Saturnalia: The Reason We Celebrate Christmas in December
In the Roman calendar, the Saturnalia was designated a holy day, or holiday, on which religious rites were performed. The Temple of Saturn, the oldest temple in Rome, had been dedicated on the Saturnalia, and the woolen bonds which fettered the feet of the ivory cult statue within were loosened on that day to symbolize the liberation of the god.
It also was a festival day. After sacrifice at the temple, there was a public banquet, which Livy says was introduced in 217 BC. Afterwards, the celebrants shouted "Io, Saturnalia!" at a riotous feast in the temple.
The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year. Catullus describes it as "the best of days," and Seneca complains that the "whole mob has let itself go in pleasures." Pliny the Younger writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated. Cicero fled to the countryside. It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles, perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice. Homes were decorated with greenery. Candles and lamps chased away the spirits of darkness.
Aulus Gellius relates in his Attic Nights that he and his Roman compatriots would gather at the baths in Athens, where they were studying, and pose difficult questions to one another on the ancient poets, a crown of laurel being dedicated to Saturn if no-one could answer them.
During the holiday, restrictions were relaxed and the social order inverted. Schools, businesses, and law courts were closed. Gambling was allowed in public. Slaves were permitted to use dice and did not have to work. Instead of the toga, less formal dinner clothes were permitted, as was the pilleus, a felt cap normally worn by the manumitted slave that symbolized the freedom of the season. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule was chosen. Cross-dressing, parties, masquerades, and merriment of all kinds prevailed. Slaves were treated as equals, allowed to wear their masters' clothing, and be waited on at meal time in remembrance of an earlier golden age thought to have been ushered in by the god. This equality was temporary, of course; and Petronius speaks of an impudent slave being asked at some other time of the year whether it was December yet.
It has been suggested that Christians in the 4th Century assigned December 25th as Christ's birthday (and hence Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. In this way the problem of eliminating an already popular holiday would be sidestepped, thus making the Christianizing of the population easier. It is almost certain that the actual birthday of Christ was not in midwinter, since the gospels speak of shepherds tending their flocks, not something done in the cold in central Judea.
Nevertheless, the holiday, first called the Feast of the Nativity, the spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Christmas customs of gift giving, of decorating of greenery, and of feasting can be traced back to Roman practices during Saturnalia. These customs were condemned by the Purtitans, who believed that they distracted from the serious, religious aspects of the holiday.
The medieval celebration of the Feast of Fools was another continuation of Saturnalia into the Christian era. Saturnalia is still celebrated today by certain sects of Wiccans or neo pagans.
Published by Mark Whittington
Mark R. Whittington is a writer residing in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Last Moonwalker, Children of Apollo, Dark Sanction, and Nocturne. He has written numerous articles, some for the Washington... View profile
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- Gift giving, feasting, and decorations with greenery were features of Saturnalia.
16 Comments
Post a CommentIn Deuteronomy 12 verses 29-31 are the instructions to not inquire how other nations serve their gods. You shall not do so to the Lord your God.
see it doesn't matter that ppl know the origins of the true saturnalia and its blending into the church as a false holy day unto the messiah. They still are going to be a part of it no matter what Yahweh thinks. They all will face him on judgement day as long as they know the truth and they don't turn away from it they will be judged for not leaving babylon!
arent we all forgeting about santa claus?isn;t he the reason we celebrate christmas on december 25th? Isn;t it because he comes christmas eve and we all decided through years to bring family together for that date?just my 2 cents.why believe in a book that really is just a book.I read and loved lord of the rings,it does not mean that mordor is a real place and there is not a ONE RING that can rule it all.the bible is just a book,faily well writen but a book none the same.
Yep, Christmas isn't a real holiday!! The Holy Spirit came unto the virgin Mary in the Hebrew month of Elul, which translates to the month we call September. December is only 3 months away from September, and we all know that it takes way longer than 3 months for a baby to develop inside of it's mother. Actually, John the Baptist was the one who was born in December. When the Holy Spirit came unto Mary, her cousin (John's mother) was already six months pregnant. Back in the day when the christian era was getting started, the christians didn't want to go through the trouble of removing the Roman holiday (The Saturnalia) so they just added their's and called it Christmas!! The Messiah's birthday is really June 6th.
Oi!
The origin of Christmas or many other holidays doesn't matter to what it essentially is today. It's only important to history, and for one's intellect. Christmas should not be considered a pagan holiday rip-off, only the details of it are. Christmas has a fully independent meaning from Saturnalia, which varies among cultures but holds values of pax ad terra et bona animus ad homines.
It's important to understand the history of our customs just so that we are not mindless creatures bound to tradition, but this knowledge must be taken with a grain of salt. Traditions and culture develop into new things with time, and the way they got started should be remembered as just that, the beginning, and not the eternity.
If Saturn was considered a God then probably it had some connection with our planet Earth since there is a feast called Saturnalia, could it be that Saturn was considered the God sun as the egyptians considered Ra their God sun ? who knows maybe Saturn played a big role in our planet's history and that is why they still remember it as Saturnalia. Maybe it was the sun back then and that is why Saturn's moons show possibilities of liquid water for maybe earth was linked directly to Saturn before the flood.
one side note Christ may have been born in the early part of October being the end of harvest. This possibly could be at the begining of the Feast of tabernacles. The census in which Mary and Joseph were required by Rome to take part in, would likely have been after harvest time. Taxes due to Rome would be brought forth at this time. Check out koinia house.org on this. Hope you all get to know Jesus above and beyond anything else.
If us christian people we do not celebrate christmas why we celebreat new year if we under the Gregory callendary?
Interesting. Thank You fer sharin'. ;-}}>
What are you talking about Charmaine and Kastta? Learn some history. Constantine the Roman emporer was a hero to Christians, cult believers in a pagan society who had lived under severe persecution for centuries. He decreed Christianity to be the religion of the empire and that Sun Day (the modern Sunday) be an official day of rest and prayer for Christians. It had been the day to honor the Sun God, Sol Invictus. The festival of Sol Invictus (meaning invincible God - since it was on the winter solstice when the sun refused to succumb to darkness due to the shorter daylight hours)was the actual festival which Christmas supplanted, for it had long since supplanted Saturnalia. Sol Invictus itself was originally an eastern cult monotheistic pagan religion which became popular among the polytheistic pagans of ancient Rome. Considering the fact that Rome started out as completely anti-Christian, would it make sense that the Roman Christians should have simply created an entirely new date, le