Which ancient Roman holiday is Christmas based on?
Saturnalia was a pagan festival held in honor of the Roman deity of agriculture - Saturn. The holiday was celebrated on the 17th of December of the Julian calendar.
The festival comprised a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn and a public banquet. It was followed by private gift-giving, partying and a very special atmosphere of a carnival. The holiday has often been described by poets of that time as "the best of days".
What are your thoughts on this subject?
35 Comments
Larry Jones
anthonygriffin, I asked an Episcopalian minister a long time ago. He had been to seminary, studied Greek, and I hadn't. X is the Greek symbol for Christ, so there is no abbreviation, in fact, there. Regarding its being based on a pagan holiday, I am not going to belabor the point, as we Christians also unwittingly (?) honor another pagan holiday called Easter, which honors the pagan god Ishtar. Take it away, supporters and naysayers!
Laurie Mapplebeck
Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus now some Roman holiday!!!
Maho girl
freniseloganii, nowhere in the scriptures are we told to celebrate Christ's birth, rather commemorate His death. Only two references to birthdays in Bible were of an unfaithful jew (king herod who had John the Baptist beheaded on his birthday,) & a Pharoah of Egypt who had his baker killed on his birthday . . .
Catherine Gillespie Mullins
I don’t understand how a holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ could be based on anything but Christ’s birth. Christmas begins with Christ.
Donna Somers Campbell
Christmas is based on a Roman holiday celebrating a pagan? Gee, all along I thought it celebrated the birth of Christ...
Bob Bracegirdle
anthonygriffin, X is short for Christ
Noel Dsouza
Christmas child got it right 😊
Noel Dsouza
Christmas boy got it right 😉
John Greiner
anthonygriffin, "X-Mas" was originally considered MORE holy than the word "Christmas". The "X" symbolizes Christ's death on the cross. So when you read something like "but the CHRIST back in Christmas" what folks are advocating is a less holy meaning though they probably don't know it and think they are advocating for a more holy one. But words and word usage change, and while "X-Mas" was originally a move AWAY from Christmas presents and parties and celebrations and excess, now people assign it a commercial meaning.
Vic Afalla
= Saturnalia....
Patricia Wiscombe
Larry Jones, I have a book ( somewhere) that has all this type of info. The churches took over a lot of the pagan rituals. Especially the Catholic church and that filtered down to the Anglican etc.
Monique Zanini
anthonygriffin, it is not actually, 'x-mas', there is a roman symbol meaning Christ, as in Christ's mas---Christmas, it is the letter P with an x through it. "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧ . Then it became merely, "X".
ninakamwene
Larry Jones, thank you for that explanation, most of these holidays were piled on top of pagan ones so the church can get believers.
ninakamwene
Lucky guess because I am born under Saturn-yippee!
davidgrimsrud
good question
edward goodnow
Christine Hebert, actually the majority of christmas traditions, the tree, gift giving, stockings, yule log and much more were originally pagan traditions. As Christianity spread into Europe the Catholic church took on these traditions themselves as a way to get rid of pagan holidays. Other religions besides Romans also celebrated late December holidays as well, it is more closely tied to the Winter Solstice than to any particular holiday in fact. It is more a celebration of the days once again getting longer than any particular belief. As the Winter Solstice has throughout history been celebrated by nearly every culture on Earth