But What Was the Saturnalia?

 When struck by the itch of curiosity, many people have done an internet search to find out why Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25th. One of the main results will tell you it was because the Christians wanted to replace the Saturnalia, a pagan holiday, with a Christian one. Therefore, Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. While there are other theories about the reasoning behind Christmas being December 25th, the idea that it was placed there to replace the Saturnalia is one that can’t be ignored. 

This is all well and good, but… What was the Saturnalia??

The first recorded mention of the Saturnalia is on the “Calendar of Numa” which is dated to sometime during the 6th century B.C. The Saturnalia itself was listed among the Roman civic festivals, which were celebrated by all Roman people. The civic festivals were all annual events and each was celebrated in specific ways.

The Saturnalia lasted for 7 days. It began December 17 and ended December 23. It began with sacrifices made in the Temple of Saturn, but the rest of the festival was celebrated in the households. It involved feasting, the exchange of gifts, and a reversal of station. This means that in households where there were servants or slaves, the servants or slaves were permitted to feast as their masters did. In some accounts, it is recorded that the masters actually waited on them. 

When Augustus rose to power, the Saturnalia was shortened to only 3 days, then later expanded to last 5 days. It was a great festival marking the end of the year. While other festivals began to die out when Christianity swept through Rome, the Saturnalia persisted. Since it was mainly celebrated in the household, it was difficult to determine how widespread this pagan festival still was in the now Christian world.

When Christianity spread throughout Rome, many Roman people still celebrated various pagan holidays, deciding that these holidays didn’t interfere with Christian beliefs. The complexities of Roman religion as a whole won’t fit in this post, but the short version is that throughout history, when Rome conquered a new place, they adopted some of the local beliefs and customs and brought them back to Rome. Many of these were adapted into Roman life and took a place in Roman religion. With this in mind, the introduction of Christianity didn’t necessarily eliminate pagan beliefs, but was simply seen as another aspect of religion to add to the existing beliefs at the time. Even when devout monotheistic Christians tried to point out the contradiction in declaring yourself a Christian and celebrating pagan holidays, many people still didn’t see any reason being Christian meant you couldn’t also celebrate all of the other festivals.

Because the Saturnalia was still widely celebrated and an important holiday to many who still wished to celebrate the end of the year, Christians chose to incorporate the celebrations into the holiday Christmas. Some of the traditions persisted, such as feasting and the exchange of gifts, but the focus was pulled from Saturn to the birth of Jesus Christ. By doing this, the people were still able to celebrate the end of the year, and the Christians didn’t lose sleep over whether their congregations were going against the word of God by upholding their pagan traditions.