The Facts of Christ, Crucified.

Christus Est Natus!

Christ is born, my friends.

It's the perfect time of the year to reflect on the absurdity of the arguments over the origins of Christmas. It's the time to remember that seeking a strictly horizontal causality to an event, the event, in fact, of eternality Himself taking on the fleshy, temporality of human existence is to forfeit the very heritage of transcendence that holds rightful place in the Christian and pagan traditions alike and the very notion that “Christianity stole Christmas from paganism” is an insult to both parties.

Obviously, there is a heavy reactionary element in the argument of both parties. Paganism feels it has been suppressed and demonised by Christianity for many years. Christianity, in more recent days, feels itself now the persecuted as the modern world is quick to lay blame and ridicule at its feet in undue proportion compared to the rest of the world's religions.

All of this generally results in embarrassing “internet-meme-history” vitriol spewed by both sides at each other. There exists no real spiritual sentiment for these people, it is purely a game of one-upmanship and a devotion to truth is replaced by the worship of facts; an all too common trope in the modern world.

What can be said with surety, however is that there does indeed exist a very real underlying sentiment that Christianity should be stripped of anything and everything it claims as its own.

From the viewpoint of paganism (a very broadly defined term, indeed) it would appear simply reactionary vitriol and nothing more. There has never been any real need with pagan traditions to claim “top spot” or originality. In fact, it may be an embarrassment for the neo-pagan to realise that to rail against Christianity for such things as “stealing Christmas” is itself a product of Christian influence.

The Christian tradition does indeed lay claim to a superiority amongst religions, however, and it is this claim that leads to its detractors using evidence of stolen customs and practices to serve as an embarrassment to such claims and in return the Christians scurried attempts to save face.

The curious thing is that, from the modern perspective of the worship of facts, Christianity loses this battle. Not that there isn't good factual evidence on the side of Christianity but simply because the pagan traditions will always claim the position of originality on the plane of a strict horizontal history.

Chronologically speaking, following along the line of history, Christianity is the younger sibling and is born into a melting pot of pagan traditions. It is really all to easy to insist that it was either heavily influenced by those traditions or, the more popular claim, that it stole with malicious intent those traditions.

All of this is to to miss the mark, however.

That mark, of course, is the cross of Calvary Hill. An X that “marks the spot” as the fulcrum point of all things. The origin point of all things. The centre of a rose in full bloom, exploding into the glory of all creation.

“Christmas is not an event within history but rather the invasion of time by eternity.”

- Hans Urs von Balthasar

Christmas is one of the 5 most holy and precious wounds of creation as incarnation, mirroring the 5 most holy and precious wounds of our Lord on the cross, and it is in fact the crucifixion that is the “invasion of time by eternity.” For it is this act of perfect and divine love that is the “lamb slain from the foundation the world.” But just as the 4 periphery of Christ are summed up and made one in the side wound so there four wounds in time and space summed up and made one by the crucifixion.

The wounds of the hands are the beginning and end of the chronological timeline. The creation myth of Genesis to the eschaton, the culmination of history. Christ's arms are stretched hither and thither upon the horizontal beam of the Cross. It is here that the modern pagan sees the left arm of history and has accused the right arm of plagiarism.

The wounds of the feet are of the conception and nativity of Jesus and the Ascension. That is, the human incarnation of the Godman, who plumbs the very depths of all things by entering into the doom of Man. It is here, in the human incarnation, that God becomes grounded in the human story. It is here that Jesus Christ establishes the truth that to be fully human is to be God.

“And by this beautiful exchange, it renders God man by reason of the divinization of man, and man God by reason of the Incarnation of God. For the Logos of God (and God) wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment.”

And as stated, it is the side wound, the Sacred Heart pierced and poured out that is the centre of all.

Speaking specifically of Christmas, if the birth of Christ shows forth the pagan tradition concerning the birth of the Sun, which in turn shows forth the birth of the divine in the hidden cave that is man's heart, it cannot be a plagiarism afoot because it is the same author who has penned these works, and they all speak to the grand narrative of the Father, that is, the incarnation of the Word.

This may all seem very convenient from the viewpoint of those opposed to Christianity, for the argument here, simplified, is that any similarities of custom, tradition, holy days etc. between other religions and Christianity belong rightfully to Christianity because the Christian God is the author of all truth.

It is more nuanced than this, however, and it is only something to be grasped without the hindrance of religious apologetics and the perpetual spewing forth of rhetoric from the mouth of the religion of factuality and the reign of quantity.

It is unavoidable, I suppose, much of what I've written here could be considered apologetics despite my best intentions. To communicate with others is to make judgment upon things communicated. To simply say “hello” to another is to insist that one should not be saying “goodbye.”

It is enough, perhaps, to say that anything good and true and beautiful comes down to us from the Father of Lights. Meditate on this. For it enters into our awareness through the heart it is not a fact to be analysed in the head.

There was no room at the inns of Bethlehem because of the multitude of people reporting in for the census ordered by the king of this world. The discerning will understand how this pertains to the worship of facts. The accumulation of information. The reign of quantity.

The Christ-child, however, is born in a cave, in the silent night of the soul.

"Enough talk for the night. He is laboring in me; I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart.”

- Meister Eckhart