Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday?

 Redeemed by Christ,

Well, it's Christmas, which means the "Christmas was originally a pagan holiday" rumors and memes are floating around the internet again. Someone actually emailed me this very question earlier in the week, so I thought I'd try to briefly (as possible!) address this demonstrably false claim. 

For starters, there are two basic types of claims made against many Christian Holy Days: The first is that the date itself was stolen from pre-Christian or pagan sources, and the second type of claim is that the traditions celebrated on that holy day are purported to be of pre-Christian/pagan origin. I've addressed the latter in the past in regards to Halloween (All Hallow's Eve). This post will address the former, namely that December 25 was originally a pagan holiday which Christians later stole. 

The picture above is one of the more popular memes I see each year, perhaps you have as well. It lists various names of pagan gods who all were supposedly born on December 25, and since they are all "older" than Jesus, Christians must have stolen the date along with a bunch of other notable characteristics about Jesus revealed in the Gospels (e.g. born of a virgin, performed miracles, had 12 disciples, was crucified, raised three days later, etc.). 

"Nothing in Christianity is original." That claim was made by distinguished symbologist Sir Leigh Teabing, a character in Dan Brown's wildly successful novel The Da Vinci Code. And while the character is fictional, the quote carries a lot of weight. While many applauded the hidden message of The Da Vinci Code for finally coming out, I actually think it was delivered at just the right time. By portraying the early Church as an institution that had knowingly and cynically appropriated the feast-days of other gods, Brown was able to cast Christians as predatory monopolists, asset-stripping the cults of their rivals. In other words, part of the reason for Dan Brown’s astonishing success (in my opinion) is that he was telling lots of people what they were primed to hear. That Christmas is a fraud, a festival stolen by the Church from pagans, has become a staple this time of year--something Brown would not have gotten away with in previous generations but which our current culture lapped up with great eagerness and joy. 

Fueling this trend is the fact that it also appears to be found in distinguished works of non-fictional history, along with thrillers like Dan Brown. One of the more popular recent historical works comes from John North in his book Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos (2016), where he writes: “The Church was anxious to draw the attention of its members away from the old pagan feast days, and the December date did this very well, for it coincided with the ‘birthday of the invincible Sun’ of Mithraism, and the end of the Roman Saturnalia (December 24).” This tends to be the most common explanation: pagan holidays were threatening Christianity's growth and dominance, so the Christian elites (whoever they were) decided to steal the pagan's holidays as their own. 

A similar claim is made by historians regarding a pagan holiday called Sol Invictus. The reality, however, is just the opposite here. First, we do well to remember that the Christian faith is as ancient as God's promise to crush Satan made to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And while pagan worship of the sun certainly existed in Rome before the message of that promise fulfilled in Christ spread to the city, the celebration of Sol Invictus as a god in Rome actually came as pagans attempted to suppress Christianity, not the other way around. This early attempt at suppressing Christianity by means of the pagan worship of Sol is documented in the Historia Augusta, a pagan history of Rome compiled in the fourth century A.D. 

After Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, who reigned from 218-222 A.D., built a temple for himself claiming to be the manifestation of Elagabalus, the Syrian sun god, he declared that "the religions of the Jews and the Samaritans and the rites of the Christians must also be transferred to this place, in order that the priesthood of Elagabalus might include the mysteries of every form of worship."  (Incidentally, very shortly after Marcus Aurelius Antonius tried to establish the worship of the Syrian sun god, Sol Invictus, he was thought to be too licentious and was assassinated by his own people, pagan Romans, at the age of 18 years old.)

There are many historians and people following them who will still assert that December 25th is Sol Invictus or tied to Mithraism. The reality is, however, that there is no ancient documentation tying either to December 25th. Nothing. Not a single piece of historical evidence exists. While those are the two more popular pagan gods people try to tie to December 25, the other ones listed above are much more simple to refute. 'December' is a strictly Roman month name, whose calendar wasn't established until well after most of the pagan gods referenced in the picture. And even if someone objects with, "We mean the ancient (Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc.) equivalent date on their calendars," or that they're simply tying it to the winter solstice, etc. (though the picture above does not state either but actually lists December 25). December 25th wasn't even connected to the winter solstice until 46 B.C., so to claim that any of those ancient pagan gods were 'born on December 25' is a flat out lie. 

Here's the truth: the Christian celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord on December 25th predates anything in the earliest actual documentation for any gods listed above. Two early Christian Church Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome, both writing around the year 200 A.D., put the date for the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th. Their reasoning for doing so (which I find much more fascinating) lies, not in paganism, but in the great seedbed of Jewish tradition. Rabbis and Church Fathers in the early centuries of the Christian Church shared a conviction that the great events of creation and salvation were framed by an essential symmetry. For example, Jewish scholars, tracing this symmetry, argued that pivotal events such as the creation of the world and the birth of Abraham (i.e. the one to whom was promised the world's recreation/redemption through his future descendant, Jesus - Genesis 15) both happened on the same calendar date.

While we might not be able to say with certainty the exact day of the year on which Christ was born, there is another important day in Christ's life we can pinpoint with much greater precision. Since we know that Jesus was crucified at Passover, March 25 was traditionally the date assigned to it. Likewise, in keeping with Jewish symmetry, that was also the day assigned to the Annunciation, when Gabriel visited Mary to announce to her that she would give birth to Jesus (see Luke 1:26-38), an account we'll actually hear Sunday morning. If Jesus was conceived on March 25, simple biology says He was born nine months later. So the date of the Annunciation was actually established first, leading to Christmas later being celebrated on December 25. In other words, the date of Jesus' birth had/has nothing to do with paganism. 

This can be seen in one of the quotes I referenced earlier from Church Father Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 AD). Writing somewhere between the years 202 and 211 A.D. he wrote in his Commentary on Daniel about the date of the birth of Christ: "For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, which happened eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], on the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was reigning in his forty-second year, but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He [Jesus] suffered in the thirty third year, eight days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar." That, along with Clement of Alexandria, is the most ancient reference to the birth of Christ on December 25 and it predates any specific reference to any other pagan god or festival sharing the same date. Additionally, notice that neither of the Church Fathers write hoping to convince Christians to start celebrating Christmas on December 25. Rather, they are simply stating what appears to be common knowledge, which might even suggest that it was already a well-established practiced by Christians at the time.

I share all this with you, not to necessarily convince you that Jesus was actually born on December 25 (although a strong historical case can be made), but to simply ease your conscience if someone tries to convince you that celebrating Christmas on December 25 is somehow pagan. It's not. It never was and it isn't today. Any true historian who doesn't already have a personal bias against Christianity knows that. To state otherwise is pure ignorance at best and an utter lie at worst. If you've ever struggled with any pagan vs. Christianity claims, I pray this helps put it to rest for you. Now, on with the celebration!

In Christ,

Pastor Bater