The Origins of the Holiday Season
Part 1
hol·i·day /ˈhäləˌdā/
Origin: Old English hāligdæg ‘holy day’
Why do we do the things we do?
In our search for truth, it is
good to question every tradition we have come to accept as normal in our
society, lest we fall short of the will of God and see the proverbial writing
on the wall:
Mene
mene tekel uparshin
(You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting)
Daniel 5:25
In this exposition we will
examine the historical record to see what theologians and historians wrote
about the holiday season. We will observe both ancient and more modern sources in
order to rightly divide the truth regarding the origins of the holidays
billions of people have come to know and love. Let us do this so that we may prove
the perfect, acceptable will of God (Romans 12:2). At the same time, we will
examine some of the arguments people use to justify the celebration of the
holiday season to see if they hold up to scrutiny. Let us test all things as
Paul tells us to in 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
For millennia, the winter solstice
has repeatedly been associated with heavy drinking, obnoxious revelries and
lewd behavior. This was in part due to pagan religious beliefs about that
particular time of year. Lucian, a mid-2nd century writer writes as Saturn
in the first person, saying to the Romans, “During My week the serious is
barred; no business allowed. Drinking, noise and games and dice, appointing of
kings and feasting of slaves, singing naked, clapping of frenzied hands, an
occasional ducking of corked faces in icy water—such are the functions over
which I preside.”
The Romans and the Greeks
considered the time leading up to the winter solstice a holiday season and this
season has persisted throughout the western world for millennia. The Puritans
refused to celebrate Christmas and wanted nothing to do with it. This is not
only because of the typically loose behavior that accompanied the winter celebrations,
but because they saw no biblical or spiritual reason to participate in them.
All throughout the late Roman Empire and Medieval Europe the holiday season was
largely considered a pagan festival and was shunned by many churches. Yet, some
still adopted them with the intention of Christianization. From the second
century all the way to today there has never been a consensus that Christmas is
even a Christian holiday. There were times when the Roman church tried to clean
up the holidays and associate them with Christian themes, yet it didn’t really
catch on at first. Centuries later, at the end of the Renaissance, the holiday
season started seeing a resurgence of popularity, but it was not a Christian
resurgence. It was secular and pagan in nature. It carried the same elements of
drunkenness and pleasure-seeking that the Roman holidays did. In the 19th
century there were considerable efforts made to clean up the bad reputation of
the holidays and create an image, a feeling and a spirit that was more
family/community oriented. This holiday season carried the added benefit of
increased commerce at a time when people tended to spend less, though one might
argue commercialism was the primary reason for the revival of the season.
There were many failed attempts
to clean up these pagan winter festivals, known primarily in the Roman Empire
by the names Saturnalia and Brumalia. These ancient days of Brumae eventually transformed
into the modern Holiday Season which encompasses Thanksgiving, Christmas and
New Year’s Day. Winter festivals have a written history as far back as the 7th
century BC in the ancient near east (probably much further back in Egypt) to
the Roman Empire in the 4th century AD, where Christ’s nativity was
declared as being the true reason for the season. In spite of this declaration
the pagan spirit persisted even through Justinian’s ban of the holidays in the 6th
century. People insisted on celebrating these festivals the way they had been
for centuries, regardless of what the church or emperor would say, all the way
through to the 11th century, where the Eastern Byzantine Empire,
known for its religious orthodoxy (especially Constantinople), held fast to
these traditions. It is no surprise that Constantine’s prized city kept these customs
alive, especially considering the corruptions that occurred in the church
during his 4th century reign. Most Christians are taught that
Constantine was a savior, a hero-type figure, who helped to make Christianity
the official religion of the Roman Empire. What really occurred was a twisting
of the Gospel truth, the rise of Dominion Theology, encouragement towards the
syncretization of religions, a suppression of the nature and identity of
Yahshua and the merging of the church with the State (might I dub it the
ApoState?). Constantine and the Council of Nicea are subjects worthy of their
own in-depth study. For now, though, let’s look at Christmas in its more modern
form. From there we can trace it back to see what can be learned of its
history. We will do this to answer the opening question of this book: “Why do
we do the things we do?” In order to remain open to an answer you may not want
to hear consider first the following verse before we move on:
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting. Psalms 139:23-24
The Modern Resurgence of Christmas
Let us begin our
journey back through time with the words of a well-known, 19th
century preacher, Charles Spurgeon.We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons.
Certainly, we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called
Christmas. First because we do not believe in any mass at all, but abhor it,
whether it be sung in Latin or in English: Secondly, because we find no
scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the
Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not
of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our
Savior’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it
occurred... It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of
the church celebrated the birth of our Lord; and it was not till long after the
western Church had set the example, that the eastern adopted it. Because the
day is not known... Probably the fact is that the “holy” days were arranged
to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert that if there be
any day in the year of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on
which our Savior was born it is the 25th of December... I will neither justify
nor condemn… Regarding not the day, let us give God thanks for the gift
of His dear Son.” —C. H. Spurgeon Dec. 24, 1871 (Spurgeon,
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit)
Spurgeon simplified and
condensed a lot of information in this statement. Clearly, he knew a good deal
of the history behind the Holiday Season. His sermon pointed not only to the
incarnation but to the death on the cross, for it was not the incarnation alone
that saved us. The shed blood on the cross is the focus in the epistles of the
apostles. Rarely was birth even mentioned. It was what Christ accomplished on
the cross that completed and fulfilled the good news of the Gospel. In this sermon
he didn’t condemn meditating on the incarnation of Christ, but he certainly
criticized the typical traditions that people had come to depend on in order to
enjoy Christmas. In an earlier sermon
in 1856, he said, “…though I have no respect to the religious observance of
the day, yet I love it as a family institution…” He was preaching at a time
when Europe and North America were experiencing a massive resurgence of the Christmas
holiday and I’m sure this is what prompted his exhortation as well as his obvious
apprehension towards the “holiday.”
With a fervent admonition from such
a well-respected minister as Charles Spurgeon, should we not perform our due
diligence by testing his claims about Christmas? Shouldn’t we use our
Spirit-given discernment to determine if what he is saying is the truth? If we
find the evidence is compelling, and even more, then we must face the decision
to cease celebrating these “holy days.” The fact is there is nothing holy about
them because they are not God-ordained, and they have nothing to do with the
Gospel of Yahshua Christ except what man has assigned to them. It is a shame
that most Christians have decided to ignore or reinterpret the parts of the
Bible they don’t agree with and accept a half-hearted, watered-down version of
the Gospel. Let us embrace it wholly, not shying from the cross of Christ,
which is the focal point of His life on earth.
What scares the Dickens out of you?
In 1843, Charles
Dickens published his famous novella, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a
Ghost Story of Christmas, known in short as A Christmas Carol. It
immediately became an overnight success. A critic named Margaret Oliphant wrote
the faintest praise of all her contemporary critics, characterizing Dickens’s
book as “the apotheosis of turkey and plum pudding,” and admitted that “it
moved us all in those days as if it had been a new gospel.” (Wikipedia,
WV
Gazette-Mail, Lithub).
Despite there being nothing Christian about the story it made its way into the
hands and homes of many Christians, nonetheless. Although the purported
inspiration of the story was Dickens’ disgust towards child labor and the
brutality of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution, the real appeal was the surface
morality of being jolly and generous during the Christmas season, as well as
shunning those who oppose the Christmas spirit. In a way, Ebenezer Scrooge was
not only a representative of the cold business class but a caricature of those
pesky Puritan types who rained on everyone’s parade. Ironically, the very
Industrial Revolution Dickens’ was railing against helped him to capitalize on his
own work, making him rich and creating an opportunity for mass consumerism that
never existed in such a wide-reaching capacity before.
If
we are addressing the irony of Dickens then let us note that Ebenezer is a name
from the Bible, seen in 1 Samuel 7:12. The Hebrew name means, “stone of help.”
The Bible says that the Israelites came against the Philistines in battle near
a city called Ebenezer. They were participating in idolatry at that time and
thought that if they brought the Ark of the Covenant into the camp surely Yahweh
would give them victory like He had done before. The Philistines defeated them,
and Israel suffered great loss, including the ark, which was carried off by the
enemy. After they realized they lost because of their idolatry they repented.
The next time they went against the Philistines Yahweh gave them victory. You
see, we cannot be idolaters and expect God to help us. We gain victory by
remaining pure and holy. If we become complacent and undiscerning, falling into
compromise and idolatry, we can’t expect God to stand up for us. The scariest
thing about this account is that the Israelites didn’t even know they were
sinning until they were defeated! How could this be possible? They knew what
Yahweh commanded them. Surely, they would know if they were committing a grave
sin. Evidently, they did not, and this was not the first time. They fell into
idolatry over and over, which led God’s hand to teach them many hard lessons.
The takeaway for Christians is
that we cannot put Christ in something that He was not in to begin with, just as
the Israelites cannot attempt to bring the ark to a losing battle thinking God
is in that ark. The ark is a symbol of a pure heart with God’s law written
within, but they did not have pure hearts. The “stone” that helped them (being
a foreshadowing of Christ) came after they repented of their idolatry.
At some point in his life Dickens
became a Unitarian, a denomination that rejects the Trinity and the divine
nature of Christ. Unitarians also reject the doctrine of Original Sin and
instead adopt a Humanist approach to spirituality, placing an emphasis on using
reason in order to understand the Bible. These tenants eventually led to their
universal acceptance of all people, including liberal Christians, Buddhists,
Jews and neo-pagans. Humanism is the basis of humanitarianism and the
justification of works-based faith for many Christians. They think that charity
of any kind is of Christ when it is the other way around. Christ will lead you
to right charity.
Because of Dickens’ beliefs it
is no wonder that Ebenezer, the stone that helps, takes on a form that merely
looks like the author’s own conception of Christ in the story. You see, Scrooge
became more “Christ-like” by being scared out of his wits by ghosts of his
past. These ghosts persuaded him to become nice, generous and caring instead of
greedy and grumbling. While these might be commendable traits this is a very
watered-down summation of Christ’s teachings and an obvious attempt to use
Christmas as a crutch for this message. Repentance is not enough to save you.
It is making Christ Lord over your life that saves you. In this tale it is not
God or Christ leading Scrooge to repentance. It is pagan ideas, myths and
legends.
It is no wonder it is the iconic tale that defined
Christmas, a holiday that was, from its Christianized inception, aimed to unite
disparate groups of people in a common harmony. A Christmas Carol
doesn’t really have Christ in it, but it does have other elements of
spirituality, elements that are clearly pagan in nature. For example, it wasn’t
Christ that inspired Scrooge to change. It was the ghosts of Christmas past,
present and yet to come. The ghost of Christmas Present is a perfect depiction
of the Germanic Holly King, complete with symbols of firelight, life and
abundance in the midst of winter’s desolation (see illustration). Similarly,
the Ghost of Christmas Present bore a striking, purposeful resemblance to the
Grim Reaper, who is the personification of Death. The Grim Reaper has his
origins in the same symbolism of Cronos/Saturn, who was an unpleasant, elderly
man carrying a scythe and ruling over time. Father Time also shares in the same
roots and is closely associated with the old year transitioning to the new
year. It was the fear of death and leaving behind a legacy of selfishness that
finally made Scrooge decide to be more selfless. That’s humanism, not
Christianity. I think many Christians have a narrow view of paganism. Pagans
have morals too. They don’t all go around conducting sexual rituals and child
sacrifices. Many pagans would be considered very moral, humanitarian people.
So, what then, separates Christian morality from pagan? Remember, Satan comes
disguised as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). He is trying to look like
Christ, who is the light and life of the world. He wants to deceive you into
thinking you are behaving according God’s will when really, it is his will that
you are doing.
Woe to those who call evil good and
good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter
for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20
If Dickens understood the name
Ebenzer then perhaps the “Stone of help,” who is Christ, would have a place in
his story. If so, it would have been a much different story, but then again, it
probably wouldn’t have inspired the following generations to adopt “morally
acceptable” pagan traditions. I doubt he would have written the book at all if
that were the case. The true Gospel is not a popular message.
It is interesting to note that Queen Victoria was a lover of
Dickens’ writings. In 1848, an engraving was published in in the Illustrated
London News of a Christmas tree in Windsor Castle surrounded by Queen
Victoria, Prince Albert, their servants and several children (see illustration).
This was a depiction of an event that actually occurred. Prince Albert brought
an evergreen, called a Tannenbaum, into the castle as part of his German
heritage. This cover story’s image, along with Dickens’ story, inspired people
in both Europe and America to begin reviving and reinventing the image and
spirit of Christmas, filtering out centuries of licentiousness, leaving the
relics of things deemed good and worthy of practice by the judgment of men, not
God. Within 10 years Christmas trees were a standard tradition in homes all
across the western world.
The Holly King is an ancient Germanic/Celtic/Norse personification of wintertime, which inspired the modern Father Christmas. Compare the likenesses of the Holly King to the depiction of the Ghost of Christmas Present in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Illustrated London News, 1848
It was not long before Christians
started trying to make Christmas about Christ, but Spurgeon was arguing that it
was not a Christian cause, that we should ignore the holiday and be separate
from the world. His Puritan counterparts from the 16th century would
wholeheartedly agree. Sure, the Puritans were often very legalistic, but at
least they had a desire for purity and godliness. I feel the same way about
such religious movements as the Anabaptists, Amish and Mennonites.
Unfortunately, most people that decide to abandon the legalism of these
denominations only wind up blanketly calling any form of religious confrontation
legalism. It’s a shame because purity doesn’t have to be legalistic, and many
times those who are being called pharisees are being called such by the pharisees
of a “new-and-improved” version of Christianity.
Charity
The “spirit of Christmas,” which stories like A Christmas Carol promote, mean to suggest that through philanthropy one can gain a happy, fulfilling life. Donations to charity skyrocket at this time of year. It is easy for a Christian to justify “getting in the Christmas spirit” because it is supposedly Christ-like to give to those in need, but are you getting into the spirit of Christmas or is it getting into you? If the definition of being Christ-like is charity to everyone and if Christ was a humanitarian, why did He walk by the crippled man at the temple knowing He could heal Him? Surely, He saw this man, who was lame from birth and was brought to the temple daily to beg for alms. Why did He wait and let Peter heal him (Acts 3:1-16)? Why, being full of the grace of God and wise beyond His years as a child, did He restrict His ministry to only three years when He could have been preaching the Gospel and healing everyone He came across His whole life? The answer is simple. Christ only ever did the will of the Father. If it was not God’s will that He heal, then He did not heal. So, are Christians always supposed to be charitable? Do you get a reward for giving regardless of when or to whom you are giving? I suppose the real question is, can we make charity into an idol? According to Tertullian, we can. His argument is nothing less than compelling. We can take anything good and turn it into an idol by the works of our own hands.
The Spirit of Babylon is the worship of humanity above God. Humanitarianism is an idea that people fall in love with because it fits their own view of morality. People forget that God’s morality is not their morality. When humanitarianism takes precedence over God, you have become an idolater. Remember, Yahshua reduced the 10 Commandments to 2, saying the first is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength…” and the second being, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The second cannot become the first. When it does you can expect judgment to come sooner or later.
I will utter My judgments against them concerning all their
wickedness,
Because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other gods,
And worshiped the works of their own hands.
Jeremiah 1:16
If your charity and humanitarianism is the works of your own hands, it is worthless to God. However, if your charity is the work of God, then it is commendable in His sight. Knowing the difference is knowing when God is speaking to you and when you are following the dictates of the world, which often try to imitate God.
