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"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility. To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace" --H. L. Mencken
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Friday, December 26, 2003
UNRAVELING THAT "PAGAN" CHRISTMAS: It Wasn't Based on Saturnalia, Christian Scholar Finds You know the story if you've traveled in Fundamentalist, Neo-Pagan, or Atheist circles long enough: The ancient Christians, we are told, "stole" the celebration of Christmas and its date (December 25) from the ancient pagans of Rome, in particular the pagan Roman holiday known as alternately as "Saturnalia" and the “Birth of the Unconquered Son.” Not so, says William Tighe at Touchstone magazine. Tighe, an Associate Professor of History (Muhlenberg College), notes in particular that... ...the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Moreover, Tighe continues, As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun. He led an empire that appeared to be collapsing in the face of internal unrest, rebellions in the provinces, economic decay, and repeated attacks from German tribes to the north and the Persian Empire to the east. In creating the new feast, he intended the beginning of the lengthening of the daylight, and the arresting of the lengthening of darkness, on December 25th to be a symbol of the hoped-for “rebirth,” or perpetual rejuvenation, of the Roman Empire, resulting from the maintenance of the worship of the gods whose tutelage (the Romans thought) had brought Rome to greatness and world-rule. If it co-opted the Christian celebration, so much the better. The December 25th date became significant to the ancient Christians almost entirely as the result of Greek East and the Latin West ...Christians attempt[ing] to figure out the date of Christ’s birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection.
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