Midwinter festivals have been celebrated all over Europe from prehistoric times. They are such a deep-rooted aspect of our culture, that when our ancestors "converted" to Christianity, they continued to observe their ancient holiday under the name "Christmas." Today the midwinter holiday is celebrated by Christians as well as by Pagans seeking to restore the festival's original meaning.
A man named Lawrence Kelemen has written a vicious attack on our Yuletide traditions. His essay has been circulated by materialists, radical Protestants, and iconoclasts in order to insult one of our holiest institutions.
Kelemen's essay is chock full of outright lies which he backs up using spurious "academic" works, the most prominent of which is Clement Miles' book Christmas Customs and Traditions, first printed in 1912. The book is a collection of the wildest fantasies of nineteenth century antiquarians, cemented by Miles' own crazed ideas about the past. All parties involved were obviously hitting the ether bottle too hard. Every day.
This is the source he refers to when he attacks Saturnalia, the Roman version of the ancient European midwinter festival, claiming:
“The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.”
None of this is true. Kelemen also cites Lucian as a source:
“In addition to human sacrifice, [Lucian] mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits...”
Kelemen obviously never read Lucian, and is hoping that we haven't, either. Lucian mentions intoxication and naked caroling-–and that’s it (he never says the carolers went from house to house). No human sacrifice, no rape. No man-biscuits.
Kelemen also neglects to inform us of the festivals similar to Saturnalia which were celebrated by Pagans all over Europe, not just in Roman territory. Hence the word Yule, the name our Teutonic ancestors gave to the holiday (from Old English Giuli, pronounced sort of like YOOL-ee). This is why the Puritans abolished Christmas in England and in the New World, a fact which Kelemen recounts with glee.
He has horribly confused ideas about history, religion, and geography:
“Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers [sic] of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.
Exactly how the Church convinced a bunch of long-dead Middle-Eastern Pagans to rise from the grave, emigrate to Europe, and begin using Christmas Trees is a mystery lost in the depths of Kelemen’s twisted mind.
Christmas trees are a German custom. They are a variation on the greenery Europeans have brought indoors during Yuletide from time immemorial, and may have a connection with the veneration of trees per se; but they have nothing to do with the Biblical Asheira cult.
Sadly, there’s more:
“Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim. The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.”
These statements are completely false.
Kelemen then tries to connect Christmas with Antisemitism:
“Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city.“
He also claims that the Jews were forced to gorge themselves before the race in order to make it more difficult for them.
In fact the race Kelemen refers to took place during Carnival, which directly precedes Lent–-not during Christmas.
According to Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, by Norman Roth (2003), page 572:
“In 1466, Pope Paul II considerably enlarged the festivities...The Jews were called to the place directly in a special competition, made just for them, and they accepted the invitation gladly and with pride, since they saw it as an extra sign of their inclusion in the life of the city.... there was a large group of Jews, armed from head to toe, led by their factors and by two knights...Then the athletes came, a dozen of them, dressed in white. They were ahead of the senator of Rome and the other authorities of the town. The senator of Rome gave the trophy to the young Jew who won the competition, with a solemn ceremony. Later, the entire Jewish community organized a big party in his honor in the house of one of the rabbis, near Castle S. Angel, ending up the night carousing.” [emphasis mine]
I have highlighted Roth’s text to point out that none of Kelemen's claims about the “Christmas race” are correct.
He also lies about the Warsaw Pogrom of 1881, claiming:
“...Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped.“
The Warsaw Pogrom began when a stampede killed twenty-nine people after a false fire alarm was given in a crowded church. Unknown persons began a rumor that two Jewish pickpockets had been found in the church, and that began the wave of anti-Semitic sentiment which resulted in two deaths and twenty four injuries. It had nothing to do with Christmas--or with Kelemen's anti-Semitic church leaders.
The real fun begins when Kelemen attacks Christianity and Paganism together, by tackling a famous figure of Christo-Pagan syncretism: Santa Claus.
(Leave it to a bitter ideologue to attack Santa, of all people.
Sheesh.)
”The [St.] Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped [sic] a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw.”
Considering Kelemen's claim that Nicholas wasn't revered as a saint until the nineteenth century, how was the veneration of a Christian saint adopted by Pagans?
Short answer--it wasn't. Nicholas was revered as a saint as early as the tenth century, at which time most of the Celtic and Germanic peoples thought of themselves as nominally Christian. Even when the Celts were Pagan, they never worshiped Woden, Thor, Balder, or Tiw-–they had a different pantheon.
Larry slogs on, oblivious to the facts, and claims that the Church tried to convert a bunch of Germanic and Celtic Pagans–who worshiped St. Nicholas--by telling them to give gifts on the twenty-fifth of December instead of on the sixth (St. Nicholas’ feast day).
Ummm...hmm...
“Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death.”
The council in question did not “create” the text Kelemen cites (from the Gospel of John); the council established the text’s status as scripture. The earliest extant manuscript of the Gospel of John (the Ryland fragment, a.k.a. Papyrus P52) predates the council of Nicaea by at least 175 years. And Nicholas was not one of “the most senior bishops who convened the council”: his name is not on any of the extant lists of bishops who attended.
So much for the facts. Kelemen concludes:
“Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.” It is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.
Christmas is a lie. There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25th.
December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.
Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.”
I have some news for Larry: Christianity itself is a 365-day-a-year declaration (whether or not it is true) that Judaism is no longer valid. The very existence of Christianity depends on the idea that Judaism has been superseded. He chose to focus on Christmas because he’s a bitter ideologue who hates Pagan and Christian celebration
As far as the dating of the holiday, since Kelemen is a Jew, perhaps he wouldn’t mind explaining to me whether he believes that the oil in the Temple lasted from December 21 to December 29 (Chanukah this year), or whether it was from December 1 to December 9 (Chanukah in 2010).
There is no law anywhere that says that a holiday must be celebrated on the calendar date of the event it commemorates. This goes especially for traditional religions, whose myths transcend our notions of time. The Catholic mass celebrates the death and resurrection of Christ, in every church in the world, every day. No-one thinks that Christ was killed and resurrected every day of the year!
Speaking of every day of the year, I wager that there is no day of the year on which Jews have not been shamed, tortured, and murdered. His “evidence” that Christmas in particular was a day of anti-Semitism is completely false.
Larry’s “evidence” linking popular Yuletide customs with "depraved rituals" is nonexistent, unless he considers excessive drinking to be depraved. In that case he ought to decry the Jewish feast of Purim, at which Jews are supposed to get so drunk that they cannot distinguish between the phrases “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai.”
By now you would think that Kelemen has spent his venom.
But he hasn’t pulled the dreaded Nazi card–-until the very end, when he invents a hypothetical “Hitler Day” and compares it to Christmas:
“Many who are excitedly preparing for their Christmas celebrations would prefer not knowing about the holiday’s...monstrous history and meaning...
Imagine that between 1933-45, the Nazi regime celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday – April 20 – as a holiday...and observed the day with feasting, drunkenness, gift-giving, and various pagan practices. Imagine that on that day, Jews were historically subject to perverse tortures and abuse, and that this continued for centuries.
Now, imagine that your great-great-great-grandchildren were about to celebrate Hitlerday...They had long forgotten about Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen...They had purchased champagne and caviar, and were about to begin the party, when someone reminded them of the day’s real history and their ancestors’ agony. Imagine that they initially objected, “We aren’t celebrating the Holocaust; we’re just having a little Hitlerday party.” If you could travel forward in time and meet them; if you could say a few words to them, what would you advise them to do on Hitlerday?”
Not even content with that, Kelemen ends by quoting an anti-Semitic message penned by Julius Streicher on Christmas Day; sure “proof” that Christmas--and Yule--are inherently anti-Semitic.
What an asshole.
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