|
|
Etiology Our Pagan Holy Day by Jo Ann
Skousen Christmas as we know it was
invented less than two centuries ago.
December is a month of contrasts as we celebrate "peace on
earth, good will toward men" by fighting over parking spots at the mall, spending
ourselves into debt, getting soused at office parties, and lying to children
about an eccentric old man who peeks into bedrooms and then breaks into houses.
In a spirit of tolerance and harmony, many now observe "Hanumas," a bland sort of
blending of Hanukkah with Christmas that strips both holidays of their miracles
and focuses on the inoffensively innocuous: gift-giving, food, and of course,
Santa Claus. What does any of this have to do with the "true meaning" of either
Hanukkah or Christmas? Or the recently invented Kwanzaa (conveniently scheduled
to take advantage of post-Christmas sales)? As I set out to lament the
overshadowing of Christmas by the "right jolly old elf," I discovered that the
real history of Christmas has little to do with a miraculous birth in a
stable.
| | Jo Ann
Skousen is a writer and critic living in New York.
|
|
During the Golden Age of classical Greece, a polytheistic philosophy reigned,
with a complex family of gods and goddesses controlling the lives and actions of
mortal men. Most of these gods were adaptations of earlier city-deities that had
existed before their annexation to Greece; Europa, for example, gives birth to
Minos, king of Crete, while Hera's cults can be traced to Argos and Mycenae. One
of the reasons for Zeus' prolific liaisons with mortal women was that these
separate cities could thereby trace their diety's lineage back to Zeus, uniting
Greece through a common religion.
Later, when the Romans conquered Greece, they superimposed their own religion
onto the religion of the vanquished, so that Greek and Roman gods became
virtually interchangeable. Later still, when Christianity became the official
religion of Rome, Constantine made it more palatable to the peasants by
superimposing Christian saints onto the existing pagan deities and adapting
Christian beliefs to pagan customs. Most notably, the winter solstice celebration
of the rebirth of the Sun became Christ's Mass, or the birth of the Son. This
method of gradual assumption of new names for old beliefs is much less traumatic
and indeed might hardly have been noticed by the average peasant. Constantine
could rename the winter celebration and create new symbols to associate it with
the virgin birth of Christ, but in most cases the citizenry simply continued
their former frolics "under new management."
Within a hundred years of this edict, most of the pagan cults had died out and
Christianity was ensconced as the official religion of the ever-expanding Roman
Empire. Prince Vladimir would use this same technique in 987 when he facilitated
Russia's transition to Christianity by superimposing the Christian saints onto
the feast days of the former pagan deities and folk heroes; the feast day of John
the Baptist, for example, would be celebrated in the same season and manner as
the former river deity. From the Middle Ages to the Reformation, Christmas week
became an elaborate religious celebration, characterized by long church services
and sermons offset by music, plays, and masques. This was a stark and solemn
contrast to the vulgar, pagan festivities of the original winter solstice, which
included drinking, gambling, and sex. Yet the side-by-side celebration of the
most profound with the most profane continued through the centuries, culminating
in our own culture's mixing of the most sacred of holidays, Christmas, with the
most hedonistic of holidays, New Year's Eve. The British were not praying as
Washington crossed the Delaware, they were drinking. Even St. Nicholas, the Greek
Orthodox priest on whom Santa Claus is patterned, shares a schizophrenic name
with "Old Nick," one of the common slang names for Satan!
|
| "Wassailing" was like an
early version of trick or treat, with drunken singers banging on doors, demanding
food, drink, or money in exchange for going away.
|
|
By the early 17th century, the pagan celebrations of drunkenness and
debauchery had re-emerged to the point that the holiday was losing its connection
with the Biblical story it was supposed to evoke. As a result, in 1657, not long
after Puritan Oliver Cromwell took control of England, he outlawed Christmas.
Puritans in Massachusetts followed suit by banning Christmas observances in 1659.
As with prohibition of alcohol, however, so with prohibition of celebration: the
behaviors that government banned simply went underground and became more extreme,
with even more emphasis on the pagan rather than the spiritual. "Wassailing"
became popular among the lower classes, but it had none of the charm of Victorian
Christmas cards depicting happy groups of carolers singing under streetlamps. It
was more like an early version of trick or treat, with drunken singers banging on
doors, demanding food, drink, or money in exchange for going away. On slave
plantations in the South, Christmas week was a time of bittersweet revelry.
Harvest was in, and slaves were given time off to rest and play. They were issued
a new set of clothes, as well as food and often alcohol. Singing, dancing, and
storytelling lasted all week, and the tradition continues in the Bahamas and
other Caribbean islands today, with "Junkanoo," an island-wide street party that
lasts from Christmas night to New Year's Eve. But the 19th-century celebration
was tinged with worry, since the first of the year was the time for selling and
leasing slaves to other plantations, and the week often ended with painful,
lifelong separations — hardly a symbol of "peace on earth."
Despite the public debauchery, many attempted to "keep Christmas" as a
religious observance. Churches in central Europe continued to celebrate St.
Nicholas Day and Christmas Mass with sermons and music. Charles Dickens is
credited with codifying the modern English version of the ideal Christmas, with
its lighted trees, Yule logs, carols, family parties, roasted goose, and general
goodwill. He espoused the ideals of Christianity without endorsing an actual
religion. His series of annual Christmas books began with "Sketches by Boz" in
1837 and culminated in his masterpiece, "A Christmas Carol," in 1843. The story
has become such a part of our lexicon that we often forget that Ebenezer Scrooge
was more the rule than the exception by 19th-century standards, when most
employers refused to contribute to the revelry by giving workers the day off. The
softening of Ebenezer Scrooge's heart softened the hearts of readers everywhere,
setting the standard for a joyful and charitable, though virtually Christ-less,
Christmas that has lasted to this day.
| Charles Dickens is
credited with codifying the modern English version of the ideal Christmas, with
its lighted trees, Yule logs, carols, family parties, roasted goose, and general
goodwill. |
|
But it was actually Washington Irving who created the modern Christmas in
America, more than 20 years earlier, in a conceit made to appear to have been
imported from Britain. In his "Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." (1819Ð20),
Irving purported to have visited England, where he "observed firsthand" happy
family-oriented holiday customs that included parlor games, music, traditional
foods, gifts, and festive decorations. With chapters titled "Christmas,"
"Christmas Eve," "Christmas Morning," and "The Christmas Dinner," Irving created
a blueprint for the "perfect Christmas" that harried mothers have tried to copy
ever since. However, these were purely the creations of his own imagination. As
early as 1809, Irving had begun to resurrect the Dutch St. Nicholas in his
satirical "Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York," adding significant
embellishments to the 1821 version: "and laying his finger beside his nose, gave
a very significant look; then mounting his wagon, he returned over the tree tops
and disappeared." Docents at Irving's home, Sunnyside, in Irvington, N. Y., love
to point out that this was published one year before Clement C. Moore's
culture-changing "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," but since the two were
friends, it is difficult to say who borrowed from whom, or even whether the true
author of the poem was Henry Livingston Jr., another New York acquaintance, whose
descendants have been making this claim for over a century. It was another of
Irving's friends, John Pintard, founder of the New York Historical Society, who
hoped that rekindling an observance of St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6) might encourage
greater harmony between the poor and the wealthy; Pintard had already been
instrumental in establishing Columbus Day, Washington's Birthday, and the Fourth
of July as public holidays. But it was Moore's poem that established St. Nick's
visit as "the night before Christmas," and we were back to our winter solstice,
Dec. 25 observance.
The split personality of our winter holiday has endured for more than 2,000
years, and that pattern is likely to continue as governments seek to influence
the masses by controlling their Masses. Some complained that solstice rituals
were too pagan, and Christmas was born; others complained that Christmas was too
Christian, and Santa Claus emerged; some complain today that the holidays have
become too commercial, but even louder, Keynesian voices complain that we aren't
commercial enough — without "healthy" Christmas sales, our economy will
falter. I suspect the conflict will rage a long time, as humans seek a balance
between the profound and the profane, the commercial and the personal, the
spiritual and the pagan, self-interest and self-sacrifice. The two-faced Roman
god Janus, who sits on the cusp between the old year and the new, will continue
to preside over this schizophrenic holiday of merriment and wonder.
|
| | |
|
