Speaker 1: If you paid attention to the secularist kind of critique
of Christianity, one of the arguments you will have heard
from the secularist camp, it also of from some of
the more kind of radical Protestant sex is that Christmas
is a pagan festival. In my youth, I remember growing
up there were people in the church where I grew
up who argued for that and said that Christmas was
a pagan festival, that it's not scriptural, it's not in
the Bible, and it was basically a Christians taking over
the pagan myths, taking over the pagan festival, specifically Solen Victus,
which was on December twenty fifth. By the way, Solen
Victis is a very late holiday.
Speaker 2: But you know, you.
Speaker 1: Probably might have seen other videos debunking this, and so
I obviously will give you the basics of why this
is not true, but we're also going to try to
look at the deeper reasons or the deeper let's say,
questions that are happening. Why is it that people want
this to be true, what is motivating this kind of statement,
and how it is that we can not only fight
the details in terms of debunking the ridiculous connotation that
Christmas is the pagan festival, but debunk it in a
bigger way. That is also debunk the very attitude and
the very approach which would lead people into saying such
a thing.
Speaker 3: Hello there, Well, this is Martin Shaw, and I'm afraid
whatever you had planned for January scrap it. I am
returning to Symbolic World gleefully with one of the great
stories of our time, the Epic of Passable, the story
of the Holy Grail itself. Over five nights, I will
be telling the tale. These will not be dry lectures
or PowerPoint presentations. This will be wild old philosophical storytelling
in its deepest dimensions. It is life changing stuff, this story.
I've written a book about it. I've been studying it
for twenty years. I've told it all over the world,
but I have not shared it with you. I've not
shared it with symbolic world. So what else would you
want to do in the great wintering time but to
sit at the feet of this wonderful.
Speaker 2: Story and let me be your guide. I'll see you there.
This is Jonathan Pejol. Welcome to the Symbolic World.
Speaker 1: So in the third century, the Emperor Roman, Emperor declared
a festival on December twenty fifth, which was called Soulenvictis,
which was the Invincible Sun, and it happened to coincide
on the date that most Christians thought that Christ was born.
The way that Christians came to the conclusion that Christ
was born is one which is not completely in tune
with modern ways of thinking, but it is nonetheless an
internal manner by which they calculated this. And the way
they did was there was a tradition according to which
Christ had been conceived on the same day that he died.
That is obviously not on the same year, but of
the same calendar day that he died.
Speaker 2: That was the day of the Annunciation, the day that
Christ was conceived.
Speaker 1: That is why, for example, in the Catholic and the
Orthodox tradition, the Annunciation always kind of falls during Lent
at some point and sometimes even during Holy Week, because
it is you know, it is originally on the day
on the year that Christ died. Then it would have
been the same day as Pasca, the same day as Easter.
And then if you take that, it's March twenty fifth,
and then you add nine months you get to December
twenty fifth, and that is the way that Christians came
to understand that Christ was born on December twenty fifth.
It is there in Augustine, it is mentioned in Augustine,
and then ultimately this is the tradition that gets taken
up by different Christians. You know, of course, before that,
Christians celebrated mostly Epiphany or Theophany, which is in January
and was in some ways a more general feast, which
was the revelation of the light of Christ. And in
the feast of Theophany or Epiphany, you have all the
moments where the divinity of Christ is revealed, and so
they were celebrated aspects of the nativity, aspects of the
wise men that come and recognize the Christ child.
Speaker 2: As being born.
Speaker 1: And then also baptism, because when Christ was baptized and
he came out of the water, that is when we
heard the voice of God, the Father saying this is
my son. And so it was more of a general
festival of light and of the revelation of God. But
then ultimately Christians separated those two feats and decided to
celebrate the birth of Christ specifically, and because traditionally they
had accepted that it was on December twenty fifth, that
is when it ultimately was chosen. Now in the lay
in the Reformation, there were some movements, especially in the Puritans,
to criticize that and to start to say that in fact,
Christmas was not scriptural, and that Christmas was a pagan
festival because it fell on the same day as the
Roman festival of Sol Invictus, and it came in the
same season as the ancient Saturnalia, which were i think
until December twenty third, and so because of that, they
tried to connect the celebration of Christmas with a kind
of carnival, you know, a kind of inversion festival. They
also tried to connect it with the worship of the Sun,
as the kind of.
Speaker 2: The return of the Sun, you could say.
Speaker 1: And then that criticism got taken up in the Enlightenment,
and then ultimately got taken up by kind of nineteenth
century anthropologist and nineteenth century religious in parenthesis thinkers like Fraser,
who ultimately was trying to frame Christianity as a kind
of nature religion, as a kind of copying of the
ancient supposedly.
Speaker 2: Dying and rising God, and.
Speaker 1: That ultimately the celebration of Christmas was related to the
solstice and the return of the Sun and all of that,
you know. And what's fascinating about this is that it's
technically false, Like it's just technically false. That is just
not the reason why Christian chose that date for the
birth of Christ. But what's interesting is how in fact,
these Puritans and then ultimately these kind of materialist religious scholars,
they're onto something. They're onto something there to the fact
that even though the choosing of the birth of Christ
was related to the date of his death and the annunciation,
that why would it surprise us that it would in
fact fall around the time of the solstice. Because the
idea of soul invictus, of the kind of victorious sun.
We also believe that that is true in Christ, that
the revelation of the incarnate God and you know, as
a child that will then grow and start to be
shown more and more. That is what happens. That the solstice,
that is, the sun is at its lowest point and
then the sun starts to rise up in the heavens.
And so the fact that there is a symbolism between
the solstice and the birth of Christ is not something
that should scare us.
Speaker 2: Why should it scare.
Speaker 1: Us that the way that God created the world, and
the fact that meaning is deeply ingrained in these great
cosmic patterns, why would that freak us out? Because it
connects to Christian symbolism. It's really fascinating because even if
the Christians had chosen that date for the reason in
relationship to the solstice, if they had chosen it, you know,
because they would have come to the conclusion that Christ
must have been born on the day, you know, around
the time of the solstice, because He is the true
rising Sun, and all of these other reasons. You know,
that would not for that reason make it a pagan holiday.
Why would it make it a pagan holiday? Because God
is the one who created the world. These great cosmic
patterns that the Pagans did notice and that the Pagans
did celebrate, are nonetheless also the language that God has
used to create the world. They are the words of
God inscribed in natural processes. They are not evil, they
are not you know, they are not perverse on their own.
They can be perverted, they can come to serve evil.
But isn't it the job or isn't it one of
the great things that Christians can do, which is to
turn that symbolism towards you know, towards the good. And
then after that, then you can understand that all of
the ways in which people have then started to say
that the different aspects of the Christmas traditions that got
celebrated in different places, that these are pagan You know,
you have people saying that the Christmas tree is a
pagan image. You know that it's what they're ancient pagans.
You know, they decorated trees around this time. You know
that the holly, that all of these things are all
these kind of you know, ancient pagan traditions. And what
it shows is that in fact Christianity is just basically
paganism with you know, a little bit of a Christian
veneer on top.
Speaker 2: And again this is absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea, for example, of using an evergreen
tree to represent the the the incarnation of Christ is
particularly beautiful. The idea that the thing that that survives
through death, the thing that does not die even though
everything else around it is dying, you know, the thing
that maintains light, maintains life in the darkest and coldest moment.
That that is a beautiful image of Christmas. It's a
beautiful image of the incarnation. And if you've seen my
different videos on the symbolism of the Christmas Tree and
on these different symbolism, you'll see that the very way
that the Christmas Tree is decorated with the star at
the top and the gifts at the bottom, and you know,
the all of the ornaments all along, is a beautiful
cosmic image of the revelation of God. And it's connected
directly to the story of the Nativity, with having either
a star or an angel at the top of the tree,
because that is what happened at the time of the
birth of Christ. That is, a star or an angel
appeared to the shepherds or to the wise men and
then announced the birth of Christ, announced this great gift.
And you can imagine, like all the decoration in the
tree as the myriads of angels, the miads of the
of the choir of Heaven that is singing the glory
of this moment, is revealing the glory of this moment.
There are all of these other all of these these
aspects that you can understand that what you realize is
that what you're facing when you see these kinds of
arguments is actually a kind of reductionism. But you're facing
in the type of argument that would say that a
Christmas tree is pagan, or that this or that aspect
is pagan, or Christmas candles are pagan, or all of
these types of practices that people have during Christmas that
they're pagan, or gift giving or all of this stuff,
that it's pagan. What you're dealing with is not paganism.
What you're dealing with is a opposition that is formulated
in reductionism.
Speaker 2: That is, there is this idea, this.
Speaker 1: Kind of enlightenment idea that in fact Christianity moves away
from ritual, that Christianity in fact is more secular. You
could say in its practices that it has to do
only with ethics, that it has to do only with morality,
and that you have to de mythologize Christianity and get
rid of all of these superstitious practices and these externals
and get you know, only to the relationship of the heart.
Speaker 2: That is what you're dealing with.
Speaker 1: You're not actually dealing with questions of Christianity or paganism.
And so the same types of people that would say that,
for example, the Christmas tree is pagan and that all
of these things are pagan. Would probably say that all
the different aspects of the liturgy are also taken from
pagan things that you know, the staff of the bishop
is just a sorcerers an ancient sorcerer's ron taken from.
Speaker 2: This or that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of if you know about chick comics, that's
how chick comics takes it. They take anything that looks symbolic,
anything that has, you know, a deeper meaning, and then
would do is they reduce it to a kind of
superstition and they call on it as being pagan because
obviously Christians, what they did was to remove all of
those external things and to only exist in the heart.
But that is just simply not true. That is, that
is not how Christians acted. That is not how Christians
acted from the beginning, and it is certainly not how
Christians acted as they kind of took over Europe and
became the.
Speaker 2: Leading culture in Europe.
Speaker 1: What they did is that they developed traditions that were
making the world meaningful and was making the world in
a shape that would help us remember and help us celebrate,
and help us participate in these important feats and in
these important aspects, and so even then we could say, like,
is it possible that maybe some of these aspects would
have been stolen or taken from the pre Christian societies,
And the answer is yeah, yeah, probably Is that a problem.
The answer is no, it is not a problem at all.
It is not a problem. And what's interesting, what's super
interesting about that, is that someone who someone who for example,
would object to these kinds of traditions might be the
same kind of person that doesn't have a problem with
Christian rock and roll or doesn't have a problem with,
you know, a band in their church playing a guitar,
bass and drum, you know, and because that is not
something that comes from within the Christian esthetic, you know.
And so what Christians would do is that they would
take certain things that they could be transformed and could
be made into a shape that could participate in the
Christian story, whether they're taken from from pagan sources or
sometimes they're just taken from Christian sources. That is, different
legends or different people that have insights about, you know,
things that we can do in order to remember and
to celebrate and to celebrate rate the Christian feast. And
this is of course true about so many things it's
true about people, the way people talk about Halloween, the
way that people talk about Easter. You know, until, for example,
the idea, for example, that at Easter there's a bunny
that lays eggs. It's like, is that a pagan story?
And the answer is, it's not a pagan story. It's
a story about spring. And you know, it's a story
about reproduction and fertility and and and the kind of
the awakening of that aspect of the world in spring.
And you might ask yourself, is that pagan? Well, what
are you talking about? How is fertility pagan? You know,
this idea that fertility, anything that's related to fertility, or
anything that's related to reproduction, that that is necessarily pagan
because obviously Christians don't have babies, Christians don't have sex,
Christians don't don't participate in fertility.
Speaker 2: It's all very ridiculous, you know.
Speaker 1: And and and so I think that we just have
to dradically change the way that we think about these things.
Speaker 2: And realize that.
Speaker 1: All these modes of participations, all these images that are
projected sometimes that they have no author you know, they
just kind of happen. Sometimes we have to be careful
the place that they take. Obviously, nobody should. Nobody should
have an icon of the Easter Bunny in the church,
and nobody should, you know, I don't know, you know,
have an Easter hunt inside the church, like an egg
hunt inside the church, and they are all these you know,
you have to obviously find the right hierarchy.
Speaker 2: You know, for example, I.
Speaker 1: Think it's fine to have a Christmas tree in the church.
Don't put it in the altar though, you know, you
should probably have it either in the narthex or maybe
somewhere in the knave. That's a little chucked aside. And
so you just have to basically find the right place
for all of these traditions and all of these kinds
of things that we do.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't mean that they're pagan.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that they're evil, doesn't mean that they're twisted,
and it certainly doesn't mean that they are superstitious. And so,
you know, if you have felt in your you know,
some kind of unease about these things, some kind of
an ease about the way in which we celebrate these holidays,
and you have taken seriously these ridiculous accusations that they
are pagan somehow, first of all. Most of the time
that is technically false. And one of the things that it's
really important, by the way, one of the things to
really understand is that it is often very technically false.
It is often a kind of you could say, speculation
on the part of these thinkers because they don't have
access to those pagan cultures. Those pagan cultures didn't have writing,
those pagan cultures didn't have any kind of documentation, and
so the idea that these traditions would come from pagan
cultures is pure, absolute, pure speculation. There is no way
that they have access to the pre Christian Europe, you know,
as if they could, they could see into the fourth
century in Gaul, or they could see you know, into
the sixth or seventh century or eighth century in Scandinavia.
This is absolute madness, you know, it's pure speculation. All
we have are the things we have, and so we
have to see them for the meaning that they possess
and what it is that they're manifesting, and that is
really truly what matters. And so, you know, do not
hesitate to celebrate these holidays, you know, do not hesitate
to participate in these kinds of images, because most of
them are quite beautiful, and they're especially beautiful if they
are in their proper place, and they are they are
put in the proper uh, their proper participation in the
in the great hierarchy of images that we participate in
to celebrate the birth of Christ and all of the
other Christian holidays.
Speaker 2: So I hope this was a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of a rant, a little bit of a
uh you know something that I sometimes I think that
it's over, that we don't, that we're done with these
kind of ridiculous arguments about Christianity and Easter and Christmas
and paganism. But hopefully this will also help you if
you still have doubts on that subject.
Speaker 2: So thanks everyone.
Speaker 1: I hope you all have a merry Christmas and I'll
talk to you very soon.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to
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