Christmas Among the Pagans

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The twenty-fifth of December, the shortest day in the year, has been celebrated for many ages and among many peoples as a time of rejoicing. On this day the Egyptians held a festival in honor of the birth of their god Horus. The Romans called it “the birthday of the invincible sun,” and dedicated it to Bacchus, rejoicing with him that the sun was about to return and revivify the vineyards. The Persians observed it with ceremonies of uncommon splendor, keeping it as the birthday of Mithras, the mediator, a spirit of the sun. In China it has long been a joyous holiday, and in India it is a day in which homes are decorated with tinsel and flowers and presents are exchanged much as in America.

Just when this day came to be celebrated as the birthday of Christ, history does not tell us. We know that Christmas was observed in the early church at the beginning of the second century; for in 138 A.D., a bishop issued an order concerning it. It was apparently alreadya popular festival. There seems t) have been, however, a difference in the date when it was kept, as the eastern church observed it on Jan. 6, and the western church during the latter part of December. Finally, in the fourth century, Pope Julius assembled the principal theologians to examine the evidence, and they fixed on Dec. 25 as the date of Christ's birth and the appropriate day to hold the Christmas festival.

The customs which have attended the observance of Christmas are part pagan and part Christian, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. The Christmas log is the yule log of the worship of Odin. The mistletoe under which the Christian youth kisses the Christian maid is a remnant of Druidism. The Christmas tree finds its pagan prototype in the German Yggdrasil—~a great tree whose roots were hidden in the ground, but whose top reached to Walhalla (Valhalla), the old German paradise, where its leaves nourished the trout upon whose milk fallen heroes restored themselves. The pagan origin of our jolly friend, Santa Claus, is too well known to need consideration here.

In this country at first Christmas was excluded. The Pilgrim fathers rejected it because of its pagan connections. Thanksgiving largely occupied its place and was nicknamed the New England Christmas. But the Dutch settlers brought over with them their Christmas festival, and it soon rooted itself in the affections of the people, till it became our most joyous and welcome festal day. We need not hesitate because Christian and anti-Christian elements mingle in it. What paganism there is has been baptized to a noble service. But one thing we do need to guard, and that is that our feelings in the celebration be Christian and not pagan, that we recognize the religious meaning of Christmas, and that we observe it with that spirit of thankful gratitude which should characterize those for whom Christ came and died, rather than with the wild spirit of dissipation which characterized the Yuletide days.—Rev. Samuel Plantz, Ph.D., in California Advocate 1903

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