Merry Christmas!! (A Contrary view)

[tlclark]

Just to be clear. I thought the article was interesting, I don't know that I necessarily agree with it though I will say this. We see similarities and our first response is to say "one must of copied from the other!" and then we usually end up debating which one came first in endless chicken and egg scenarios.

In my experience, when we see such things, rather than one copying the other, what we usually have is both emerging from a common milieu.

For example, the comparisons between Mithraism and Christianity are overplayed, but it isn't the case that Christianity copied Mithraism. Rather the truth is that they both emerged from the same cultural background.

We intrinsically underestimate the Christians. We see pagan influences in their art, their culture and think "They borrowed from pagans!" to which the 4th or 5th Century response would likely be "so what, big deal."

It's like looking at Japan and saying that since they all wear predominantly western clothes, Japan has no wish to preserve its unique cultural identity. A statement, that is preposterous on its face. Yet we make similar judgments against ancient peoples all the time. Again, we accuse them of syncretism, confusion, or incompetence, when the only confusion is on our part. Christians (and Jews for that matter) understood the difference between symbols and idols, reality and allegory.

The appropriation of pagan symbols by Christians does not represent any confusion on the part of Christians. Nor does it symbolize any affinity or secret attachment for pagan rites, traditions etc. Rather what we are dealing with is a culture making its own way from its own vocabulary. To the 2nd 3rd and 4th C. Christians, Roman themes were not "Pagan" they were just Roman, and so were they. Appropriation of those images themes is actually more natural and less problematic than american blue jeans on european teenagers.

Besides which, the similarities between Saturnalia and Christmas are purely superficial. Garlands and gifts persist, but the role reversals, the debauch revelry decidedly do not. Christmas is not just Saturnalia warmed over. Far from it, and it has always had a unique and separate tradition. Those flairs that are borrowed from Saturnalia are not unique to Saturnalia and were just common Roman custom, and asking a Roman, even a Christian one, to abandon them would have been as silly as asking Europeans to give up blue jeans because they were "American". It's just their culture and our obsession with labeling certain cultural practices as "pagan" would have seemed downright silly to them.