Did Christmas Borrow from Pagan Traditions?
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Growing up I was taught that the date of Christmas, December 25th, was a borrowed pagan festival. I couldn’t tell you exactly when or where, but I remember being told (more than a few times) that there was a myriad of ancient pagan festivals like Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, Brumalia, and European feasts like Yule, that also took place on the 25th of December.
“The Christians,” the narrative went, “moved the celebration of Christ’s birth to the place of these other pagan festivities in order to make it easier for converts and/or to encourage pagans to convert.”
In many ways this story made sense. Why not supersede, redeem, and cover up the former pagan festivals with a Christian celebration? Christen and baptize these already celebrated days with a new meaning that moved new and inquiring Christians away from the darkness of their former heathen worship and fill it with light?
I was sometimes told that certain pagan activities were inevitably smuggled in, sometimes purposefully and other times completely unintentionally. Christmas trees, holly, wreaths, and so on, were all grandfathered trappings of a previous pagan context, forgotten and replaced. These decorations were incorporated into Christmas and over time their original meaning was lost and simply associated with the Christian celebration rather than their former pagan beginnings.
All of that, however, is bogus. If we turn back the pages of history and look into the firsthand sources, none of the modern traditions associated with Christmas today turn out to be some lost trapping of a long forgotten and profane past. … While there were other festivals taking place on ancient Roman and European calendars, these had nothing to do with the Christians’ choice for choosing December 25th as the date to celebrate the incarnation. …
Nowhere in Scripture does it tell us to celebrate Jesus’ birth, that’s true. However, just because the Bible never specifically commands us to celebrate it does not mean that we shouldn’t. … The incarnation and birth of Christ is—along with Jesus’ death and resurrection—the most awesome event in all of human history. Why wouldn’t we want to carve out some specific time to celebrate such an amazing event?—Wes Huff1
A Charlie Brown Christmas
One of the first shows about Christmas I watched as a kid was A Charlie Brown Christmas. I haven’t watched it in years, but I haven’t forgotten the climactic scene, where Charlie Brown shouts above the noise to demand an answer to a question he’s struggling with: What is Christmas all about? As we all know, Linus steps forward and proclaims the birth of Christ.
The scene is … reminiscent of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, where, after much disputation among the apostles, Peter rises and puts the debate on circumcision to rest. Linus was our second pope, and it seems no small coincidence that, amid all the noise, it was Linus who delivered the truth of Christmas to Charlie Brown and his friends.
The show first aired in 1965, and it became a holiday favorite for many, but modern critics dislike the show for its Christian sentiment. It’s a lot more than sentiment—it’s catechism! I can’t name another Christmas movie that goes so far as to recite an entire section of the Bible (see Luke 2:8–14) to discuss the reason we celebrate the birth of Christ.
Unfortunately, times have changed, and fewer people are willing to recognize that Christmas is a Christian celebration. If Charlie Brown entered a crowded room today to ask what Christmas is all about, he’d get mixed answers. Perhaps out of a desire to further secularize Christmas, many claim that it is not Christian at all, that it was “invented.”
The modern [Christian] has many fronts to defend, one of them being the so-called “pagan roots” of Christmas. Around Christmastime, you are likely to hear the objection that Christmas is a Christo-pagan holiday, a mash-up of pagan beliefs and Christian celebration.
The person who maintains Christmas’s “pagan roots” has to ask himself the following questions: (1) After centuries of the Church being persecuted for not observing pagan holidays, where is the proof of influence? (2) Who influenced whom? Did Christianity influence pagans to begin to adopt a more public and concrete celebration, or did Christians “Christianize” a pagan event? Neither scenario is a problem for the Christian, because the Church has the ability to Christianize people and celebrations alike. …
[As] Paul said to the Greeks at the Areopagus: “For as I passed along, and observed the object of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘to an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you . . . that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him” (Acts 17:23,27).
A desire for the “unknown God” is written on the hearts of all men. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way: “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”—Shaun McAfee2
Reclaiming Christmas
It’s that time of year again, when many Christians encounter claims that pagan deities predating Jesus Christ were born on December 25. In popular films, internet videos, and other media, you can find long lists of gods who were supposedly born on the same day.
This idea is not limited to unbelievers. I have heard many Christians claim that the date of Christmas was intended to provide an alternative to pagan celebrations. In some ways, it has become a pious legend. On the other hand, some Fundamentalist denominations refuse to celebrate Christmas for this reason. …
Although the date of Christ’s birth is not given to us in Scripture, there is documented evidence that December 25 was already of some significance to Christians prior to 354. One example can be found in the writings of Hippolytus of Rome, who explains in his Commentary on the book of Daniel (c. 204) that the Lord’s birth was believed to have occurred on that day. …
But we know one thing for sure: the evidence that this day held a special significance to Christians predates the proof of a supposed celebration of Sol Invictus or other pagan deities on that day.
Nor was the Christians’ choice of a date so close to the winter solstice done to mimic pagan festivals. The various pagan religions all had festivals spanning the calendar. Whatever month the early Christians might have otherwise chosen would still place Christmas near some pagan celebration, and oppositional theorists would still be making the same claims.—Jon Sorensen3
The remembrance and the celebration
Christmas is the Christian remembrance and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that, in Christ, God entered the human race and so deserves the title Immanuel or “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). … When cultures clash, there is always an attempt to change and co-opt language and cultural symbols. Paul had no problem co-opting a pagan altar in order to spread the gospel. Speaking at the Areopagus, he says, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22–23).
If what we know as Christmas originally started out as a pagan celebration, then it has been so successfully co-opted by Christians that any self-respecting pagan would be distressed at what Christians have done to it. Christmas celebrations are so completely the opposite of paganism that any suggested link between the two can be disregarded.—GotQuestions.org4
Why December 25th?
Christmas has been widely celebrated by underground Christians and documented by Christians since about AD 200. Christmas became even more popular when Christianity was allowed to be out in the open after the Edicts of Toleration and Milan in AD 311 and 313 respectively.
Popular early church father Sextus Julius Africanus wrote the Chronographiai around AD 221, which put the conception of Christ on March 25—nine months prior to December 25, the date being used for Christmas. For context, this was about 125 years after the last of Jesus’ apostles died. Hippolytus of Rome also mentions December 25 in the first decade of AD 200 in his Commentary on Daniel. …
Is December 25 the actual day of Christ’s birth? That is a great question with mixed reviews, but what we know is that widespread celebrating of December 25 in churches across the Roman Empire as the birth and first nativity of Christ was very early. …
When it comes to Christmas, the Bible simply doesn’t tell us the day Jesus was born. We know it was at nighttime though. Early Christians were uniformly celebrating Christ’s birth throughout the Roman Empire on December 25 by about AD 200. They commented on it without defense as though it were common knowledge.—Bodie Hodge5
Why we celebrate Christmas
He came to earth as a helpless baby, born to a humble young girl who miraculously conceived the child. Although ordained and predestined to be the King of kings, He was not born in a palace with the honor and praise of the establishment. Instead, He was born on the dirty floor of a barn amidst the cattle and the donkeys, wrapped in rags and laid to rest in the animals’ feed-trough.
Though His birth brought no great fanfare or recognition from the institutions of men, that night on a nearby hillside, some poor shepherds were awestruck as a brilliant light shone in the starry sky and a host of heavenly messengers filled the night with their joyful declaration: “Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth to men of good will! For unto you this day is born a Savior, Christ the Lord.”
Since that miraculous day over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ has done more to change history and the course of civilization and the condition of man than any other leader, group, government, or empire. He has saved billions from the fear and uncertainty of a hopeless tomb and has given eternal life and the love of God to all who call upon His name. And that’s why we celebrate Christmas … not only on December 25th but every day of the year.—The Family International
Published on Anchor December 2024. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso. Music from the Rhythm of Christmas album, used by permission.
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