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THE GINGER JAR

THE GINGER JAR

Monthly Archives: December 2012

Ginger Jar Attractions in 2012

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, Museums, Religion & Observances, Words & Definitions

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Tags

Bible, Christ, Christianity, Jesus, mite, parable, synagogue, Widow’s Mite

Given below are the most viewed articles of this blog in 2012. All of them were written in a year other than 2012. Why is that? Search me. Although I might have some inkling on some of them. Here is how it boils down:

Attractions in 2012

These are the posts that got the most views in 2012.

  • 1 National Gallery: ‘Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey’ opens at the National Gallery 0 comments February 2010
  • 2 Futon – Word Origin 0 comments January 2007
  • 3 History of the Medjool Date 1 comment October 2008
  • 4 Hooliganism – Origin of Word 0 comments December 2006
  • 5 Lesson of the Widow’s Mite 0 comments November 2006

Two favorite articles are about words. I believe people are always curious about words and where they come from, as witness the futon and hooliganism.

Another article is about the history of the Medjool date. People like things that seem exotic – even if it is just about a date.

The blog of February 2010 is about a painting on “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” in the National Gallery in London, England. Now that DOES puzzle me.

A bronze mite, also known as a Lepton (meaning small), minted by Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judaea, 103 - 76 B.C. obverse: the blooming lotus scepter of ancient Egypt in circle, reverse: star of eight rays.

A bronze mite, also known as a Lepton (meaning small), minted by Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judaea, 103 – 76 B.C. obverse: the blooming lotus scepter of ancient Egypt in circle, reverse: star of eight rays.

Now, the fourth and final favorite is the Lesson of the Widow’s Mite. This is a powerful story related by Jesus, as illustrated in the Synoptic Gospels of Mark 12:41-44, and Luke 21:1-4.

This story is about tithing as practiced in the Holy Land during Christ’s lifetime. In it, Jesus relates how he was witnessing the donations made by rich men into the donation box at the synagogue. Jesus relates how a poor widow donates but two mites, the lowest coinage of the realm. But, Christ highlights how these two small coins are all the widow has to give, whereas the wealthy gave but a small sum relative to their great wealth. Because of this blog’s popularity I can only surmise people are very curious about what Christianity has to say about the rich and the poor. I may write more upon this subject at a later date.

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Word Definitions: Funny-Sounding and Interesting Words

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Words & Definitions

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Bumfuzzle, catty-corner, Cattywampus, dialect, Merriam-Webster, Word

I sometimes come across words that are funny-sounding. I can only define these words as those that pretty much are as spoken. What the heck is “cattywampus?” What is “bumfuzzle?” I must admit that the former is more familiar to me than the latter. Here are their definitions. Enjoy!

Cattywampus

Definition:

dialect : askew, awry, kitty-corner

Example:

“The points … where [the two grids] would meet became Broadway and Colfax Ave. which is why to this day downtown Denver sits catty-wampus to the rest of the city.” – Francis J. Pierson and Dennis J. Gallagher, Getting to Know Denver: Five Fabulous Walking Tours, 2006

About the Word:

Long ago English gamblers called the four-dotted side of a die cater (from the French quatre, “four”). The placement of those four dots suggested two diagonal lines, which is likely how cater came to mean (dialectally, anyway) “to place, move, or cut across diagonally.”

Catercorner (later kitty-corner) (author aside: catty-corner is how I recall it) and caterwampus –and eventually cattywampus – followed.

Bumfuzzle

Definition:

confuse; perplex; fluster

Example:

“Irish can bumfuzzle any team” – headline about the Notre Dame “Fighting Irish” football team, Chicago Tribune, October 27, 2002

About the Word:

Bumfuzzle may have begun as dumfound, which was then altered first into dumfoozle and then into bumfoozle. Dumfound (or dumbfound) remains a common word today, but bumfuzzle unfortunately is extremely rare.

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-funny-sounding-and-interesting-words/cattywampus.html#Flf10M7A7BcZ9h6h.99

 

 

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The Twelve Days of Christmas

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, History, Music, Religion & Observances

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Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christmas, Christmas Day, Christmas Season, Epiphany, Fruit of the Holy Spirit, Holy Family, Holy Innocents, Most Holy Name of Jesus, Mother of God, Old Testament, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Saint John, Saint John Neumann, Saint Stephen, Saint Thomas Becket, Season of Feasts, Spiritual gift, The Christmas Song, Three French Hens, Twelve Days of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Twelve Days of Christmas: The Christmas Song

Everybody knows what the Twelve Days of Christmas are, right? After all, we’ve been singing the Christmas song since we were old enough to talk:

On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

As the song progresses, the lucky recipient piles up gifts, each day receiving what he or she received the day before, as well as a new item—or rather items, since the generous giver pegs the quantity of his gifts to the number of the days of Christmas:

  • Two turtledoves
  • Three French hens
  • Four collie birds (blackbirds; often mispronounced as “calling birds”)
  • Five golden rings
  • Six geese a-laying
  • Seven swans a-swimming
  • Eight maids a-milking
  • Nine ladies dancing
  • Ten lords a-leaping
  • Eleven pipers piping
  • Twelve drummers drumming

The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Catholic Catechism?

But wait! There’s more. In 1995, Fr. Hal Stockert, a Byzantine Catholic priest from Granville, New York, published a short piece on the website of the Catholic Information Network entitled The Twelve Days of Christmas: An Underground Catechism. Father Stockert claimed that the “delightful nonsense rhyme set to music . . . had a quite serious purpose when it was written.” Referring to the years 1558-1829, when the practice of Catholicism was officially outlawed in England, Father Stockert claimed to have uncovered evidence that “‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ was written in England as one of the ‘catechism songs’ to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith.” Each of the gifts, Father Stockert declared, represented one of the truths of the Catholic Faith:

  • 1 patridge in a pear tree = Jesus Christ, the Son of God
  • 2 turtledoves = the Old and New Testaments
  • 3 French hens = the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity
  • 4 calling birds = the four gospels and/or the four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)
  • 5 golden rings = the first five books of the Old Testament
  • 6 geese a-laying = the six days of creation
  • 7 swans a-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and/or the seven sacraments
  • 8 maids a-milking = the Eight Beatitudes
  • 9 ladies dancing = the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
  • 10 lords a-leaping = the Ten Commandments
  • 11 pipers piping = the 11 faithful disciples (minus Judas, who betrayed Christ)
  • 12 drummers drumming = the 12 points of doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed

There’s only one problem: As David Emery, the About.com Guide to Urban Legends, explains in Is ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ an Underground Catechism Song?, Father Stockert had no evidence to back up his claims. As Father Stockert correctly notes, “to be caught with anything in *writing* indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could not only get you imprisoned, it could get you hanged, or shortened by a head—or hanged, drawn and quartered,” yet almost all of the points of doctrine that young Catholic children supposedly needed “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to help them memorize were shared with the Anglican Church. Moreover, there are glaring errors in Father Stockert’s list: He uses the mistaken “calling birds,” which matches up much more nicely with the four evangelists than the correct “collie birds” does; and the Catholic Church recognizes 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit, not nine.

For more information on why we can be sure “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was not an “underground catechism song,” see David Emery’s article and a similar piece (though with additional information) at Snopes.com. Called to document his claims, and finding himself unable to do so, Father Stockert himself eventually added a P.S. to his article:

P.S. It has come to our attention that this tale is made up of both fact and fiction. Hopefully it will be accepted in the spirit it was written. As an encouragement to people to keep their faith alive, when it is easy, and when any outward expressions of their faith could mean their life. Today there are still people living under similar conditions, may this tale give them courage, and determination to use any creative means at their disposal to keep their faith alive.

The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Season of Feasts

Despite Father Stockert’s own acknowledgment of his mistake, years later Catholics in the United States (in particular) continue to spread this urban legend every Christmas season, and well-intentioned priests and parish secretaries dutifully reprint it in their parish bulletins. While little harm (other than the perpetuation of historical misinformation) is likely to come from the “Twelve Days of Christmas” myth, it would be better to use that space in the bulletin to encourage parishioners to celebrate the real Twelve Days of Christmas—the period between Christmas Day and Epiphany, in which we celebrate some of the most important, interesting, and spiritual symbolic feasts of the entire liturgical year.

You can find a list of those feasts below, along with links to learn more about each feast.

1. The First Day of Christmas: Christmas Day
2. The Second Day of Christmas: Saint Stephen, Deacon and Martyr
3. The Third Day of Christmas: Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
4. The Fourth Day of Christmas: The Holy Innocents
5. The Fifth Day of Christmas: St. Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr
6. The Sixth Day of Christmas: The Holy Family
7. The Seventh Day of Christmas: Saint Silvester I, Pope
8. The Eighth Day of Christmas: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
9. The Ninth Day of Christmas: Ss. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops
10. The Tenth Day of Christmas: The Most Holy Name of Jesus
11. The Eleventh Day of Christmas: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
12. The Twelfth Day of Christmas: Twelfth Night; St. John Neumann, Bishop

More on Christmas

  • Christmas
  • Is Christmas a Holy Day of Obligation?
  • Christmas Messages From Your Catholicism Guide

Christmas Resources

  • When Should You Put Up Your Christmas Tree?
  • When Should You Take Down Your Christmas Tree?
  • Prayer for the Feast of Christmas

Must Reads

  • Prayers Every Catholic Child Should Know
  • Catholic Liturgical Calendar 2012
  • Catholicism 101
  • Getting Married in the Catholic Church
  • Why Do Catholics Pray to Saints?

Scott P. Richert

Scott P. Richert
Catholicism Guide

 

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The Apparition of Mary to Caesar Augustus at Christmas

25 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Authors, Books, Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, History, Religion & Observances

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Altar of the Firstborn of God, Apparition of Mary, Ara Primogeniti Dei, Basilica of Saint Mary of the Altar of Heaven, Basilica Sanctae Mariae de Ara Coeli, Blessed Virgin Mary, Caesar Augustus, Christians, Christmas, Church of Saint Maria, Constantine the Great, Jews of Rome, Nativity, Pope Saint Callixtus I, Rome, Saint Bede the Venerable, Tiburtine Sybil, Trastevere

Posted by Dr. Taylor Marshall

The Roman reign of Caesar Augustus was an era of peace, prosperity, and felicity. Augustus took an imperial census during this era of peace, at which time he closed the temple of Janus for the third time, in the fortieth year of his reign. The Prince of Peace would be born into this historical parenthesis of peace. According to Saint Bede the Venerable, “A lover of peace, He would be born in a time of the most profound quiet. And there could be no plainer indication of peace than that a census should be taken of the whole world, whose master Augustus was, having reigned at the time of Christ’s nativity for some twelve years in the greatest peace, war being lulled to sleep throughout all the world.”[i]

Tradition holds that Caesar Augustus learned from the oracle of the Tiburtine Sybil that a Hebrew child would silence all the oracles of the Roman gods. Tradition also records that the Blessed Virgin Mary, holding the Christ Child in her arms, appeared to Caesar Augustus on the Capital Hill. Augustus recognized that this vision corresponded to the oracle concerning the Hebrew child. In response to this apparition of Mary and Jesus, Augustus built an altar in the Capitol in honor of this child with the title Ara Primogeniti Dei, meaning “Altar of the Firstborn of God.” Over three hundred years later, the Christian emperor Constantine the Great built a church at this location of the apparition and altar, which is called Basilica Sanctae Mariae de Ara Coeli, meaning “Basilica of Saint Mary of the Altar of Heaven.”[ii]

If one visits the church today, he will observe murals of Caesar Augustus and of the Tiburtine Sibyl painted on either side of the arch above the high altar. These images recall the oracle, which prophesied the advent of the Hebrew “Firstborn of God.” In the fifteenth century, this church became famous for a statue of the Christ Child carved from olive wood taken from the Garden of Gethsemane outside Jerusalem. The church’s connection to the birth of Christ made it a fitting place for devotion to the infancy of the Savior.

Meanwhile in the Jewish district of Rome, on the day of Christ’s nativity, a fountain of oil flowed out from the earth in the tavern of a certain man in what is today called Trastevere—the region south of the Vatican and to the west of the Tiber River. This fountain of oil revealed to the Jews of Rome that the Messiah had at last been born, since Messiah or Christ means “anointed with oil.” To this very day, the Church of Saint Maria in Trastevere marks the location. The Emperor Septimius Severus, who reigned from A.D. 193 to 211, granted the location to the Christians. In A.D. 220, Pope Saint Callixtus I established the site as a church, and his relics still remain under the church’s high altar. The church has been rebuilt several times and can still be visited to this very day. There are just a couple of interesting connections between Christ and Rome.

This post is derived from Dr. Taylor Marshall’s brand new book: The Eternal City: Rome & the Origins of Catholic Christianity. Please continue reading here.

Available in paperback and Kindle:


[i] Quoted by Cornelius a Lapide in his Commentary on Luke at Luke 2:1.

[ii] This tradition is confirmed by Baronius, citing Suidas, Nicephorus, and others, in the materials of his Annals.

source URL: http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-apparition-of-mary-to-caesar.html?m=1

The Real Saint Nicholas

23 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, History, Religion & Observances

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bishop of Myra, Christianity, Christmas, Jesus, Lycia, Mary, Myra, Nicholas, Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, St. Nick

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Espera...

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Esperanto: Patro Kristnasko kaj malgranda knabino Suomi: Joulupukki ja pieni tyttö (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My Take: The Christmas message of the real St. Nicholas

Editor’s note: Adam C. English is author of “The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of St. Nicholas of Myra” (Baylor University Press, 2012) and associate professor of religion at Campbell University.

By Adam C. English, Special to CNN

Four years ago, I embarked on a quest to discover the truth about Santa Claus and the original St. Nicholas. My search took me many places, sending me finally across the Atlantic to Bari, on Italy’s Adriatic coast.
The old town of Bari is a brambly, medieval maze of streets and alleyways that cross and crisscross. It is said that the city was intentionally constructed in a topsy-turvy way so that anyone trying to raid it would get swallowed and lost in its labyrinth. If you keep wandering, though, eventually you pop out onto a plaza and see the Basilica di San Nicola.
And there, in a gray tomb, lies the “real” Santa Claus. The basilica housing that tomb dates to the 11th century. You can go into the basilica and pray, rest or just gawk, but the real show lies below.
Down dark steps you will enter a candle-lit crypt, built in 1089, supported by 26 marble columns. Through a grate you will see a large marble and concrete tomb, St Nicholas’ final resting place.
Little is known for certain about the life of Nicholas, whose name means “the people’s champion.” He was born sometime after the year 260 and died sometime after 333.
He was bishop of the church in Myra in what was then the Roman province of Lycia, Asia Minor. He attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 with the other bishops of the Christian empire, where he would have seen the Emperor Constantine.
Perhaps he would have slipped into obscurity as nothing more than a minor saint – originally he was a patron saint of sailors – except for one unique story that circulated about him shortly after his death.
It’s such a strange and surprising tale that historians assume it must be based to a large
degree on fact. It is the tale of three poor daughters.
Nicholas had been aware of a certain citizen of Patara – in Lycia, modern-day Turkey – who had once been an important and wealthy man of the city but who had fallen on hard times and into extreme poverty. The man grew so desperate that he lacked the very essentials of life.
The poor man reasoned that it was impossible to marry off his three beautiful daughters because they lacked dowries for proper marriages to respectable noblemen. He feared they would each in turn be forced into prostitution to support themselves.
Nicholas heard this heartbreaking news and resolved to do something about it. He bagged a sum of gold and in the dead of night, tossed it through the man’s window. The money was used as a dowry for the first daughter.
Sometime later, Nicholas made a second nighttime visit so that the second daughter might marry. Later tradition reported that, finding the windows closed, he dropped the bag of gold down the chimney, where it landed into one of the girl’s stockings that was hanging to dry.
When Nicholas returned to deliver anonymously the third bag of gold for the last daughter, the curious father was ready. When he heard a bag hit the floor, the father leapt to his feet and raced outside, where he caught the mysterious benefactor.
Nicholas revealed his identity to the father but made him swear never to tell anyone what he’d done. He did not want praise or recognition for his generosity.
More impressive than its connection with modern-day Santa Claus traditions is the tale’s historical uniqueness. The vast majority of saint stories that circulated in the early church involved extraordinary miracles and healings or dramatic martyrdoms and confessions of Christ.
They involved monks who went into the desert and experienced the tempting of the devil and the burning of the sun, mothers who’d had their entrails spilled onto the Colosseum floor for Christ, mystics who saw the heavens open in their visions.
But the Nicholas story was about a regular family facing a familiar crisis to which ordinary people could relate. Those in the pews had never heard anything like it.
When medieval Christians looked at the great church frescoes, basilica mosaics and cathedral stained glass pictures of Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist, the apostles and saints of old, there was little to distinguish one saint from another.
But St. Nicholas was easy to spot. He was always pictured carrying three bags of gold. The story of his helping the three sisters jumped off the dry page of history and into the minds and imaginations of young girls and boys and adults.
Indeed, Nicholas would become the most popular nonbiblical saint in the pre-modern church. More churches would be dedicated to him than to any other person except Mary, the mother of Jesus. The first medieval drama that was not intended as a worship ritual and that was written in the vernacular was about Nicholas.
No wonder, then, that sailors from Bari wanted his bones. In the 1080s, Seljuk Turks invaded Lycia and Asia Minor (what is now Turkey). It seemed only a matter of time before they would plunder the tomb of St. Nicholas.
The Barians resolved that his bones be moved, or “translated,” to use the expression of the day. Under the nose of the Turkish overlords in control of the area 47 Barian sailors disembarked at Myra disguised as pilgrims.
They quietly made their way to the church of St. Nicholas, hiding swords and shovels under their clothes. As soon as they entered the church, they barred the doors, smashed the marble cover and looked inside.
They found more than they had bargained for: Nicholas’ bones were floating in a sweet-smelling liquid like oil or water. Known as the myrrh or manna of St. Nicholas, the liquid was highly valued for its purported miraculous and therapeutic qualities.
The bones were taken back to Italy and a basilica was erected in Bari to house them. To this day, Nicholas’ tomb continues to excrete a small amount of watery liquid.
Every year on May 9, one of the Dominican friars charged with the upkeep and care of the Basilica di San Nicola squats down in front of a small opening in the tomb and slowly collects a vile of the myrrh of St. Nicholas. It is then diluted in holy water and bottled for pilgrims and visitors.
So there is a lot more to the story of St. Nick than meets the eye. His bold initiative to help three poor girls in need sparked a tradition of gift-giving that has carried into modern times. The magical Christmas Eve visits from Santa Claus represent the vestige of this old story. Instead of fixating on the commercialization and greed that plague the modern Santa Claus, I chose to see in it the lasting power of a simple act of kindness.
More than a footnote to the legend of Santa Claus, Nicholas is a model of Christian kindness, an inspiration for charity and a saint to be remembered. He challenges us at this time of year to give not only to those we know and love, but also to those we do not know and especially to those who find themselves in need.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Adam C. English.
The Editors – CNN Belief Blog
Filed under:
Christianity • Christmas
source URL: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/22/my-take-the-christmas-message-of-the-real-st-nicholas/?hpt=hp_c3

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From the Ginger Jar in a moment of silence for those who died at Sandy Hook Elementary

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in News and politics, Religion & Observances

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Connecticut, Elementary school, Moment of silence, Newtown Connecticut, United States

Green ribbon in tribute to those who died at Sandy Hook Elementary

A Green Ribbon in tribute to those who died at Sandy Hook Elementary

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Video: Veni Veni Emmanuel

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, E-Mail Grab Bag, Music, Religion & Observances, Signs of the Season

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Advent, Christ, Christian, Christmas, Emmanuel, hymn, Music, O Come Emmanuel, Veni Emmanuel

Veni Veni Emmanuel

Sent via Flipboard

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A Special Pre-Christmas Gift!

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, E-Mail Grab Bag, Music, Religion & Observances, Signs of the Season

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Christian, Christmas, flash mob, Gift, Holidays, Music, Religious

 

Hello, All!
I just have to share this email I received.  I hope you can listen to it and watch it to the end.

THIS IS REALLY WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT.
GOD BLESS US ALL

Click here

Merry Christmas

from the Ginger Jar

 

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How December 25 Became Christmas

07 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in Archaeology, Bible, Catholics & Carmelites, Christian Stuff, History, Religion & Observances, Signs of the Season

≈ 1 Comment

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Bible, Christ, Christian, Christmas, December 25, Gospel, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus, Jesus' birth, New Testament, religion

 

Andrew McGowan   •  12/07/2012

A blanket of snow covers the little town of Bethlehem, in Pieter Bruegel’s oil painting from 1566. Although Jesus’ birth is celebrated every year on December 25, Luke and the other gospel writers offer no hint about the specific time of year he was born. Scala/Art Resource, NY

On December 25, Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be associated with Jesus’ birthday?

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.

The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.

This stands in sharp contrast to the very early traditions surrounding Jesus’ last days. Each of the Four Gospels provides detailed information about the time of Jesus’ death. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown (considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morning—still, the 15th.a

 


 

Learn more about the history of Christmas and the date of Jesus’ birth in the free e-book The First Christmas: The Story of Jesus’ Birth in History and Tradition.

 

 


Easter, a much earlier development than Christmas, was simply the gradual Christian reinterpretation of Passover in terms of Jesus’ Passion. Its observance could even be implied in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7–8: “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival…”); it was certainly a distinctively Christian feast by the mid-second century C.E., when the apocryphal text known as the Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus instruct his disciples to “make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the Passover.”

Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were often of most interest to first- and early-second-century C.E. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing concern. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul and Mark—make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century C.E., further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood are related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Gospel of James.b These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education—but not the date of his birth.

Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement writes: “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar] … And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”2

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”3 In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.

In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole.

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles (though far more ancient).4

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly.

More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later, as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern audiences to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.

Granted, Christian belief and practice were not formed in isolation. Many early elements of Christian worship—including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs and much early Christian funerary art—would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers. Yet, in the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E.

This would change only after Constantine converted to Christianity. From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals. A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings. But we don’t have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals in the third century, at which point dates for Christmas were established. Thus, it seems unlikely that the date was simply selected to correspond with pagan solar festivals.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have known it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6.7

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

The baby Jesus flies down from heaven on the back of a cross, in this detail from Master Bertram’s 14th-century Annunciation scene. Jesus’ conception carried with it the promise of salvation through his death. It may be no coincidence, then, that the early church celebrated Jesus’ conception and death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. Kunsthalle, Hamburg/Bridgeman Art Library, NY

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”12

In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6—the eastern date for Christmas. In the East, too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.”13 Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.e

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).

Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary—the moment of Jesus’ conception—the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross (see photo above of detail from Master Bertram’s Annunciation scene); a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death.

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born … and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)14 Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.15

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own, too.16

 


 

Notes

1. Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.

2. Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145. In addition, Christians in Clement’s native Egypt seem to have known a commemoration of Jesus’ baptism—sometimes understood as the moment of his divine choice, and hence as an alternate “incarnation” story—on the same date (Stromateis 1.21.146). See further on this point Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 118–120, drawing on Roland H. Bainton, “Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 42 (1923), pp. 81–134; and now especially Gabriele Winkler, “The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Maxwell Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 291–347.

3. The Philocalian Calendar.

4. Scholars of liturgical history in the English-speaking world are particularly skeptical of the “solstice” connection; see Susan K. Roll, “The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question,” in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 273–290, especially pp. 289–290.

5. A gloss on a manuscript of Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171; see Talley, Origins, pp. 101–102.

6. Prominent among these was Paul Ernst Jablonski; on the history of scholarship, see especially Roll, “The Origins of Christmas,” pp. 277–283.

7. For example, Gregory of Nazianzen, Oratio 38; John Chrysostom, In Diem Natalem.

8. Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 5th ed. (Paris: Thorin et Fontemoing, 1925), pp. 275–279; and Talley, Origins.

9. Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 8.

10. There are other relevant texts for this element of argument, including Hippolytus and the (pseudo-Cyprianic) De pascha computus; see Talley, Origins, pp. 86, 90–91.

11. De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae.

12. Augustine, Sermon 202.

13. Epiphanius is quoted in Talley, Origins, p. 98.

14. b. Rosh Hashanah 10b–11a.

15. Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.

16. On the two theories as false alternatives, see Roll, “Origins of Christmas.”

a. See Jonathan Klawans, “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” BR 17:05.

b. See the following BR articles: David R. Cartlidge, “The Christian Apocrypha: Preserved in Art,” BR 13:03; Ronald F. Hock, “The Favored One,” BR 17:03; and Charles W. Hedrick, “The 34 Gospels,” BR 18:03.

c. For more on dating the year of Jesus’ birth, see Leonara Neville, “Fixing the Millennium,” AO 03:01.

d. The ancients were familiar with the 9-month gestation period based on the observance of women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies and miscarriages.

e. In the West (and eventually everywhere), the Easter celebration was later shifted from the actual day to the following Sunday. The insistence of the eastern Christians in keeping Easter on the actual 14th day caused a major debate within the church, with the easterners sometimes referred to as the Quartodecimans, or “Fourteenthers.”

 


Warden and President of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Andrew McGowan’s work on early Christianity includes God in Early Christian Thought (Brill, 2009) and Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford, 1999).

Permalink: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

 

 

//

Rozanne Gold: Who Needs Quinoa More Than You Do?

01 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Lynden Rodriguez in E-Mail Grab Bag, Food and drink, Health and wellness

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Alter Eco, Andes, Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs, Genetically modified organism, James Beard Foundation Award, NASA, Quinoa, Rozanne Gold

A guest at our Thanks­giv­ing Left­overs Din­ner raved about a quinoa stuff­ing she’d made for her own fam­i­ly’s annu­al feast the day before. I cringed a bit because few of us com­pre­hend the dark side of our trendy infat­u­a­tion with this ancient food from high in the arid Andes.

large.jpg

Quinoa is the only plant that’s a source of a com­plete pro­tein; it packs so many nutri­ents into so lit­tle space that NASA called it an ideal food for astro­nauts.

Amer­i­ca’s upper class­es, relent­less­ly striv­ing to eat them­selves into good health, have latched onto quinoa as a “superfood,” and are gob­bling up tons of it. As a result, you have this gas­tro­nom­ic mad­ness of stuff­ing an already protein-rich turkey with protein-rich quinoa, when stale bread or bul­gur wheat or rice or corn would do just as well — but with far less col­lat­er­al dam­age to the cit­i­zens of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, where this stuff is grown.

Our quinoa craze may be enrich­ing farm­ers who grow the stuff — prices, by some esti­mates, have tripled in recent years — and they now can afford mech­a­nized farm equip­ment, solid hous­es and col­lege edu­ca­tion for their chil­dren. That’s the good news. They send us quinoa, we send them money — sounds like a per­fect exam­ple of glob­al­iza­tion. The bad news is that thisboom is wreck­ing the diets of indige­nous peo­ple who actu­al­ly need to eat it, because they no longer can afford to pur­chase this life-sustaining veg­etable. (We gen­er­al­ly think of quinoa as a grain, but it’s actu­al­ly a seed of veg­etable relat­ed to chard.) Even more iron­ic, the chil­dren of these pros­per­ous grow­ers now can afford junk food, so newly acquired wealth is impact­ing their diets, too.

There are reports that quinoa con­sump­tion among those who actu­al­ly live on it is down by about a third in the years since we’ve “dis­cov­ered” this 5,000-year-old seed, and that nutri­tion­al­ly at-risk natives of quinoa-growing coun­tries now only can afford cheap­er, less nour­ish­ing rice or, worse yet, processed food. It starts to sound like right here, where many Amer­i­cans pur­chase cheap, nutri­tion­al­ly sus­pect processed food because they can’t afford the real thing.

Minus­cule quinoa seeds are cooked more or less like rice, and the result can be a sub­sti­tute for any starchy com­po­nent of a meal. You can use it as a cere­al for break­fast or as a pilaf at din­ner; you can make a tabbouleh-like salad for your kid’s lunch­box or thick­en a soup; you can use it instead of cous­cous or add it to your chick­en curry. Much of it is labeled “organ­ic” or “non-GMO” or “gluten-free” or “fair trade” — adding a feel-good appeal to Amer­i­cans who go soft in their legs when they see the word “sus­tain­able” but who may be unaware that they’re tak­ing food from the mouths of chil­dren else­where.

What’s more, the land used for quinoa crops is frag­ile and depends upon del­i­cate bal­ance between agri­cul­ture and herds of lla­mas, which help fer­til­ize the area and whose large padded feet pre­vent erosion. These herds are being reduced to make room for more crops, which sug­gests that even­tu­al­ly they’ll need arti­fi­cial fer­til­iz­er to main­tain pro­duc­tion, under­min­ing one of quinoa’s fun­da­men­tal mar­ket appeals.

So what should we do? None of what I’ve writ­ten means we should stop buy­ing quinoa, because then we’d return the Andean farm­ers to their for­mer states of pover­ty. Instead, it sug­gests to me that if we’re cook­ing a meal that might require a nutri­tion­al boost — espe­cial­ly if we’re veg­e­tar­i­ans or have celi­ac dis­ease, or if we’re out­bound in a space cap­sule — then quinoa starts to make some gas­tro­nom­ic sense. But if we’ve already got a whole­some meal in the oven, we don’t need to over­load it with super­flu­ous “good­ness” while remov­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate quan­ti­ties of quinoa from coun­tries where it is need­ed far more.

Per­haps this is a bet­ter feel-good approach.

Rozanne Gold is a four-time James Beard award-winning chef and author of Eat Fresh Food: Awe­some Recipes for Teen Chefs, Healthy 1-2-3, and Rad­i­cal­ly Sim­ple: Bril­liant Fla­vors with Breath­tak­ing Ease.

Rozanne can be found on Face­book atwww.facebook.com/RozanneGold.

Photo cred­it: Alter Eco

URL source:
Rozanne Gold: Who Needs Quinoa More Than You Do?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rozanne-gold/who-needs-quinoa-more-tha_b_2217286.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

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