Reflections on Yule Part Three-the Heathen Elements of Christmas

 Having established in my earlier essay Reflections on Yule Part One-the Lie of Christmas (the Dating) that 'Jesus of Nazareth' was not born on 25th December and the lack of historical evidence for his existence in Reflections on Yule Part Two-the Lie of Jesus's Existence , I turn now to the clear pre-Christian and heathen elements of the festival which Christians refer to as 'Christmas' (Christ Mass).

Father Christmas/Santa Claus/St. Nicholas

This character is so clearly heathen in character that the Church does not even attempt to hide his true origins, except in trying (and failing) to give him a 'Christian' name: St. Nicholas, a 'saint' that was remarkable for his generosity and gift giving. His name evolved into 'Santa Claus' through the Dutch 'Sinterklaas'. The parallels between this character and the continental Germanic Wodan are clear. I refer my readers to an old essay of mine: Santa Claus and his Origins in Germanic Folklore .

The Exchange of Gifts

This practice can be traced to the pre-Christian Roman festival of Saturnalia when statuettes made from wax or clay were given as gifts. Often they took the form of images of the gods. Of course, Christians will try to explain away this custom as being related to the giving of gifts from the three wise men to the child Jesus. During Roman times gift giving became more and more extravagant and opulent, very much like the commercialism of Christmas today.

The Singing of Carols

The word 'carol' stems from the Old French carole, which was a circle dance, accompanied by singing. Although people today always seem to associate the term with Christmas, that was not always the case. Of course, not all Christmas carols have a religious flavour to them: many are now very secular and seasonal popular songs, and this has been the case since the1950s at least. The origin of singing carols at Christmas more than likely has its origins in pre-Christian Yule as part of the seasonal practice of chasing away the 'evil' of winter to make way for the birth of the sun. The ancient custom of wassailing in England appears to be one of the precursors of this custom where singers went from door to door offering a drink from the wassail bowl (a goblet) in exchange for a gift. Door to door carol singing is an extension of this custom. 

Christmas Candles

The lighting of Advent candles is not very common in modern England (except in churches) but it is a ubiquitous custom in Germany. Christians attribute the lighting of special and often decorative candles as symbolic of the 'light of Christ' entering the world. The truth of the matter is, prior to the invention of electric lighting, candles were one of the few means of creating artificial light during the dark winter evenings. I have already mentioned the giving of wax gifts at Saturnalia and this helps to explain the phenomenon of the Christmas candle in this age of electricity!  

The Christmas Tree

The decoration of an evergreen conifer in winter has clearly nothing to do with the fable of a Jewish child born in a middle-eastern stable! The decoration of such trees is clearly a custom which originated in the cold Germanic north. Why our ancestors decorated such trees is anyone's guess. Some may suggest that it is a half remembered custom from the days when the heathen Germanic peoples of continental Germania engaged in the veneration of trees, the Irminsul obviously springs to mind. The custom of decorating small conifers did not take hold in England until the 19th century, when Queen Victoria imported the custom from her native Germany.

Christmas Wreaths

This form of greenery is closely associated with the Christmas tree, evergreen which survives the winter and is largely used as a seasonal decoration on front doors here in England. Like the Christmas tree, this is a German import and one which I have only seen popularised in recent years. With its import into England its artificial 'Christian' significance has been entirely lost. The modern Christmas wreath dates back to 16th century Lutheran Germany. The wreath in Germany is not hung on a door but is studded with candles to mark the four weeks leading up to Christmas. No doubt, the Lutherans cobbled together this practice from the Roman feast of Saturnalia and Yule, the elements going to make up the wreaths are clearly heathen in nature and origin.

The Yule Log

Due to the lack of coal fires and the rise of central heating in England, this is a custom which has virtually died out. A log is selected and portions of it burnt on the hearth fire during this season until the twelfth night. It seems to have served as a bringer of good luck and a protective device against lightning and fire. The burning of the Yule Log symbolised the return of the sun, with the light and heat that it carries with it. The customs, practices, beliefs and superstitions varied by country and region but there is no doubt that they all had a common origin in pre-Christian religion and indeed may stretch right back to Proto-Indo-European times. The remnants of this custom are now to be found in the rather pathetic 'Yule Log' cake, which hardly anybody associates with the original concept.

Holly

Decorating rooms with holly can be traced back to the Roman feast of Saturnalia. Its survival through the harsh northern winter again is symbolic of the eternal reappearance of the sun at this time of year. It also has protective qualities. The redness of the berries signify the continuity of life when all around appears to be lifeless.

Ivy

Always associated with the holly is ivy, symbolic of death. In ancient carols ivy, was depicted as being female and forlorn while holly was male and full of life. Together they symbolise the eternal struggle between life and death, summer and winter. The ancient Romans believed that ivy was a device to help prevent drunkenness, and the god Bacchus is pictured as wearing a wreath on his head! 

Mistletoe

Like holly, this plant also fruited during the winter season and was a symbol of fertility. In ancient times the druids harvested this plant from oak trees. Its white berries were symbols of male virility. It is likely that the druids, however used the plant for medicinal purposes. The plant is said to offer protection from witches and evil spirits.

Excessive eating and drunkenness

Little needs to be said about this and I have yet to encounter a Christian who can establish a case for these being  'Christian' activities. These are clearly a remnant of the feast of Saturnalia.

Reflections on Yule Part Two-The Lie of Jesus's Existence

 Having established in my previous essay Reflections on Yule Part One-The Lie of Christmas (the Dating) that Jesus of Nazareth was not born on 25th December, I am now going to present my arguments for his non-existence in the historical record. Bear in mind that if he never existed then there could have been no birth, no death and no 'resurrection'!

When debating with Christians online regarding the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, I tend to encounter identical arguments, almost as if they have read the same instruction manual and quote the same 'evidence' parrot-fashion. The most annoying thing is that they assume that I have never researched the issue and then label me as 'arrogant' when I said that I have done so over many years and can find no evidence. When I ask them to provide me with some evidence they either do not reply or they say that 'there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than Julius Caesar' (correctly pronounced as yulius kaiser). This of course is untrue but it is a falsehood that appears to be quite popular among unthinking and uncritical believers. There is an abundance of evidence to support the fact that Julius Caesar was a real and an historical figure. 

Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, Caesar was a writer, and his accounts on the Gallic wars he was involved in, are discussed in detail in his commentarii de bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), which in itself is primary and contemporaneous evidence of his existence. Caesar was an accomplished poet as a young man and his work was quoted by other Roman authors, although the poems themselves are now lost. We know the names of two of them: laudes Herculis (Praises of Hercules) and a verse tragedy, Oedipus. He was also mentioned in the letters and speeches of the Roman statesman, Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) and the Roman historian and politician, Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus).

There is also numismatic evidence for his existence; Caesar was the very first living Roman politician to have his portrait placed upon coins, namely silver denarii, struck in 44 BCE. He commissioned the building of monuments bearing his name, the most famous example being the Forum Iulium, which contained the Temple of Venus Genetrix (templum Veneris Genetricis), which emphasises Caesar's claimed descent from the goddess. After Caesar's brutal murder he was cremated and his ashes placed in the Temple of Divus Iulius (Aedes Divi Iulii).

Now how does the evidence, if any for Jesus of Nazareth compare to that of the divine Julius? Unlike Caesar, Jesus left behind no writings of any kind. His purported sayings in the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are not first hand accounts and are alleged to have been authored between 65-100 CE. Given that Jesus is supposed to have been crucified between 30-33 CE, these gospel narratives cannot be said to be firsthand or primary accounts: they are secondary accounts and thus hearsay. Additionally, they are not secular accounts and thus not impartial. As such, the gospels would not stand up to scrutiny in a court of law!    

Not only did Jesus not leave behind any writings but his name does not appear in any contemporaneous historical records. Believers will seek to explain this lack due to him being 'not very well known' and yet according to the gospel accounts he created quite a stir in Jerusalem and Judah, and terrestrial and celestial phenomena were supposed to have occurred at the time of his death, and yet not a whimper was raised in the otherwise meticulous records of the Roman scribes! If he did exist then he clearly was not considered to be important enough to warrant just one mention in the records, which makes the gospel accounts to be a lie!

At this point the believer will object and say, 'surely he was mentioned by the Roman historian, Tacitus?' There are two problems with that: firstly Tacitus was not alive during the alleged lifetime of Jesus (Tacitus lived from 56 CE to 120 CE) and thus anything he has to say on the matter is pure hearsay and not primary and contemporaneous evidence, but also he does not refer to a Jesus of Nazareth but a 'Christus' in his Annals. Christians and other apologists for the historical Jesus narrative tend to present Tacitus's reference as their strongest piece of 'evidence'. To be fair to them I will quote the relevant passage in full:

                                Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt

                                and  inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for

                                their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

                                Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered

                                the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the

                                hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most

                                mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment,

                                again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil,

                                but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful

                                from every part of the world find their centre and become 

                               popular.' (Annals 15:44)  

What we need to focus on here first is the identity of the one called 'Christus', then everything else should become clear to my readers. It has been common knowledge among biblical scholars since 1902 that the term 'Christians' in the Annals is an alteration of 'Chrestians' in the earliest extant copy of the Annals in Florence. The letter 'i' had been clearly altered by a scribe from an 'e'. Is this a supposed later 'correction' of an earlier scribal error or a deliberate act of deception by a Christian scribe? Does the change of vowel make any difference? Before I answer this question I would like to turn to another Roman source which Christians point to as 'evidence' for their Jesus of Nazareth.

Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus), a Roman historian who lived from about 69 CE to after 122 CE refers to the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius at sometime during the period 41-53 CE in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars (de vita Caesarum)  and refers to a 'Chresto'. The actual Latin text is as follows:

                             Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.

My translation: He expelled the Jews from Rome who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.

The use of the term 'Chresto' by Suetonius accords with the term 'Chrestians' used by Tacitus to designate the followers of this man. It should be noted that 'Chresto' is the ablative case of 'Chrestus'. There is nothing in this quotation to suggest that 'Chrestus' equals Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth. Jerusalem at this time was a hotbed of preachers, healers, false 'messiahs' and other assorted crackpots and as Tacitus mentioned, alternative ideas, philosophies and religions all gravitated towards Rome, just as they did in California in the 1960s and 70s: nothing new here! If we take Suetonius literally, then how could 'Chrestus' instigate his followers to create disturbances decades after his alleged death?

What if any is the difference in meaning between 'Chrestus' and 'Christus'? 'Christus' is the Latin translation of the Greek 'Khristos', meaning 'anointed one' and its Latin form is very rare outside of Christian circles. By comparison, 'Chrestus' from the Greek 'Khrestos' simply has the meaning of 'good' and bears no equivalency with 'Christus'/'Khristos'. Interestingly, 'Chrestos' was quite a common name at that time (particularly of freed slaves) and could have been carried by any anti-Roman rabble-rouser! Just because the two names seem similar is not a good enough reason to suppose that they relate to the same man or that man is Jesus of Nazareth but this is the very week defence put forward by generally pro-Christian Bible scholars (who as academics should know better) and believers.

In the mystery religions of the ancient world the term 'Khrestos' was used for an initiate undergoing trials prior to achieving enlightenment. In pre-Christian gnostic sects, 'Khrestos' was the term given to a suffering disciple seeking purification prior to enlightenment, while 'Christus' signified the one who had achieved enlightenment or perfection, having successfully passed through all his trials. They are thus, degrees of initiation and were in usage long before the birth of Christianity. They do not therefore, have to point to an historical person.

Another popular source for believers are the writings of the Jewish historian and Roman general, Flavius Josephus (born Yosef ben Mattityahu) about 37 to 100 CE. As with Tacitus and Suetonius, Josephus wasn't even alive during the alleged lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth so anything that he has to say must be regarded as hearsay but he is the closest in time to the life of Jesus. There are two references to 'Jesus' in his Histories of the Jews (antiquitates Iudaicae), written in 94 CE in a passage now referred to as the testimonium Flavianum (the Testimony of Flavius). He is unequivocally referred to in Book XVIII, chapter 3. However, they are now believed to be later interpolations made by Christian scribes. According to Professor Paul Hopper, the use of Greek verbs forms are distinctly different in the 'Jesus' passages compared to the rest of the text and that the passage is 'close in style and content to the creeds that were composed two to three centuries after Josephus.' The professor's conclusion was that 'the entire passage is interpolated.' (See 'A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii: 63', 2014). So much for Josephus and the less said about that, the better!

What has Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, 61-about 113 CE) to say about Jesus of Nazareth? Strictly speaking, NOTHING. He does, however refer to the Christian sect and their god, Christ in his letter to Trajan, written around the year 112 CE. By equating Christ with a god who is worshipped is evidence of a rapidly developing theology but in itself is not evidence for an historical Jesus. Like the other classical writers, Pliny the Younger is not contemporaneous with the lifetime of the alleged Jesus. 

                                  they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before

                                 dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as a 

                                 god, (Letter to Trajan) 

All of the abovementioned writers represent the 'key' secular sources for the evidence in favour of an historical Jesus, and not a single one of the writers were alive during the alleged lifetime of 'Jesus of Nazareth'. How strange also that writers who were alive during his alleged lifetime such as Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), 23/24-79 CE), Seneca the Younger (Lucius Anaeus Seneca), 4 BCE-65 CE and Philo of Alexandra (Philo Judaeus), about 20 BCE-about 50 CE never wrote a single jot about him!

Reflections on Yule Part One-The Lie of Christmas (the Dating)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stele_Sol_Invictus_Terme.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Stele_Sol_Invictus_Terme.jpg

Baths of Diocletian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

This series of essays originated as a reaction to the recent and sudden emergence of 'Christian Nationalism' in the United Kingdom, which is yet another unwanted and unasked for import from that loony bin of religious nutters, the United States. 'Tommy Robinson's' recent public promotion of Christianity is causing a third nationalist force or movement to arise in this country: 'Christian Nationalism', which as I have argued in my earlier essay, The Dangers of 'Christian Nationalism' Arising in the United Kingdom is a relatively new nationalist movement and 'Robinson' is one of its key architects. The other two nationalist movements being Civic Nationalism and Ethnic Nationalism or Ethno-nationalism.

'Christian Nationalism' is not only a nationalist movement in its own right but has the potential to unite the other two factions, Ethnic Nationalism and Civic Nationalism. If this is allowed to happen then it would exert a powerful influence upon any future government of a 'nationalist' sentiment, such as a potential government led by Reform Uk Ltd. We have seen how 'Christian Nationalism' has, during Trump's two terms in office, exerted an influence upon policies flowing from the 'Oval Office'. If this were to happen in this country, one can envisage how 'Christian Nationalism' may quickly shed its snakeskin and transform into a fully ledged 'Christofascist' movement. Once given temporal power, the Church, as in the past, misuses this power for its own ends. In such a society, anyone with diverging political and religious views may face a certain amount of persecution.  

Having established my reason for starting this series of essays, I must now move on to discuss how the Church gradually transformed the ancient pre-Christian feast of Yule by superimposing an artificial Christian veneer. Let us start with the date of 'Christmas', 25th December. As anyone who has ever read the gospel accounts in the New Testament can affirm, there is no evidence in those accounts of the 'birth' of 'Jesus' to substantiate such a date, and to be fair, the vast majority of Christians, both real and imaginary ('Christian Nationalists') would readily agree with that. So what is the significance, if any, of that date? Quite simply, in the Roman Empire, the 25th December was commemorated as the day of the 'birth of the sun', being the winter solstice in the Roman calendar. The calendar of Antiochus of Athens, a notable Greek astrologer, who lived between the late first and the mid second century CE marks that date as the 'birthday of the Sun'. From 274 CE, the Roman festival of dies natalis Solis Invictus (the day of birth of the invincible sun) was held on 25th December. Please note that Latin words should never be capitalised, even at the beginning of a sentence, the only exception being that of proper nouns, and Sol Invictus is a proper noun. The emperor, Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus), c. 214-275 CE, revived the cult of the sun god, and raised Sol Invictus to being the primary god of the empire.

Now the question may be asked, did the tradition of celebrating Christ's 'birthday' precede the dating of dies natalis Solis Invictus? There is no evidence that it did: the earliest evidence for the dating of the 'birthday' of 'Jesus' is the Filocalian Calendar, produced in 354 CE for a wealthy Roman citizen, Valentinus by Furius Dionysius Filocalus, an illustrator, mapmaker, scribe and stone engraver, who became the official engraver of Pope Damasus (304-384 CE). Of course, one may legitimately argue that 'lack of evidence is not evidence of absence' and they would be perfectly correct, but as the primary texts of Christianity, namely the gospels, do not specify a date, and given that the winter solstice was already an established festival in Europe, known in the Germanic lands as Yule, then it would be equally legitimate to argue that this date was chosen by the Church in order to provide a Christian veneer to a clearly pagan festival. The symbolism of the birth of the infant sun and its growing light in a dark world would not have been lost on the likes of Augustine in the fourth century CE, who commented on this in his sermons. Conveniently for the Church, the winter solstice festival is a nice and neat nine months from the date of the spring equinox in the Roman calendar, 25th March and known as the 'Annunciation', the conception of the Christ child by the 'virgin' Mary.   

Islam, an Abrahamic religion which also acknowledges 'Jesus' as a prophet, contends that his birth occurred sometime between June and October, giving plenty of scope for the Jesus freaks to make their argument that he could have been born in any of one of six months: plenty to choose from! Of all the various Christian sects, only the Jehovah's Witnesses have, in my opinion, the correct view. They view 'Christmas' as a later addition by the Church, pointing out that the earliest Christians did not celebrate his birth and that the concept originated in the fourth century CE, using the Roman feast of Saturnalia as its template. The feast of Saturnalia, as the name suggests, was held in honour of the Roman god, Saturn. It was celebrated on 17th December according to the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was a solar one, proposed by Gaius Julius Caesar in 46 BCE, replacing an earlier lunisolar one. This remained the predominant calendar in the western hemisphere until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 CE.  The Jehovah's Witnesses argue that as the shepherds would have been unlikely to be out in the fields in December, they propose that early October would have been a more logical time.

Sol Invictus is not the only god to be 'born' on 25th December: he is accompanied by a host of other deities who share the same birthday: Horus, Osiris, Attis, Zoroaster, Heracles, Mithra, Krishna, the Buddha, Tammuz, Adonis, Bacchus, Hermes, Prometheus and Dionysus. My sincerest apologies to any deities whom I may have inadvertently omitted to mention! 

Santa Claus and his Origins in Germanic Folklore

The notion of Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts at Yule can only be traced back to the the late 19th century in England, having reached County Durham in the northeast of England by the 1880s. However he can be traced back to mainland northern Europe much earlier than this and indeed the name Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch Sinter Klass from St. Nicholas who is a xtianised version of the Germanic God Woden. However despite the comparatively late arrival of Santa Claus to England the concept of an old man with supernatural powers granting gifts at Yule can be traced further back in England to Father Christmas in the 16th century and indeed even earlier than this. The English version that we have today is no doubt a fusion of these various mythical beings.

Father Christmas in England has always been portrayed as an aged and bearded man wearing either green or red robes, lined with furs. He appears to have supernatural and ineed elf-like qualities, being able to transport himself down chimneys. Clearly whether we call this being Santa Claus or Father Christmas these are most certainly xtianised names for a much older and pre-xtian entity. Yule is an ancient midwinter festival observed by the Germanic and other northern European peoples and its origins are lost in antiquity for it is so ancient.

We are provided with certain clues as to the origin of this being. His physical appearance certainly resembles that of Woden and in particular his shaman like qualities. Woden is also the leader of the Wild Hunt which is a feature of the Yuletide. The belly laugh of Santa Ho Ho Ho! is speculated to be an echo of the shouts of Woden whilst riding His Furious Host at Yuletide.

"With the devil is associated the figure of an enormous giant, who can stand for him as well as Wuotan; and this opinion prevails in Switzerland. There the wild hunt is named  diirsten-gejeg (see durs, thurs, p. 521): on summer nights you hear the durst hunting on the Jura, cheering on the hounds with his hoho; heedless persons, that do not get out of his way, are ridden over." (Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology Volume 3, page 920)

However we know that Woden's favoured means of transportation apart from using His feet (he was known as The Wanderer) was His eight-legged steed Sleipnir. One of His Norse names was Jolnir, again closely associating Him with Yule. The fact that He is a rider of a horse however does not accord with the image of Santa Claus who typically uses a sleigh drawn by reindeer, clearly an indication of an arctic attribute. However the driver of reindeer does of course hint of a shamanic quality which accords more with Woden than say Thunor. However some scholars consider Thunor to have a white beard and amongst certain northern European peoples the Thunder God is viewed as an old man. This is particularly the case with the Lithuanian Perkunos or the Finnic Ukko.

We are reminded that the reindeer which pull Santa's sleigh are called Donner and Blitzen-'thunder and lightning' from the Old Dutch 'Dunder and Blixem'.  Again this is a strong indication that this figure is in reality Thunor. Santa's usually red robes also adds to the idea that this is Thunor as red is a colour that is most closely associated with Him. Interestingly the colours of red, white and black that feature on the modern day's Santa's garments hearken back to the colours of old Germany and also to the Aryan caste system which I have discussed quite comprehensively in previous articles. Possibly the black in the costume is derived from the soot in the chimneys!

Interestingly in Sweden the sleigh was viewed as not pulled by reindeer but by goats-the Julbocker and driven by the Jultomten. In the first edition (1895) of H.A. Guerbers Myths of Northern Lands (this particular edition is out of print-only later and slightly differently worded editions are currently available as far as I am aware) it is stated:

"The fireplace in every home was especially sacred to him, and he was said to come down through the chimney into his element, the fire."

In later editions of this work it is certainly stated of Yule:

"One month of every year, the Yule month, or Thor's month, was considered sacred to Frey as well as to Thor, and began on the longest night of the year, which bore the name of Mother Night."

I do not wish to be dogmatic about such things. Clearly the original mythological figure that Santa Claus is based upon is a fusion of both Woden and Thunor, possibly hinting at an older deity that encapsulates features of both Gods. I have hinted at such a concept in the past and the Gods willing I will expand upon my theory in a future article.