Radio Script #128
Little Talks On Common Things
December 23, 1951
Each year on this particular Sunday we devote our program largely to Christmas. Of course Christmas, as we know it, began as a Christian memorial of the birth of Christ, and we depart far from its true spirit if we fail to recognize each December 25th what the person and the teachings of Jesus mean to us today. Yet the actual festival which became Christmas began at least two thousand years before Jesus was born. It was, in certain pre-Christian lands, the annual festival which renewed the world for another year.
As I am sure most of you know, one of the oldest civilizations in the world was thriving 4,000 years ago between the rivers, for “between the rivers” is what the word Mesopotamia means. The rivers were the Ti gris and the Euphrates. On the banks of one rose the ancient city of Nineveh; on the other grew up historic Babylon. In the northern part of that pear-shaped land between the rivers was Chaldea, from whose very ancient town of Ur Abraham set forth into the land to the westw’ard, the land that came to be called Palestine.
To the Mesopotamians the New Year was a tine of crisis. After the crops had been harvested the empty bra-ln fie Ids told that Ii fe was dying. Then the god Marduk who had, according to Mesopotamian legend, routed the monsters of chaos, bui It an orderly world and created man — Marduk had again to do b:lttle with the monsters so that death might not become complete. Thus he renewed the world every year. ‘n th i s annual struggle man conca I ved it his duty to he Ip as best he cou I d to purify himself of the evi Is which his sins of the past year had brought upon him; to renew the strength which the year had drained away; and, if possible, to find a substitute who could take the consequences of the sins which he had committed. This last was, of course, the idea of the scapegoat. If you are at all familiar with the Old Testament you know tow often the scapegoat — the ene who bares blame for others I deeds — is referred to.
Now it is interesting that this old New Year festival in Babylon lasted exactly 12 days, just as the Christmas season has always lasted in England. Because, /Ike the old year, the king was supposed to die in order that he might accompany Marduk into the underworld of the monsters and battle by his side. Apparently even those tough-minded Babylonians and Assyrians, to whom all human life seems to have been notoriously cheap, couldn’t quite stomach the idea of ki II i ng off a king every year; so they estab I I shed the custom of a mock king. An ordinary fellow, sometimes actually a criminal, was dressed up in royal robe s. He was feasted and honored, granted every known luxury; then he was stripped of his royal garb and immediately executed.
As the festival went on, the ceremonies were meant to show that Marduk was gradua I I Y P reva iii ng ove r the forces of death, and the I ast days of the twe I ve were given over to wi Id rejoicing, as at the modern Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The Babylonian festival observed an interesting custom. Masters and slaves exchanged places; the slaves commanded, the masters obeyed. Marduk and his fellow gods have long ago disappeared, but to this day — in the Balkans, in Central Europe and in England — there is sti II an end-ofthe- year festival of twelve days, with troops of masqueraders and carol-singers, not so different from those which the ancient tablets depict as celebrating in the streets of Baby Ion 4,000 years ago. Ch i I dren in the Ba I kans st i I I recl te magic verses as did the chi Idren of Nineveh. Just as in old Babylon, a wooden image of Marduk’s opponent was burned in a bonfire, so in Rumania and Bulgaria a young man of the fami Iy chops down a speci a I tree and brings home the log to bum in the fireplace with a definite, special ritual.
Out of the land between the rivers the festival of the year’s renewal spread westward — first to Greece, then to Rome. In ancient Italy the festival was called the Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, god of the seed-time. It belQan about the middle of December and continued untl I the first of January. In Its midst came December 25, the day, according to Roman calculation, when the sun was seen for the shortest time, and after which he would appear longer and longer, and impart strength to the grat Ing th Ings of earth.
When we cons I der that I t was the period of the Satumal ia, with Its emphasis on December 25, that became our Christmas, it is somewhat Ironical that the early Christians in Rome didn’t think much of the Satumalla. It probably was a boisterous, h ilari ous kind of Mardi Gras. Yet modem schol ars be I ieve it wasn’t so wi Id as early Christian: writers represented it. Most of the people were simply merry, not debauched. They masqueraded in the streets, ate big dinners, visited friends, and exchanged gifts. They decorated their houses with boughs of laurel and other trees, with lighted candles and lamps. As master of the festival and lord of the reve I they chose a slave, remindful of the time 2,000 years before In Mesopotamia when masters and slaves exchanged places.
Now to the early Christians the most important thing that had ever happened was the coming of Christ. It was the beginning of a new era. Although no one knows for certa In the exact day on wh Ich Jesus was born, the ear Iy Christian fathers settled on December 25. The bi rthday of Christ thus became in danger of being swal lowed up In the pagan merry-making of the fbman Satumal la. So the Christian fathers set out to make Christmas a strictly religious celebration. Eventually the fbmans became Christians, but as we all know too well today, the Satuma I la remained. The merry-making, the gl ft-giving, and finally the conmerclal Izlng of the great Christian festival have done much to obscure Its true significance. But thanks to the Christian Church — Protestant and Catholic – ..peep Ie are every year reminded that December 25 Is more than a holiday, a holy day, the birthday of the Savior of Men.
The Roman Empire fell in ruins, but Christmas and Its festival did not die. All through the Middle Ages it was remembered and observed. In all the medieval. walled towns of Europe holly, Ivy and evergreens were str:ung up, candles were I it, and mummers c lowned through the streets. The peop Ie chose ~Dot”·~~, a mock king, as had the Babylonians 3,000 years before, but a lord of Misrule, an Abbot of Unreason, who presided over the Feast of the Fools. The old fbman Satumal ia was far fromltarned; the early Christian fathers would never have recognized this festival of the Middle Ages as the Christmas they intended. All the Norse lands, where the Vi kings he Id sway a thousand years ago, seem to ha ve known the bo is fa rous rout of the twe I ve nights. Those 01 d Norsemen knew a vast di fference between summer and winter, far greater di fference than Mesopotamian or Greek or Roman ever experienced.
By October the harvest was In, the cattle housed. Ahead stretcR the long months of cold. There is not enough fodder for all the animals. It is time to thin out the herds and preserve the meat. It is just the time to invite friends and ne I ghbors to a feast. But some of the meat must be ofte red to the gods to Odin and Freia; otherwise +hev wi II not give us a goodly new year. Odin was the god of the ferocious Norse warriors, and he was the leader of the Wutende Heer, the tumUltuous army host, perhaps best translated as the raging rout. I n tenth century Norway It re fe rred to the who Ie season from Halloween to the end of winter. It was in Northern Europe that Santa Claus was born. They called him, as you knOll, st. Nicholas. Unl ike our Santa Claus, the European st. Nicholas today wears a broad-brimmed hat and rides a faithful olB white horse. In fact, to European children St. Nicholas dces not come on Olristmas eve, but on the eve of December 6th, which is known in many lands as st. Nicholas’ Night.
Interestingly enough there was a real st. Nicholas. He lived in the last quarter of the third and the first Quarter of the fourth centuries. Sti II a young man, he was made Archbishop of Myre, and died on December 6,326. He is the saint of sailors, for whom In danger he Is the last and only help. Since I I n the m I dd Ie ages fIB rchants we re the us ua I passenge rs on sh Ips, St. N I cho I as became the patron saint of merchant travelers. Even pirates claimed his protection. Somehow he became also the protector of chi Idren. He developed the habit of slipping gifts to them in the dark of the night, and in lands where there were big chimneys and open fi replaces, the story grew that he came down the chimneys with his bag of gifts.
What was the origin of the Christmas tree? No one knows the rLgtJt answer, but we do know enough about it to get rid of some of the wrong answers. One legendary account of the Christmas tree has it that Martin Luther was out walking one night, and seeing the stars as suggestion of lights, he placed candles on a fl r tree to brighten up Christmas for his own chi Idren. Others have it that the Yule log is the ancestor of the Christmas tree. An old medieval legend contends it is the symbo I of the Tree of Ll fe that stood in the Garden of Eden. In fact; as late as the 18th century, in parts of Germany one could buy little figurines of Adam and Eve and the serpent to p lace under the Christmas tree.
We now know that none of these theories about the origin of the Christmas tree can be true. We know, for instance, just how the tree got mixed up with Adam and Eve. December 24, on the medieval church calendar, was Adam and Eve’s Day. As was customary with the miracle and mystery plays in the Middle Ages, the legends of the Garden of Eden were p lay-acted in the castle court yard or the market square. The actors trooped through the town, with Adam carrying the Tree of Life, on which apples were hung. The Christmas tree itself is much older than the Adam and Eve mystery plays, but It is easy to see how the Tree of LI fe of the December 24th festi va I became mixed up with the Christmas tree of December 25th.
One th Ing we do know: the Christmas tree Is one certain contribution of the common people to the features of Christmas. Not the church, not the nobility, not the legends of the meisterslngers or the gleemen, but the practice of the peasants created the use of Christmas trees. The fl rst printed reference to what must have been long a custom is found in a forest ordinance in Alsace, dated 1561, which says: “No peasant shall have for Christmas more than one bush of more than eight shoes’ length.” But an 0 I d book of 1605 has th I s sentence: “At Christmas time In Strasburg fir trees are set up In the rooms, and on them are hung roses cut from many-colored paper, app les, wafers, gl It and sugar.”
In many European countries the tree is not stood in a noom; It is hung, and hangi ng the tree seems to be a very 01 d custom Indeed. A tree-ti p was hung sometimes from the rafters, sometimes In the window, sometimes over the doorway, upside down. Wherever it hung, the tree was always decorated in gay colors. How did the Christmas tree come to America? It is pretty well authenticated that no Christmas tree was set up in America until it was erected in the caRl> of an enemy. For it was the Hessian soldiers, mercenaries of the British crown in the American Revolution, who set up the first Christmas tree in Philadelphia on the December 25th when Washington’s ragged army was close to starvation at Val ley Forge. The Hessians had known the use of the Christmas tree in their German homeland. There is a lovely Viking legend which tells us that, sometime In the ninth century, the Lord sent to earth his messengers, Faith, Hope and Charity, to select the first Christmas tree. They chose the bal sam fl r because it bore so many crosses on every tree and branch, and it was high as hope and wide as love.
But the most beautiful story of all comes out of medieval Germany. On a Christmas eve long, long ago, says the story, a fierce blizzard raged about a woodsman’s cottage deep in a lonely forest clearing. A timid knock was heard at the door. When the woodsman opened It, on the th resho I d stood a sma I I child, hungry, cold, exhausted. The fami Iy took him In, warmed him, fed him, and put him to bed. I n the morn I ng the ch i I d sa I d: “The re is noth I ng I can give you beyond what you already have except one thing.” Then from a fir tree he broke off a branch and handed It to the woodsman. “See this evergreen tree, how it is green and al.ive at Christmas time, when all the world seems empty and dead. Let it be to you a sign of faith that does not die.” And that, says the old story, Is the way the, Christ chi Id chose the fl r as the fi rst Christmas tree.
In the midst of our holiday festivities, let us not forget that a fervent, almost desperate financial campaign Is sti II going on to save the American legion Building. Operation Fescue Is now In charge of Harold Hersom. He and his committee are working hard during these days when most of us are celebrating. It is the bus I ness not on Iy of the veterans of two worl d wars, but of all the citizens of our community, to decide promptly and vigorously whether they want a community building as a memorial to our soldier dead, or whether the building must be turned over to commercial purposes. Doane Eaton woke people up to the need. He started Operation Rescue. Now Harold Hersom is trying to rescue the operation. Who is going to rescue him?
Year: 1951