Old pagan festival marking winter solstice predates Christianity

This article appeared in the Toronto Star December 1993

This, as every Christmas season, we all can expect to hear The Sermon. The one about remembering,   amidst all     the consumerism and demands for cartoon­ celebrity-endorsed   products, the ‘true meaning” of Christmas.

Usually, this supposes that Christmas has something to do with Christianity, in its origins or as a moral creed. It supposes conspicuous consumption is a modern gloss. It supposes, even if denominational, that Christmas has to do with peace on earth and goodwill toward all, persons.

Not so. The Romans, at Saturnalia, already exchanged presents. In medieval England, Yule was a drunken revel; the face of the Father Christmas was ruddy less from the cold than from the contents of the wassail bow.

The date Dec. 25, bears no relation to the biography of Jesus, the time and season of whose birth are unknown.  It became the Christ’s birth in the fourth century because it already    was celebrated as the birth of the sun- natus solis invictus.

It was, in brief, according to the Julian calendar, the night of the winter solstice, the time of darkness’s  triumph but also the moment  from which to date the re­ growth of the child-weak day. The Eastern calendar placed the solstice on Jan. 6; accordingly, that day was Christmas. The two traditions finally were reconciled by inventing the feast of Epiphany. At first, three was much resistance: many denounced the new holiday as thinly disguised sun-worship. As late as 1647, Christmas was banned by Britain’s Puritan Parliament as pagan. The ban was so effective in Calvinist Scotland as to transfer all the pagan magic of Christmas to New Year’s   Eve, Hegmanay, even to this day.

While the celebration of the solstice is universal, it is most vigorous in northern lands where the darkness and cold of winter are renounced. The Venerable Bede saw the Angli exchange gifts on Dec. 25 well before Christianization. Dragging home an evergreen to mark the solstice is an ancient custom in Japan.

And what of that mysterious figure, Santa Claus, who dominates the holiday festivities as Jesus never has?

We know the official story: he is a folklorized  St. Nicholas.  But this is an evasion. We know of this Nicholas naught but that he was bishop of a town in fourth century Asia Minor. How does he gain such prominence?

There is no certainty in such matters but early on it seems likely there developed a confusion of this worthy with a northern European of similar title  He appears in common folklore and  in  such early writings as  Beowulf: now Nick, now Nickel, now Nikker. He is said to be a “demon” or “the evil spirit of the North,” or “the name of Odin, as the … evil principle.”

Descriptions show him, when humanoid, as an aged creature with a flowing white beard. By the 16 century, the term had become more specific. Christianized  “Old Nick,” or even “St. Nicholas,” meant the devil proper. That jolly old elf we love hides such a character  flaw should not surprise. It is common to mute the terror    of the supernatural by euphemism. The bloody Furies of Greek mythology were calmingly worshipped as “the bountiful ones.”

As long ago as Isaiah, the devil’s throne was in the north (see Isaiah 14:13). The devil is prince of darkness, as Jesus is the reborn light Thus Satan presides over the winter dark. It is he who holds power on midwinter night, even if it implies his eventual overthrow. It is he who must be propitiated, and not trifled with by too much attention to his successor.

Although much tradition places hell underground, eloquent voices have put it in the far north, including St. Bonaventure and the oldest morality plays. Many put it at the North Pole. Others argue for Iceland or Lapland.

The latter party holds that the devil drives a team of reindeer. He is often covered in red fur, as in both Santa and his   German predecessor Pelznickel (“furry devil”). If Lucifer is often black with soot, it is from climbing down chimneys, attracted by his element below. If he carries a sack, it is not for party favors but for the abduction of bad little girls and boys; Dutch children still fear such kidnappings. Food and wine, if not milk and cookies, are left out for his debauched pleasure as a bribe to leave the house in peace.

All this may be a memory of blood sacrifice to Kronos, Wotan or Saturn, all of whom presided over the feast. Often a child was slaughtered, a decoy for the newborn sun. Is it significant that St. Nicholas is symbolized by three severed children’s heads?

So there you have it: Christmas is the pagan festival of the birth of the sun: its deepest, original meaning is an orgiastic materialism; and Santa Claus is the devil himself.

Stephen Roney is a Toronto writer

by Stephen Roney