THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTMAS
Now I must own that at first sight it is difficult to explain how
the Christ-child of the past--the Holy One whose birth is remembered
and honored in that feast which we call Christmas, should gradually
have been changed into the white-haired, white-bearded, merry-hearted
and kindly old pagan whom we sometimes call Christ-Kinkle but more
frequently Santa Klaus.
Yet at the very moment when we come face to face with this difficult
problem we have reached the explanation which seemed impossible when we
strove to understand the much less startling transformation of Saint
Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, into Santa Klaus, patron of the Christmas
season.
We remember that the Christmas festival of to-day is a gradual
evolution from times that long antedated the Christian period. We
remember that though it celebrates the mightiest event in the history
of Christendom, it was overlaid upon heathen festivals, and many of its
observances are only adaptations of pagan to Christian ceremonial.
[Illustration: Christmas presents.
Painting by F. Defregger.]
This was no mere accident. It was a necessary measure at a time when
the new religion was forcing itself upon a deeply superstitious people.
In order to reconcile fresh converts to the new faith, and to make the
breaking of old ties as painless as possible, these relics of paganism
were retained under modified forms, in the same way that antique
columns, transferred from pagan temples, became parts of the new
churches built by Christians in honor of their God and his saints.
Thus we find that when Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine as a
missionary to convert Anglo-Saxon England he directed that so far as
possible the saint should accommodate the new and strange Christian
rites to the heathen ones with which the natives had been familiar
from their birth. For example, he advised Saint Augustine to allow his
converts on certain festivals to eat and kill a great number of oxen to
the glory of God the Father, as formerly they had done this in honor of
the devil. All pagan gods, it should be explained, were looked upon as
devils by the early Christians.
On the very Christmas after his arrival in England Saint Augustine
baptized many thousands of converts and permitted their usual December
celebration under the new name and with the new meaning. He forbade
only the mingling together of Christians and pagans in the dances.
From these early pagan-Christian ceremonies are derived many of the
English holiday customs that have survived to our day.
Now get clearly into your head one very important fact. Although at
the time when Augustine visited England the date of Christmas had been
fixed upon as December 25 there is no biblical reason why this should
be so. The gospels say nothing about the season of the year when Christ
was born. On the other hand they do tell us that shepherds were then
guarding their flocks in the open air. Hence many of the early fathers
of the Church considered it most likely that the Nativity took place
either in the late summer or the early fall. The point was of no great
moment to them, as the early Church made more fuss over the death day
of a great or holy person than over his birthday. The birthday is only
the day when man is born into mortality, the death day chronicles his
birth into immortality.
The important fact then which I have asked you to get clearly into your
head is that the fixing of the date as December 25th was a compromise
with paganism.
For countless centuries before the Christian era pagan Europe, through
all its various tribes and peoples, had been accustomed to celebrate
its chief festival at the time of the winter solstice, the turning
point when winter, having reached its apogee, has also reached the
point when it must begin to decline again towards spring.
[Illustration: Saturn, the God of Time.
Painting by Raphael.]
The last sentence requires further explanation. I shall try to put it
into words as simple as possible.
You must be aware of the fact that the shortest day in the year is
December 21st. Therefore that is the day when winter reaches its height.
It was on or about December 21st that the ancient Greeks celebrated
what are known to us as the Bacchanalia or festivities in honor of
Bacchus,[1] the god of wine. In these festivities the people gave
themselves up to songs, dances and other revels which frequently passed
the limits of decency and order.
In ancient Rome the Saturnalia, or festivals in honor of Saturn, the
god of time, began on December 17th and continued for seven days. These
also often ended in riot and disorder. Hence the words Bacchanalia and
Saturnalia acquired an evil reputation in later times.
We are most interested in the festivals of the ancient Teutonic (or
German) tribes because they are most closely linked with Christmas as
we ourselves celebrate it.
The pagan feast of the Twelve Nights was religiously kept by them from
December 25th to January 6th, the latter day being known, as it is
still known to their descendants, as Twelfth Night. The Teutonic mind
personified the active forces of nature,--that is to say it pictured
them as living beings.
The conflicts between these forces were represented as battles between
gods and giants.
Winter, for example, was the Ice-giant,--cruel, boisterous, unruly,
the destroyer of life, the enemy alike of gods and men. Riding on his
steed, the all-stiffening North Wind, he built up for himself great
castles of ice. Darkness and death followed in his wake.
But the Sun-god and the South Wind, symbols of light and life, gave
battle to the Ice-giant. At last Thor, the god of the Thunderstorm,
riding on the wings of the air, hurled his thunderbolt at the winter
castle, and demolished it. Then Freija, the goddess of fruits and
flowers, resumed her former sway. All of which is only a poetical way
of saying that after the Ice-giant had conquered in winter he was in
his turn overthrown by the Sun-god in spring.
Now the twenty-first day of December, the depth of winter, marked the
period when the Ice-giant was in the full flush of his triumph and also
marked the beginning of his overthrow. It was the turning point in the
conflict of natural forces. The Sun-god having reached the goal of the
winter solstice, now wheeled around his fiery steeds and became the
sure herald of the coming victory of light and life over darkness and
death of spring over winter.
A thousand indications point to the fact that Christmas has
incorporated into itself all these festivals, Greek, Roman and German,
and given them a new meaning. The wild revels of the Bacchanalia,
the Saturnalia and the Twelve Nights survive in a milder form in the
merriment and jollity which mark the season of Christmas to-day.
Christmas gifts themselves remind us of the presents that were
exchanged in Rome during the Saturnalia. In Rome, it might be added,
the presents usually took the form of wax tapers and dolls,--the latter
being in their turn a survival of the human sacrifices once offered to
Saturn.
It is a queer thought that in our Christmas presents we are preserving
under another form one of the most savage customs of our barbarian
ancestors!
The shouts of “Bona Saturnalia!” which the Roman people exchanged among
themselves are the precursors of our “Merry Christmas!” The decorations
and illuminations of our Christian churches recall the temples of
Saturn, radiant with burning tapers and resplendent with garlands. The
masks and mummeries which still survive here and there, even in the
America of to-day, and which were especially prominent in the Middle
Ages, were prominent also in the Saturnalian revels.
And a large number of the legends, superstitions and ceremonials which
have crystallized around the Christian festival in Europe and America
are more or less distorted reminiscences of the legends, superstitions
and ceremonials of the Twelve Nights of ancient Germany.