The crucial thing is not, Did the early Christians get the date of Christmas right? It is, rather, What mattered to them as they determined the date of Christmas? And when you look at that, you again immediately realize that what dominates their minds is not Eostre, Cybele, Attys, Osiris, sun worship, or anything else in the pagan religious world. What interests them is—from our modern multicultural perspective—stunningly insular. Their debates are consumed not by longing for goddess worship, pagan mythology, or a desire to import Eostre, Cybele, and Attis into the faith, but by the exact details of the New Testament record of Jesus’ death, alloyed with a Jewish—not pagan—theory about when Jewish—not pagan—prophets die. The early Christians don’t care a bit how pagan priests ordered their worship in the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. They care intensely about how Levitical priests ordered their worship in the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. These Christians are riveted on Scripture and the details of Jewish and Christian history and tradition. They don’t give a hoot what sun worshipers, Osiris devotees, or Eostre fans might think. It’s all about how Christ our Passover has been slain, not about how Christ our Mithras bull has been slain.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:05:28 +0000
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