"We Owe Everything to Jesus"

(This is taken from M. M. Mangasarian's The Truth About Jesus - Is He a Myth?, originally published in 1909.)

 

But, behold! another clergyman with the claim that the modern world owes all its joy and cheer, during the Christmas season, “to the babe in Bethlehem.” “What was it that brought about such a condition that crowds the stores, that overflows the mails, and loads the express with packages of every description? The little babe in Bethlehem set all this in motion,--the wreath, the holly, are all from him.”

When we read the above and more to the same effect, we wrote to the Rev. W. A. Bartlett, [Footnote: Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago.] the author of the words quoted, asking him if he was correctly reported. We reproduce herewith a copy of our letter:

DEC, 20, 1904.

Rev. W. A. Bartlett,
Washington Boul. and Ann St., Chicago 

DEAR MR. BARTLETT: In the report of your sermon of last Sunday you are represented as claiming that it is to the “babe in Bethlehem” we owe the Christmas festival, the giving of presents, etc., etc. I write to ascertain whether this report has stated your position correctly? I am sure you know that Christmas is only a recomposition of an old Pagan festival, and that “giving presents” at this season is a much older practice than Christianity. Of course, you do not believe that Christmas is celebrated in December and on the 25^th of the month because Jesus was born on that day. You know as well as I do of the Pagan festivals celebrated in the month of December throughout the Roman Empire—celebrations which were accompanied with the giving and receiving of presents. Moreover, you know also, as every student does, that in the Latin countries of Europe it is not on Christmas day, but on New Year’s day, that presents are exchanged. Surely you would not claim that for New Year’s day, too, the world is indebted to the Bethlehem babe. You must also have known that the use of the evergreen and the holy was in vogue among the Druids of Pagan times. Be kind enough, therefore, to give me, if I am not asking too much, the facts which led you to make the statement to which I have called your attention, and believe me, with great respect, etc.

To this neighborly letter the reverend gentleman did not condescend to send an acknowledgment. We knocked at his door, as it were, and he, a minister of the Gospel, declined to open it unto us. Clergymen, as a rule, say that they are happy when people will let them preach the gospel to them. In our case, we saved the clergyman from calling upon us, we called upon him—that is to say, we wrote and gave him an opportunity to enlighten us, to bring his influence to bear upon us, to open our eyes to the error of our ways,--and he would have nothing to do with us. Was not our soul worth saving? Did the Rev. W. A.  Bartlett consider us beyond hope? We ask this clergyman to place his hand upon his conscience and ask himself whether he did the brotherly thing in not returning a friendly and kindly answer to our honest inquiry for truth. But he did not answer us, because he had no real faith in his gospel. It was not good enough for an inquirer.

But the clergyman, according to reports, made an attempt on the Sunday following the receipt of our letter, before his congregation, to answer indirectly our question. He denied that “Christmas was a recomposition of an old Pagan festival,” and said that the early Christians “fasted and wept” because of these Pagan festivals, and that as early as the second century, the birth of Jesus was commemorated. In short, he pronounced it “a distortion of history” to assign to the Christmas festival a Pagan origin. In his great work on the History of Civilization, Buckle says this, to which we call Dr. Bartlett’s attention: “As soon as eminent men grown unwilling to enter any profession, the luster of that profession will be tarnished; first its reputation will be lessened, then its power abridged.” We fear this is true of Mr. Bartlett’s profession.

How can Christian ministers hope to engage the interest of the reading public if they themselves abstain from reading? Ask a secular newspaper about the origin of the Christmas celebration, and it will tell you the truth. On the very Sunday that Dr. Bartlett was denouncing, in his church, our claim that the Pagans gave us the December season of joy and merry-making, as “a distortion of history,” and editorial in the Chicago Tribune said this:

But the festive character of the celebration, the giving of presents, the feasting and merriment, the use of evergreen and holly and mistletoe, are all remnants of Pagan rites.

Continuing, the same editorial called attention to the antiquity of the institution:

Long before the shepherds on the Judean plains saw the star rise in the east and heard the tidings of “Peace on earth, good will to man,” the Roman populace surged through the streets at the feast of Saturn, giving themselves up to wild license and boisterous merry making. They exchanged presents, they decorated their dwellings and temples with green boughs; slaves were given special privileges, and the spirit of good will was abroad among men. This Roman Saturnalia came at the winter solstice, the same as does our Christmas day, while the birth of Christ is widely believed to have taken place at some other season of the year.

But Dr. Bartlett may have had in mind the quotation from Anastasius:

“Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was born of the Holy Virgin, Mary, in Bethlehem, at one o’clock in the afternoon of December 25^th,”—appearing to quote from some old manuscript which, unfortunately, is not to be found anywhere. But Clement of Alexandria, in the year 210 A. D., dismisses all guesses as to when Jesus was born,--the 18^th of April, 19^th of May, etc.,--as products of reckless speculation. March 28^th is given as Jesus’ birthday in De Pascha Computius, in the year 243.  Jan. 5^th is the date defended by Epiphanius. Baradaens, Bishop of Odessa, says: “No one knows exactly the day of the nativity of our Lord: this only is certain from what Luke writes, that he was born in the night.” Poor Dr. Bartlett, his December 25^th does not receive support from the Fathers.

For our clerical brother’s sake, we quote some more from the Tribune editorial:

Primeval man looked upon the sun as the revelation of divinity. When the shortest day of the year was passed, when the sun began his march northward, the primitive man rejoiced in the thought of the coming seedtime and summer, and he made feasts and revelry the mode of expressing the gladness of his heart. Among the sun worshipers of Persia, among the Druids of the far north, among the Phoenicians, among the Romans, and among the ancient Goths and Saxons the winter solstice was the occasion of festivities. Many of them were rude and barbarous, but they were all distinguished by hearty and profuse hospitality.

And yet our neighbor calls it “distortion of history” to connect Christmas with the Pagan festival, celebrated about this time. We quote once more from the Secular press:

The Christian church did not abolish these heathen ceremonies, but grafted upon them a deeper spiritual meaning. For this reason Christmas is an institution which memorializes the best there was in Pagan man. Its good cheer, its charity, its sports, its feasting, and the features which most endear it to children are all the heritage of our Pagan ancestors.

How refreshing this, compared with the clergyman’s silence, or cry of “distortion.” But in one thing the doctor is correct. The early Christians did bewail the Pagan festivals, as they did everything else that was Pagan. But it did not help them at all; they were compelled to acquiesce. The Christians have “fasted and prayed” also against science, progress, and modern thought, but what good has it done? They asked God to hook Theodore Parker’s tongue; to overthrow Darwin, and to confound the wisdom of this world, but the prayer remains unanswered. Yes, the doctor is right, the church has “fasted and prayed” against religious tolerance, against the use of Sunday as a day of recreation,--the opening of galleries and libraries on that day, the advancement of women, the emancipation of the negro, the secularization of education, the revision of old creeds, and a thousand other things. But their opposition has only damaged their own cause. They did try to suppress the Pagan festival, which we call Christmas, and the Puritans in this country, until recently, abstained from all recognition of the day, and called it “Popery,” and “Paganism,” but their efforts bore no fruit. Dr. Bartlett, if he will read, will learn that for many years, in England and in this country, the observance of Christmas was forbidden by law under severe penalties. As to our being indebted for the cheer and merriment of the December festival to the “Bethlehem babe,” the doctor must inform himself of those acts of Parliament which, under the Puritan regime, compelled people to mourn on Christmas day and to abstain from merrymaking. In Christian Connecticut, for a man to have a sprig of holly in his house on Christmas day was a finable crime. In Massachusetts, any Christian detected celebrating Christmas was fined five shillings and costs. But, see, having failed to suppress these good institutions, they now turn about and claim that they have always believed in them, and that, in fact, we would not now be enjoying any one of these benefits but for the Christian Church.

In conclusion, we have one other word to say to the three clerical teachers from whose writings we have quoted. Against them we are constrained to bring the charge of looseness in thought. They seem to have little conscience for evidence. Mr. Jones says, for instance:

“In short, I am compelled to think that this Light of Souls, this saving and redeeming spirit, was the loved and loving child of Joseph, the carpenter, and the loyal wife Mary. I believe this, notwithstanding the stories of immaculate conceptions, star-guided magi, choiring angels and adoring shepards that gathered around the birth-night.”

Which is another way of saying that he is “compelled to believe” against the evidence, merely because it is his pleasure or interest to do so. This is not very edifying, to be sure. Mr. Jones takes all his information about Joseph and Mary and Jesus from the gospels, and yet the gospels clearly contradict his conclusions. Mary, the mother of Jesus, gives her word of honor that Joseph was not the father of her child, and Joseph himself testifies that he is not Jesus’ father, but Mr. Jones pays no attention to their testimony; he wishes Joseph to be the father of Jesus, and that ought to be sufficient evidence, he thinks. We quote from the gospel:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But when he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”

Now, if Joseph admits he was not Jesus’ father, and Mary corroborates his testimony (See Luke, 1^st chapter), Jesus was, if he ever lived, and the records which give Mr. Jones his ideal Jesus are reliable, the son of a man who has succeeded in concealing his identity, unless, of course, we believe in the virgin birth. If the real father of Jesus had come forth and owned his son, and Mary had acknowledged that he was the father of her child, what would have become of Christianity?  We hope these clergymen who have dwelt, as Emerson says, “with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus,” will reflect upon this, and while doing so, will they not also remember this other saying of the Concord philosopher: “The vice of our theology is seen in the claim...that Jesus was something different from a man.”

We take our leave of the three clergymen, assuring them that in what we have said we have not been actuated, in the least, by any personal motive whatever, and that we have only done to them what we would have them do to us.