Why do so me people say that Christians hijacked Christmas from Pagan celebrations?
Christmas has its beginning as the “Christ Mass”. It was the day on which the Catholic church celebrated a Mass specially in memory of the birth of Christ. Nothing in Catholic theology requires that a mass be celebrate on the person’s actual birth (or death) date, as it is intended to remind the people of the virtue of that person’s life, not the historical date of the event. The December 25th date appears to have emerged to give Christians an alternative to celebrate on what was one of the largest Roman holidays of the year. That gave them something to do on that day so that they would not be tempted fall back into the pagen holiday. (Similar to the way many churches offer an alternative to Halloween on Oct 31.) Over the centuries (especially in the last 200 years), pagenism as attempted to hijack Christmas, by inserting things that have nothing to do with Christmas into the Christ Mass celebration. Christains did not hijack a pagen celebration. But pagen and other traditions have oft
It is nothing to do with either Christianity or Islam but it does have it’s origins in the midwinter festival and many other basically pagan rites but since much of it is a celebration of nature rather than religion everyone should be able to enjoy it and be happy together despite religion!! The ancient European pagans celebrated the midwinter festival and a number of other festivals long before Christianity ever existed! Babylonians celebrated the feast of the Son of Isis with gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift giving and the goddess of fertility, love, and war. The Romans held a festival on 25 December called “Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, celebrating their own god Sol Invictas – PAGAN. The Persian god Mithras, the Syrian sun god Elah Gabal, the German Sol, the Greek Helios and the Mesopotamian Shamash. But also Saturnalia, honouring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. The law courts and schools were closed. No public business could be transacted an this is where the holidays origina
Jesus wasn’t born anytime around December, my friend. Moreover, I think you can note, if you’re willing to study some history, that Both the Romans and the Northern and Western European Pagans celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God within a few days of each other and right around 21st of December. Evergreen trees brought indoors, holly, mistletoe and wreaths all come from the Pagan celebrations. Christianity, as Rome converted to it, and then it spread by force through the Roman Empire and beyond, found that while people were often willing to convert to Christianity, they wanted to continue to celebrate their old traditions, in the old ways. In order to prevent them from worshiping the old Gods, the Church leaders “baptized” many of the Pagan holidays, including Christmas, Easter and Samhain (which you know as Halloween).
