Seasons’ Greetings, 2018
Once upon a time, extending best wishes to others on a holiday was unproblematic, despite any holiday’s being specific to a tradition: There was a limited number of tradition-bearing civilizations in the world, each clinging precariously to survival in a well-separated geographical niche; and it was not thought to be an insurmountable challenge to associate holiday references with their respective traditions or niches. In England, an early “Merry Christmas” occurred on Christmas Day, 1066, when the coronation of William the Conqueror became so merry, or turbulent, that some nearby houses were burned down. But, alas, time passes, meat spoils, pepper and spices are required, the Age of Exploration occurs, and now each tradition competes for attention in all geographical niches. The words “Merry Christmas” have come to be seen, by many, as an expression either of illicit proselytization or of commercial speech. Given this dichotomy, some maintain, it is far safer to endorse the commercial branch, in which hopes for a new Lego, “hung by the chimney with care,” elide into ambitions for a new Lexus, “parked by the curb while St. Nick was still there.”
In fact, however, it seems that Christians also express a second, parallel, non-economic meaning with the words, “Merry Christmas.” This non-economic meaning divides into two branches: First, there is an invitation for the Christian faithful to recollect, and to reflect upon, the love, joy, peace, and hope arising from the advent of Jesus of Nazareth into the world at Christmastide. Second, there is an invitation for the curious to investigate the doctrines embedded in the traditions underlying the historical Christian liturgies. In practice, the words “Merry Christmas” express meaning not only as a wish for prosperity but also as an invitation for reflection or research.
The commercial interpretation of the words “Merry Christmas” finds some support among the tidings of comfort and joy (news of prosperity and joy) in the old English carol “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen.” The meaning of the title is “May God continue to grant you prosperity, gentlemen.” Some extra Christmas bounty for the householder and his family would be much appreciated by Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, et al. in the novel, A Christmas Carol.
The Crachit family members sought to survive at the margins of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Long before, there had been a Roman Revolution (133 - 31 B.C.) in response to wars of conquest, expansion of slavery, dispossession of small landowners, and concentration of land ownership by Roman aristocracy. Economic anxiety continued during the ensuing Roman Empire with its embedded Christian communities.
The classical scholar E.R. Dodds studied the ancient Roman Empire from the accession of Marcus Aurelius (161 A.D.) to the death of Constantine I (337 A.D.). Dodds concluded that this period was a veritable “age of anxiety.” One infers that this was an age well suited for producing legions of Bob Crachits. Despite competing mystery religions, Gnosticism, and the Marcionite heresy, an orthodox Christianity was accepted by increasing numbers of anxious individuals within the Roman Empire. Constantine seems to have accelerated this Christianization after receiving some vision or dream-like instruction to inscribe his army’s shields and battle standards with a “chi-rho” symbol (based on the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek); defeating his competitor, Maxentius, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 A.D.); and becoming a Christian himself. Some Imperial coins and medallions from the post Milvian-Bridge era display the chi-rho symbol. Theodosius I (347 - 395 A.D.) largely completed the Christianization of the urban parts of the Empire by rooting out most vestiges of cultural paganism.
Some professional historians find the preceding account of the Christianization of the Roman Empire to be defective, because, in their view, if Constantine had truly and sincerely converted to Christianity, then Theodosius would have been left with nothing more to do. But Theodosius did find, and terminate, some residual pagan practices and institutions. Hence, Constantine’s conversion must have been insincere or ineffective, consistent with his purported vision being a later invention by disingenuous clerics.
Any professional historian is entitled, if he or she so pleases, to a Weltanschauung of mortal antagonism between faith and reason. In contrast, however, one notes that some philosophers of history, like Hegel, believed that religion is an attainment of consciousness during its progression towards absolute philosophical knowing. “This incarnation of the divine Being … is the simple content of the absolute religion.” (See the Phenomenology of Spirit, “The Revealed Religion,” Paragraph 759 of the A.V. Miller translation.)
But an alternative Weltanschauung has long been available in which faith complements reason, as in the “Credo ut intelligam” of Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – 1109 A.D.). In this alternative approach, the Bible is meant to be a means for eliciting the reader’s response, not for fulfilling the historian’s demand for biographical data (as in the problematic 19th century quest for the historical Jesus). Are we to evaluate faith and reason based upon the best surviving historical evidence or upon a vast conspiracy theory in which medieval monks falsified or suppressed inconvenient texts so comprehensively that only secular history is credible? During this holiday season it seems preeminently reasonable to respond positively to the words of the Biblical author Luke, who relates that, at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, “a great company of the heavenly host [angelic choir] appeared with the angel [who spoke to the shepherds], praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace [not anxiety] to men upon whom his favor rests.’”
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen … and Ladies and Children Alike!
(The next posting to this blog will occur on February 1, 2019.)