Pagan Roots of Christianity
October 19, 2008 5:04 AM Subscribe
Seeking out the pagan origins of Christian holidays
Looking for the pagan origins of Christmas and Halloween. Can someone help with this?
Looking for the pagan origins of Christmas and Halloween. Can someone help with this?
Response by poster: I want to query the HIVE MIND. Thanks.
posted by watercarrier at 5:38 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by watercarrier at 5:38 AM on October 19, 2008
In all respect, it very clearly says on the "Post A Question" page here to "Please make sure you have asked Google your question before you Ask MetaFilter."
This should get you started:
Google search on "pagan origins christian holidays"
posted by DWRoelands at 5:50 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
This should get you started:
Google search on "pagan origins christian holidays"
posted by DWRoelands at 5:50 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
I don't understand -- are you looking for things we might know, that are not found on the internet?
posted by Houstonian at 6:11 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by Houstonian at 6:11 AM on October 19, 2008
Well, it's probably more like the pagan origin of the rituals of Christian holidays. e.g. When missionaries brought Christianity to a new area, they would incorporate some of the rituals and celebrations of the local winter festival into the Christmas celebrations, etc., etc.
It's probably easier to find by researching the time when Christianity came to a geographic area, rather than by tracing back the history of a ritual.
posted by winston at 6:13 AM on October 19, 2008
It's probably easier to find by researching the time when Christianity came to a geographic area, rather than by tracing back the history of a ritual.
posted by winston at 6:13 AM on October 19, 2008
Response by poster: Yes, in my searches on Google I can't seem to find how Christianity evolved from paganism and how Christmas and Halloween evolved out of worship of the sun. So querying the hive mind. Thanks@
posted by watercarrier at 6:24 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by watercarrier at 6:24 AM on October 19, 2008
Best answer: Wikipedia is often a good place to start - there's also this site and this one
Christmas: A Candid History has a brief section on this starting around page 4
for Halloween, here's a good talk on the subject from Bettina Arnold
you could also check out Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night by Nicholas Rogers
posted by jammy at 6:27 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Christmas: A Candid History has a brief section on this starting around page 4
for Halloween, here's a good talk on the subject from Bettina Arnold
you could also check out Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night by Nicholas Rogers
posted by jammy at 6:27 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Yours seems to be a 2-part question, then: What are the origins of Christianity, and what are the origins of Christmas and Halloween.
To answer the first part of your question, I recommend reading a book by Mark S. Smith, titled The Early History of God. The contents of this book are:
Introduction
Deities in Israel in the period of the Judges
Yahweh and Baal
Yahweh and Asherah
Yahweh and the sun
Yahwistic cultic practices
The origins and development of Israelite monotheism
Portraits of Yahweh
posted by Houstonian at 6:37 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]
To answer the first part of your question, I recommend reading a book by Mark S. Smith, titled The Early History of God. The contents of this book are:
Introduction
Deities in Israel in the period of the Judges
Yahweh and Baal
Yahweh and Asherah
Yahweh and the sun
Yahwistic cultic practices
The origins and development of Israelite monotheism
Portraits of Yahweh
posted by Houstonian at 6:37 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]
I can't seem to find how Christianity evolved from paganism and how Christmas and Halloween evolved out of worship of the sun
I am not a biblical scholar (or even particularly religious) but I think both of your statements here are flawed. Christianity is deeply synchretic, and some of that syncreticism has come from paganism. But as a religion it "evolved" (if that is the right word) from Judaism a lot more than from other sources -- I mean, Christianity incorporated the entire Hebrew Bible into the Christian Bible. In that evolution Christianity borrowed from other sources, but I think it is a real stretch to describe it as evolving directly from paganism.
And Christmas and Halloween didn't so much "evolve" out of sun worship as they were synchretic overlays of Christianity onto existing (and fairly universal) seasonal celebrations. Pretty much every culture that farms marks the equinoxes and solstices; overlaying Christianity onto those celebrations is no more difficult than it is to build churches on top of Roman or Aztec temples. It's really hard to eradicate indigenous beliefs and practices (people are stubborn that way), but perhaps the biggest strength of Christianity has been it's doctrinal and ritualistic flexibility, allowing people in one place to incorporate remnants of Aztec ritual, and in another place to make pilgrimages to shrines that have been considered holy since before the Roman invasion, and elsewhere to take on the trappings and practices of free-market capitalism, all under the label "Christian."
It's heavily place-based, flexible, and has changed rapidly at times. I don't think you are going to find a clear, linear narrative that can take these sorts of variations into account, honestly.
posted by Forktine at 7:04 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
I am not a biblical scholar (or even particularly religious) but I think both of your statements here are flawed. Christianity is deeply synchretic, and some of that syncreticism has come from paganism. But as a religion it "evolved" (if that is the right word) from Judaism a lot more than from other sources -- I mean, Christianity incorporated the entire Hebrew Bible into the Christian Bible. In that evolution Christianity borrowed from other sources, but I think it is a real stretch to describe it as evolving directly from paganism.
And Christmas and Halloween didn't so much "evolve" out of sun worship as they were synchretic overlays of Christianity onto existing (and fairly universal) seasonal celebrations. Pretty much every culture that farms marks the equinoxes and solstices; overlaying Christianity onto those celebrations is no more difficult than it is to build churches on top of Roman or Aztec temples. It's really hard to eradicate indigenous beliefs and practices (people are stubborn that way), but perhaps the biggest strength of Christianity has been it's doctrinal and ritualistic flexibility, allowing people in one place to incorporate remnants of Aztec ritual, and in another place to make pilgrimages to shrines that have been considered holy since before the Roman invasion, and elsewhere to take on the trappings and practices of free-market capitalism, all under the label "Christian."
It's heavily place-based, flexible, and has changed rapidly at times. I don't think you are going to find a clear, linear narrative that can take these sorts of variations into account, honestly.
posted by Forktine at 7:04 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
in my searches on Google I can't seem to find how Christianity evolved from paganism and how Christmas and Halloween evolved out of worship of the sun.
....That may be your problem right there, because Christianity didn't "evolve" from paganism, and moreover, paganism wasn't "worship of the sun."
It wasn't that Christian holidays "evolved" from pagan holidays -- instead, what happened was that Christian holidays TOOK OVER pagan holidays. When the first Christian missionaries were spreading the word, say they got to a place where they had a festival at the first harvest to honor the god of mead or something like that. Some missionaries knew that they'd NEVER get people to give up everything, so instead of saying "you have to give up the First Harvest Mead Festival," they dug through their Bibles or saints' biographies and found someone who was kind of LIKE the god of mead, and then said, "a-ha! You may not have known this, but see, the guy you THOUGHT was the God of Mead was really Saint Medonius. So this is now Saint Medonius day, and we can indeed celebrate it this way. But you just also have to come to church first, and maybe just give up that orgy at the end of the day." Missionaries would take the existing celebrations and give them a Christian spin, and that's how we got the Christian holidays -- it's not an "evolution" as such.
Moreover, Paganism wasn't just "worship of the sun" -- there are SCADS of different kinds of pre-Christian deities and philosophies. Many are nature-based, yes, but by the time Christianity came along, the various pagan and pre-Christian religions had become quite complex -- everything from the Greek and Roman myth systems, to the Celtic warrior and harvest gods, to Norse and Viking myths -- there was a LOT out there. And in some cases, some of those pre-Christian religions also influenced Christianity slightly, especially in Ireland.
If Christianity "evolved" from anything it would be Judaism, possibly Manacheism (I'm not sure of the spelling) as well. And Judaism may have borrowed something from a late Egyptian belief -- Early Egyptian belief worshipped a pantheon of many gods, but one pharaoh then came along who believed that there was only one god. So the Hebrews may have even gotten the idea of monotheism from there.
A good basic web site with info on different religions is here. They also get into the origins of different holidays and different traditions. But you won't find anything that says that Christianity "evolved" from Paganism, at least the way I think YOU'RE thinking it happened, because it didn't quite happen that way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on October 19, 2008 [5 favorites]
....That may be your problem right there, because Christianity didn't "evolve" from paganism, and moreover, paganism wasn't "worship of the sun."
It wasn't that Christian holidays "evolved" from pagan holidays -- instead, what happened was that Christian holidays TOOK OVER pagan holidays. When the first Christian missionaries were spreading the word, say they got to a place where they had a festival at the first harvest to honor the god of mead or something like that. Some missionaries knew that they'd NEVER get people to give up everything, so instead of saying "you have to give up the First Harvest Mead Festival," they dug through their Bibles or saints' biographies and found someone who was kind of LIKE the god of mead, and then said, "a-ha! You may not have known this, but see, the guy you THOUGHT was the God of Mead was really Saint Medonius. So this is now Saint Medonius day, and we can indeed celebrate it this way. But you just also have to come to church first, and maybe just give up that orgy at the end of the day." Missionaries would take the existing celebrations and give them a Christian spin, and that's how we got the Christian holidays -- it's not an "evolution" as such.
Moreover, Paganism wasn't just "worship of the sun" -- there are SCADS of different kinds of pre-Christian deities and philosophies. Many are nature-based, yes, but by the time Christianity came along, the various pagan and pre-Christian religions had become quite complex -- everything from the Greek and Roman myth systems, to the Celtic warrior and harvest gods, to Norse and Viking myths -- there was a LOT out there. And in some cases, some of those pre-Christian religions also influenced Christianity slightly, especially in Ireland.
If Christianity "evolved" from anything it would be Judaism, possibly Manacheism (I'm not sure of the spelling) as well. And Judaism may have borrowed something from a late Egyptian belief -- Early Egyptian belief worshipped a pantheon of many gods, but one pharaoh then came along who believed that there was only one god. So the Hebrews may have even gotten the idea of monotheism from there.
A good basic web site with info on different religions is here. They also get into the origins of different holidays and different traditions. But you won't find anything that says that Christianity "evolved" from Paganism, at least the way I think YOU'RE thinking it happened, because it didn't quite happen that way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on October 19, 2008 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Nicholas Rogers, ISBN 9780195168969
Our Pagan Christmas, R. J. Condon, ISBN 0910309604
posted by XMLicious at 8:27 AM on October 19, 2008
Our Pagan Christmas, R. J. Condon, ISBN 0910309604
posted by XMLicious at 8:27 AM on October 19, 2008
Best answer: Even though it's a YA novel, Bradbury's The Halloween Tree is a fantastic exploration of the pagan origins and the subsequantChristian rituals around Samhain/All Saints/ Dia de Muerte/ Halloween. It's wonderful, largely based in fact, and now is a great time to read it.
posted by kimdog at 8:59 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by kimdog at 8:59 AM on October 19, 2008
Oh, and I finally remembered a non-fiction book about the topic- The Dance of Time: The Origins of the Calendar: A Miscellany of History and Myth, Religion and Astronomy, Festivals and Feast Days
posted by kimdog at 9:03 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by kimdog at 9:03 AM on October 19, 2008
Best answer: Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan by Clement A. Miles
(full text of that at Project Gutenberg)
posted by XMLicious at 9:09 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
(full text of that at Project Gutenberg)
posted by XMLicious at 9:09 AM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
The Golden Bough A Study in Magic and Religion
Sir James George Frazer
posted by hortense at 9:51 AM on October 19, 2008
Sir James George Frazer
posted by hortense at 9:51 AM on October 19, 2008
Best answer: I think you would find Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians interesting--it's a very interesting, very thorough study of the transition from paganism to Christianity in the Mediterranean.
posted by pullayup at 9:53 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by pullayup at 9:53 AM on October 19, 2008
Best answer: Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide.
posted by velvet winter at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2008
posted by velvet winter at 9:57 AM on October 19, 2008
It may well be related to the edict of Pope Gregory advising that Christian churches be built on pagan holy sites and/or that the pagan sites be incorporated or re-dedicated as Christian:
In a letter sent in the year 601 Pope Gregory advised King Aethelberht to "repress the worship of idols" and "destroy the shrines", but only one month later Gregory had changed his mind (Marcus 1970), when he wrote to Abbot Mellitus on his departure for Britain, that
"we have been giving careful thought to the affairs of the English, and have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols among that people should on no account be destroyed. The idols are to be destroyed, but the temples themselves are to be aspersed with holy water, altars set up in them and relics deposited here. For if these temples are well-built, they must be purified from the worship of demons and dedicated to the service of the true God. In this way, we hope that the people, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may abandon their error and, flocking more readily to their accustomed resorts, may come to know and adore the true God. And since they have a custom of sacrificing many oxen to demons, let some other solemnity be substituted in its place, such as a day of Dedication or the Festivals of the holy martyrs whose relics are enshrined there ... They are no longer to sacrifice beasts to the Devil, but they may kill them for food to the praise of God, and give thanks to the Giver of all gifts for the plenty they enjoy" (Bede 1968: 86-7 [I, 30]).
posted by Rumple at 10:04 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
In a letter sent in the year 601 Pope Gregory advised King Aethelberht to "repress the worship of idols" and "destroy the shrines", but only one month later Gregory had changed his mind (Marcus 1970), when he wrote to Abbot Mellitus on his departure for Britain, that
"we have been giving careful thought to the affairs of the English, and have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols among that people should on no account be destroyed. The idols are to be destroyed, but the temples themselves are to be aspersed with holy water, altars set up in them and relics deposited here. For if these temples are well-built, they must be purified from the worship of demons and dedicated to the service of the true God. In this way, we hope that the people, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may abandon their error and, flocking more readily to their accustomed resorts, may come to know and adore the true God. And since they have a custom of sacrificing many oxen to demons, let some other solemnity be substituted in its place, such as a day of Dedication or the Festivals of the holy martyrs whose relics are enshrined there ... They are no longer to sacrifice beasts to the Devil, but they may kill them for food to the praise of God, and give thanks to the Giver of all gifts for the plenty they enjoy" (Bede 1968: 86-7 [I, 30]).
posted by Rumple at 10:04 AM on October 19, 2008 [4 favorites]
~ Judaism may have borrowed something from a late Egyptian belief -- Early Egyptian belief worshipped a pantheon of many gods, but one pharaoh then came along who believed that there was only one god. So the Hebrews may have even gotten the idea of monotheism from there.
Actually, Zoroastrianism was a much larger influence on the Hebrews than most people realize. The dualism of God vs. Evil, the angelology and the idea of a separate afterlife for the good and the bad all start showing up around the same time that the Hebrews went into Persia, the land of Zoroaster.
And Christ was heavily molded into the form of Mithras, for your "evolution from Paganism."
posted by paisley henosis at 7:21 AM on October 20, 2008
Actually, Zoroastrianism was a much larger influence on the Hebrews than most people realize. The dualism of God vs. Evil, the angelology and the idea of a separate afterlife for the good and the bad all start showing up around the same time that the Hebrews went into Persia, the land of Zoroaster.
And Christ was heavily molded into the form of Mithras, for your "evolution from Paganism."
posted by paisley henosis at 7:21 AM on October 20, 2008
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posted by RussHy at 5:11 AM on October 19, 2008