Christmas Myth – Between Sword and Cross (Part 1)

Preliminary remark

In this blog article, we would like to shed some light on the origins of Christmas, which is fitting for this time of year. We would like to point out that, due to the format of the blog, only some aspects of the topic can be covered or touched upon.

Introduction

In order to examine the origins of Christmas, a holiday that polarizes people, it is necessary to study ancient sources based on folk knowledge, which are hidden in documents and books and waiting to be rediscovered. The deeper the reader delves into the subject of the pre-Christian origins of Christmas, the clearer it becomes that what is described is often incompatible with Christian Christmas myths. We learn that Christians occupied and altered the despised pagan worldviews and the rituals associated with and practiced to maintain them in order to enforce and codify the Christmas or Jesus birth myth.

Christmas between tradition and modernity

No religious festival in the Western world captivates people more, or is rejected more uncompromisingly, than Christmas. Regardless of whether one approaches the Christmas season from a Christian or non-denominational perspective, one is drawn into the magic of the festival’s diverse array of celebrations in a way that is usually shaped by childhood experiences or is often inexplicably captivating. In today’s modern and progressive world, the nature-related aspect of Christmas in the human life cycle is increasingly fading into the background or becoming blurred in the illusions of a technocratic, hectic, money-grabbing world that is sinking into materialistic thinking.

The Christmas myth – the birth of Jesus

The narrative of the Christian Christmas myth begins with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth on December 25 in a manger in a stable in Bethlehem. This is dogmatic because ancient church documents testify that the Nazarene was born on March 25, then on April 20 or May 20; the churchman (presumably) Clement of Alexandria (*150 to ? 215 CE) set the date as November 18. Pope Julius (in office from 337 to 352 CE) declared the feast of the birth of the sun god Mithras, celebrated in Rome on December 25, to be the day of Jesus‘ birth.

Incidentally, Christmas was first listed in a Christian festival calendar in the year of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD).

Pre-Christian customs and traditions

People in pre-Christian times lived according to the cycle and changing seasons. The winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) was the starting signal for people to celebrate the annual rebirth of the sun (the sun gods).

J. v. Leer reports in his book “Christmas Customs and Christmas Symbolism” that “the Greeks celebrated the birth of the god of light Goter (Savior), the Phrygians the birth of the sun god Artis, and the Syrians the birth of the god of light and sun Thamuz.” “On December 25, the Iranians celebrated the festival of their god of light and sun, Mithras, which also found its way into Rome.”

Mithras‘ birthday celebration in Rome, which lasted a week and ended on December 16, was also known by contemporaries as the Festival of Saturn. People feasted at lavish tables, joked and played pranks, exchanged gifts, and all interpersonal disputes or legal disputes were put on hold. –

The countries of the north

The spread of Christianity in the Nordic countries, which for a long time resisted Christianity, which came with words, swords, and fire, i.e., remained faithful to their gods even unto death, often brought about by Christianity, was not an easy task for Christian preachers. The chronicles report that a considerable number of “missionary preachers found their graves under Odin’s oaks or maple trees after a hard and valiant struggle.”

The atmosphere of the northern hemisphere gives rise to a long period of snow, cold, and ice, the end of which was heralded at the turn of the year with the rituals of the 12 Rauhnächte (December 25 to January 6) accompanying the winter solstice. This period coincides with the pagan Yule festival, which was originally a commemoration of the dead and ancestors, but also included the impending transition from darkness to light, which was accompanied by the gods, which is why they descended to humans. Allfather Odin emptied the horn filled with mead with the “free men,” while Fricka, the mother of the gods and protector of the household, checked how the kitchen and cellar were kept; Frau Holle shook the beds so that the (snow)flakes covered the wide land. –

Christians hijack and corrupt pagan mythology

Around the end of the year 500 AD, the church calendar ‘Sacramentorium Gelasium’ placed the end of the year with the birth of Jesus in the last week of December, indicating that the pagan rituals of the turn of the year, which had been wrested from the Nordic peoples, had already been partially incorporated into Christianity. This can be explained by the fact that the often bloody work of the Christians to subjugate the pagans in order to break the remaining resistance to the Christian missionaries transformed their rituals into Christian mysticism.

Around the year 600 CE, the Roman Pope ‘Gregory’ instructed his priests “that the festivals of the pagans should gradually be converted into Christian ones and in some respects imitated.” This papal instruction also affected the pagan pantheon:

The Christians transformed the All-Father of the Norse peoples, Odin/Wodan, into the ‘wild’ servant Ruprecht, the heroic, radiant pagan god Baldur became Jesus, and Freya, who transformed winter into spring, became the Holy Virgin. –

End Part 1 – Go to Part 2