steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (12/12/84)
***
In the Julian calander the twenty-fifth of December
was reckoned the winter solstice, and it was
regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the day
begins to lengthen and the power of the to increase
from that turning-point of the year. The ritual of
the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated
in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants
retired into certain inner shrines, from which at
midnight they issued with a loud cry, "The Virgin
has brought fourth! The light is waxing!" The
Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the
image of an infant which, on his birthday, the
winter solstice, they brought fourth and exhibited
to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus
conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of
December was the great Oriental goddess whom the
Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the
Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a form of
Astarte. Now Mithra [the Ayrian god of light] was
regularly identified by worshippers with the Sun,
the Unconquered Sun, as they called him; hence his
nativity also fell on the twenty-fifth of December.
The Gospels say noting as to the day of Christ's
birth, and accordingly the early Church did not
celebrate it. In time, however, the Christians of
Egypt came to regard the sixth of January as the day
of the Nativity, and the custom of commemorating the
birth of the Saviour on that day gradually spread
until by the fourth century it was universally
accepted in the East. But at the end of the third
or the beginning of the fourth century the Western
Church, which had never recognized the sixth of
January as the day of the Nativity, adopted the
twenty-fifth of December as the true date, and in
time its decision was accepted also by the Eastern
Church. At Antioch the change was not introduced
until the year 375 A.D.
What considerations led the ecclesiastical
authorities to institute the festival of Christmas?
The motives for the innovation are stated with great
frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian.
"The reason", he tells us, "why the fathers
transformed the celebration of the sixth of January
to the twenty-fifth of December was tis. It was a
custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same
twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at
which they kindled lights in tokens of festivity.
In these solemnities and festivities the Christians
also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the
Church perceived the Christians had a leaning to the
festival, they took council and resolved that the
true Nativity should be solemnised on that day and
the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of
January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the
practice has prevailed of kindling fires till the
sixth." The heathen origin of Christmas is plainly
hinted at, if not tacitly admitted, by Augustine
when he exhorts his Christian brethren not to
celebrate that solemn day like the heathen on
account of the sun, but on account of him who made
the sun.
. . .
Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to
celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the
twenty-fifth of December in order to transfer the
devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was
called the Sun of Righteousness.[1]
____________________
[1]Fraiser, Sir James George, *The Golden Bough*. pps. 416-
417 The Macmillan Company, 1971, New York.
--
scc!steiny
Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
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