he encouraged ancient Christians and pagans to do research that most modern men fail to do. He sees the time of Jesus’ birth as easily verifiable.

Lastly, he argues from the text of Scripture that the timing of Zacharias service, Elizabeth’s conception, and the visitation to Mary (during Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy; Luke 1:30-37) would lead to a December Calculation. He concludes that Elizabeth became pregnant in the latter part of September (after the Feast of Tabernacles) and Mary became pregnant six months later in March. Nine months from that and we have a December date.

It was the math, not other preexisting holidays that had Christians celebrating Immanuel in December.

Chrysostom and this argument are found throughout the Early Church Fathers and can be corroborated with other Christian writers. Author Nicholas Campbell in his book, “Holidays and the Feasts,” argues we can solidly arrive at the conclusion that the festival of Christmas is ultimately celebrated on December 25th because tradition and consensus of the Early Church and not because of anything pagan that preexisted.

Anybody who is arguing otherwise is doing so apart from the historical evidence. The date of Christmas was never an appropriation or supplanting of pagan festivals. All of the evidence points to the fact that early Christians genuinely believed that Jesus’ birth took place on December 25th and celebrated it as such.

This included places beyond Europe into both Asia and Africa.

Another witness to this fact is Sextus Julius Africanus (160-240 AD). Africanus, wrote a volume titled Chronographiai, an early Christian treatise that attempted to chronologically cover World History from creation up to his own day. Based on the same calculations available to Chrysostom, Africanus concluded that Jesus was conceived on March 25th and that would land the birth nine months later on Decmeber 25th.

Now do I know that Jesus was in the manger on the 25th? No. But what we see is that across multiple continents the Church in the first few centuries clearly believed He was and that provided the motivation to remember and rejoice on December 25th.

Tertullian (155-220 AD) was a great lawyer and apologist that comes at that same conclusion from a different angle. He was writing a defense of Christianity to the Jews. There were some of his contemporaries who thought that if you were really holy that you would die on the day you were conceived. This was thought mainly because of how the Old Testament record were kept and such things as how they would calculate individuals records like that of Moses with round numbers (It is a long, somewhat strange discussion). Tertullian states that Jesus suffered “in the month of March, at the time of Passover, on the eighth day before the Calends of April.” That would have been March 25th as both the day He was conceived and day that He was crucified. This is easy to calculate because of the regularity of passover.

This is a mute point if some did not actually believe He was born on March 25th. This is another reference to the fact the Early Church unanimously saw December 25th as the actual date of Christ’s birth because of when they believed He was conceived.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), in the fourth century attests to this ongoing tradition on the 25th of December existing all over the world. He wrote, “For He (Jesus) is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before Him nor since.” We could go on to Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 AD) in his commentary on the book of Daniel and many others but the point is clear: Christmas did not begin as a pagan holiday, but because G-d sent His Son into the world such that Christians rejoiced on what that date meant.

The Gospel created Christmas, not the pagan calendar. This tradition extends back into the first century and the earliest records of what Christians believed in the Early Church. To paint it otherwise is just not accurate to the evidence and is reading history backwards.

The second part of the narrative concerning existing pagan holidays is equally problematic. The issue begins with Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is around the time that Christians celebrated Christmas, but the record is clear that it had no festive significance to ancient Romans where often the pagan roots are said to have begun. There were no celebrations planned for the date and there was even disagreement when the Winter Solstice was. While the Julian Calendar does have it on the 25th, that of Pliny the Elder has it on the 26th and that of Columella on the 23rd. You can find that at your local library, you do not need an advanced degree.

Nothing of festive significance was lost by this disagreement on the dates of the Solstice. Honestly, we fight more with our spouses about whose family we are visiting on Christmas than they did about apparently losing whole holidays.

Among the Romans because nothing significant was on the line culturally, so nothing was really lost. There is not pushback because there was nothing religious to defend.

One might argue Sol Invictus was on the December 25th date, but that followed after the Christian tradition not before it. Sol Invictus was not placed on December 25th until 354 AD when the Philocalian Calendar but the record does not specify any festival with regards to sun worship on that date. This was a full 300 years after evidence that Christians were using the date to celebrate Christ’s birth. Prior to this much later start date the Julio-Claudian fasti inscriptions say Sun Festivals were on August 8th, 9th, 28th, and December 11th, and maybe October 19th. The Philocalian Calendar says Emperor Aurelian honored the sun with chariot races every 4 years on October 19-22.

If you are arguing a hijacking occurred then its the other way around. The Christmas celebration was already in full swing. It was before these and not after it according to the records.

Another possible pagan culprit was Saturnalia. The same problems exist for it as well. Saturnalia was never on December 25th. Macrobius says Saturnalia began 14 days before January, which comes out to December 17th, using Roman Calendrical dates. He says it lasted for 3 days, but according to the Fasti Inscriptions, it lasted to the 24th during the days of the Republic.

Any accusation of overlap or borrowing would be pagans from Christians instead of Christians from pagans.

Lastly, there is an idea of Father Christmas. Often connected to Saint Nicolas (one of my favorite characters in Church history). But Father Christmas is not a pagan deity. Instead, he was a medieval personification of Christmas rooted in a figure from the Early Church. Richard Smart of Plymtree is the first to write about him, referring to him as Sir Christmas, and his task is to announce the birth of Christ and point people to worship Jesus.

That is neither earlier than the Christian tradition nor pagan. You would have to be ignorant of both to make any other claim.

This kind of arguing from ignorance trickles down to every element of Christmas. For instance, the Christmas tree supposedly finds its origin in Druid and pagan practices of bringing pine tress into one’s house to ward off nature spirits. The reality is that the first mention of Christmas trees is in Alsace ordinance in the 16th century (not far from where my family used to celebrate Christmas). Almost no early pagans thought pine trees were sacred let alone associated with December 25th. Instead, Germanic tribes believed the Oak was sacred. Maximus of Tyre said, “the Celts indeed worship Zeus, but they honor him in the form of a lofty oak.” Early Christian did cut the Oden tree in a bold move to preach the Gospel to Vikings, but again that was not a pine tree which came to point to heaven, remain evergreen, and pointed to Christ in Christmas. The same with mistletoe, which we only hear of first in history in Robert Herrick’s “Hesperides poetry collection” and then William Coles “the Art of Simpling” from the 1600’s.

The war on Christmas is apparently one with a lot of spy level misinformation and piracy.

The logic is sound to say that if the Indy 500 landed on Winter Solstice and Christmas landed some Winter Solstice that it is possible they developed independently at different times and places. If there was a festival that started in India this year on December 25th we would not say that Christianity stole from this later holiday by having Christmas on that same day. No more than saying that Christians appropirated gift giving from Toyotathon instead of the other way around (But seriously who buys their spouse a new car for Christmas?).

The historical records are important. The narrative is important. The truth is important.

The word “pagan” comes from the root for rural villager or the uneducated. Theirs was the religion of superstition, darkness, and has always been demonic.  It peddles in deception. It dupes the foolish.

Since the enemy cannot create anything better, it steals.

It was Christianity which from mostly urban areas that destroyed the falsehoods of paganism. It offered a better explanation of the world.  It argued from Scripture, it reasoned from logic, and partied on Christmas until it civilized the pagans. It has spread through the preaching of the Gospel continues to take over the world. While some are returning to the ignorance of paganism again in the West, it will be Christianity that will once again save us. It will be a return to what made Christmas holy; Jesus the incarnate. Maybe what we need is for Christmas to help us remember who Christ is and what He came to do.  It is His light that casts out all darkness.

May your Christmas be all about Christ.

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