Saturnalia - Influence On Christmas

Influence On Christmas

Unlike several Roman religious festivals which were particular to cult sites in the city, the prolonged seasonal celebration of Saturnalia at home could be held anywhere in the Empire. Saturnalia continued as a secular celebration long after it was removed from the official calendar. As William Warde Fowler noted, Saturnalia "has left its traces and found its parallels in great numbers of mediaeval and modern customs, occurring about the time of the winter solstice."

A number of scholars, including secular historian David Stephens from the University of Central Florida and Professor Parker-Ducharme from Tulane University view aspects of the Saturnalia festival as the origin of some later Christmas customs, particularly the practice of gift giving, which was suppressed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages due to perceived "pagan origins". The Catholic Encyclopedia states the Church's view on the latter claim by saying that while midwinter pagan feasts such as Saturnalia may have helped influence the eventual choice to fix the date of Christmas, this does not mean that Christian Christmas traditions find their origin or inspiration there: "though the abundance of analogous midwinter festivals may indefinitely have helped the choice of the December date, the same instinct which set Natalis Invicti at the winter solstice will have sufficed, apart from deliberate adaptation or curious calculation, to set the Christian feast there too."

During the ancient Roman Saturnalia, human-shaped biscuits were consumed and dance-like singing was performed in the streets, which makes it a "precursor of modern gingerbread man" and caroling. The ancient Roman Saturnalia were integrated into Christianity in the 4th century, as a means to mass convert the pagan Roman citizens. Due to its pagan origin, the Christmas festival was banned in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681 by the Puritans as an illegal observance.