The Christian roots of paganism.

December 25th ?

This time of year, it’s almost impossible to not hear something about how Christians stole such and such from pagans. I saw just the other day a car in a parking lot with the bumper sticker Christianity has pagan DNA. It’s a widespread and often repeated talking point. Just ask google and you will see plenty of articles and blogs about it.

We hear about the pagan roots of thanksgiving, easter, Christmas trees (which I wrote about in the last post) even details about Jesus are supposedly copied from other gods. In the spirit of Christmas, I wanted to focus on the date of December 25th. It’s often repeated that early Christians picked December 25th to try and piggyback off a Roman celebration.

The two most common Roman celebrations suggested as the origins for December 25th being chosen are, Saturnalia, and Sol Invictus.

Saturnalia- Was a festival held in honor of the god Saturn, the historical record for its date places it on December 17th over time the celebration was extended to 3 days. Plain and simple the dates don’t line up. Even when another celebration was added called Sigillaria the celebration still ended the 23rd or 24th.

Sol Invictus (Birth of the unconquered sun)-It was celebrated on December 25th but the earliest evidence we have for this festival is around the mid 4th century. We have mention of Jesus birth on December 25th much earlier than this.

Why choose December 25th? Around 200 A.D. Hippolytus in his commentary on Daniel lists December 25th in 5 of the 7 manuscripts we have and the six places it as either December 25th or March 25th. Clemet of Alexander in his work stromata places the incarnation/conception of Jesus on March 25th. So, we have early mention of December 25th as the date but to be fair it wasn’t universally accepted. The important aspect is that it’s mentioned early and before we have record of Sol Invictus festivities at all.

In addition to that is the idea of the integral age, this is an ancient Jewish tradition that a prophet would die on the same day they were born or conceived. Early roman Christians trying to calculate the dates of Passover from the Jewish calendar to the Roman calendar calculated March 25 as the day Jesus was crucified. Why then go with conception over birth? John Chrysostom remarks in his writings that Zechariahs’ service was the Day of atonement making the conception of John the Baptist happen in the fall in September. According to scripture Elizabth was 6 months pregnant with John when she went to see Mary who had just conceived. Placing conception in March and birth nine months later in December. Does any of this prove Jesus was born on December 25th? Not at all, but it does cast serious doubt on the claims that the early church clung to pagan traditions instead of truly trying to calculate the date of Jesus birth. There were other calculations made as well, the eastern church traditionally held to January 6th as Jesus’ birthday.

This is just an extremely brief overview of each of those celebrations, why I reject them as the origins for Christmas and plausible reasons the early church chose December 25th. There are longer more detailed articles available, and I highly recommend checking into them. For more details on any of the information above I recommend this site C.A.N.A, this is a link to an article on Christmas and sources about 2 dozen others also. It is also a great resource for many different topics concerning new age beliefs and Christianity. While it’s true we don’t know the date of Christs birth, that doesn’t mean in anyway though that foolish human festivals from long dead idols get to claim a particular day. We should celebrate the birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus every day, and the church can designate a specific date without fear that somebody somewhere did something sinful on it.

My original intent was to spend more time looking at the details of those two festivals and the date itself in church history. As I was researching and thinking through this article a thought crossed my mind and I couldn’t quite let it go. So instead of spending as much time laying out the details of history, I wanted to take this article in a different direction. We hear a lot about the pagan origins of Christianity or one of its beliefs, but according to the Christian worldview paganism would have Christian roots. Paganism or any false religion for that matter comes about because people have an inherent fingerprint of God on them. We are created in the image of God; we are designed to be in relation with our designer. Because of sin and depravity that connection is broken but that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried all kinds of ways to mend it. We know as Christians that only Jesus can ultimately mend that relationship, that the way back to the Father is only through Him. That hasn’t stopped sinful people from inventing ways to try and connect with the divine on their own though. Those things take form in worship of nature, false gods, a different Jesus or the even the self.

Let’s look at a few scripture passages in relation to this idea. First Ecclesiastes 3:11

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Man has been created with a sense of the infinite, in chapter 3 the author starts with all things have a place and time for them. These things are beautiful in the hands of God, but we get to the middle section of verse 11 and read that man has eternity placed on his heart. There is a contrasting of the temporal things that have a time and place and the eternity on man’s heart. I think this gives us a glimpse into why man has an ingrained need to worship. The temporal isn’t wholly satisfying to man, we have been created with a sense of eternity and nothing temporal will fill that craving. Man has a sense of the eternal and will fix his love and hope on the transient and fleeting in an attempt to be satisfied. Biblically we find our satisfaction in God, according to the Westminster confession our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But the unbeliever isn’t fulfilling that duty, they have rejected their designer and will inevitably fill the void of eternity with something created. This is the sinful root of false gods and idols.

Paul in Romans chapter 1 writes

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Paul is describing every person here; every unbeliever has suppressed the knowledge of God and deceived themselves into false worship. The apostle Paul doesn’t give room here for neutrality, there isn’t a third category of people that are on the fence or undecided. Either you are under the righteousness of God by faith (Romans 1:16-17), or you are under the wrath of God by suppressing the truth. That suppression becomes futile thinking and foolishness. Their hearts are darkened, and the unbeliever trades the glory of God for false idols. We see the roots for paganism here as well, we see it’s a disordered form of worship. Trading the glory of the one true God for the creature.

What do I mean by paganism has Christian roots? Besides just being a little cheeky to get your attention, I mean that God is the Alpha and omega, the Sovereign King. He is the ultimate authority and has created us to be in communion with Him as King. When people suppress that truth of eternity on their hearts, when people become foolish in thinking and don’t honor the things God has made clear to them about Himself. They exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. That’s paganism, idol worship, false religion, atheism etc. That’s why I think it’s more accurate to say paganism has Christian roots, we understand the origin of idol worship in the broken relationship to the Father because of the sinful nature of man.

While I do think the historical evidence for Christians coopting pagan festivals is unconvincing, more importantly I want to stress the claim itself is flawed. Built into the claim that Christianity has pagan roots is the presupposition that paganism is the original. The biblical worldview though is that God is the creator, He is the first, every form of false worship is a cheap imitation of the real thing. We celebrate at Christmas the coming of the King, Christ the Messiah, He has no rival or competitor. We don’t need to be concerned that one day new data will come up that tie a Christian celebration to the same day as an earlier pagan one. Even if that happened in history, Christianity isn’t borrowing from the pagan, Christianity has claim over any day God said was good during creation week, especially those which have been twisted and warped by sinful worship. That’s the hope and comfort of Christmas, the King comes to establish His kingdom and reign, and the forces of darkness will never prevail against that kingdom.