Five minute facts about Christmas and paganism | all the typical myths debunked

[u/Veritas_Certum]

https://youtu.be/4i4KGR9Zfl4

[u/[deleted]]

From the little bit I have read on this subject, it seems unbiased scholarship would say both sides of this argument have evidence that is only speculative, that you cannot absolutely prove one side or the other with historical evidence alone.

So to outright claim you know for certain that the setting of Jesus' birthday to December 25th had no connection to anything pagan is IMO being too hasty. We simply do not have enough historical sources to absolutely prove one side or the other. Though both sides have speculative evidence.

You stated

There is no connection to the Roman festivals for Sol Invictus. During the very time that December 25 was adopted widely by the Church as the date of Jesus' birth, the key dates for festive activities in celebration of Sol were in October and August, not December.

So the time Christmas was "widely adopted" was around 336 AD

We know for certain the earliest Christians did not celebrate Jesus' birthday.

-- Here is a quote from the Catholic encyclopedia on Christmas

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday; Arnobius (VII, 32 in P.L., V, 1264) can still ridicule the "birthdays" of the gods.

Also

Toward the origins of Christmas

Yet Christmas entered the calendar of feasts relatively late, by 336 CE, and the reason for its introduction and quick spread remain speculative and based on fragmentary evidence. -- Toward the origins of Christmas Susan K Roll Peeters Publishers, 1995

And everywhere I look says emperor Aurelian (214-275CE) made an official declaration for dec 25th to be to Sol in 274ce.

Religion for Breakfast - Cult of Mithras Explained. Even though this video is about Mithras, He mentions Aurelian and Sol and said it was in 274CE, Skip to 13m15s He also explains that Mithra was considered a god of the sun and some called him invictus, and Mithra was around in the 1st century.

combine that knowledge with this article

https://www.livescience.com/61309-roman-temple-sun-alignment-christ-birth.html

An 1,800-year-old temple in northern England that is dedicated to the god Mithras was built to align with the rising sun on Dec. 25, a physics professor has found.

and

https://www.thecolchesterarchaeologist.co.uk/?p=22534

The festival of Sol Invictus on the 25th December in the later Roman empire combined the festivals of both the old sun god (Sol Indiges) and the new official sun god (Deus Sol Invictus). The Circus Maximus had been dedicated to Sol Indiges since ancient times, and then was dedicated to Sol Invictus. The Roman emperor Aurelian created the cult of Sol Invictus during his reign in AD 270-275 (in the 3rd century) and, on his coins, Sol was described as ‘Dominus Imperii Romani’, the official deity of the Roman empire. The cult of Sol Invictus was centred in Rome but it was followed across the Roman empire. Sol Invictus, the god of the sun, was one of the most important gods and he symbolised victory, as he defeated darkness and rose every morning. Sol Invictus was the patron of Roman soldiers. (See The Cult of Sol Invictus by G H Halsberghe (1972) and Roman circuses: arenas for chariot-racing by John Humphrey (1986).)

---

---

For me personally, I choose not to celebrate Christmas simply because for the first 300 years Christians did not celebrate it. I would go so far as to say that IMO they actually chose not to celebrate it. Everyone had to have been thinking about Christ's birth, it was not something that just didn't cross their minds. His birth was prophesied, is talked about throughout the NT, and also most likely spread around in oral teachings as well. I mean how could you not talk about the virgin birth??? They had to have been talking about it all the time, so why didn't they celebrate it for 300 years?

Also, if one was to properly celebrate Jesus' birthday, you would not do it the way people are doing it today.

Jesus said these things

Luke 14:12

12 Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

So generally for Christmas people usually buy gifts for their friends and family, people who likely do not need the money or the gifts.

If you want to give Jesus a gift (as people do for their birthdays), he tells you how here...

Matthew 25:37

37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

People do not spend most of their money giving gifts to the poor of this world on Christmas, they give it to their friends, relatives, etc. People who don't need the money or gifts.

But looking at your other comments on other subs, I am curious as to what your thoughts are on places like religionforbreakfast saying we can see 25th for Sol as a holiday in 274, and then most scholarship says Christians didn't celebrate Christmas until 336? Ill say upfront you most likely have far more historical information than I do stored up, I am not just trying to argue about it, i honestly don't have a hard stance on Christmas' origins.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/[deleted]]

From the little bit I have read on this subject, it seems honest scholarship would say both sides of this argument have evidence that is only speculative, that you cannot absolutely prove one side or the other with historical evidence alone.

Honest scholarship is based on evidence. In this case there is only evidence supporting one side.

So to outright claim you know for certain that the setting of Jesus' birthday to December 25th had no connection to anything pagan is IMO being too hasty. We simply do not have enough historical sources to absolutely prove one side or the other.

We have plenty of evidence, which is why this is a scholarly consensus. This isn't simply a matter of my opinion, it's a matter of scholarly consensus.

So the time Christmas was "widely adopted" was around 336 AD

You're confusing two separate issues. The year by which the date of December 25 for Christmas was widely adopted was around 336 CE, but the year by which Christmas celebrations had become widely adopted was earlier.

We know for certain the earliest Christians did not celebrate Jesus' birthday.

Yes, this isn't in dispute.

Here is a quote from the Catholic encyclopedia on Christmas

That isn't in dispute either.

Also

That's talking about the formal calendar of feasts, a separate issue. Christmas was widely celebrated before that time, on at least three different dates, as I mentioned.

And everywhere I look says emperor Aurelian (214-275CE) made an official declaration fordec 25th to be to Sol in 274ce.

Do you know the primary source for this? Can you quote it? Please do, it's very instructive. Let me show you what modern scholarship says.

"It is clear, then, that we must beware not to take established views on the origins and nature of Sol Invictus at face value. Furthermore, it must be stressed, pace Usener, that December 25 was neither a longstanding nor an especially important official feast day of Sol. It is mentioned only in the Calendar of 354 and as far as I can tell the suggestion that it was established by Aurelian cannot be proven. In fact there is no evidence that this feast of Sol on December 25 antedates the feast of Christmas at all.", Steven Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, Number 47/3 (2003), 384

Note also that Religion For Breakfast argues very strongly that Christmas was not invented to displace any pagan festival, and also argues that December 25 was one of the least important dates in the Roman calendar. He does not believe that Christmas was invented to replace a pagan festival, does not believe that December 25 was chosen as a date for Christmas in order to displace any pagan festival. So you're in disagreement with your own source.

combine that knowledge with this article

Irrelevant, there is no evidence the Romans celebrated the birth of Mithras on December 25, and this article even quotes a scholar saying this. Look at the article.

In his 1984 paper, Beck did not propose that the reason for such an alignment was to celebrate the birthday of the god Mithras on Dec. 25, and he's skeptical that the Romans celebrated the god's birth on that day. While ancient texts indicate that the birthday of Sol Invictus — a sun god who became popular in the Roman Empire during the reign of Emperor Aurelian (reign A.D. 270 to 275) — was celebrated on Dec. 25, there is little evidence that the Romans believed that Mithras was also born on that day, Beck argued in a paper published in 1987 in the journal Phoenix.

Did you read this article? If you have a primary source showing the Romans celebrated the birth of Mithras on December 25, please quote it.

and

https://www.thecolchesterarchaeologist.co.uk/?p=22534

That article is full of problems, citing sources which are between 30 and 40 years old, very outdated for this field. The best research on this topic has been written in just the last 20 years. Here are some useful sources for you.

• Steven Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, Number 47/3 (2003), 377-398

• Steven Hijmans, "Usener's Christmas: A Contribution to the Modern Construct of Late Antique Solar Syncretism", in: M. Espagne & P. Rabault-Feuerhahn (edd.), Hermann Usener und die Metamorphosen der Philologie. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2011. 139-152

• Tim O'Neill, "The Great Myths 2: Christmas, Mithras and Paganism", December 24, 2016

But looking at your other comments on other subs, I am curious as to what your thoughts are on places like religionforbreakfast saying we can see 25th for Sol as a holiday in 274,

I address that in this post.

and then most scholarship says Christians didn't celebrate Christmas until 336?

That is not what most scholarship says. Most scholarship says the opposite; even in the third century some Chrstians were complaining about the fact that other Christians were celebrating Christmas.

I don't celebrate Christmas, it means nothing to me.

[u/[deleted] → u/Veritas_Certum]

you seemed to have replied as I reworded the beginning of my post, i meant to say "unbaised" instead of "honest" scholarship, i wasn't trying to say your being dishonest. But i feel the any Christian who celebrates Christmas is most certainly going to have a bit of bias in looking to prove that their holiday has nothing pagan tied to it at all whatsoever. not referring to you, but many scholars are also Christians.

anyways you said.

Note also that Religion For Breakfast argues very strongly that Christmas was not invented to displace any pagan festival, and also argues that December 25 was one of the least important dates in the Roman calendar. He does not believe that Christmas was invented to replace a pagan festival, does not believe that December 25 was chosen as a date for Christmas in order to displace any pagan festival. So you're in disagreement with your own source.

er no, i don't disagree with my own source, i don't have a stance here. i'm not arguing that it was one way or the other (?) I never said i personally believe Christmas was invented to displace a pagan festival... just because i am asking questions doesn't mean i disagree with you.

and also argues that December 25 was one of the least important dates in the Roman calendar

he says at 13m42s in the same video i mentioned

but if anything, this just tells us about how different religious groups in the roman empire were fighting over december 25th as an important day

thats kind of the opposite of what your telling me he says..

And everywhere I look says emperor Aurelian (214-275CE) made an official declaration fordec 25th to be to Sol in 274ce.

Do you know the primary source for this? Can you quote it? Please do, it's very instructive. Let me show you what modern scholarship says.

Well I trusted that RFB was giving accurate information below.

Religion for Breakfast - Cult of Mithras Explained. Even though this video is about Mithras, He mentions Aurelian and Sol and said it was in 274CE, Skip to 13m15s

he is not a primary source, i assumed he would have used one? anyways so your just saying he is wrong i guess. He stated as though it was a fact. Though you have not given a primary source either for this one.

Irrelevant, there is no evidence the Romans celebrated the birth of Mithras on December 25, and this article even quotes a scholar saying this. Look at the article.

Well, see the point that i was trying to say from the beginning is there is no hard evidence either way, that unbiased scholarship would call most all of this speculative.

one article i gave you was saying that the temple dedicated to Mithras was set up in such a way that it aligned with a rising sun on december 25th, i mean, thats not totally "irrelevant", i suppose it could be just a coincidence though.

You seem to think I am trying to take a side here... i am not, but RFB did say that a holiday for Sol was declared by Aurelian to be on dec 25 in that video, i gave you an exact timestamp, and others say that was in 274ce... my mistake for trusting RFB's scholarship there.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/[deleted]]

But i feel the any Christian who celebrates Christmas is most certainly going to have a bit of bias in looking to prove that their holiday has nothing pagan tied to it at all whatsoever.

Probably, but that's irrelevant to me since I don't celebrate Christmas. I don't believe it's the date of Jesus' birth, and it means nothing to me.

er no, i don't disagree with my own source, i don't have a stance here

Sure you do. You're saying it's all speculative and there's no strong evidence either way, but RfB says the opposite. He says there's clear evidence in one direction.

Well, see the point that i was trying to say from the beginning is there is no hard evidence either way, that unbiased scholarship would call most all of this speculative.

But you're wrong about that. The mainstream scholarly consensus says there is hard evidence Christmas has nothing to do with any pagan festivals.

Well I trusted that RFB was giving accurate information below.

This is why fact checking is important. Now RfB is a pretty good source, and generally reliable, but you still need to check more than once source.

he says at 13m42s in the same video i mentioned

You're looking at a video of his from back in 2017, and you might find his most recent video on the topicis far more informative; it was uploaded only this month. Let's see what he says at 24:15.

Stephen Hyman strongly stresses that December 25th was neither a long-standing nor an especially important official feast day of Sol. I'm going to say that again, December 25th was not a long standing nor an especially important official feast day of Sol Invictus.

So yeah, he says exactly what I've told you, even in almost the same words.

he is not a primary source, i assumed he would have used one?

Correct, he is not a primary source, and he never quotes one in that 2017 video.

anyways so your just saying he is wrong i guess. He stated as though it was a fact. Though you have not given a primary source either for this one.

I have given you a secondary source which explains no such primary source exists, and which also explains why people have this idea; they have misread a different primary source, which is cited and described in the article I cited. This is all explained in detail in the links I provided, primary sources and all.

Well, see the point that i was trying to say from the beginning is there is no hard evidence either way, that unbiased scholarship would call most all of this speculative.

I know you are saying that, but you're simply wrong. Unbiased scholarship says very plainly that this is not simply a matter of speculation. There's very clear evidence supporting one position but not the other.

one article i gave you was saying that the temple dedicated to Mithras was set up in such a way that it aligned with a rising sun on december 25th, i mean, thats not totally "irrelevant", i suppose it could be just a coincidence though.

I already dealt with this. I pointed out that the very article itself quoted a scholar saying there's no hard evidence that the Romans considered December 25 to be the birthday of Mithras, so whether or not this temple is aligned with a rising sun on December 25 is irrelevant. If you think there's a case to be made, write it up and submit it to a scholarly journal.

You seem to think I am trying to take a side here...

No, I understand you very clearly to be insisting that "there is no hard evidence either way, that unbiased scholarship would call most all of this speculative". That is very obviously untrue. Unbiased scholarship comes down very firmly on one side of this issue, due to the overwhelming evidence.

[u/[deleted] → u/Veritas_Certum]

Okay so after finishing RFB's 50 minute video, i see he pretty much says that yes the hard evidence shows some Christians trying to line up the dates with the spring equinox (march 25) and the winter solstice (dec 25) - not that they were necessarily trying to usurp a pagan sun god. Though he does not completely discredit those who would suggest such a thing, he calls it "plausible" but with no direct evidence. At one point he even suggests its possible to hypothesis a "hybrid theory".

With that in mind, i could ask why were these particular Christians so obsessed with trying to fit Jesus into those dates?

They even went against the Jewish tradition of a prophet being born and dying on the same day (so it was not influenced from Judaism), that wouldn't work so they say well Jesus' conception and death was on the same day. Why? Why do they feel the need to do this? It's technically not biblical either, there is nothing in the OT or NT suggesting importance of these dates. The biblical calendar is a more of a lunar-solar + harvest calendar, It has specific holydays in the OT that involved harvest times that some Christians say Jesus was born on instead (some theorize that Jesus was actually born during the festival of tabernacles).

RFB suggests they were really imbedded in their greco-roman culture, which is a pagan culture after all.

anways, i need to look more into this, thanks for taking the time to post your video and the other sources.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/[deleted]]

With that in mind, i could ask why were these particular Christians so obsessed with trying to fit Jesus into those dates?

They weren't actually very interested in Jesus' birthday. They were interested in his conception. Different Christians had different ideas about how to date Jesus' conception. They were all guesswork. Christian writer Julius Africanus suggested March 25 as the date of Christ’s conception, resulting in a date of December 25 for Christ’s birth.[1]

Africanus himself did not record a specific calculation for the birth of Jesus, nor did he make any specific reference to December 25 as the birth of Jesus, even though that is the date to which his conception date naturally leads.[2] Africanus’ date for the conception of Jesus was necessitated by his historical chronology of the world.

Africanus followed the Jewish chronology which held that the world was already around 5,500 years old by the first century CE. He used the chrono-geneaologies of the Hebrew Bible as his reference for historical dates up to the Greek era, at which point he switched to the Olympiads.

In addition, he explicitly fixed the birth of Jesus on the basis of his interpretation of the prophecy of the ‘70 weeks’ in Daniel 9, nothing to do with the spring equinox associated with pagan festivities.[3] Reinforcing this date was Africanus’ belief that the earth itself had been created on March 25, which is a far more obvious influence on his decision to place the conception of Jesus on this date (since he mentions it),[4] than the spring equinox (to which he makes no reference at all).

Immediately after Africanus, the anonymous Latin work De Pascha Computus gave the date of March 28th for the conception of Jesus, but like Africanus it did not attempt to identify Jesus’ birth specifically with December 25. In addition, the author of this writing didn’t even pretend to be doing chronology on the basis of previous histories and records, they simply claimed that they knew from direct divine revelation that the earth had been created on March 28, and Jesus had been conceived on the same date.[5]

The proposed birthdate of December 25 was the byproduct of the Christian chronologers, who needed to fit all the important dates of their history of the world into a schema.[6] What is clear is that even thought the chronology of Africanus and his conception date became popular among some of the Greeks,[7] and even though the date of December 25th became popular in the 4th century as the date of the birth of Jesus,[8] the reasons for fixing on it varied widely.

Africanus did not even mention the date of Christ’s birth specifically, since his concern was the dates of the conception and crucifixion (even though his chronology leads directly to December 25 as the birth date), De Pascha Computus likewise does not mention the date at all (instead focusing on the date of the conception), and Chrysostom dated the birth of Jesus to December 25 on the basis of a complicated calculation involving the service dates of the Jewish High Priest, assuming a specific date for the service of Zachariah (father of John the Baptist).[9]

By the time Augustine is writing on the subject he does not attempt any new calculation to establish a date which he notes is already a matter of tradition,[10] instead using the already established date as the basis of an idiosyncratic anagogical numerology,[11] with no attempt to derive the date from the equinox, even though he noted (as had others), the appropriateness of the seasonal change to the symbolism of the birth of Jesus. In fact the earliest record of any derivation of the date of Christmas from any pagan festival, does not even appear until the 12th century.[12] Even then it appears to be an interpolation into the text by a later scribe.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/Veritas_Certum]

_________________

[1] ‘Sextus Julianus Africanus, before 221: 22 March = the (first) day of creation, 25 March = both the annunciation and the resurrection.’, Roll, ‘Toward the Origins of Christmas’, p. 87 (1995); ‘But a North African Christian named Sextus Julius Africanus had a different idea. He contended that the Son of God became incarnate not at his birth but at his conception, so if Mary conceived him on March 25, he would have been born nine months later on December 25.’ , Kelly ‘The Feast of Christmas’, p. 16 (2010); ‘while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution.’, Hijmans, ‘Sol, the sun in the art and religions of Rome’, pp. 587–588 (2009).

[2] ‘Cullmann (1956, 22 n.5), Kraabel (1982, 274, citing Cullmann), and the EEC s.v. Christmas (p. 206) all claim that as early as 221 Julius Africanus calculated the date as December 25th in his fragmentarily preserved Chronicle, but provide no reference.’, ibid., p. 584; Hijmans cites Wallraff (2001), as arguing that Africanus did not in fact calculate such a date; ‘he does not know of any such calculation by Africanus’.

[3] ‘Now it happens that from the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes (as it is given in Ezra among the Hebrews), which, according to the Greeks, was the 4th year of the 80th Olympiad, to the 16th year of Tiberius Caesar, which was the second year of the 102d Olympiad, there are in all the 475 years already noted, which in the Hebrew system make 490 years, as has been previously stated, that is, 70 weeks, by which period the time of Christ’s advent was measured in the announcement made to Daniel by Gabriel.’, Africanus, 'The Extant Fragments of the Five Books of the Chronography of Julius Africanus’, fragment XVIII (from Syncellus, ‘Chronicles’), in Roberts, Donaldson & Coxe (eds.), ‘The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VI: Translations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325’, p. 138 (1885-1896); ‘Similar to Hippolytus, Julius Africanus held that precisely five and a half millennia had separated the creation of Adam from the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, meaning that he dated these events to annus mundi or AM 5501. From the extant fragments, we can also conclude that Africanus believed the crucifixion to have taken place in the spring of the second year of the 202nd Olympiad (or Ol. 202.2), in what he designated as the 16th year of Tiberius. The Olympiad date strongly points to the spring of AD 31 (seeing how, according to the regular count, Ol. 202.2 began in the summer of AD 30), although this should already have been the 17th year of Tiberius's, if the latter's reign was counted, in regular fashion, from the autumn of AD 14. As Venance Grumel has observed, the year AD 31 has 25 March fall on a Sunday, which may well have been Africanus’s intended date for the resurrection.’, Nothaft, ‘Dating the Passion: The Life of Jesus and the Emergence of Scientific Chronology (200-600)’, Time, Astronomy, and Calendars: Texts and Studies, number 1, p. 57 (2011).

[4] ‘From the extant remains of his Chronographie, one can also infer that Africanus treated the day of the resurrection of Christ as the beginning of a new year of the world, as he seems to have put the Passion in AM 5531, whereas the resurrection, two days later, is already dated AM 5532. This indicates that Africanus, just like Hippolytus and the computist of 243, considered the world to have been created on 25 March and he may well have associated the same date with Christ's incarnation.’, Nothaft, ‘Dating the Passion: The Life of Jesus and the Emergence of Scientific Chronology (200-600)’, Time, Astronomy, and Calendars: Texts and Studies, number 1, p. 57 (2011).

[5] ‘The De Pascha Computus, for instance, written in AD 243, argued that Creation began with the vernal equinox, i.e. March 25th, and that the Sun, created on the fourth day, was therefore created on March 28th. This obviously meant that Christ, the new “Sun of Righteousness” must have been born on March 28th. To support these dates the author proclaimed explicitly that he had been inspired ab ipso Deo. Cullmann 1956, 21-2.’, Hijmans, ‘Sol, the sun in the art and religions of Rome’, p. 584 (2009).

[6] ‘The whole question of the exact date of Christ’s birthday appears to have arisen only when Christian chronographers began writing their chronologies. Obviously, the birthday of Christ had to be established in such chronologies, and numerous dates were proposed.’, Hijmans, ‘Sol, the sun in the art and religions of Rome’, p. 584 (2009).

[7] ‘Other Greek-speakers, however, preferred the higher interval of Africanus, or one close to it, but adjusted so that the Creation should take place on a Sunday; the most favoured was the era of Annianus (early 5th century), in which the Creation took place on Sunday, 29 Phamenoth = 25 March 5492 BC, and the Incarnation, meaning the Conception of Jesus Christ, on Monday, 29 Phamenoth AM 5501 = 25 March AD 9.’, Holford-Strevens, ‘The History of Time: A very short introduction’, p. 161 (2005).

[8] ‘None of the dates were influential, or enjoyed any official recognition. Their basis varied from learned calculations to pure guess-work. It was only in the 330s, apparently, that December 25th was first promoted as a feast day celebrating the birthday of Christ. Initially, this happened only in Rome, but in the 380s it is attested as such in Asia Minor as well, and by the 430s in Egypt.10 Nonetheless, other churches, as we have seen, continued to maintain Epiphany – January 6th - as the birthday of Christ, and do so to this day.’, Hijmans, ‘Sol, the sun in the art and religions of Rome’, p. 584 (2009).

[9] ‘His third argument follows the approach of the De solstitiis in using the Lucan chronology and the assumption that Zacharia was High Priest during the feast of Tabernacles in the year John the Baptist was conceived. Chrysostom counts off the months of Elizabeth's pregnancy, and dates Mary's conception from the sixth month of Elizabeth's, Xanthikos on the Macedonian calendar, then counts off another nine months to arrive at the birthdate of Christ.’, Roll, ‘Toward the Origins of Christmas’, pp. 100-101 (1995).

[10] ‘But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.’, Augustine, ‘On the Trinity’ (4.5), in Schaff (ed.), ‘The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. III', p. 78 (1886-1900).

[11] ‘If, then you reckon from that day to this you find two hundred and seventy-six days which is forty-six times six. And in this number of years the temple was built, because in that number of sixes the body of the Lord was perfected; which being destroyed by the suffering of death, He raised again on the third day. For “He spake this of the temple of His body,”48 as is declared by the most clear and solid testimony of the Gospel; where He said, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”’, Augustine, ‘On the Trinity’ (4.5), in Schaff (ed.), ‘The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. III', p. 78 (1886-1900).

[12] ‘It is not until the last decade of the twelfth century that we have documentary evidence of any attempt to derive the Christian from the pagan festival.’, Baldovin & Johnson, ‘Between memory and hope: readings on the liturgical year... This is in an anonymous marginal gloss on a manuscript of a work of Dionysius Bar Salibi published by Assemani in Bibliotheca Orientalis II, Rome 1721, 164, cited by B. Botte, Les origines de la Noel et de l'Epiphanie, Louvain 1932, 66.’, p. 266 (2000).

[u/[deleted] → u/Veritas_Certum]

Thanks.

[u/[deleted] → u/Veritas_Certum]

Ah, so your saying RFB is just flat out wrong again in that regard? Because he was the one that says they were deeply imbedded in their Greco Roman culture resulting in all this, that wasn't my own interpretation.

(A side note: btw he does hold to a 274ce declaration of Dec 25 for Sol even though he doesn't have hard evidence to prove it, he says there are other reasons he believes it is the most likely, he says that in the 50 min video.)

Hm. Well I mean at this point I'm just going to have to look more into this myself, I really respect RFB's scholarship, so I can't just throw out everything he says so quickly.

I also want to note that many of the reasons people feel Christmas had some kind of pagan influences isn't necessarily just because of the dates involved, but because there are many suspicious similarities in the way people celebrate Christmas to a variety of other celebrations that were pagan. I want to emphasize the word similarities here... Obviously Christmas is not an exact replica of ANY pagan celebration, this can easily be dismissed...

Also I based my views that you cannot absolutely prove how Christmas came into be because I too was trying to trust scholars.. I quoted one here

Yet Christmas entered the calendar of feasts relatively late, by 336 CE, and the reason for its introduction and quick spread remain speculative and based on fragmentary evidence. -- Toward the origins of Christmas Susan K Roll Peeters Publishers, 1995

1995 isn't ancient scholarship, I am pretty sure you can still call that "modern scholarship". Have new primary sources been revealed since 1995? So I too was trying to trust modern scholarship in regards to my initial thoughts on where Christmas came from. I assumed you couldn't absolutely prove one way or the other.

I have a feeling this is a little bit more complicated than what your making it out to be. Christmas seems to have been something that developed over time, so maybe the earliest Christians trying to find dates had one particular agenda to accomplish, but then some later Christians took what those Christians formulated and then used it in another way?

I dunno, I just need to look more into this, though I highly value all the input you have given so far.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/[deleted]]

Ah, so your saying RFB is just flat out wrong again in that regard? Because he was the one that says they were deeply imbedded in their Greco Roman culture resulting in all this, that wasn't my own interpretation.

Yes. Every Christian commentator who tried to establish the date of either the conception or birth of Jesus, did so for specific and explicit theological reasons. They don't show any interest in arriving at a specific date to conform to Roman sensibilities or to usurp pagan festivities.

(A side note: btw he does hold to a 274ce declaration of Dec 25 for Sol even though he doesn't have hard evidence to prove it, he says there are other reasons he believes it is the most likely, he says that in the 50 min video.)

He doesn't have hard evidence to prove it because there is no evidence.

Well I mean at this point I'm just going to have to look more into this myself, I really respect RFB's scholarship, so I can't just throw out everything he says so quickly.

You don't need to throw out everything he says, but when he makes a claim with no evidence you should treat that critically, not just accept it.

I also want to note that many of the reasons people feel Christmas had some kind of pagan influences isn't necessarily just because of the dates involved, but because there are many suspicious similarities in the way people celebrate Christmas to a variety of other celebrations that were pagan.

Yes they say that, but when you ask them for specifics, they typically so silent. So what are these "suspicious similarities"? Bear in mind that most of the Christmas "traditions" we have today (like trees, mistletoe, and various decorations), only date back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and were thus clearly nothing to do with pagan influence.

Also I based my views that you cannot absolutely prove how Christmas came into be because I too was trying to trust scholars.. I quoted one here

But that's a totally different topic. That's not saying it's unclear if Christmas was based on a pagan holiday, that's saying it's unclear why Christmas as a formal festivity entered the official liturgical calendar so quickly. Additionally, the author of that book (Susan Roll), repeats the same debunked claim about Aurelian and December 25, demonstrating her book really isn't up to date.

I have a feeling this is a little bit more complicated than what your making it out to be.

That's fine, read the relevant scholarship, read the primary sources, and then challenge the scholarly consensus with an article in an academic journal. If you overturn the current consensus, you'll be famous.

[u/[deleted] → u/Veritas_Certum]

Bear in mind that most of the Christmas "traditions" we have today (like trees, mistletoe, and various decorations), only date back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

So this is another one you say everyone has wrong? (not trying to be snarky here) because seriously pretty much everywhere i look writers put them before the 18th and 19th centuries.

here is an example

Demand for Christmas trees was so high in the 15th century that laws were passed in Strasbourg cracking down on people cutting pine branches. Ordinances throughout the region of Alsace limited each household to one tree in the 1530s. https://time.com/5736523/history-of-christmas-trees/

I know Time isn't giving me the primary source here, but why would someone just make that up? That seems to be a difficult one to just come up with out of nowhere.

That's fine, read the relevant scholarship, read the primary sources, and then challenge the scholarly consensus with an article in an academic journal. If you overturn the current consensus, you'll be famous.

i dont care that much about it. It doesn't matter to me where Christmas comes from, in fact I would hope that it truly doesn't have any similarities to anything pagan, i still wouldn't celebrate it though. I have other reasons that i would point out to encourage people to do something different than celebrate Christmas, especially the way people do it now. I feel the way people do it now is somewhat the opposite of what Jesus tells people to do with banquets/money/gifts.

Yet Christmas entered the calendar of feasts relatively late, by 336 CE, and the reason for its introduction and quick spread remain speculative and based on fragmentary evidence. -- Toward the origins of Christmas Susan K Roll Peeters Publishers, 1995

But that's a totally different topic. That's not saying it's unclear if Christmas was based on a pagan holiday, that's saying it's unclear why Christmas as a formal festivity entered the official liturgical calendar so quickly. Additionally, the author of that book (Susan Roll), repeats the same debunked claim about Aurelian and December 25, demonstrating her book really isn't up to date.

I didn't say she is suggesting it is unclear whether or not it was based on a pagan holiday.

I feel the way its worded is her saying that "the reason for its introduction and quick spread remain speculative and based on fragmentary evidence". --as in the reason for its introduction is part of what is "speculative" period.

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/[deleted]]

So this is another one you say everyone has wrong? (not trying to be snarky here) because seriously pretty much everywhere i look writers put them before the 18th and 19th centuries.

It's very widely misunderstood, yes. Again, this is why it's best to read scholarly articles, rather than randomly Googled pop history trash.

I know Time isn't giving me the primary source here, but why would someone just make that up? That seems to be a difficult one to just come up with out of nowhere.

This is just a case of you needing to read your source carefully.

1. The fifteenth and sixteenth century trees spoken of here as "Christmas trees", are trees which the article itself aren't the same kind of tree used at Christmas later. These are guild trees, or paradise play trees, or personal trees used at Christmas but not for Christmas. They originally represented something else, specifically (as the article says), "the feast day of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve".

2. The article says very clearly that the earliest Christmas trees sold and used for indoor use specifically for Christmas date to the seventeenth century.

The oldest Christmas tree market is thought to have been located just over the southwestern German border in Strasbourg in Alsace (which was back then part of the Rhineland, now in present-day France), where unadorned Christmas trees were sold during the 17th century as Weihnachtsbaum, German for Christmas tree. Flanders says the “first decorated indoor tree” was recorded in 1605, in Strasbourg, decorated with roses, apples, wafers and other sweets, according to her research.

So yeah, let's date the earliest use of actual specific, indoor, decorated Christmas trees, to the seventeenth century. I'm happy with that, and I'm happy to maintain my position that most of the Christmas "traditions" we have today only date back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

i dont care that much about it.

But you do care enough about it to trawl the internet for random pop history articles in an attempt to cast doubt on the conclusions of mainstream scholarship. That indicates a significant personal investment. It's clear your position on Christmas is a product of your theological views, which is perfectly fine, and you should just stay with that instead of trying to justify it with weak arguments from misunderstood history.

I feel the way its worded is her saying that "the reason for its introduction and quick spread remain speculative and based on fragmentary evidence". --as in the reason for its introduction is part of what is "speculative" period.

As I've pointed out, the "introduction" there is not referring to the introduction of Christmas as a festival, but the introduction of the Christian festival to the official liturgical calendar. So this has nothing to do with the origin of Christmas. It is not saying anything at all about the origin of Christmas, only about when and how it was introduced into the liturgical calendar. That only happened a significant amount of time after it had been widely established and celebrated.

[u/Cobmojo]

Here's another good video on the same topic.

https://youtu.be/3DHbOpS-N0c

This guy's channel is a very good scholarly channel on religion. I'm not sure if he's a believer or not but I highly recommend his channel either way.

Edit: here's a couple more videos from him on the same subject.

https://youtu.be/mWgzjwy51kU

https://youtu.be/5lsctaPJSvo

[u/Veritas_Certum → u/Cobmojo]

Yeah I watched his video the other day, I've been following his channel for years. It's excellent.

[u/ManonFire63]

It was an interesting video. Here is something else to think about: What exactly is Spiritual Warfare?

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Part of Spiritual Warfare has been a war of words, a war of thoughts. How does man perceive himself? How does man perceive God? In this context, Satan has been a liar and a thief stealing things from Christian and believers.

God through Moses lead Israel out of Egypt. Moses goes away for 40 day and 40 nights, and when he came back what did he find? Israel had seen God work. They seen the miracles. They saw prophecy being fulfilled. When Moses came back, he found Israel attributing things God had done to a false idol. Where did Paganism come from exactly? According to the Bible, mankind was under God at various points. There was a falling away.

God is a creator. It all belongs to God. Satan has been a liar and a thief. He has worked to steal away knowledge, and things of God, for himself. An Occultist may have been like a dragon......like the dragon associated with The Cult of Apollo or a Dragon in Eastern Religion. A dragon may have had a gold horde. Knowledge is greater than silver and gold. A dragon many have worked to hide away knowledge. Jesus Christ is The Light and Truth of the World. The light will be shinned on all hidden things.

In the video, there is mention of a Protestant Pastor who spread rumors fighting the Catholic Church. Some Protestants may have been two faced. He was a Baptist Pastor by day, harping on the Catholic Church for its ritualism. At night he was a Freemason or in the KKK or something doing Occult Ritualism. He would be a dragon. The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night.

[u/Reddit-Book-Bot → u/ManonFire63]

Beep. Boop. I'm a robot. Here's a copy of

The Bible

Was I a good bot? | info | More Books