{"id":181,"date":"2010-12-22T11:58:24","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T11:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/when-massachusetts-banned-christmas.html"},"modified":"2010-12-22T11:58:24","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T11:58:24","slug":"when-massachusetts-banned-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/when-massachusetts-banned-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"When Massachusetts banned Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Puritan.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>The Grinch stole Christmas in Massachusetts – for 22 years. The Puritans banned Christmas and its observance was illegal from 1659 until 1681. Their motivation was stated by the Reverend Increase Mather as follows: <\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/div>\n
“The early Christians who  first observed the
\nNativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that
\nMonth, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and
\nthey were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian
\nones.” [1]<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
In other words, the origin of Christmas was pagan. The Puritans of Massachusetts were not the first to come up with this idea; it had long been common knowledge. Nor were they the first to try to take the merry out of Christmas; in 1647, Cromwell’s parliament in England had banned Christmas and made it a crime to bake Christmas puddings (a situation corrected with the Stuart Restoration in 1660).<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Wrong about many things – including the infamous Salem witch-hunts – the Puritans of Massachusetts may have been correct in their belief that both the date of Christmas, and many of the best-beloved customs and legends that surround it, have their origins in the old religions that long pre-date the birth of Jesus.<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Nobody knows for sure when Jesus was born, but it is rather unlikely that it was on December 25th. The famous early bishop, Clement of Alexandria, who died in 215, wrote that many Christians in his day believed that Jesus was born in April. December 25 was only recognized as the birthday of Jesus by the Church in Rome in the mid-fourth century, and it took centuries for the date to be adopted by Christian congregations elsewhere. The church in Jerusalem only adopted the date in the 7th century. It took England a century longer.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
On the other hand, the significance of December 25 in the pagan calendar had long been established. Under The Julian calendar, instituted by command of Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, December 25 was made the date of Bruma, the “shortest” day, meaning the winter solstice. Early European peoples honored the winter solstice as the day of the re-birth of the sun, personified as a god by some, a goddess by others.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
 In 274, the soldier-emperor Aurelian proclaimed that December 25 was the birthday of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. This was a composite deity he hoped would be acceptable to believers of all persuasions, including the old worshippers of Helios-Apollo and the Roman legionaries who had adopted the cult of Mithras, a god from the East whose birth from a cave was already celebrated on December 25. So the day we now celebrate as Christmas became Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the Day of the Unconquered Son.<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Against this backdrop, it seems more likely than not that intelligent leaders of the early Church were inspired to move Jesus’ birthday to December 25 to claim the glamor of the old winter solstice festivals and<\/i> to match the religious calendar to the celestial calendar in the way that early peoples had always done, making the coming of the Christos coincide with the re-birth of the sun. This, at any rate, was the opinion of a learned Syriac scholiast who wrote in the 12th century:<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I<\/i>t was a
\ncustom of the pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities
\nand revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of
\nthe Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they
\ntook counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that
\nday.” [2]<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\"ChristAsSol.jpg\"<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Syncretism – the bringing together of different strands of belief and custom – was characteristic of the old Roman religions; in the mid-4th century, when the Christian leaders chose to make December 25 the birthday of Jesus, it became an act of Church policy. In a ceiling mosaic in the tomb of the Julii, in the necropolis under St Peter’s, we have an arresting visual image of the convergence of the old solar cult with the new religion. It shows the figure of Sol-Helios, the sun god, riding his chariot. Around 250, his image was touched up, to make the rays around his head resemble a cross<\/font>.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

When we look at the customs and symbols of Christmas that are most loved in our families today, we find that many of them are of pagan origin: the Christmas tree, for starters, but also the holy and the ivy, the mistletoe, the yule log, the giving of gifts, the reindeer that fly through the sky. An early Christian grinch in Britain, Polydor Virgil, thundered that “dancing, masques, mummeries, stageplays, and other
\nsuch Christmas disorders now in use with Christians, were derived from these
\nRoman Saturnalian and Bacchanalian festivals; which should cause all pious
\nChristians eternally to abominate them.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font>T<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span>he happy news is that the grinches will never win (though I’m not so sure about the retailers). The sun returns, and at Christmas all peoples of good heart will share gifts of light and love<\/font><\/font>.<\/font><\/font><\/span><\/span>]<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/font>Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England (1687) quoted in Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday, New York: Vintage Books, 1997, p. 2. <\/p>\n

[2] Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997, p. 155 
<\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Puritan Grinch: I found this marvelous image at Without Shoes<\/a><\/i><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Grinch stole Christmas in Massachusetts – for 22 years. The Puritans banned Christmas and its observance was illegal from 1659 until 1681. Their motivation was stated by the Reverend Increase Mather as follows:  “The early Christians who  first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,35,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conscious-liviing","category-dreaming-in-religion","category-myth"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Massachusetts banned Christmas - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/when-massachusetts-banned-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Massachusetts banned Christmas - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Grinch stole Christmas in Massachusetts – for 22 years. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}