A Christmas epiphany

 

- Yuletide, bro? What on earth is yuletide?!

Some slightly unedited reflections on the pagan nature of Christmas…

On one level, the question is academic, since virtually all “really existing” Christmas traditions in the modern Western world seem to be Christian or secularized, and many regardless of nominal provenance were invented by enterprising retailers or wholesalers. Some during my lifetime! That being said, it´s hard not to believe that there is a connection between the Christian idea that Jesus was born on December 25 (not found in the Bible) and earlier pagan conceptions.

December 25 was the original date of the winter solstice in the Julian calendar, adopted in Rome on January 1, 45 BC by order of Julius Caesar himself. In other words, before Christianity even existed. Later, the winter solstice became associated with the imperial solar deity Sol Invictus, probably first worshipped by Emperor Aurelian during the 3^rd century AD. Constantine the Great originally promoted both Christianity and the cult of Sol Invictus, presumably for reasons of politic, but dropped the solar cult after the Council of Nicaea. The supposedly super-Christian emperor Theodosius the Great used pagan imagery (Hercules) to justify his rule, and modeled himself on Trajan showing that Christian-pagan “syncretism” was a thing. It´s interesting to note that Macrobius claimed that Sol Invictus was depicted as a small child at the winter solstice (compare baby Jesus). While Macrobius is a late source (5^th century AD), Plutarch (1^st century AD and hence not influenced by Christianity) said that Harpocrates was born on the winter solstice. This is the Hellenistic form of the Egyptian god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. Note the iconographic similarity between Mary holding baby Jesus and Isis holding Horus.  

Oh, and then there´s the similarities between the Saturnalia and later Christmas traditions, including the Feast of Fools and the Lord of Misrule. Indeed, Christmas was long associated with folkish revelry rather than Christian solemnity (except, I suppose, in church). It´s not a co-incidence that that the 17^th century Puritans in both England and New England tried to ban many customs associated with Christmas!

So why is it far fetched to think that the Christian Church consciously “captured” December 25 as the birthday of Jesus in order to compete with the pagans? The alternative “calculation hypothesis” says that the Christians arrived at the date of December 25 by simply calculating nine months from March 25 (the Roman date of the spring equinox) since Jesus was believed to have been conceived by the Holy Ghost on that day. An alternative calculation from April 6 gave January 6 as the date of Christ´s birth instead, long celebrated in the eastern half of the Roman Empire (today, January 6 is the Christian holiday of Epiphany). However, it turns out that this seemingly random date is *also* associated with paganism, making it highly unlikely that the Christians chose it by chance.

Let´s begin with Epiphanius, the somewhat notorious 4^th century AD Christian bishop and heresy-hunter extraordinaire. In his “Panarion”, Epiphanius claims that Jesus was born on January 6 and that the pagans therefore celebrate their mystery rites on that date to deceive the faithful. Christian apologists rather naively assume that Epiphanius is of course telling the truth, and that the pagans were indeed mimicking the Christian traditions. But we will see later that this is highly unlikely. First, a short summary of what the Cypriot bishop writes. At January 6, the pagans in Alexandria celebrate the virgin birth of Aion from Kore (which, of course, means “The Virgin” or “The Maiden”). On the same date, the pagans in Petra celebrate of the virgin birth of one Dusares from Kore. Also, there is a similar celebration in Elusa (presumably the town in Palestine), but it´s not described by the bishop.

According to pre-Christian Greek sources, Persephone is the mother of Dionysus Zagreus, who is dismembered by the Titans and then brought to life. Persephone and Kore is the same goddess, but in this particular myth, Dionysus isn´t born of a virgin. Rather, Persephone is impregnated by Zeus. The Greeks and Romans often identified Dionysus with Osiris, another god who was dismembered and brought back to life. Aion – the miraculous son of Kore in Epiphanius´ account – was a syncretic deity identified with Dionysus and Osiris! Dusares was sometimes also associated with Dionysus. Thus, everything points to Dionysus. Could January 6 somehow have been associated with the god of wine? Indeed, this seems to be the case.

Pliny the Elder (1^st century AD) and Pausanias (2^nd century AD) – both men highly unlikely to have been influenced by Christianity – mention a Dionysiac festival on January 6, known as Theodosia, during which the water at a holy spring at the island of Andros was turned into wine. The ability of Dionysus to turn water into wine is of course well attested from other sources, too. Seneca (1^st century AD) associates Dionysus with a wedding feast. Finally, Dionysus was worshipped in Scythopolis in Palestine, indeed, the local pagans claimed this was the god´s birthplace. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding at Cana, which is close to Scythopolis…

It seems difficult to deny that the author of the gospel modelled this somewhat peculiar miracle of Jesus on Dionysiac traditions. Epiphanius gives the whole game away when he states that Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine on the same date as his birth – that is, January 6 *which is also the birthday of Dionysus according to the same author*. Epiphanius also writes that on January 6, the water in many streams and rivers turn into wine as evidence of Christ´s miracle at Cana. He mentions the Nile, Cibyre in Caria and Gerasa in Arabia. *But this is exactly what Pliny and Pausanias claims happened on January 6 on Andros at the Dionysiac festival of Theodosia*.

It´s therefore obvious what´s going on here. Both December 25 and January 6 were days honoring pagan gods, and both were claimed by the Christian Church after Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire. At some point, December 25 was fixed as the birthday of Jesus, while January 6 became Epiphany, still in a sense associated with the Christ´s birth. In the Western Church, Epiphany celebrates the Magi and their adoration of the infant Jesus, while in the Eastern Church, it celebrates the baptism of Jesus (a symbolic “birth”).  

So it seems Christmas is “pagan”, after all. At least after a fashion!