Category Archives: history

Stories behind December 25th.

calendar, Christmas, history, quotes

Most people, even Christians, don’t care whether the date of December 25th derives from a pagan solstice festival, but historians are interested in many aspects of this story; one of these aspects is the way in which earthly powers try to control or use popular religion to further their aims. Williaim J. Tighe is a historian and a Christian whose article “Calculating Christmas” explains how this impulse led one emperor to establish a completely new pagan festival. The last time I posted this “public service announcement” concerning the date of Christmas, I highlighted the historical evidence that Tighe cites for the early church having chosen their date before that pagan festival was ever established.

But there is the other question we might have: How did the Christians choose their date? It seems that Christ’s mother was not of a mind to be keeping a journal, but rather, Luke tells us, “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” The author tells us in detail how the dating of Christmas is tied to the effort to figure out when it was that Christ died. It’s not easy to calculate that, either, it turns out:

“There is a seeming contradiction between the date of the Lord’s death as given in the synoptic Gospels and in John’s Gospel. The synoptics would appear to place it on Passover Day (after the Lord had celebrated the Passover Meal on the preceding evening), and John on the Eve of Passover, just when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Jerusalem Temple for the feast that was to ensue after sunset on that day.

“Solving this problem involves answering the question of whether the Lord’s Last Supper was a Passover Meal, or a meal celebrated a day earlier, which we cannot enter into here. Suffice it to say that the early Church followed John rather than the synoptics, and thus believed that Christ’s death would have taken place on 14 Nisan, according to the Jewish lunar calendar. (Modern scholars agree, by the way, that the death of Christ could have taken place only in A.D. 30 or 33, as those two are the only years of that time when the eve of Passover could have fallen on a Friday, the possibilities being either 7 April 30 or 3 April 33.)

“However, as the early Church was forcibly separated from Judaism, it entered into a world with different calendars, and had to devise its own time to celebrate the Lord’s Passion, not least so as to be independent of the rabbinic calculations of the date of Passover.” 

“…there is evidence from both the Greek East and the Latin West that Christians attempted to figure out the date of Christ’s birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection.”

I’ll leave you to decide if you want to get the rest of the story by reading the article itself. Last time I shared it, more than one of my readers said the date was not important to them, and one said this information was important. Many years ago I was briefly influenced against enjoying certain Christian festivals because of things written against them by the  uninformed, so I very much appreciate those true historians who love to dig deep. Tighe points us to a longer work on the subject for those who want more details (I haven’t gone further myself). Here’s his own fairly brief summary: “Calculating Christmas.”

On the vanity of earthly greatness.

history, humor, poetry, , , , ,
Charlemagne, by Albrecht Dürer

ON THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GREATNESS

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust is on my shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself.

-Arthur Guiterman

This is a fun poem. The poet joined the theme by embarking on his own transformation to dust some time back. I also like these other lines he wrote, on changes he saw happening around him:

New motor roads are dustless,
The latest steel is rustless,
Our tennis courts are sodless,
Our new religions—godless.

Guiterman in 1932

 

I’m sure that countless swords that have been swung through the ages are pretty rusty by now, but I happened to see this article about the Frankish king’s most famous sword, “Joyeuse” — and that one is not rust yet, because it has been preserved in the Louvre for many generations. Has any of you seen it?

The victory hovers over our world.

calendar, history, quotes, , , , , ,

It’s New Year’s Day according to our liturgical calendar, and special prayers for God’s blessing were included in our service this morning. What better time could there be for thinking about progress… or would devolution and even defeat be more realistic? I happened to read this passage today (I didn’t hear it in church) and just realized how it is connected, sort of. From a letter written by the Apostle Paul to his coworker Timothy:

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

…Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was. But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra– what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:1-13)

Father Stephen Freeman has written over the years about how this passage is in agreement with what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in a letter many centuries later:

“Actually I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory” (Letters 255).

This narrative of a long defeat was assumed among ancient peoples, Fr. Stephen tells us, and only changed to one of progress in recent centuries, especially during the 19th century. But the defeat of history is not really pessimistic. It is part of the greater story of Christ’s Kingdom that has come, and is coming:

“I would go further and say that the final victory already “tabernacles” among us. It hovers within and over our world, shaping it and forming it, even within its defeat. For the nature of our salvation is a Defeat. Therefore the defeat within the world itself is not a tragic deviation from the end, but an End that was always foreseen and present within the Cross itself.” 

The whole article is here: “Tolkien’s Long Defeat and the Path of History.”

The liturgical calendar doesn’t have much to do with that long defeat. You can go to any timeline of history to see the kingdoms that have risen and fallen, and the many wars and tribulations, the violence and suffering that have filled the earth since the beginning. Taken as a whole it’s hard to see any true progress there, unless you are talking about Wonder Bread or flush toilets.

No, the liturgical New Year begins the commemorations of Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, following the sequence of events in what is sometimes called our Salvation History. The birth of Christ’s mother, the birth of Christ, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and so on. The death and resurrection of Christ are the peak season on that calendar. Christ’s defeat, and death — swallowed up in victory. That is cause to say “Christ is risen!” and “Happy New Year!” God is with us.

A preacher in plazas and fields.

history, saints, ,

St. Kosmas is commemorated on August 24th.

“Since the churches could not accommodate everyone wanting to hear the wise preacher, Saint Cosmas with forty or fifty priests served the Vigil in the fields, and in city squares, where thousands of people prayed for the living and for the dead, and were edified by his preaching. Everywhere that Saint Cosmas halted and preached, the grateful listeners set up a large wooden cross, which remained thereafter in memory of this.

“The apostolic service of Saint Cosmas was brought to a close by his martyric death in the year 1779. At 65 years of age, he was seized by the Turks and strangled. His body was thrown into a river, and after three days, was found by the priest Mark and buried near the village of Kolikontasi at the monastery of the Entrance into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos. Afterwards, parts of his relics were transferred to various places as a blessing.”

Source