Christmas by G. B. T.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

Christmas

By G. B. T.

THE annual holiday festival of December 25 is almost here, when many millions of dollars will be expended in the various festivities,—in gormandizing and in making presents to friends and relatives. Many children will be deceived, as usual, with the falsehood concerning Santa Claus.

It seems proper to inquire into the origin of a festival which has such a prominent place among the holidays of the world. Is it really a memorial of the birth of Christ, or is it of heathen origin?

While carols will be sung and sermons preached concerning the nativity of Christ, we find, on investigation, that the festival comes from heathenism rather than from Christianity. That the day is not of divine appointment is very evident. The Scriptures nowhere intimate that the birth of Jesus is to be commemorated by the observance of a day. McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia says:—

“The observance of Christmas is not of divine appointment, nor is it of New Testament origin. The day of Christ’s birth cannot be ascertained from the New Testament, or, indeed, from any other source.”

The Popular and Critical Encyclopedia says:—

“The first records we find of the observance of this day are in the second century, about the time of the emperor Commodus.”

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, while approving the custom of celebrating the birth of Christ, admits the heathen origin of the day, as follows:—

“How much the calculation of Hippolytus had to do with the fixing of the festival on December 25, and how much the date of the festival depended upon the pagan Brumalia (December 25), following the Saturnalia (December 17-24) and celebrating the shortest day in the year and the ‘new sun,’ or the beginning of the lengthening of days, cannot be accurately determined. The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence. The recognition of Sunday (the day of Phoebus and Mithras as well as the Lord’s day) by the emperor Constantine as a legal holiday, along with the influence of Manicheism, which identified the Son of God with the physical sun, may have led Christians of the fourth century to feel the appropriateness of making the birthday of the sun of God coincide with that of the physical sun. The pagan festival, with its riot and merrymaking, was so popular that Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with little change in spirit or in manner.”

This same authority, writing concerning the pagan cult “Mithraism,” says:—

“The diffusion of Mithraism and of Christianity in the Roman world was from the same direction, at about the same time, and its propaganda, popular rather than philosophic, was carried to the same class of people. In theory, ritual, and practice, Mithraism parodied or duplicated, after a fashion, the central ideas of Christianity. The birth of Mithra and of Christ were celebrated on the same day; tradition placed the birth of both in a cave; both regarded Sunday as sacred.”

Other authorities substantially agree with the above. A reason why December 25 is not the probable time of Christ’s birth is indicated by the Encyclopedia Britannica, ninth edition, in the article on Christmas day. It says:—

“A festival of the Christian church, observed on the twenty-fifth of December, in memory of the birth of Jesus Christ. There is, however, a difficulty in accepting this as the date of the nativity, December being the height of the rainy season in Judea, when neither flocks nor shepherds could have been at night in the fields of Bethlehem.”

The International Cyclopedia (old edition) agrees with this, and says:—

“Christmas not only became the parent of many later festivals, such as those of the Virgin, but especially from the fifth to the eighth century, gathered round it, as it were, several other festivals, partly old and partly new, so that what may be termed a Christmas cycle sprang up, which surpassed all other groups of Christian holidays in the manifold richness of its festal usages, and furthered, more than any other, the completion of the orderly and systematic distribution of church festivals over the whole year. Not casually or arbitrarily was the festival of the nativity celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December. Among the causes that coöperated in fixing this period as the proper one, perhaps the most powerful was that almost all of the heathen nations regarded the winter solstice as the most important point of the year, as the beginning of the renewed life and activity of the powers of nature, and of the gods, who were originally merely the symbolical personifications of these.”

It is clear from the historical authority cited that Christmas, like Sunday, is among the heathen relics which are found in the church, and are observed and reverenced by professed Christians as well as by the world. At the annual return of this pagan festival, now just upon us, millions of dollars will be wasted which should be devoted to a better and more helpful purpose. Certainly we should not take that which we ought to give to the cause of God, and use it upon ourselves. We have no disposition to outline duty for others, but in this time of festivity, when the whole world is given over to feasting and pleasure, we should act in harmony with the great principles of light and truth which God has committed to our trust.

G. B. T.