Christmas Myths and Where to Find Them

Do you want to hear about something upsetting? Of course you do - it's Christmas!

An unbelievable amount of people have asked me if I'm going to do a blog post about "Christmas Myths". I can't believe I'm having to tell you this, but ... Greek myths are pre-Christian, hence pre-Jesus, hence pre-Christmas.

And yet ...

I am a benevolent (Snow) Queen of All Things Mythic, and since you all asked so nicely, I will now present you with: Christmas Myths and Where to Find Them.

'Saturnalia and Sol Invictus', or 'All Roads Lead to Rome'  

It should not come as a shock to you that Christian festivals had their dates altered to coincide with, overshadow, and generally conquer pagan festivals. Just you WAIT until I tell you about Easter. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

People who know much more about these things than I do and, to be frank, care much more about it, debate when Jesus was actually born. Some theologians maintain that it was in winter, but others make arguments that Jesus was born in spring or summer. Why, then, do we celebrate Jesus' birthday on the 25th December?

Answer: To overtake Roman festivals.

The most popular of which was Saturnalia, which you may have heard of. This was a mid-December festival to celebrate the Roman god Saturn. Saturn was an adaptation by the Romans of the Greek god Kronos who, you may remember, castrated his father Uranus and ruled over the Titans until his sister-wife Rhea, who had grown sick of him eating their babies, hid their son Zeus and reared him to overthrow his father. In turn, Zeus castrated his father, banished him to the depths of Tartarus, and assumed his role as ruler of heavens.

Saturn says gay rights
(img: NASA; caption: probably not NASA)

But the Romans were less focussed on Kronos as a Titanic dictator / sister-marrier / baby-eater, and more interested in Saturn as a patron of - somewhat arbitrarily - agriculture. Saturn's name was derived from satus, "sowing", or possibly stercus, "dung", which absolutely definitely shows that he was a god of agriculture and rebirth to the Romans, not the god of sowing shit. And, of course, he later gave his name to the planet that the gods liked so much, they put a ring on it. In the same way that the Roman Saturn came from the Greek Kronos, the Roman festival Saturnalia came from the Greek festival Kronia. While Kronia was held in midsummer, Saturnalia eventually became a midwinter - specifically a late December - holiday.

The purpose of the festival was to celebrate when Saturn ruled over the world during the Golden Age, specifically the spontaneous bounty of the Earth without any of the labour of harvesting ... not so much the castrating and baby-eating. The Golden Age was hailed as an age of Innocence for humanity, as they did not know about hard work or famine (much like the Tories). The Golden Age where nymphs and shepherds lived peacefully on the idyllic planet ended when Prometheus gave humanity the knowledge of fire and arts, for which he was punished with an eagle eating his liver on the daily, while humanity was rewarded with a beautiful woman. Wait, that doesn't sound right. The woman's name was Pandora, and she had a super special box which she wasn't allowed to open but of course did because she was created to do exactly that, and unleashed strife and suffering into the world.

(Fun thought experiment: Replace "Golden Age Earth" with "Eden" and "Pandora" with "Eve", and start questioning why men keep writing religions in which women are the villains)

 Anyway... Saturnalia was celebrated like most Ancient Greco-Roman festivals, with priests, animal sacrifices, and feasts. There were also some interesting rituals like role reversal, in which slaves were allowed to feast either with their owners or even be served by their owners, and they were permitted to be as disrespectful as they wished, supposedly without fear of retribution. Everyone, including slaves, was also apparently allowed to gamble, which was mostly illegal or discouraged.

Perhaps we should sack off the rampant consumerism of Christmas under capitalism, and give the gift of equal rights to the poor this midwinter?

***

Helios

Another Roman festival that was conveniently bulldozed by holly jolly Christmas was Sol Invictus, which took place on 25th December during the later Roman Empire. This festival, which translates to "Unconquered Sun", was a celebration of the sun god Sol, whose Greek counterpart was Helios. Helios/Sol was the Titan god of the sun, who would drive his four-horse chariot across the sky during the day, and then his sister Selene - Titan goddess of the moon - would drive her chariot across the sky at night. They were overtaken by badass bro and sis combo Apollo and Artemis or, more deferentially, the Olympian twins, the god of the sun and the goddess of the moon.

Put simply: priests, sacrifices, and feasts. Again.

But, if you're not a fan of Christmas, perhaps have a Sol-Invictusmas instead, where you watch the sunrise and light a bonfire and burn incense. If you wanted to keep it traditional, you would have to do some kind of animal sacrifice to really appease the gods. But wait! This festival has a fun, vegetarian twist: since crops are sun-born, veggies are probably the best thing to feast on to honour Helios/Sol (extra bonus since Turkey tastes like old socks anyway). Also, Helios famously gets really pissed off when people eat his cattle, so beef should definitely not be on the menu.

If you're still not convinced that Christianity straight up plagiarised Christmas, let's play a game of Spot The Difference:

Helios, by Mellamomateo 

Christus Ravenna Mosaic

The True Meaning of Christmas

The past 1,000 words may have tipped you off to the fact that I'm not exactly Christian. If we don't believe in God and we don't go to church, then we mostly do Christmas because it's part of the social contract in the Western world. For an awful lot of us, the lead up to Christmas consists of stress and spending, but this is almost worth it when we get to indulge in two of life's greatest pleasures: eating and drinking. Which is why I don't think that Saturn and Helios will really satiate our need for Christmas myths; although they were clearly inspiration for early Christian festivities, I don't believe that most of my readers really celebrate Christian Christmas.

If only there was a god of festivities and feasts and, more than anything, drinking. Anyone who has drunkenly dozed off in front of the TV on the evening of December 25th, while munching on chocolates despite being painfully full of dinner, dessert, leftovers, and snacks, would also probably want their festive god to be one of relaxation and, literally, vegetation. And, while we're at it, let's make him super hot and gay as hell. In the spirit of Christmas, ask and ye shall receive - I bestow unto ye, Dionysus.

As an added bonus, he was also born twice!

One day, I will do a full-length post on Dionysus, because he is one of my all-time favourite Olympians. I absolutely LOVE him. But for now, I will just say:

Merry Dionysusmas & Cheers!