(This is a continuation of my debate with Scholar, begun two posts ago – “The Myopic Christian” – Hrafnkell)

You wrote “I spoke specifically of Mr. Douthat and those who think like him – there was no blanket condemnation of Christians made or implied” and “As for specific Christians and/or groups of Christians, I identify these when addressing the topic in question”. You ought to read your post again because you have not identified specific groups of Christians in your post; you write about one particular Christian and then proceed to speak of “Christians” as though to imply a unity. You do, indeed – in the post that I commented on – imply that Christians as a whole are intolerant.

I think it’s quite clear from the context who I was speaking of. To the extent I was unclear, I apologize. If you are a all familiar with my blog, you will have seen me say often enough that I do not include all Christians. I have said many times that my own family is Christian and I have the utmost respect for their toleration of other forms of belief. But you enter onto the stage, apparently unacquainted with me at all, and presume to know me. You don’t.

You wrote “Indeed, I carefully cite my sources when I write”. I missed the source that you cited when you proclaimed what “Christians” would say and that “Christians” initiate conversations about religion. Nowhere did you say that you were writing only about Christians who think like Mr. Douthat.

Would you like me to cite every personal encounter I’ve ever had with a Christian? I happily invite every Pagan who drops by to comment upon their own experiences. I can guarantee you they won’t be any different than mine.

You wrote “I’m sorry, but this won’t do. This is an old excuse and I’m quite frankly tired of seeing it trotted out. The crimes committed by Christianity since the fourth century cannot be wished away by simply waving a magic wand…” Indeed, this won’t do – I did not say (and here you are putting words in my mouth) that Christians have not committed atrocities. Clearly they have. No need to elaborate. I was referring to Christians now, not Christians then. (But I think that you have difficulty differentiating…).

Not trouble differentiating at all. I was quite clear in pointing out that these crimes continue today in the form of cultural genocide. The basic premise of Christianity is one of intolerance. There is a difference between that and what individual Christians think and do, but as I made clear, the religion is itself intolerant by its very nature – as are Judaism and Islam, both being monotheisms.

Please see (in no particular order): Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History (Morning Star Books, 1995), 136 n. 103. Ellerbe’s position is that the Christian legacy fosters sexism, racism, and intolerance; Karen Armstrong, The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity’s Creation of the Sex War in the West,” (Elm Tree Books, 1986). Armstrong condemns what she calls “Christian sexual neurosis” and argues that Christianity’s traditional hatred of women and of the body still cripples woman’s self-image today;  H.A. Drake, “Lambs into Lions: Explaining Early Christian Intolerance,” Past and Present 153 (1996), H.A. Drake argues that Christianity is not inherently intolerant while making allowance for a certain level of intolerance endemic to monotheism in general; David Lochhead “Monotheistic Violence” Buddhist-Christian Studies 21 (2001); Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997); R. Joseph Hoffmann, ed., The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006); Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (University of California Press, 2005); Charles Freeman, A.D. 381: Heretics, Pagans, and the Dawn of the Monotheistic State (The Overlook Press, 2009); Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Harvard University Press, 1997);  Jan Assmann, The Price of Monotheism (Stanford University Press, 2009).

Let’s try a little test, shall we?  We’ll play “Who’s God is It?” (and remember, these passages are are part of Christian SCRIPTURE – the word of God, and these scriptures are spouted every Sunday in churches across the world and nobody bats an eye:

The virulent hatred and intolerance of monotheism for polytheism is astounding.  See YHWH’s threats espoused at Lev 26.14-17; they are enough to chill anyone’s blood. As R. Joseph Hoffman observes, the God of Abraham “has always threatened vengeance of cosmic proportions for not keeping his laws…The Abrahamic god must be understood in terms of two words: exclusivity and judgment.”[1] Schwartz notes the manner in which the biblical narrative paints “inclinations toward polytheism” as “sexual infidelity” and how Israel itself “is castigated for ‘whoring after’ other gods, thereby imperiling her ‘purity.’” The land itself must be kept clean “or its inhabitants will be ejected, ‘vomited’ out of the land…when Israel is not monotheistic, it is filthy and it pollutes the land” (Lev 20.22-25). When Israel worships a foreign deity, she is a harlot, the land is made barren, and she is ejected from the land” (Jer 3.2-3).[2] The God of monotheism is made the “True” God and the “gods” of polytheism are false. The result, when the opportunity offered, was slaughter, pure and simple. See as examples, 2 Kings 23:20-25 and Deuteronomy 13:13-18 for chilling examples of what happened to those as, George Carlin has put it, “gave the wrong answer to the God question.”

You wrote “you won’t find any such list of polytheistic intolerance”. Wrong and wrong. There is plenty of indication of Roman intolerance (despite your careful waving away of it with the magic wand of “Christian bias”). Read Josephus for some of the description of Roman treatment of the “Other”. Consider the Chanadala and associated groups trampeled by Hindu society… I am sure that if you were interested in having a real ecumenical view you would investigate the dark sides of polytheism as well.

You haven’t even begun to advance an argument. I give you a list many pages long citing specific, documented examples, and you throw a vague reference to Judaism at me and a comment about Hindus (I’ll give you some Josephus in a moment).

As I said, there is a vast gulf of difference between finding the notions of a religious group (or even its practices) ridiculous, abhorrent, foolish, or what have you, and actually putting an end to those practices. I think Christianity is a ridiculous religion – it offers nothing new, nothing original – but I don’t deny your right to practice it.

The Romans did not oppose the Druids so much because of human sacrifice but because the Druids were at the center of resistance against Rome. That was their crime – they threatened the peace of the province (Gaul, and later, Britain). I’ve read Josephus many times over. Do you want a list of all the nice accommodations the Romans came to for Judaism, just as one small example?

Let us take a look here at some of the concessions and privileges granted to the Jews by the Roman state (and compare and contrast, if you will, American treatment of the Native Americans in the 19^th century – a supposedly enlightened “Christian” century):

• No Quartering of Troops on the Native Population (Ant. 14.10.2 § 195). Nor did the Jews have to generally even see Roman troops, except on holidays such as Passover, when they were present in Jerusalem to keep the peace. The Roman garrison appears to have been stationed largely in Caesarea, a Greek-speaking area.[3] One might think back to the situation in the American Colonies in the days leading up to the revolt and the role quartering played on American sensibilities. This was one annoyance spared the Jewish population of Palestine.
• Tax allowances (Jews allowed to deduct out of their tribute every second year the land is let (in the Sabbatic period), a corus of that tribute (Ant. 14.10.5 §201)
• The Jews allowed to live “according to their own customs” (Ant. 14.10.8 § 214).
• Jews excused from military service by Prefect of Asia (Ant. 14.10.11-12 §§ 223-228) “on account of the superstition they are under” (Ant. 14.10.14 § 232) in other words, Sabbath restrictions on travel and fighting, etc. Note that this does not mean that Jews could not, if they wished, serve in the military, and also that it is a far cry from excluding Jews from military ranks by the Christian Roman Empire (C. Th. XVI.8.24).[4]
• Roman acquiescence of Jewish ban on images customarily observed by procurators (Ant. 18.3.1 §§ 55-56). This included the re-routing of Roman troops (no doubt at great expense) due to the Jews finding the images on the standards offensive when paraded anywhere on “Jewish” soil, as shown by the incident with Vitellius described by Josephus (Ant. 18.121-122). The Romans went so far as to omit from coins struck in Judaea “any sign or symbol that might be offensive to the religious feelings of the Jews…”[5] It is interesting to compare the coins of Herod, which while also observing the ban on images, do bear Pagan religious symbols, for example a coin of 37 BCE which portrays the tripod of Apollo and on the reverse, the Dioscuri cap topped with a star.[6]
• Augustus confirmed Jewish privileges conferred originally by Julius Caesar (Ant. 16.6.1 §§ 160-165) “that the Jews have liberty to make use of their own customs, according to the law of their forefathers” See also Philo, Leg. ad Gaium 309-319.
• The Sacred Money was not to be touched (Ant. 16.6.2 § 163) – This was violated on several occasions, including, allegedly, by Pontius Pilate (Ant. 18.3.2 § 60) and on one occasion the proconsul of Asia, L. Flaccus in 62/1 BCE confiscated the temple contributions from his province (Cicero, Flacc. 66-9) but his action was not repeated.[7] See also Ant. 16.6.3 § 166, where Augustus commands the recipient, the proconsul of Sardinia, to let the Jews “send their sacred money to Jerusalem” freely and a similar letter from Herod Agrippa to the Ephesians (Ant. 16.6.4 §§ 167-168). There is also an example from Berenice in Cyrenaica, where the local Jewish community commemorated a Roman official for his part in seeing that the sacred money was not diverted from the Temple to pay the tax levied on resident aliens.[8]
• Anyone stealing the Jewish holy books will be deemed a “sacrilegious person” and his property confiscated (Ant. 16.6.2 § 164). We have duly noted the punishment meted out to a Roman soldier (by Roman authorities) for profaning the Torah. By way of contrast, the United States is continually being accused of mishandling the Qu’ran but the US Government pretends it never happens and so far, no American soldiers have been punished.
• Exempted from participation in the imperial cult and allowed to make prayers in their own temple on behalf of the emperor (War 2.10.4 §197; Against Apion 2.7 §77) instead of to the gods in Pagan temples.[9] Philo tells us that the cost of these sacrifices was born by the Roman government and not the Jewish people (Spec. Leg. 157).
• Gentiles were not allowed into the sacred precincts of the temple (Tacitus, Histories 5.8; Josephus, War 5.193; Ant. 12.145, 15.417; cf. Philo, Leg. 212). This prohibition (of which Paul runs afoul Acts 21.28-29) has been proven by archaeological findings.[10]
• Far from persecuting the Jews, the Roman government served as their advocate: “The Romans appear at times to have chosen to put their influence behind Jewish communities in dispute with their neighbors…and did not even cease after A.D. 70.”[11] For examples, see Josephus, Ant. 14.10.12-26).
• Jews exempted from court on the Sabbath.[12]
• Claudius renewed the edict of tolerance issued by Caesar and renewed by Augustus, making it empire-wide (Ant. 19.5.3 §§286-291). The edict is not specific; Rajak argues “that Claudius is not doing much more than expressing his good will towards the practice of the Jewish cult and establishing a lead for Greek cities to follow.”[13] If, as Rajak argues, this falls short of a Jewish Magna Carta, it still illustrates the extent to which Rome permitted self-rule and represents a general good will not mirrored in Europe for the fifteen centuries following the end of Pagan rule.

It is important to note that these edicts of toleration were not general and empire wide, but seem to have been issued on a city by city basis. Though these senatus consulta were ad hoc in nature, they also served as legal precedents to which future governors and emperors could appeal. Leonard Rutgers makes an important point when he notes that “Rome did not have a standard policy toward the Jews: Roman magistrates responded to situations.”[14]

Momigliano, not along among scholars, takes note of the fact that “the members of the ruling class of Rome were ready to transact business with people who worshipped different gods and were used to different political traditions. Roman polytheism could adapt itself to, and indeed merge with, what we may call the provincial traditions.”[15] Provincial traditions = ethnic religion. Roman polytheism was itself an ethnic religion. Barriers translated.

But, it is clear that you are a thirty year reactionary against a bad experience from your youth. This is clear when you write “I speak from three decades of experience as a polytheist and before that an upbringing as a Lutheran (ELCA) – from birth to age 22″. You throw this out as some kind of claim for authority about what you are saying – and it is a common trope used by reactionaries against religions – but being raised in a tradition is no guarantee of sufficient knowledge of it. Perhaps you have sufficient knowledge, maybe you have studied Lutheran theology in depth – I don’t know; what I do know is that the claim which you make carries little weight.

Yes, right, because only your experiences as a Christian are relevant. Those of a polytheist are irrelevant. And you have yet to show that the claim I make carries little weight. In point of fact, you have offered me very little at all.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not interested only in defending Christianity. I am defending it here because you are attacking it with rather specious arguments. If you were attacking polytheism, I would be defending that. But, in your rebellion against your previous religious tradition (which was no doubt thrust upon you authoritatively) you craft your own Other against which you demonstrate very little tolerance. You contradict your own claims for polytheism.

I invite you again to show where my arguments are specious. You have yet to do so. And please, the old “saw” that it is a “rebellion” against my previous religion…Christians trot that out EVERY time. Ask any Pagan. We’ve all heard it. But it says far more about the Christian in question than it does the Pagan.

I would think that a real ecumenical position would seek to rehabilitate all religious positions to be tolerant of the Other rather than seek to brand some inherently and irremediably intolerant and therefore not worthy of regard.

Universal intolerance is a logical impossibility. We cannot be tolerant of intolerance. You have a right to believe what you believe. You do not have a right to coerce others (and I’m not saying you specifically are). But Christianity, since the fourth century, as a whole, has done so, and continues to do so. And it continues to spout hate for the “other” through recitation of biblical passages in churches and confirmation classes and Bible study meetings. The Bible itself, as I said, is one long anti-Pagan diatribe. Christianity is a religion of condemnation. It is not Pagans who seek to brand some religions as unworthy of regard, but Christianity. I recognize your God is real; can you say the same?

But you have already crafted your own vision of Christianity and have declared it to be the only viable one (and you make use of similarly ideological representations) and thus you cannot take into account any nuance that can be legitimately read in Christian scriptures.

But I have not done so. I am representing Christianity as a historical religion – one that existed then and one that exists now. Are we going down the old “Only a believer can understand the Bible?” road now? Please tell me we are, because I love that argument.

I am sure that if you read any polytheistic writings the way that you read Christian writings you would find intolerance of Others (whether or not these Others are differentiated according to religious view or according to some other criteria).

I’ll just let Jan Assmann speak here:

Does not every religion quite automatically put everything outside itself in the position of error and falsehood and look down on other religions as “paganism”? Is this not quite simply the religious expression of ethnocentricity? Does not the distinction between true and false in reality amount to nothing other than the distinction between “us” and “them”? Does not every construction of identity by the very sane process generate alterity? Does not every religion produce “pagans” in the same way that every civilization generates “barbarians”?

However plausible this may seem, it is not the case. Cultures not only generate otherness by constructing identity, but also develop techniques of translation. We have to distinguish here between the “real other,” who is always ther beyond the individual and independent of the individual’s constructions of selfhood and otherhood, and the ”constructed other,” who is the shadow of the individual’s identity…

He goes on to  argue that polytheism (which he calls cosmotheism) functioned as a means of translation between cultures, translating across cultural and ethnic barriers.

The Mosaic distinction was therefore a radically new distinction which considerably changed the world in which it was drawn. The space which was “severed or cloven” by this distinction was not simply the space of religion in general, but that of a very specific kind of religion. We may call this new type of religion “counter-religion” because it rejects and repudiates everything that went before and what is outside itself as “paganism.”It no longer functioned as a means of intercultural translation; on the contrary, it functioned as a means of intercultural estrangement…the new counter-religion blocked intercultural translatability. False gods cannot be translated.[16]

I would like you to prove that all polytheisms have been perfectly tolerant to all Others. After all, your silence suggests that you deny my claim that polytheists do not escape the dark, intolerant side of human nature.

I would like you to prove that polytheism is intolerant; prove Jan Assmann wrong. The Pope tried (Truth and Tolerance, 2004) but he failed. Maybe you can do better but you’ll have to try harder than this. You have yet to done so, unless I am expected to take your word for it, that such is the case. I’m sure you can understand in light of the mountains of scholarship to the contrary, if I decline to do so.  I have provided you with evidence; you have offered me nothing in return. The burden of proof is not on me, but on you. I have offered not only these two posts, but every post I’ve published here since 2005, and all the sources I’ve cited in that space.

I would also like to know what silence you speak of? I have answered you in some depth; I am unaware of any gulf of silence.

I have made an argument that polytheism is by its very nature tolerant. It does not construct others (as Assmann said, you must distinguish between “real” and “constructed” others. The Greeks and Romans saw people as barbarians but this was not a religious distinction. They saw an unreasoning fear of the divine as superstition, but they did not treat these people like monotheists treat Pagans.

Your final point is not even part of the equation. I have nowhere argued that polytheist do not commit crimes. Criminal activity, the “dark side of human nature” has always existed, and it exists just fine outside of the religious spectrum. And as I said, you might claim the Romans were intolerant because they laughed at Egyptian religion, but they didn’t exterminate it, did they? One guess who did? (and that answer will be the same for who exterminated Roman religion – and all other ancient religions, and indeed, every indigenous ethnic religion in Europe and the Middle East and many in Africa, South America and in other parts of the world. Just one guess Go ahead.

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[1] R. Joseph Hoffmann, ed. The Just War and Jihad: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, & Islam (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006), 10-11. Among this god’s enemies are, as Hoffmann identifies this group’s composition, “a blend of idolaters, foreigners, sorcerers, heretics, homosexuals, drunken sons, dismissed wives, disobedient slaves, and above all the catch-all remainder of ‘those who do not do his will.’”

[2] Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain, 18, 63.

[3] Maurice Sartre, The Middle East Under Rome, 103.

[4] Leonard Victor Rutgers, “Roman Policy towards the Jews: Expulsions from the City of Rome during the First Century C.E.,” Classical Antiquity 13 (1994), 58.

[5] F.W. Madden, History of Jewish Coinage (London: Bernard Quartich, 1864), 135.

[6] See David M. Jacobson, “Herod the Great Shows His True Colors,” Near Eastern Archaeology 64 (2001), 100-104. As Jacobson states in relation to the cap of the Dioscuri, “such an image might have been offensive to the Jews.”

[7] Tessa Rajak, “Was there a Roman Charter for the Jews?” JRS 74 (1984), 107; cf. Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 399.

[8] For the example of Cyrenaica see Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky, “M. Tittius Sex.f. Aem. And the Jews of Berenice (Cyrenaica),” The American Journal of Philology 108 (1987), 495-510.

[9] It has been demonstrated that sacrifices in the Imperial Cult were generally made on behalf of rather than to the emperor. See S.R.F. Price, “Between Man and God: Sacrifice in the Roman Imperial Cult,” The Journal of Roman Studies 70 (1980), 28-43. For this reason, the Jews had no difficulty accommodating the needs of the Empire just as they had in the past accommodated other foreign rulers. They simply prayed to their God to watch out for the emperor rather than to the gods of the State; the Romans, quite sensibly, were also satisfied with the arrangement since there was no rejection of YHWH implicit in polytheism. Claims that the Jews (or Christians, for that matter) were required to worship the emperor miss the mark.

[10] The warning inscriptions would have been difficult to miss: They were inscribed in Greek and Latin in red-painted letters on white limestone. Discovered by Clermont-Ganneau in 1871, the inscribed stone reads: “No foreigner may enter the forecourt beyond the barrier rail around the sanctuary; Anyone who is caught will have himself to blame for his own death.” See Elias J. Bickerman, “The Warning Inscription of Herod’s Temple,” JQR 37 (1947), 387-405. Bickerman compares similar inscriptions found at Pagan temples and notes that “The pagan visitor of the Temple however was shut out not because his hands or his heart were unclean but because he was an alien.”

[11] Rajak, 107.

[12] Jerry F. Daniel, “Anti-Semitism in the Hellenistic-Roman Period,” JBL 98 (1979), 45-65.

[13] Rajak, 115.

[14] Rutgers, “Roman Policy,” 58-59.

[15] Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1987), 123.

[16] Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian (Harvard University Press, 1997), 2-3.

(I am taking the time to respond at length to the objections of a commenter identified as “Scholar” – please see my previous post, “The Myopic Christian” for the background – Hrafnkell)

In response to this post, one could equally well write another called “The Myopic Polytheist”. It takes a certain kind of blindness of history and human nature to even suggest that all Christians (and-it seems-only Christians) are intolerant to all other religious forms.

In fairness, I have never said all Christians (or only Christians) are intolerant. This is, however, a response I get frequently. I should be used by now to having words put in my mouth but it still grates. If you are going to accuse me of something, please do me the courtesy of accusing me over something I did say, and not something you imagined or pretend I said.

Indeed, I carefully cite my sources when I write – if it is an opinion piece you will see that it is categorized as such – but even then I do not simply make things up. I carefully research and I speak from three decades of experience as a polytheist and before that an upbringing as a Lutheran (ELCA) – from birth to age 22.

You choose one particular form of religious fanaticism-this one in a Christian guise-and extend it to an entire religion. This is the same tactic that fanatics and blind people of all religious/political/etc. ideologies use.

I do not know if you are talking about this single post or a series of posts or articles by me when you say this. With regards to the former, I spoke specifically of Mr. Douthat and those who think like him – there was no blanket condemnation of Christians made or implied.

In the latter case, I have made abundantly clear my own opinion of Christianity in general – that it is, as I said, “the solution for a problem that does not exist.” I won’t go into all of my arguments here in this limited context – you are welcome to search my blog for the relevant posts. Suffice it to say, I do not think highly of Christianity and I think it offers nothing that has not already been offered in one form or another (and without the accompanying levels of intolerance).

As for specific Christians and/or groups of Christians, I identify these when addressing the topic in question. You might look specifically at my “Christianity As a Hate Group” (parts I and II) in this regard.

Finally, Christianity’s history of intolerance speaks for itself. I recommend you visit this page and provide me with a like page of Paganism’s intolerance:  The Genocide of Polytheism (4th to 9th Centuries CE)

I know plenty of Christians who find to be abhorrent precisely the same things which are disgusting you (and me for that matter) and who are absolutely welcoming and tolerant of other religions.

I have made abundantly clear in previous posts that I do not consider all Christians the same.  My family back in Minnesota is Christian and most of my friends have been Christian. Again, you are putting words in my mouth and then condemning them.

The group which you refer to as Christians are neither good Christians nor the norm amongst Christians.

I’m sorry, but this won’t do. This is an old excuse and I’m quite frankly tired of seeing it trotted out. The crimes committed by Christianity since the fourth century cannot be wished away by simply waving a magic wand and pronouncing that none of those criminals were Christians or by claiming that they were not good Christians or not the norm. They were, and it can be argued that they were doing precisely what Christianity demands of them (think back to that nasty “Great Commission” put into Jesus’ mouth). Catholics and Protestants both have been guilty of terrible crimes – genocide, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide…the list is quite long and there is plenty of blame to go around. And all too often their behavior was the norm. As recently as colonial America – shortly before the Revolution, Christians were doing all sorts of nasty things – and they all considered it “the norm” – as they indeed should when the entire colony in question is composed of like-minded Christians.

You would do well to get to know the fear and frustration that these fanatics are experiencing and which are shaping their narrow-minded perspective: namely, they dream of religious, political and economic ideals which are mutually contradictory and, since they are unable to confront these contradictions, they need to find scapegoats.

There are many reasons these people are acting like they do. Part of it is their religious tradition – and monotheism itself, which is generally intolerant by its very nature. By pretending to have sole possession of some capital-T truth, everyone else gets labeled the “other.” I recommend the writings of Jan Assmann in this regard, among others – Moses the Egyptian (Harvard University Press, 1997) is a good place to start.

If you go back to the “Old” Testament to which nearly all Christians treat as scripture, and the terrible crimes portrayed there…you can see where it all begins. The entire “Old” Testament is an anti-Pagan diatribe, a rejection of everything polytheism holds dear. Jesus was no more tolerant even if he did not slaughter people. He considered Gentiles (that’s you AND me) to be swine, a typical attitude of his time. The promise of both Judaism AND Christianity (the end-time scenario) calls for all nonbelievers to be eradicated in genocide such as the world has never known. Anyone who believes this (or wants it) is guilty of intolerance and much else besides.

It would be more instructive to look to these factors rather than to the religion itself for the source of this fanatical response.

As I said above, there are many reasons for the fanatical response – including simple reaction to increasing marginalization and a sense of disenfranchisement by the white, uneducated or poorly educated base that see their days of privilege coming to an end. But the basis of the religion itself is also at fault, as I also pointed out above. To simply ignore these reasons, or to pretend they aren’t relevant, is absurd.

Christianity, properly understood and practiced is perfectly capable of intolerance, just as it capable of the most horrible intolerance when infused with human egoism. I suggest that the same dual possibilities exist for all religions practiced by human beings – it would be absurd to think that polytheists and followers of other religious traditions are incapable of tolerance. If you do not recognize this, then I suggest you consider your own tradition a little more closely.

I included a link above which lists acts of Christian intolerance for just five centuries. It is quite lengthy – and also quite incomplete. I’m sorry to disabuse you of your notions, but you won’t find any such list of polytheistic intolerance. As Jan Assmann says, polytheism was a means of translation between cultures, an ecumene of nations. It translated across cultural barriers. Monotheism (all monotheisms) builds barriers. And everyone outside of that particular monotheism becomes the “other.” People fought for a lot of reasons in the polytheistic world, but they did not have crusades, inquisitions and wholesale genocide of peoples on religious grounds.  And contrary to popularly-held belief, the Pagan Roman government did not persecute Christians. The only real episode that can be identified historically is that of Diocletian’s reign and we have no idea what transpired, or why it transpired, because all our sources are biased (i.e. Christian).

I suggest that you study history a little more closer before you proceed.

We can argue about what intolerance is and what forms it takes, but polytheistic governments did not care what gods were worshiped. All gods existed; there was no “my god is better than your god” or “your god doesn’t exist” or “I’m going force you to believe in my god.” The Romans might have thought Egyptian polytheism was ridiculous but you will notice they never tried to exterminate it. You can’t make this claim about Christianity – which did exterminate it (and Roman religion too).

And keep in mind that many of these horrible people are Saints today. Keep in mind also that anti-Paganism is just as present in the New Testament as the Old and is trumpeted from pulpits across the world every Sunday (and nobody bats an eye or objects – none did in my old church or in any other I’ve heard of).

A multitude of polytheistic religions existed in the ancient world and nobody was trying to exterminate all others. Sadly, you can’t make this claim about Christianity, which is still trying to change the religion of others even today. Do you know any churches that don’t support missionary activity, or who take objection to such activity? It’s cultural genocide, pure and simple. Proselyting ought to be illegal.

As for Islam and Judaism, I discuss these when and where appropriate. By no means are other forms of monotheism innocent. But rest assured, monotheism is the problem, and polytheism is the answer to a question that does exist. Because true religion is religion that works – for those who follow it. There my truth is found, not in some pretense of universalism.

Exciting news from Alexandria:  They have pulled a pylon of the temple of Isis from the harbor, where it ended up after earthquakes in the fourth century. The pylon is red granite from quarries in Aswan, 700 miles south of Alexandria. It is a single slab weighing 9 tons and it is 7.4 feet tall. It once stood at the entrance to the temple of Isis, next to Cleopatra’s palace, and is going to be used now as the centerpiece of an underwater museum being built to showcase the sunken city.

We are told that the pylon ” is the first major artifact extracted from the harbor since 2002, when authorities banned further removal of major artifacts from the sea for fear it would damage them.”

In recent years, excavators have discovered dozens of sphinxes in the harbor, along with pieces of what is believed to be the Alexandria Lighthouse, or Pharos, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

“The tower is unique among Alexandria’s antiquities, we believe it was part of the complex surrounding Cleopatra’s palace,” Egypt’s top archaeologist Zahi Hawass said, as the crane gently placed the pylon on the harbor bank. “This is an important part of Alexandria’s history and it brings us closer to knowing more about the ancient city.”

The palace and other buildings and monuments now lay strewn on the seabed in the harbor of Alexandria, the second largest city of Egypt. Since 1994, archaeologists have been exploring the ruins, one of the richest underwater excavations in the Mediterranean, with some 6,000 artifacts. Another 20,000 objects are scattered off other parts of Alexandria’s coast, said Ibrahim Darwish, head of the city’s underwater archaeology department.

Hawass has already launched another high-profile dig connected to Cleopatra. In April, he said he hopes to find the long-lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra — and that he believes it may be inside a temple of Osiris located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Alexandria.

I’ve just finished upgrading the Mos Maiorum site (http://www.mosmaiorum.org) and I hope you’ll all drop by to have a look!

“Bottom line is Christmas is about Christmas,” said Erin Ryan, president of the Redding Tea Party Patriots. “That’s why we have it. It’s not about winter solstice or Kwanzaa. It’s like, ‘wow you guys, it’s called Christmas for a reason.’ “[1]

Of course, Erin Ryan is wrong. What Christmas is about, for Christians, is something called “normative inversion.”

Take the picture on the left. This is Sol Invictus (the “Unconquered Sun”). You may not know about him if you’re not a Pagan. He is a victim of normative inversion.

You won’t have to look hard on the Web to find pictures of Sol Invictus being used on Christian sites to represent Jesus. Pagans will understand why this is; Christians may not. It’s all in the spiky halo-thingie, called a “radiate crown” – it belonged to Sol before it was stolen for Jesus.

We’re all of us in the Western World familiar with the old saying, “The Reason for the Season.” And we all know what a certain segment of society says this means. Bonnie Ricks, writing for the Christian Post, says in unequivocal terms:

As we near the time of Christmas, we see the decorations going up. the people madly shopping for gifts. the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. Now is the time to stop and reflect just why we really celebrate this time. As Christians, we are the only ones who know the real meaning of Christmas and why it is a time of celebration and what that celebration means to all who will believe. If there were no Jesus, there would be no Christmas.[2]

She is as wrong as Erin Ryan is, but her message is hardly unique. It is commonplace and can be found repeated almost anywhere Christians gather. It reaches absurd levels when repeated by conservative talk-show hosts like Bill O’Reilly. But not everyone is fooled. As Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post writes,

Bill O’Reilly has been, on a yearly basis, one of the most fervent and shrill public figures, wailing about the supposed War On Christmas, because he is precisely dumb enough to believe that Christianity, which has enjoyed an unprecedented run of absolute, total success in the United States – such that every single person who’s run the country has been a Christian (and such that it’s the only religious holiday in the world that’s allowed to put their decorations up TWO MONTHS IN ADVANCE) – is actually fundamentally threatened each time a shop clerk opts to say “Happy Holidays.” O’Reilly likes to cast himself as some sort of speaker of truth to power, but it’s really all about his pinheaded sense of victimhood.[3]

These same Christians repeatedly talk about “restoring the true meaning of Christmas” as though it has been lost. But what is Christmas? It just happens to be the twenty-fifth day of December that was chosen by fourth century Christians to be a very special birthday celebration, , that of the man chosen by them to be called the divine son (of the once Northwestern Arabian and now Jewish God) YHWH.[4]

But it’s not like the ancient world was not full of divine beings. The ancients were polytheists after all. And divine birthdays were not unknown. A notable one, and one which already happened to lay claim to this particular day, was that of Mithras, a solar god out of Persia who had come to be worshiped in particular by the Roman army. Mithras came to be associated with the ancient Roman sun god and December 25th, the date of the Winter Solstice, was the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or “the birthday of the unconquered sun.”

Some Christians today are challenging this fact, including the reactionary new Pope, Benedict XVI, who claims that a December 25th date was determined simply by calculating nine months beyond March 25th, regarded as the day of Jesus’ conception (the Feast of the Annunciation).[5]

Other Christian commentators are even advancing the claim that Pagans stole Christmas from the Christians! Christian revisionism is nothing new (the Bible, after all, is one gigantic work of revisionism) but for the Pagans to have stolen the date of December 25th would be to argue not only that somebody had heard of Christianity before the third century (few had) but that the entirely of past Pagan history had never occurred. Thinking in a vacuum is not likely to provide sound explanations.[6]

Not only were Mithraists not the only Pagans to hold this time of year sacred but we have the testimony of Christians themselves as to why Pagan holy days were appropriated, the process spoken of above called “normative inversion”: “The most efficient way to erase a memory is to superimpose a countermemory; hence, the best way to make people forget an idolatrous rite is to replace it with another rite.” Maimonides (1135-1204), the medieval Jewish scholar who lived in both Spain and Egypt and who wrote in Arabic, illustrated the principle in his Guide of the Perplexed, and as Assman notes, “The Christians followed the same principle when they built their churches on the ruins of pagan temples and observed their feasts on the dates of pagan festivals.”

This was justified in their eyes because idolatry is an epidemic which must be cured. John Spencer (1630-1693) agreed with Maimonides “in seeing the principle and overall purpose of the Law as the destruction of idolatry.”[7] Susan Roll writes, repeating the old maxim, “History is written by the victors: the position prevailed will be recorded for all time as the normative version.”[8] It is this normative version that today’s Christians are so vociferously defending.

The Christians, of course, recognized this. We have the testimony of Dionysius Bar-Salibi, twelfth century bishop of Amida, for example:

The reason, then, why the fathers of the church moved the January 6th celebration [of Epiphany] to December 25th was this, they say: it was the custom of the pagans to celebrate on this same December 25th the birthday of he Sun, and they lit lights then to exalt the day, and invited and admitted the Christian to these rites. When, therefore, the teachers of the church saw that Christians inclined to this custom, figuring out a strategy, they set the celebration of the true Sunrise on this day, and ordered Epiphany to be celebrated on January 6th; and this usage they maintain to the present day along with the lighting of the lights.

As Ramsay MacMullen remarks, “By similar inventions other popular pagan celebrations were directly confronted with a Christian challenge.” [9]

More telling, perhaps, is another example. In Egypt and Arabia Pagan processions carried an image of the sun in the image of a newborn child, while priests chanted “Korah [Kore], the virgin, has given birth to Aion!” (Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.18, 9). Glen Bowersock, somehow, comes to the unusual conclusion that this is a sign of Christian influence (Christianity wishes it had been so influential!).

But unfortunately for apologists and Pope alike, January 6th was the date on Christmas was originally celebrated. And we don’t have to rely on a 12th century bishop for this fact. We can go back further, to Epiphanius (ca 310-403), who tells us so (Pan. LI.22.3-7 and 29.4-7) On around 428 CE John Cassianus (Collationes X.2) reported that Epiphany in Egypt is ‘by ancient tradition’ believed to be the time for both the baptism and the birth of Jesus.”[10] As it happens, January 6th is still Christmas Day in the Orthodox Church.

Other Christians of the day were proponents of normative inversion. Among them was Martin of Braga, author of De Correctione Rusticorum (literally, On the Castigation of Country-dwellers – the title says it all). In this work, Martin rants about people celebrating Pagan holidays as Pagans. His solution? He makes a call for the replacement of Pagan practices with Christian ones. The bishop of Javols in about the year 500 also made use of this tactic, “the transference of ritual from one religious loyalty to another” in the words of one scholar.

The greatest example we know of is that of Pope Gregory, who made normative inversion official church policy in a letter sent to England (then sliding back into Paganism) in 601. Just as holy places – lakes in particular, but also temples, could be captured, so could holy days. Christmas is the greatest of these captured days.

the temples of idols in that nation should not be destroyed, but that the idols themselves that are in them should be. Let blessed water be prepared, and sprinkled in these temples, and altars constructed, and relics deposited, since, if these same temples are well built, it is needful that they should be transferred from the worship of idols to the service of the true God; that, when the people themselves see that these temples are not destroyed, they may put away error from their heart, and, knowing and adoring the true God, may have recourse with the more familiarity to the places they have been accustomed to. And, since they are wont to kill many oxen in sacrifice to demons, they should have also some solemnity of this kind in a changed form, so that on the day of dedication, or on the anniversaries of the holy martyrs whose relics are deposited there, they may make for themselves tents of the branches of trees around these temples that have been changed into churches, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasts. Nor let them any longer sacrifice animals to the devil, but slay animals to the praise of God for their own eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all for their fulness, so that, while some joys are reserved to them outwardly, they may be able the more easily to incline their minds to inward joys. For it is undoubtedly impossible to cut away everything at once from hard hearts, since one who strives to ascend to the highest place must needs rise by steps or paces, and not by leaps.[11]

Just as holy places – lakes in particular, but also temples, could be captured, so could holy days. Christmas is the greatest of these captured days.

And the Epiphany itself, on January 6th? Again, the process of normative inversion can be seen at work: January 5/6 was observed as the date of the epiphany of Dionysus, none other than Aion himself. In Orphic circles, Phanes, the god emerging from the cosmic egg, was seen as the new Aion, who was reborn every year in a continuing cycle. Both Osiris and Adonis were also equated with Aion. And Jarl Fossum argues that the idea of virgin birth might have arrived in Alexandria in advance of Christianity.[12] Of course, there will always be doubters. Despite the not inconsiderable evidence, Susan Roll finds it possible to argue that “no historical causality can be conclusively proven.”[13]

We might ask about the divine child while we’re at it. Certainly that, at least, is original to Christianity! But wait! Fossum tells us,

The motif of the birth of the child god is quite widespread; obviously it has a great psychological appeal. The image of the newborn child symbolizes the possibilities of the future and, hence, paves the way for a change of personality. The image of the child is therefore charged with potential.[14]

And the ancient world literally abounded with divine children. We have, for example, the myth of Attis, who was the young male consort of Cybele. Having conquered death, Attis is a god of fertility, associated with the cycle of death and rebirth.

He was reborn every spring. In case there is a question of “who was there first”, Cybele came to Rome in 204 BCE (Livy, 29.14.13). This date is uncontested. So popular was this celebration that the story of Attis was being enacted in the fourth century and even under the Christian empire remained a holiday on the imperial calendar, as did Mithras’ birthday on December 25.[15] Both the idea of reborn gods and December 25th were well established in Pagan culture in the century before Jesus’ birth and both are well attested.

And what are the Christian origins of Christianity? They lie in the fourth century. There is no evidence at all of anything earlier than this, whatever claims are made to the contrary. The first mention dates from 354 in a document called the “Philocalian Calendar” (“Codex-Calendar of 354″) which incorporates material apparently going back to as early as 336.[16] In earlier times, it seems Christians were no more interested in when Jesus was born than where he was buried, a deplorable lack of curiosity that is unfortunate for scholars and believers alike today.

One noted Christian author, Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis 1.21; 145.6; 1146.4), even went so far as to say curiosity about the date of Jesus’ birth was “gratuitous curiosity.” When possible dates were mentioned, they most certainly did not include December 25th. Instead, we find mention of March 28, April 2 or 20.[17] It seems a logical conclusion to draw then that if December 25th was selected as Jesus’ birthday that it was chosen purposely to conflict or supersede the Pagan holy day. After all, if Christians either didn’t care about the date of Jesus’ birth, or if they normally put it in the spring, Pagans could hardly have stolen the idea from Christians!

December 25th received only grudging and scattered acceptance, mostly in the West, with the East resisting (December 25 is still meaningless in Armenia). In 350, Pope Julius I ordered Christmas to be celebrated on December 25. Christmas arrived on December 25th in Constantinople in 380 and it’s not until 386 that we find John Chrysostom, in Antioch, ordering Christmas to be celebrated by the Christian community there on December 25. December 25 did not come to Alexandria until 432. The Church of Jerusalem stubbornly refused to celebrate that date until the seventh century! Not only was December 25th not originally Jesus’ birthday, but when it was declared so, nobody wanted it. That, in a nutshell, is the true history of Christmas.

But skip ahead seventeen centuries and now Christians can talk about “taking back Christmas” and claim that “Jesus is the reason for the season”! We might well ask in what universe this might be true. It is certainly not true in ours, as we have shown.

And not only do some Christians challenge the validity of Christmas’ Pagan origins, some seek also to downplay it. John Baldovin:

…liturgical communities have traditionally taken the skeletal structure of the existing local liturgical cycle, the main feasts and seasons, and used them as the framework for the celebration of Christmas within their own cultures. A good example of this is the connection between the Feast of the Unconquered Sun at Rome on December 25 in the late third and early fourth centuries and the Christian celebration of Christmas. Even if the origin of this dating of Christmas may lie elsewhere than the pagan solar feast, a theory that has recently been rehabilitated, Christians did make use of the counter-symbolism of Christ the “Sun of Righteousness” for their own purposes. Such a cooptation of the pagan winter solstice and sun worship was not a betrayal of Christianity but rather the sensible adaptation of Christian faith to the existing culture. After all, if God has truly and irrevocably entered into the human condition and human history, then Christian faith can legitimately make use of the symbolism that the world provides. This insight is at the root of Christian sacramentality. To celebrate Christ, the light of the world, in the darkest days of the year – at least in the Northern hemisphere – makes a great deal of sense; it is not the survival of paganism but the recognition of God in nature and history.[18]

We’ve looked at the day. What about the ritual structure? We see where the lights come from above. We still use those, though they’ve lost their sacred meaning. And Christmas trees? Of Germanic Pagan origin – used in midwinter festivals. Of course, trees had long been used in Pagan religions. Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns the use of trees being cut down and adorned with silver and gold, and poles dedicated to YHWH’s consort, Asherah (a consort stolen from El, the Canannite god upon whom YHWH is modeled) was represented by poles. However, arguments that Jeremiah was condemning “Christmas trees” is not entirely accurate; he was condemning “idolatry.” Even so, we see where the origins of Christmas trees come from – Paganism. The tree as it came down to us via Germanic Christianity,[19] represented Yggdrasil, the World Tree, for the Germans and Norse, and it was decorated just as statues of gods and goddesses were decorated – out of devotion. This decoration of trees also took place in the Roman Saturnalia (December 17-23).

But there is more: “Two popular observances belonging to Christmas are more especially derived from the worship of our Pagan ancestors—the hanging up of the mistletoe and the burning of the Yule log.” So wrote Robert Chambers in his 1832 Book of Days, and James George Frazer in The Golden Bough holds that “the ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice appears to survive” in the Yule log custom.[20] It seems that what Christians tend to think of as the components of “their” holiday are no more Christian than the day itself. Even hymns are not originally Christian but were part of Pagan worship, as were processions (Christmas Day Parade, anyone?). And garlands? The Emperor Theodosius I took special care to mention garlands when he banned Pagan practices on November 8, 392:

“No one, under any cirumstances, is permitted to sacrifice an innocent victim nor, as a less serious sacrilege, to worship one’s lares with fire, one’s genius with uncut wine, one’s penates with perfume, to light lamps, waft incense, or hang garlands.”[21]

It seems without Pagan practices on this holiest of Pagan holidays, Christians would be without traditions of any kind.

So, we might ask, “What is the problem?” As French scholar Franz Cumont wrote in 1911, “We dislike to acknowledge a debt to our adversaries, because it means that we recognize some value in the cause they defend.”[22] But there is more to it than that. There is the issue of legitimacy. Able to disguise so much before the Enlightenment opened our eyes, Christianity has, since then, suffered from the same sense of inferiority it experienced during the Pagan era.

The simple truth is that Christianity is a derivative religion. It is syncretic and offers not a whit of anything new or original, either in its liturgy (stolen from Mithraism) nor its symbolism (god child and Christmas, as noted above), and as for moral teachings, those come from Judaism (or yes, Paganism). Much of the Jewish myth it has inherited were not even original to Judaism but derive from older, Pagan sources, including the Creation Myth and the story of the Flood – which come therefore to Christianity third-hand. In truth, the only thing Christianity has brought to the table is a rabid and unreasoning intolerance, not only to everything outside itself but quite often to forms of itself. Even Jewish sects, no matter how violently they disagreed, did not kill each other

We are living through an era of Christian reaction to the Enlightenment. It may seem delayed – and it is, in some sense – but the forces of the Enlightenment have at last succeeded in backing Christianity into a corner. Losing converts at an astounding rate, it has reacted as any group might, by striking back. There are more works of Christian apology on the market today than at any time since the second century, and the fact that Christianity feels so compelled to explain itself is evidence enough that it is treading water. Add to this a rather unhappy fact for Christians: Neo-Paganism being the fastest growing religion in the world, and modern day Pagans of whatever ethnic tradition want to take back their religion – and their holidays. Christianity could cover up the lie in an age when nobody could read and Scripture was restricted to the priesthood, but the truth can no longer be hidden.

Of course, the best way to deal with the exposure of lies is to tell yet more lies. “December 25 wasn’t really Pagan at all”; “The Pagans stole OUR holiday! Yes, that’s the ticket!” The problem with such assertions is that they have no support in the historical record. We have the words of the early Christians themselves in this regard. We know when Christmas began to be celebrated, and we know Pagans were celebrating a multitude of deities on this day for hundreds of years beforehand. We know there were other savior gods, other child gods being reborn every year.

But history and Christianity have never gotten along comfortably. Even today, Christians make some absurd assertions, easily disproven through appeal to various media. Michele Bachman (a Fundamentalist Christian) serves as an example: her well known claim that the media should investigate certain members of Congress for un-American activities was later disclaimed by her, with the explanation, “it’s an urban myth”, this despite the fact that she can be watched making that statement![23] Something as inconvenient as “fact” can have little meaning for those who live and die by ideology, whether political or religious.

However much Christians complain, they have no moral claim to Christmas. No right to be protective of it, and no rational reason to claim that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Through normative inversion, Christianity has played a trick on history. But history has caught up with the lie and an informed populace is onto the game. The reason for the season are the gods of polytheism, the cycle of death and rebirth, and a celebration of the fact that with the passing of the shortest day of the year and the rising of a new sun, renewed life is on the way.

Christians can claim that they have the “true sun” but Pagans know this for the lie it is. To return to the complaint of Mrs. Ryan above, Christmas is on December 25 because that day was too valuable to be left to Pagans – it had to be stolen, and through a process of normative inversion, remade into a Christian holy day.

This renewal of life was taking place long before any monotheist walked on the earth, and it was a joyous celebration long before Jesus was born. The reason for the season is Pagan, and always will be. To cry foul now is no different than a car thief, caught red-handed, crying that it is his car. It is not. It is our car, and we have come to take it back.

Notes:

[1] Amanda Winters, “Redding woman’s Christmas carol initiative picks up allies,” December 8, 2009, Americans United for Separation of Church and State http://www.redding.com/news/2009/dec/08/redding-womans-christmas-carol-initiative-picks/ .

[2] The Christian Post, December 3, 2008, http://christianpost.com/article/20081203/the-reason-for-the-season.htm

[3] “O’Reilly’s War on Christmas Goes Retail,” November 6, 2008. The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/06/oreillys-war-on-christmas_n_141896.html. And as Linkins points out, this is a real insult to people who actually are experiencing persecution because of their religion (Hint: that would include us Pagans).

[4]For YHWH’s origins, see J. David Schloen, “W.F. Albright and the Origins of Israel”, Near Eastern Archaeology 65 (2002), 59. This northwest Arabian origin is certainly suggested even by the Old Testament itself; Judges 5.5 and Psalms 68.8, as Lane Fox points out, “refer to him in words which probably mean the ‘One of Sinai’ See Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible (NY: Vintage Books, 1991), 53.

[5] Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 108; cf. p. 100

[6] See William J. Tighe, Calculating Christmas, 2003 and Alvin J. Schmidt, (2001), Under the Influence, HarperCollins, 377-9.

[7] Jan Assman, “The Mosaic Distinction: Israel, Egypt, and the Invention of Paganism,” 52. John Spencer, De legibus hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus, libre tres (The Hague, 1686). For a discussion of the importance of Maimonides’ explanation for idolatry see Guy G. Stroumsa, “John Spencer and the Roots of Idolatry,” History of Religions 41 (2001), 1-23. Against these apologetic notions see P.A. Février, “Natale Petri de Cathedra,” CRAI 1977, 551.

[8] Susan K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (1995), 273.

[9] Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (Yale University Press, 1997), 155, quoting from the Latin of G.S. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis Clementino-Vaticanae 2 (Rome 1721), 164.

[10] Glen Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (University of Michigan Press, 1996). Jarl Fossum, “The Myth of the Eternal Rebirth: Critical Notes on G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity,” Vigiliae Christianae 53 (1999), 307. Fossum, 313, argues that “it is palpable that Bowersock is too quick in finding Christian influence in religious evidence from late antiquity.” Aion as Eternity exists in Stoic, Aristotelian and Platonic thought.

[11] Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion. From Paganism to Christianity (University of California Press, 1997), 49, 53-54, 254. Pope Gregory to Mellitus, Abbot in France, 601 CE. As Fletcher observes, “Thus could traditional ritual places and activities be çaptured’by the transfer of ritual allegiances.”

[12] Fossum, 311, points out that “There was a tradition to the effect that Hera renewed her virginity every year by bathing in the spring of Canthus (Pausanias II.36.2).”

[13] Susan K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (1995), 33.

[14] Fossum, 314.

[15] Michele Renee Salzman, “The Representation of April in the Calendar of 354,” American Journal of Archaeology 88 (1984), 46-47.

[16 The Philocalian Calendar also mentions “December 25th "N·INVICTI·CM·XXX" - "Birthday of the unconquered, games ordered, thirty races.” For an online copy of the document see Tertullian.org, http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#Chronography_of_354

[17] Friedrich Solmsen, “George A. Wells on Christmas in Early New Testament Criticism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 31 (1970), 278.

[18] John Baldovin, “The Liturgical Year – Calendar For a Just Community,” 104. Cited in Roll (1995), 56.

[19] For which see James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994).

[20] Chambers book is available in an online edition through Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=K0UJAAAAIAAJ. Frazier, The Golden Bough, 736. Frazier’s book is available online at Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3623

[21]Pierre Chuvin, A Chonicle of the Last Pagans, tr. by B.A. Archer (Harvard University Press, 1990), 1-2.

[22] Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (New York: Dover, 1956 [1911]), xvii.

[23] Thanks to YouTube, her original comments can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bT01mC9xSA. Her denial that she made those comments can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Exo7sWvIg

(I posted this last year and I am posting it again this year – it will likely be a yearly celebration of my own so I hope you will bear with me. This article has undergone a brief update based on recent news and I reserve the right to continually update it. Call it my own “Star Wars.” And now, without further ado, in honor of the gods and of the true reason for the season, I make you this offering – Hrafnkell)

Addendum 12.17.09: Please see this article at Americans United (www.au.org), How the Religious Right Stole Christmas, for another take on this story.