It happened, it is sneaking up on you! The Christmas holiday! I wrote yesterday in the blog on the winter solstice that the man we know as Jesus was not born December 25, but in the spring time. Some folks wanted to know why we don't just shift Christmas.
First, the church firmly planted Christ's birthday on December 25 for reasons of trying to bring over converts from the pagans. The Romans had a big sun worshiping ceremony at this time, and it blended in with Saturnalia, which also happened around our traditional Christmas date. The other question that popped up was , "What was Saturnalia"? We will get to that in a moment.
Christmas blended in well with the solstice, as many other belief systems had celebrations at that time for the "bringing of light back into the world". If the church had a similar celebration the church would feel "warmer and fuzzier" to the pagans an others. They may then come and join the Church, and that is what the Church was hoping for.
The flip side of that, is when was Jesus really born? The fact is no one knows, there was no reason to keep birth date records at the time, and there are no records of anyone's birth back in ancient times. Birthday celebrations are new things, and birth records are also relatively new. Many US states don't have them before the mid 1800's. People's births were marked by major events. The year's mattered, but not the days.
The only thing known for sure about Jesus' birthday was that he was born when Herod was King. (We tend to pronounce his name Her ud, but it is actually HEE rod) Herod died in 2 BC, so Christ wouldn't be 2011 years old today. Biblical scholars say it may have been as far back as 6 BC, which goes to show if we can't even get a year, we sure can say a day for certain.
Hippolytus is the man who argued for Jesus birthday to be December 25. This happened back in the second century, at the same time there were areas where the church celebrated it on January 6. Because of events at the time, the flocks of lambs (who would not be out at night in the winter, and were most likely sacrificial lambs for spring celebrations), and events surrounding kings, celebrations on going (remember there was no room at the inn),and the "star" which was more likely a comet, points to March. However it is a day that we will never no for sure.
Biblical scholars agree that Saturnalia was the reason that Jesus' birthday was moved to Dec 25, this way it would always be near the winter solstice, a date that changes with the moon. I believe it was more Sol Invictus (Invincible sun), but that celebration led into and became part of Saturnalia.
Saturnalia was an interesting celebration of opposites. The slaves became masters and the masters became the slaves for a day. This was a very popular Roman celebration. It honors Chronus, the youngest of the Titans. It was a week long celebration that ended on December 23, it was so loved by the citizens that when 2 emperors tried to shorten the celebration days, there were revolts. There were presents, gambling, school holidays, parties, sacrifices, and a huge banquet where the slaves were served by the masters. It does sort of sound like Christmas in a few ways.
The Jews believe that it began even earlier than the Roman Empire. They believe that as Adam saw the days getting shorter, he thought that God was angry because he had somehow sinned. He fasted for eight days. Then the solstice occurred and Adam saw that the days were again getting longer and realized this was a way of nature. He then celebrated for eight days.
There were many celebrations going on at this time, well before the birth of Christ. I can more easily picture Jesus as a compassionate Pisces born in March (the last sign of the zodiac, a sign that is said to not reincarnate on this earth), than a stubborn Capricorn (please no email from all you Capricorns out there). It is something we will never know, but it is very interesting to see what other groups believed and did around the time that we now call "Christmas". Christmas is a new holiday in the scheme of things.
No matter what you celebrate from Pagan holidays to Chanukah, to Kwanza, to Christmas...have a wonderful celebration!
Peshaui Wequashimese
(C)2011 Dr. R M Wolf , May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior written permission.
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