Does anyone doubt that Pagans celebrated "Christmas" before Christians did?

Question

From Wikipedia: There is a theory that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25 (the Winter Solstice on the Julian calendar) as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. This theory is much disputed, as the dates of Saturnalia are not coincident with Christmas. A more refined argument is that Christmas was set on the feast of Sol Invictus, which was on December 25, and which had supplanted Saturnalia. However, others claim that early Christians independently came up with the date of December 25 based on a Jewish tradition of the "integral age" of the Jewish prophets (the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception), and a miscalculation of the date of Jesus' death. [1] A theory has been advanced that the establishment of the feast of Sol Invictus on December 25 was an attempt by Aurelian to co-opt the day already celebrated by Christians for a pagan festival.[

Answer 1

It wasn't Christmas at the time.

Christians moved their holiday to appeal to the Pagans.

Answer 2

Actually the theory of being set from the date of death (integral age) has been around since it was originally written in about by Hippolytus in 170 (long before the conversion of Rome, or the pagans) who orginally asserted a death date of March 25 and therefore a birth of December 25. Saturnaulia is Dec. 17, Soltice is Dec. 21, neither are the 25th.

While there are pagan roots to the theory of birth and death (no one on yahoo answers I have seen has mentioned the one Jesus' story is almost identical to), it is not for any of the reasons asserted here. However Aurelian did attempt to take the day in 274, but Christians did not celebrate Christ's birth at the time only the death.

Wikipedia is not the most credible or best source for everything. AND again I am waiting for someone on Yahoo answers to hit on the right pagan god that could be corrolated to Jesus. You guys really don;t know your ancient pagan gods do you?

Answer 3

It's true that the pagans do/did celebrate a holiday on December 25 as that was the birthday of their Sun God. Pope Sixtus for convenience sake coincided this day with out now Christmas (Christ-mass) It's not based on Jewish traditions in the least bit, this was first a Catholic holiday as the pope deemed it to be. then I'm guessing Christians followed suit after.

Answer 4

Great except for the fact that the Winter solstice was the time of great celebrations, gift giving , decorating with the sacred evergreen and mistletoe long before the time of Aurelian or any of the Romans . It was observed that the days were getting longer so the very early pagans celebrated the Return of Light . The holiday pre-dates recorded history .

Answer 5

I do not doubt it, nor do I doubt Easter was one either.
The church more than likely strategically placed these holidays to appeal to pagans. There is no biblical evidence that says Christ was born in december, in fact most scholars agree this is illogical. The Easter egg is even pagan. Also, would anyone care to guess how many Catholic saints were once pagan gods or goddess, particularly those who were dearest to their followers, such as Brigit of the Celtic pantheon?

Answer 6

Nobody knows for sure when Jesus's birthday was - we just know it was in winter. There was a pagan "yule" festival on December 25th. A number of people were "practicing" multiple religions - going to Christian Churches, going to pagan festivals, visiting greek brothels associated with their gods, etc. As part of an effort to get people to pick one, and only one, religion ("you shall have no other gods" - God), early church fathers decided to celebrate Jesus's birthday on the 25th of December. It was as good as any other day, and frankly, people had to choose - pagan festival or christmas.

I don't see a problem with that.

Yes, pagans at one point in time were persecuted by the church. But this really was before those days started. It's not like people were told which religion to choose (at that point), they were just being told to choose one.

Answer 7

If pagans celebrated on easter (the bunny laying eggs? Pagan) and close to christmas (adorned trees? present giving? completely pagan) is christianity in basic terms a twisted version of paganism made so as that paganists could be keen to transform to christianity? specific, specific this is.

Answer 8

Yes Christmas has Pagan roots. Very little if anything in Christianity is original.

Wikipedia is not the be all and end all since anyone can add whatever they want whether it's correct or not so don't treat it as such.

Answer 9

I'm glad that you put Christmas in inverted commas. Pagans did not celebrate Christmas but Christians, not knowing the actual date of Christ's birth, took the winter solstice over. After all one of the themes of Christianity is birth and after the winter solstice we can look forward to spring and the appearance of plants - at least in the Northern Hemisphere,

Answer 10

I doubt that pagans ever celebrated christmas before jesus!

They did celebrate Yule Tide though and much of the tradition has been taken from that.

This was all part of Empiror Constantine's (c400AD.) quest to amalgamate the various roman religions into one which was growing very quickly, christianity.

Quite simply it was the means to an end.

Answer 11

        Pagans never celebrated "Christmas" before Papal Rome instituted what they chose to call Christ's Mass. But, what the pagans *did* celebrate, on December 25th, before Papal Rome instituted what they chose to call Christ's Mass, was the Birthday of Tamuz -- the Sun God.

        The Birthday of Tamuz is three days after the Winter Solstice -- the Winter Solstice being on or about December 22nd.