It’s that time of year again folks , it’s the time when all the internet sleuths hatch out of their basement cocoons and sheepishly comment about how Christmas is a pagan holiday , and that the birth of Christ is actually celebrating the day of Mithras or the Winter Solstice (Or at least something along those lines). It’s at least partially amusing is the sense that people are so confident without likely having researched into it. Today I will be gladly bursting their bubbles and simply explaining why this isn’t the case.
So lets start with the most common critiques “Christmas is a pagan holiday”. So to understand why that day was chosen we need to go back into the history of the Church and the early church fathers. The first century church wasn’t catholic as everyone assumes. This was roughly 800+ years PRIOR to the schism (split) between the Orthodox and Catholic parts of the Church. Now in the liturgical year of the churches, There is A day for everything in the Church, for every event in the Bible and every Saint. Christmas (Christs Birth) is no exception. They also generally like to celebrate events and people on the correct or closest approximate days.
To come to the date of December 25th The early church fathers corresponded the writings of Flavius Josephus , A Roman-Jew was one of the closest sources (Born 37AD – Died 100AD) , in which he refers to censuses that are present in the book of Luke. Now there is still debates as to the accuracy of this but we must remember that it’s the best approximation they had for the time and once a date has been picked, they are not going to keep moving it around.
Here’s the kicker now… drumroll … Christmas was never celebrated December 25th but on the 7th January. Why? well the Julian calendar was (and still is for many Orthodox Christians) the norm. The Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus only changed the date when he introduced the Gregorian calendar , which not everyone adopted. But since the Catholics did , the revision of dates became wide-spread. So quite clearly the Christmas date was not selected because of the celebration of Mithras and is not a pagan holiday.
Now It is commonly said that Christmas trees, santa, Christmas lights and so on, are evil , pagan , unbiblical. While it’s true none of these are in the Bible , no-where in church cannons will you find Bishops and Clergy urging people to partake in this . Christmas tree’s & lights, were adorned to bring in colour during the winter solstice. Santa was inspired by St Nicholas and his charity. These are mere traditions that the families in our past cultures decided to retain. It doesn’t make any of it ‘bad’ by any means. There are countless modern practices deriving from pagan / polytheistic roots. Take for example how we name our days/months , they are all named directly from Greek and roman gods. Blowing our candles on your birthday cake? yeah that’s pagan. Covering your mouth when you yawn? yep that’s pagan. Celebrating the new year? pagan.. Crossing fingers, touching wood, flower crowns and wreaths.. you get the point. Does that make you a pagan? probably not , by these standards the majority of the world would be pagan. Its just how our culture works, we inherit or takeover the previous culture and retain some things and get rid of others. So the meaning and intent of certain traditions changes and becomes detached from its original meaning, giving new meaning to old practices. What was once spiritual is now secular.
So don’t be uptight and a buzzkill this holiday season. Stay safe, have fun and rest assured you are not a pagan for enjoying this festive tradition with your family !
