THE TRUE MEANING OF XMAS

As we exit the holidays I'd like to do what all good pundits do at this festive time of year, to remind you all of the original meaning of Xmas. In a very creative, touchingly sentimental way, of course.

Why are you looking at me that way? Is it just because I wrote it with an "X?" Hey, don't you know "Xmas" is a perfectly respectable way of spelling "Christmas?" Some people snort as if it's some sort of secular humanist plot to take Christ out of Xmas, but they simply don't know their religious history. It's just an abbreviation for the Greek way of spelling Christ. The X in this case is actually the Greek letter chi, for the word "Khristos" or XPIEOE, if we were to use actual Greek letters. The letters chi and rho make that funny looking X-over-P symbol seen in many Christian churches, though I guess it only looks funny in English, like it's the mutant brother of our spelling.

But enough of that, I really wanted to write about what we are supposed to be celebrating on this holiday. The return of the Son. Sorry, typo. I meant to say Sun.

You're looking at me strangely again.

Xmas is set in December because it is really about the winter solstice, a marking of the shortest day of the year and saluting of the return of the Sun and a new growing season. Maybe that doesn't resonate in our modern world of Barbie dolls and cyborg governors, but agrarian societies were justifiably concerned about it. The priestly class in all those old civilizations was the repository of all scientific knowledge about how the world worked, including weather. These were the guys who had enough time on their hands to observe the heavens at length and knew when the optimum planting and harvesting times were. They literally counted the days for the rest of the people so that these things could happen efficiently. They also told fanciful stories to the less educated people to explain how things worked and over the centuries the stories got more and more complex. Through these stories the winter solstice became the "birthday" of many gods, from Thor in Norse legends to Dionysus of the Greeks and Osiris of the Egyptians.

By the way in ancient days the priests did a lot of other things besides the weatherman role. In many societies they were the butchers. In old Judea, the fatted calf offerings were brought to Temple for sacrifice, but nowadays many people don't realize what happened next. The sacrifices weren't all burned on an altar, that's for sure. Read Leviticus, it's full of directions about how to do the sacrifices. Notice how they always insist on bringing the very best of your herds and produce for sacrifice? The animals were slaughtered kosher style, blessed and sold back to the populace along with the other blessed food. Sure, the priests got fed well but mostly it was instant funding for the church, and the city was assured of some standard of quality in their food in a time before refrigeration and FDA inspections. Hmm, I wonder what the priests would have thought of that fake turkey that Dubya offered the troops in Iraq for Thanksgiving. (I just had to slip that in somewhere!)

So why Christ's birthday in December? Certainly the Bible doesn't tell us the day of Jesus's birth, it only says that it was during the reign of King Herod. It's generally accepted that this is Herod The First. The system of dating things by the founding of Rome was in use back then and obviously Jesus's birth didn't change all the calendars to Anno Domini immediately. In fact, it wasn't until about six hundred years later during the reign of Charlemagne that the year of the Nativity was first figured by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. Most scholars say he got it at least four years off. But all that has little to do with why we celebrate Jesus's birth on December 25th. Some early conclaves celebrated the Nativity in April or May, some celebrated it on Epiphany (January 6), if they celebrated it at all. That's right, most didn't. This is mainly because shopping malls had not been invented yet.

I did it again. Sorry, I couldn't resist. In any case if you study the history of the December date further you find that it is set then mostly for political and marketing reasons.

Ever wonder why we have so many non-Christian symbols like Santa Claus (who is NOT a saint and deserves a dissertation all his own), the Christmas Tree, the Yule Log, and the Fruitcake? It's because early Christians took over the rituals of the different regions as they went spreading the gospel. Blame it on Saint Paul who stressed the Spirit of Jesus within you, not the rituals themselves. That's what he meant when he used the word Khristos (it's his word by the way, not Jesus's). One of the first cults the early Christians co-opted was the Cult of Mithra (or Mithras in Latin, also called The Mithra Mysteries) which had started in Roman times in the same region where Jesus walked. In the First Century this cult was as at least as popular as the early Christian faith.

We do not know much about the Cult of Mithras, apparently it was a very secretive religion (Hey it's a mystery!). There was a Persian god called Mithra, but the recurring image of Mithra slaying a bull found in surviving Mithraic catacombs does not really parallel any Persian traditions. However scholars do agree that the central celebration of the cult was the birth of Mithra. A virgin birth. Attended by shepherds and magi. On December 25th. Do I even need to ask if this sounds familiar? Wait, there's more! Mithraists would cross themselves, except that the cross to them was a symbol of the divisions in the Universe. They also put the sign of the cross on bread and had a ceremony where the bread and wine symbolized the body and blood of Mithras. Fortunately the ceremonies about sacrificing a bull and letting the blood drip down on the congregations never made it with the Christians. Sounds like they ruined more than a few Sunday-best suits.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that they had their official set of gods and the occasional Emperor looking for scapegoats, the Romans were actually pretty tolerant of religious groups like the Christians and the Mithraists. Many beliefs existed in their huge Empire and they learned quickly that it was best to accommodate them instead of trying to root them out. Except for the Jews in 70 AD, but that's a different story.

Here's where the Greek letters chi and rho come back into the story. In the early 4th Century the Emperor Constantine had a vision (or so the story goes) to put a design on the shields of his troops similar to the chi-rho of Christ just before he fought a great battle with the his rival Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. He won and reunified the Empire under his rule. In thanks he made Christianity the official faith of Rome, though he did not convert himself until he was on his deathbed.

But the new official Church had been mostly underfoot and underground for three centuries and there was little consensus about ritual and dogma, or even what constituted Scripture! Many cells in different parts of the Empire had adopted things from other creeds, but this was not looked upon as a bad thing. Adopting the customs of other faiths was an easy way to get large numbers of converts into the faith. Almost every culture has a winter solstice ritual, and once the connection to Christ's birth was laid on top of it, the original meaning began to fade. Still, the celebration of the Nativity was not very important on the early church's calendar and many congregations ignored it in the early centuries.

In the modern age most people have lost touch with the pagan roots of Xmas, but many more recent sects knew that it wasn't really much of a Christian celebration. The Puritans and Pilgrims who helped found this country actually forbade the celebration of Xmas. Even up until about a hundred years ago, people were expected to work on Xmas. But in the mid-19th century Charles Dickens popularized the celebration with "A Christmas Carol" and when businesses found it was a good idea to promote a North European myth about a guy delivering goodies every Xmas, there was no looking back.

Xmas really never was one pure celebration. And now that we've added so much into it, who knows what it "originally" meant? Actually since the records from the early Christian era are so bad, who's to say that the Mithraists didn't borrow all their rituals from Christianity? Maybe that's not likely, but on the other hand perhaps the real meaning of Xmas is to co-opt the holidays of all other religions and celebrate life in one big festival of unity! It's pretty much become the Universal Holiday here in America anyway. Maybe we should celebrate all the December holidays of all religions in one huge month long extravaganza! I got a card last week that wished me Happy Hanukwanzmas, I guess some people already have that idea. Oops, they forgot the Indian celebration of Diwali is this month too. It's a celebration of light where families will light hundreds of lamps. Sounds kinda like Hanukah, doesn't it? And let's not forget Happy Birthday to Thor and Osiris and Buddha! And the return of the Sun.

I don't go to church but I still celebrate Xmas just because it's a very unselfish act to give gifts and let people know you care. It's a good thing! I respect it as Jesus's birthday too, even though it's almost certainly not on the right day. Jesus is also a good thing; I can't fault anyone for loving his message of peace. Too bad this paragon of non-violence has gotten co-opted by a bunch of militarists who hold his image close while bombing from 20,000 feet. Or ordering others to do so.

But no, it's Xmas, and I refuse to dwell on those guys and their fake turkeys! I'd rather dish out some universal truths. Maybe it's just time to admit that we are all religiously seeking the same state of grace through our various creeds and stop concentrating on the differences so much.

And speaking of differences, I wonder if it would make a difference if I didn't wrap any gifts this Xmas. I am WAY behind! Nah, I'd better go back into the Closet and get started right now. Thanks for reading and until next time, the Closet is closed.

© 2004 - Rusty Pipes

Official Disclaimer: The editors and publisher of Cosmik Debris Magazine protest! Christmas is about Santa being born in a manger at the north pole, and Rudolph bringing him incense and something called myhhr, and cutting down perfectly healthy trees and decorating them so they look pretty, all dead and in a stand, because Santa and his elf, Jesus, would have wanted it that way. So Rusty is on his own with his wacky yarns about Christmas. Everybody knows the Chris in Christmas is short for Chris Kringle, except our Jewish friends who celebrate Harmonica. (I love that cute little "Dradle" song!) We sincerely hope Rusty didn't offend anyone.