Last year, (exactly a year by coincidence) I wrote about
the history of Christmas (here),
to discover its origins and ask, is it a pagan holiday and should Christians
celebrate it? And what I found was that, although there are some parallels
between the Roman Saturnalia and the Scandinavian Yule, the relationship in
iconography is quite weak and most likely coincidental/accidental, and any
claim that Christmas is a contextualised pagan holiday is speculation. This
year, I want to consider why the Church established Christmas from another
perspective.
As part of my post on Christmas last year, I looked at
the development of dates and how there appears to be no calculations for dating
the birth of Jesus until the late second century, and December 25th
does not appear until the fourth century. However, since then I have found
evidence that suggests a December date was proposed by Hippolytus around the
early third century (the originality of this is debated). Nonetheless, the
truth is the early church did not know and relied on philosophical reasoning to
calculate the birth of Christ. Within these Christians was a desire to honour
Jesus by celebrating his birth. And this was quite unique as Jews, the early church's predecessor generally “did not celebrate their birthdays. Indeed, while the dates of
passing (yahrtzeit) of the great figures of Jewish history are recorded and
commemorated, their dates of birth are mostly unknown.” (Tauber)
It is possible, as Tyler Rosenquist suggests, that they were looking for an alternative to the Caesar’s Birthday, a holy day
where no work was to be done and public prayers were made to Vesta and
sacrifices made to the Emperor. An inscription from Halicarnassus from the time
of Caesar Augustus is quite telling:
Providence has sent Augustus as a saviour for us… to make war to cease, and to create order everywhere… when he was made manifest, [Caesar] has fulfilled all the hopes of earlier times… and the birthday of the god [Augustus] was the beginning for the world of the good news (euaggelion [Gospel]) that has come to men through him” (in Thompson, p 62n24).
The authors of the New Testament indeed took back this language to describe Jesus, the one who alone rightly deserves these descriptions. But why wait until the late second century to take on the birthday celebration? Quite
possibly, because the number of Roman followers was growing, they were looking
for a way to honour the true and living saviour of the world, the true manifestation of the true God, in a culturally meaningful way. This could
have been subversive as an outright rejection and rebellion against the
Imperial cult, or as a way to appear acceptable during a time of growing persecution,
or as a way of contextualising mission. And all three could have been going on. History is quite complicated and things typically have multiple causes, so this is perhaps only one part of many to the story.
By the late second century, in the fallout of
the Bar Kochba revolt, the ‘Gentiles’ had significantly distanced themselves
from ‘the Jews’, disdaining anything that looks Jewish because of an anger
towards them rooted in a blame for increased persecution. Thus, we find Early
Church Fathers in this period writing things like:
Now, then, incline thine ear to me, and hear my words, and give heed, thou Jew. Many a time dost thou boast thyself, in that thou didst condemn Jesus of Nazareth to death, and didst give Him vinegar and gall to drink; and thou dost vaunt thyself because of this. (Hippolytus. Against Jews. 1).
There was also a wanting to distinguish themselves from
the Jews in they eyes of the Romans. Therefore, observing things like food laws and feast days were
condemned. Consequently, we find Justin Martyr writing things like:
For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and the Sabbaths, and in short all the feasts, if we did not know for what reason they were enjoined you,--namely, on account of your transgressions and the hardness of your hearts. (Trypho. 18)
And so, with a desire to celebrate the works of God but
no precedent on how to do so because they had cut themselves off from their
Hebraic heritage, the early Church invented Christmas. And eventually by the end
of the fourth century, Rome would outlaw what they defined as ‘Judaizing’ with
threat of excommunication, declaring Easter and Christmas as the only
legitimate Festivals. Perhaps this, more than supposed link to paganism should
be the cause of questioning Christmas. As Tyler Rosenquist reflects:
To me, knowing the history of the fourth century CE – that Rome forcibly legislated the removal of Christians out of the synagogues and Torah keepers out of the assemblies of Messiah – Christians celebrating Christmas and Easter seem very much like children celebrating the consequences of having a broken home. Without the Christians, the Jews lost their Messiah and without the Jews, the Christians lost their inheritance. It’s like a child celebrating the absence of a parent who wasn’t even a bad parent. Christmas and Easter happened because of a broken home, and that grieves me – it doesn’t make me want to celebrate. At one point all believers in Yeshua were called Nazarene Jews, for hundreds of years – Rome robbed us of a stable home life.
Not only does secular society investing so much into
Christmas baffle me, but seeing how much energy Christians put into a man-made
tradition does too. Although certain methods of celebrating Christmas could
arguably be unbiblical, the concept of Christmas is merely extra-biblical. And
celebrating the birth of Christ is good and worthy point of thanksgiving, but this is
where the inconsistency comes in. Some would argue, ‘I don’t need a Sabbath, I
can Sabbath any day.’ Yet, you won’t find them saying ‘I don’t need Christmas,
I can celebrate the birth of Jesus any day.’ The one, commanded in scripture is
minimised, while the man-made tradition is elevated. Does this sound familiar?
Is this not what Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for in Mark 7? “You have a fine
way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”
(Mark 7:9).
Is there anything wrong with traditions? No. Note that in
Mark 7 Jesus had washed his hands prior to eating. It’s when traditions supersede
Scripture that they become a problem, and it for this that Jesus often rebuked
them.
The early church did not need to invent new holidays, God
in His word had already provided His people with 7 feast days to celebrate, all
reflecting the person and work of Christ, thus making them worthy of Christian
observance and celebration. But because of their anti-semitism, the ‘Gentile
church’ turned their back on ‘Jewish’ things, thus abolishing the instructions
of God.
Now you may be thinking:
“Didn’t Paul say the feast days were done away with? In Colossians 2:16-17 he wrote: Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Yes, Paul wrote that, but he didn’t mean that. There are
two things about this passage that will help us understand what Paul is saying.
First, is that this passage says that it is wrong to judge, think less of, condemn
(kreno, Jn 3:17-18), and disqualify Christians
from the faith with the feast days as a measure. So this should give us perspective
on how Paul is defining the importance of the feast days, i.e. they aren’t
salvation critical. The second thing, however, reveals that Paul was not
talking to those who reject the feast days. Looking at the broader context,
note that Paul is warning his readers not to allow someone to take them “captive
by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the
elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ… These have indeed
an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion…” (Col 2:8, 23). Now
the feast days are not ‘Jewish’, they are God’s feast days: “These are the
appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they
are my appointed feasts” (Lev 23:2). They are among His commandments and
statutes. If Paul is rebuking people for insisting on observing the Lord’s
feast days, then he is describing the commandments of God: empty, human tradition,
having the appearance of wisdom, and
self-made religion. Moreover, he is equating God with the ‘elemental spirits of
the world.’ Note too that these false teachers are insisting on “asceticism and
worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason
by his sensuous mind… and severity to the body” as a way to overcome our sinful
nature and evil spirits (Col 2:8, 14, 18, 23). So Paul is in fact rebuking
false teachers for condemning Christians either because they were keeping the
feasts, or the manner in which they kept them. Insisting on aestheticism could
mean that celebrating anything was wrong, or perhaps the feasting and revelry of
the feasts should be exchanged for fasting. Thus, Paul is saying:
“Therefore let no one pass judgement on you because you keep the feasts or the way you keep the feasts. Why? For one, celebrating doesn’t promote sin. And secondly, because they are all about Jesus. So, of course you should celebrate them. And they haven’t passed away yet because they are ‘a shadow of the things to come’ [fut. Tense].”
So no, the feast days have not been done away with. Why
would our creator take away occasions for celebrating? Yet, because of the
inherited thinking from the likes of Justin Martyr, the church sees them as
something that needed to be done away with at the cross. And because of the
inherited interpretation of Colossians 2, most look upon them indifferently.
As I spoke about here and here God has already given us a perfect opportunity to celebrate the birth of Jesus:
the Feast of Tabernacles. Not only is it a highly probable date for Jesus’
birth, but it is a week of celebrations designed to help God’s people remember
that He dwells among them. A time to reflect on Immanuel. If people want to
celebrate Christmas, then that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with traditions.
There’s nothing in scripture explicitly forbidding it, nor for celebrating it more than once. Scripture doesn’t give a
date for the event, so we should not be dogmatic about when we celebrate it. But it is
important that we keep Christmas in correct perspective: it was a tradition
established to replace the days of celebration given by God in scripture, because the early church needed an outlet to honour their true saviour. Let’s give
both tradition and scripture the attention and energy they deserve.
Thompson, Alan J. One Lord, One People the Unity of the Church in Acts in Its Literary Setting / Alan J. Thompson. Library of New Testament Studies ; 359. London: T & T Clark, 2008.
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