It's very important to point out that these sorts of claims slipping through the cracks within scholarship happen, and that verifying one's sources is of the utmost importance. Ronald Hutton is, as far as I'm aware, a well respected scholar in his own right. Seeing this sort of thing happen to such a scholar should remind us all that no one is immune to these sorts of mistakes. Thanks Dr Dan! :D
I was also somewhat surprised to see Prof. Hutton come up in this, as someone who is generally a fan of his work. It does not seem to have been his mistake originally, but still he should have dug a bit deeper before publishing an error like that. As you say, even respected scholars make mistakes sometimes!
Fake history is a service to no one, simpleton. It was, quite literally, created by pagans. There is no valid dispute of this fact. It was created by PRE-Christian Romans. What do we call those? PAGANS.
Festivals generally involve eating, drinking and games. Therefore, claiming that a festival was adopted from one religion by another requires much more than just saying "there was eating, drinking and games during this time of the year."
Not sure that follows. The eating, drinking and 'making merry', would seem to be the issues of central significance, across numerous traditions, specifically around the turn of the year. It's the bolt on 'nativity' that seems fundamentally out of place.
@@DJTheTrainmanWalker Originally, the "turn of the year" was February to March - thus that's where the leap days go. I don't remember who changed that and why.
@@KaiHenningsen Originally? Not at all clear what that means in context. Ancient folks noticed the days get shorter and then longer.... And even built big impressive stone circles commemorating the fact. And filled pits with the debris of the parties they held. And all long before, the Roman febura festival was invented. Let alone the name appropriated for a moth ofthe year
Dan, I really enjoyed this video. Just seeing the basic scholarship of demonstrating where the sources come from was refreshing compared to the usual unsubstantiated claims on this platform. I'll be heading over to watch the video about Christmas trees shortly
Hey Dan, love all your videos, learning a ton through your channel. After watching you, I've found Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels who are fantastic as well. Quick video correction here: the hallucinogenic/poisonous mushrooms are Amanita* Muscaria, where Amanita is the genus.
Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra’s birthday was the most sacred day of the year.
Gnostic Informant just put out a great video about potential origins of Christmas traditions and ideas, but what struck me most, and what I keep running into online, is the very idea that “Paganism” was even a real thing, that “Christianity” is truly separate from it, or that “pagan traditions” could somehow truly exist separately from “Christian traditions” with regard to Christian holidays. It doesn’t seem useful to think about history in this way, and it also has so much toxic potential, which we see borne out by fundamentalist Christian types. It makes as much sense to me to say “Actually, the Christmas tree [or whatever] is pagan” as it does to say “actually, keeping a sabbath day is Jewish”. That it is to say, the idea that some traditions existed before or alongside Christianity before being adopted by Christians, seems like a much healthier & more productive framing than leaning into this idea, created in the minds of 3rd and 4th century Christian elites, that there were “pagan” practices & “Christian” ones. Not that you’re doing that here, quite the opposite - I’m having some trouble articulating what I mean, but I wondered if you might do a video exploring this kind of thing sometime if you haven’t.
My understanding is that "pagan" comes from the Latin "paganus", meaning countryside. Also, that, as a basis for its modern use, comes from the Roman military. It was an answer to the question, "What religion do the people follow here?" The answer pagan had the meaning of- 'Whatever the f*ck religion they practice in this country. I don't care.' So, in agreement with you, the current meaning actually suggests there is Christianity on one side and a multiplicity of traditions that are not Christian (pagan) on the other side.
@@sigmaoctantis1892 However you want to call it, there's an actual basis for it. Christianity, and before that Judaism, were strange religions around the time Christianity started, as they flat-out denied the existence of other gods. Older Judaism, like practically everyone else around the time, had their own god(s) but did not doubt that other people had their own, and all of them were real gods. (That's why the OT god effectively says "I'm jealous, worship only me, not those other gods!" - a lot like many husbands to their wives (and the other way around, too). And people on both sides of this divide obviously noticed that there was a qualitative difference there. That doesn't imply any side was better than any other, but there was a real difference, and over time, that difference was caught by the term "pagan". You might prefer to talk about monotheism and polytheism instead; just remember that the important difference is not really about the number of gods, but about how people relate to those and other gods. (There are more differences, such as faith being a big topic for Christians and practically irrelevant (as in nobody cared what their neighbors believed, just what they *did,* but they certainly usually believed) to pagans at the time.)
Yay for Religion for Breakfast! Set notifications, too, folks. ETA: I love how you walk everyone through the research into this claim!! Beautifully done, neighbor.
Really appreciate and enjoyed seeing how the method was used to try and identify the primary source for the date of Christmas. Christmas is celebrated as the birth of the savior from his virgin mother. The virgin birth was influenced by Greco-Roman culture. Greco-Roman culture was polytheistic or "pagan". Therefore the primary belief modern Christians hold was influenced by pagan stories. Stolen is a poor word, but one cannot separate the holiday from the time and space from which the story originated.
@@mycaleb8 In any case, the date was calculated based on a variant of the common usages of historians of the day, who usually dated the birth to the same date as the death (no birth certificates) - in this case, they matched the death with the conception, instead, which meant the birth was nine months after easter, which they then pinned on March 25, making Christmas December 25. 🤷Again, no birth certificates, what can you do?
In for instance in Scandinavia the word“Jul/Yule” is older than Christianity, and the priests took the word to heart ("appropriated it") at a very early stage. So the Christian holiday is thus called “Jul” in our oldest sources. But the holiday itself is purely of Christian origin, even though some try and point it as a form of pre-Nord Norse tradition which is wrong, only the ‘word’ predates the Christianity holiday.
Appreciated breakdown. It's seems so easy to suggest it's related to solstice Celebrations. Since it's the right time of year. It is after all the birth of a new solar year. At least in the northern himisphere anyway.
I just watched a video yesterday by the Freedom From Religion people that said that Christians stole Christmas and that the real reason for the season is the Winter Solstice. And then I saw another Catholic video that said that they have now proved that Jesus was in fact born on 25 December. Earlier I had seen a video that said that He was born on 24 November.
We have no idea when Jesus was born from sources even 200 years after his birth. The 25th of December is derived from the earlier 25th of March death date claim, where they used that day of the year as his conception and 9 months after that is the 25th of Dec. Dan has another video on this exact topic!
@@TheRealBrit no one knows when he was born, nor had anyone cared to till that point. However, they did have a traditional date for the death, so they extrapolated from that as was the custom of the time.
@@kylewilliams8114 Yes I'm aware nobody knew, I was pointing out that the custom was to use the death date AS the birth date. Using the death date as the birth date as was the custom at the time would put Jesus' birth on March 25th or there abouts, but for some reason this was oddly changed to be conception this one time instead of birth date which meant the birth would line up ever so nicely with all the other religions who celebrated in December. Why was that?
Then why is December 25th the date chosen? The first known reference of December 25th was by Julius Africanus in the 3rd Century, and it wasn't until Constantine in the 4th Century that the date become fully established as December the 25th. Prior to that determination, Christian communities used various dates, including January 6th, March 25th, and other dates in April and May?
NOT, all Christians celebrate Christmas on the 25 of December ! So, this is a false claim of stealing a pagan Holiday. There R other reasons why December 25 was chosen by the Western church! Like believing Jesus was conceived on March 25 and 9 months later you have December 25. Not the Eastern church which celebrates on January 6.
The Armenian Orthodox Church celebrates on January 6 as both the birthday of Jesus and the date of his baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. Because this is the date they had settled on in the fourth century (and April 8 for the annunciation) . The majority of Eastern Orthodox denominations observe Christmas on January *7* actually because that is still December 25 on the old Julian calendar, and their solution to the dates changing in adopting the Gregorian calendar was to eventually, designate a modified Julian calendar for liturgical purposes . It jumped 12 days ahead but is also gradually shifting due to not having a leap year. This confused me for years. I think I have it right now. But still
Yes, forget about the calendar changes: I think the Dutch celebrate Jesus birthday on December 25 and Santa Claus giving gifts on January 6 in the Netherlands! They were combined in the US by Dutch merchants of NYC! Armenian church Blessings of water on Jan 6. Last name originally Armenian before Elis Island change of spelling!
@@davidjanbaz7728 generally immigrants to America chose to change their own surnames due to social pressure or other things. Ellis Island had the record of the names on the ships roster from the people’s country of origin, where they wrote them down correctly. In genealogy research you can see these records and it’s easily debunked. Though I understand the ease of a common myth for story purposes. My grandfather always told me that his family had to change his German name because of the wars, I have no idea if this was true though . Or which war?
@@83croissantit was changed as my father told me it was and He was not happy about it and didn't contribute with my Uncle to buy a brick with the Name Janbaz on it at Ellis Island. It did happen !
The first I recall of the Christmas is pegan was on the 700 Club. My grandmother used to watch The 700 Club on TV. That would have been back in the 1980s or 1990s. (Actually I might not have the exact name of that show) They claimed that the traditiond had been "Christianized*
Throughout history it's quite clear that religions were absorbed into other religions. It's really not that surprising that Roman pagan religions were absorbed by Christianity. I have personally seen how indigenous peoples gradually blended their tribal beliefs into Christianity because that was the dominant religion. The generations that follow have let go of the tribal beliefs and gods but still kept the rituals. Maybe we don't have documented sources but I would not say it's a mistake to say Christmas is a pagan holiday. Even the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli shares a birthday with Jesus and also was born of a virgin who was impregnated miraculously.
Well researched. However, did pagans have no festivals, no merry making? In all probability they did. In all probability they needed to. From a psychological point of view it's very depressing to have no warmth and little light. So for me I'm inclined to believe there is a mid winter festival involving eating, drinking and celebrating, joining with others and sharing gifts. There is a need to overcome the darkness, then as now. And converted to Christianity it became a time to remember the birth of Christ at this time.
They absolutely celebrated the winter solstice, and in Rome they also had Saturnalia starting on December 17 and running for up to 7 days. I'm not suggesting such festivals didn't exist, just that there are no data that indicate Christmas was an appropriation of any of them.
@@maklelan I've changed my mind on this to some extent. The idea the festival is just adopted by pagans is widespread but probably false, at least to the extreme in which it's expressed. The date of the birth of Christ is probably derived from an assumed date of conception and working forward 9 months. Obviously the date of 25 December is a liturgical determination for the purpose of our community's celebrations.
This seems to me... to miss the point. The notion that appropriation might have been pre-meditated or 'planned' in some way seems immediately nonsensical. What seems more the case is that 'Christs day Mass' falls midwinter... And by the 7-8th C had begun to attain a more central significance for Christians at which point various pagan winter festival traditions began to be assimilated into the 'christmas' tradition. Sometimes this is obvious such as the edict to celebrate both Christmas and Yule together as described in the saga of King Haakon Haraldsson the good.(10 C.) Sometimes less so e.g the Bofana practice of gifts in socks which got assimilated into st Nick's myth after his bones were moved to Bari. Or the merger of St Nick with the separate tradition of old father Yule/Christmas. And it's pretty clear that most everything important about Christmas (big party) was celebrated in numerous European cultures, long before Christianity, and evidently before those cultures had meaningful contact with Christianity. The root of the appropriation is a function of theism generally and monotheism specifically: if all things derive from a 'god' then those things are easily subsumed. Two prime (non Christmas) examples are the Logos(pre Christian Greek with parallels in China, India etc) and the Golden rule which is recorded in Sandskrit, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and cantos of the Tao te Ching. The biggest reason the appropriation of Christmas is even an issue, comes from Christians getting their knickers in a twist over inclusive phrases like 'happy holidays'... And claim 'Jesus is the reason for the season', which seems emphatically refuted by the history, which all evidence suggests pre-dates Christianity by a couple of millennia.
@@hive_indicator318 Durrington Walls is pretty sound archeology... . And I can't think of many historians that dispute winter festivals being held across Northern Europe for at least a couple of Millennia prior to Christianity even being imagined., never mind achieving contact with the culture concerned. It's really not clear what you think is 'vibes'
@@davidjanbaz7728Pretty unsustainable... Given American 'christmas traditions' in the first instance are pretty recent by any reckoning, and all 'traditions' are pretty malleable in the second instance, and in the third that numerous cultures represented in NA still celebrate winter festivals far older than 'christmas'. So it's not clear how 'happy holidays' appropriates anything... Rather as far as I can see... It would be one of the few things that might be claimed to be uniquely American .
Given the timing and apparent language of the original text, is it possible that the original writer or certainly commenter were Muslims? That is, that neither the original writer or commenter made a mistake but that someone intentionally made this claim in order to discredit Christianity. The Gospel of Barnabas is still promoted in some Muslim circles as an accurate gospel, even though there's internal problems with the original text and it has apparently been traced to a Jew in the middle ages that had converted to Islam. From the Quran or Hadith it is asserted that Christians corrupted and changed the Bible, changed passages and meanings. Considering the timing and location I'd wonder if some Muslims in the middle ages, during the height of the crusades were looking to defame Christianity. Nevermind there's plenty of real fodder against Christianity and the Bible... And against the Quran for that matter.
I developed some software that automatically paints Santas beard on Dan's face in any video now. Ive got him holding Odin's spear in one hand and a Sol Invictus Halo over his head hes also holding a miniture version of Saturnalia tree in the other hand. Yes Dan we believe you, keep on pushing.
Given that, per the Bible, Jesus was born in the late spring possibly early summer, we know December 25 was NOT Jesus birthday. So someone, for some reason, decided hey let's celebrate the birthday 6 months earlier? And that's not appropriating? Seems weak
The date of December 25th for the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with anything pagan, it is a straightforward deduction from Scripture, analyzed in conjunction with historical knowledge about those who worked in the temple. To briefly summarize: The priestly course of Abias (the course of Saint Zacharias) was undoubtedly serving during the second week of the Jewish month of Tishri-the very week of the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of Tishri. In our calendar, the Day of Atonement would land anywhere from September 22 to October 8. Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist immediately after Zacharias served his course. This entails that Saint John the Baptist would have been conceived somewhere around the end of September, placing John’s birth at the end of June, confirming the early church’s celebration of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24. The rest of the dating is rather simple. We read that just after the Virgin Mary conceived Christ, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. This means that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. If you add six months to June 24 you get December 24-25 as the birthday of Jesus. Then, if you subtract nine months from December 25 you get that the Annunciation was March 25. So, as can be seen, the date was derived from considerations having nothing whatsoever to do with Roman festivals or any other December-related cultural or non-Christian religious activities. Granted, as you allude to, modern scholarship has demonstrated that the birth of Jesus actually occurred more likely in either the Spring, at some point in early April, or in the fall, at some point in late September, but for people living almost 2,000 years ago however, they used what data they had, and none of it came from pre-Christian/pagan sources.
Why are you ignoring Pesach? Because Pesach in spring seems to feature rather heavily in why winter became associated with Jesus' birth in the 2nd/3rd century (don't recall which).
Problem is that Jesus was born into a Jewish family and not a westernised family, they didn't use Christmas trees as as part of birthday celebrations, this would be considered pagan, it goes against Torah, plus Jews aren't big on celebrating birthdays either, and tree's and reefs and tinsel are all western constructs borrowed from different cultures, and the Christmas Ham DEFINITELY wouldn't be put on the table!
Bringing trees into the home is not prohibited. Plenty of wooden items were used in homes. Using it as the basis for an idol is prohibited, but trees are not.
@@huttj509 what do you think a Christmas tree is, it's a object of admiration and worship, they sing songs about them, they decorate with orbs and tinsel, they bow down and offer gifts, then their children bow down and receive gifts, it's very much a religious observance of Germanic origins, However, having placing a "Christmas tree" in ones home if you follow Torah touches upon another issue of not following in the ways of the gentiles, which is a Torah prohibition.
Torah has 613 commandments for Jews and the 7 for Gentiles. Any tree (including a non-fruit tree) planted beside an idol, or beside an idol's altar or house of worship, is a forbidden decoration for the idol, and is therefore an asherah. Likewise, trees that are brought into houses of worship to celebrate the birthday of Yeshua are forbidden as long as they remain there. In private houses or businesses, it appears that they are not forbidden for benefit if they bear no symbols of the religion, if they are only used as a custom and not as an aid in worshiping with prayers or songs. They would certainly be permitted for benefit after being discarded (a clear act of nullification). @@thebook1889
News Flash: Dan declares many Christians traditions & practices to be non-Christian in origin. I'm sure Dan is right when he says, in effect; Christmas was not just stolen from a specific pagan Festival as a complete pre-existing package deal. I'm also sure Dan is right when he says; •Christian converts brought their (non-Christian) practices with them. •Certain Christian leaders appropriated (non-Christian) convention & practices into Christmas. •Today's Christmas celebrations have been heavily influenced by non-Christian European Traditions. So it appears, the claim that many non-Christian traditions, conventions & practices that are being used, in a so called Christian festival, are infact non-Christian (pagan) in origin, is valid. This is what people essentially mean when they say Christmas is pagan in origin. This begs the question, why are people, who regard themselves as Christians, observing non-Christian (pagan) traditions, conventions & practices?
@@hive_indicator318 Get real - are you blind &/or deaf or perhaps dishonest? Listen again and also read the transcript. Every point I said Dan said is virtually a direct quote from Dan. I didn't even paraphrase, I used the same words/terms that Dan did. Demonstrate one thing I said that is not something Dan actually said.
@glenwillson5073 you didn't use quotation marks, so I didn't check what you said versus what he said. And traditions aren't the holiday. He not only didn't say the holiday doesn't have origins from Christians, he said the opposite. How people end up observing something has nothing to do with how the concept started.
@@hive_indicator318 ▪︎"He not only didn't say the holiday doesn't have origins from Christians, he said the opposite." Yes, Christmas does have origns with Christians. But what Dan said, literally in so many words, is that many of these Christians brought with them traditions, practices & conventions that are non-Christian (ie. pagan) and incorporated these into Christmas. I agree with Dan. ▪︎"How people end up observing something has nothing to do with how the concept started." Yes this can certainly be true. Let's say observing Christmas was instituted by God (which of course it wasn't) but let's say. What do you think it would mean if people then introduced pagan traditions, practices & conventions into this observance? God good with this do you think? ▪︎"And traditions aren't the holiday" Remove the traditions (ie. the practices etc.) and the holiday ceases to exist. If I don't do or observe anything Christmasie, am I observing the holiday? This is not rocket science or even brain surgery, as they say. As Dan says, many traditions, practices & conventions used in observing Christmas are non-Christian (ie. pagan) in origin, there is simply no denying it. So the question remains, why are so called Christians observing a festival, not instituted by God, and using pagan practices & traditions in doing so? Which begs a further question, are these people even Christian?
1. The Christmas tree: Ancient Germanic peoples decorated homes with boughs of evergreens at midwinter. Is the Christmas tree more likely an elaboration if this custom or is it based on the biblical verse, um, [crickets] 2. Crecganford had a very interesting video just up about tge winter solstice being the most important day for Neolithic people. 3. I need to dig further, but I have seen references to Yule being celebrated over 12 days. 4. Textual and archeological data? When studying the ephemeral customs of proliferate people, what exactly are you expecting to find? Fortunately, the pre-Celtic, pre-Germanic and WAY pree-Christian megalith builders left clear evidence of the critical importance of the solstices to early people. 5. The bible doesn't specify the date of Jesus's birth and doesn't mandate its celebration. Indeed, Scots Presbyterians, Puritans and Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas because of a combination of it being non-biblical AND mostly a bunch of carousing. 6. Who's squinting? Who is ramping up the merely not impossible? Did early church fathers really decide that Jesus's birthday really need to be celebrated in a way that no other religious founding figures is or did a wide variety of old solstice festivals lead to a wide variety of modern Christmas celebrations? 7. For all that, have a Good Yule, Scintillating Solstice and a Very Merry Christmas, Dan. I could hardly disagree more with you on this topic but deeply appreciate your channel and look your latest up every morning and throughout the day. Your work is very important.
For your first point, the ReligionForBreakfast video covers it. For 2-4, look at the primary sources from their citations. If they don't have citations, that might be a sign they're just saying things. For 5-7, it's either a moot point or something you might need to find the primary sources if you want answers.
@hive_indicator318 No, I care a lot about facts and, to this end, I care a lot about how one goes about investigating facts about the ephemeral customs of pre-literate people when you come equipped only with philology and archeology, two toolkits that are, as some might say, LAUGHABLY not up to the task Anyway, the Religion for Breakfast video in exactly the way I expected it to and the rest if your response was a non-response pretending to be a response, which inspired my non-response without the cringe pretense.
Actually it is you id like to communicate with regarding Daddy ( Yahweh) anyway in the meantime Christmas is based on the Christ oil that originates in your claus trum and travels down the body (like Santa &chimney etc ) then back up to the two cherubim (like the ark etc)if your brains he gave you.this god given oil dies this once a month,but everyone us too busy looking at all of his books 📖..hope this helps you realise what Christmas celebrations mean......blessed be Baba aka barbelo,wife 🕊️🤍🌹
Your are misinterpreting it. It's not that Christmas stole pagan practices, but that the Catholic Church had a habit of plunking Christian Holidays on the exact same times as the Pagan practices happened. It really doesn't matter which practice. Time was the more important element for them. A part of the reason for this was converting a population, especially during the time when International Law required the population of a country to be Catholic before that land could be taken over. So saying they "stole" pagan ceremonies or religious practices is a vast oversimplification.
The earliest attested date for the celebration of Sol Invictus is 274 AD, but it wasn't originally celebrated on December 25th. There is evidence to suggest Sol Invictus was originally observed as early as August or October and was only later changed to December 25th as a possible way for the Romans to counter Christians celebrating Christmas, not the other way around. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum]. However, there is some conjecture of whether or not the above additions to this manuscript were very early (c. 600 AD) "additions" to the text (i.e., they were 'forged' into the text to evidence an early date for Christmas). Even if that is indeed the case, both Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-240) and Clement of Alexandria (AD 153-217) commented on December 25th as the celebration of the birth of Jesus. So even if Theophilus never said the above quote, not long after his dates, Hyppolytus and Clement both commented on December 25. In short, it's quite possible Christmas was already being celebrated by Christians by the early 2nd century AD which would predate Sol Invictus.
I'm a little confused. So, was Dec. 25 the date celebrated as the birth of Sol Invictus? Is this Wikipedia article wrong? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus#:~:text=In%20AD%20274%2C%20the%20emperor,celebrated%20with%20thirty%20chariot%20races.
I really appreciate the slides or photocopies, however you like, of the texts. It makes it easier to follow. Your videos are always great!
It's very important to point out that these sorts of claims slipping through the cracks within scholarship happen, and that verifying one's sources is of the utmost importance. Ronald Hutton is, as far as I'm aware, a well respected scholar in his own right. Seeing this sort of thing happen to such a scholar should remind us all that no one is immune to these sorts of mistakes. Thanks Dr Dan! :D
I was also somewhat surprised to see Prof. Hutton come up in this, as someone who is generally a fan of his work. It does not seem to have been his mistake originally, but still he should have dug a bit deeper before publishing an error like that. As you say, even respected scholars make mistakes sometimes!
Dan, you’re performing a great service for many. Thanks for all the great work this past year. Hope 2024 is a great one for you.
Fake history is a service to no one, simpleton. It was, quite literally, created by pagans. There is no valid dispute of this fact. It was created by PRE-Christian Romans. What do we call those? PAGANS.
I love this sort of source detective work!
Such a well done and concise video! I appreciate you taking the time to do the actual research. I wish I had the patience to dig that far.
Festivals generally involve eating, drinking and games. Therefore, claiming that a festival was adopted from one religion by another requires much more than just saying "there was eating, drinking and games during this time of the year."
Not sure that follows.
The eating, drinking and 'making merry', would seem to be the issues of central significance, across numerous traditions, specifically around the turn of the year. It's the bolt on 'nativity' that seems fundamentally out of place.
@@DJTheTrainmanWalker Originally, the "turn of the year" was February to March - thus that's where the leap days go. I don't remember who changed that and why.
@@KaiHenningsen Originally? Not at all clear what that means in context. Ancient folks noticed the days get shorter and then longer.... And even built big impressive stone circles commemorating the fact. And filled pits with the debris of the parties they held.
And all long before, the Roman febura festival was invented. Let alone the name appropriated for a moth ofthe year
Dan, I really enjoyed this video. Just seeing the basic scholarship of demonstrating where the sources come from was refreshing compared to the usual unsubstantiated claims on this platform. I'll be heading over to watch the video about Christmas trees shortly
Awsome video Dan! Thanks for showing your work!
Thank you for tracking this back for us!
Hey Dan, love all your videos, learning a ton through your channel. After watching you, I've found Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels who are fantastic as well. Quick video correction here: the hallucinogenic/poisonous mushrooms are Amanita* Muscaria, where Amanita is the genus.
Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra’s birthday was the most sacred day of the year.
Impeccable work, as usual!
Gnostic Informant just put out a great video about potential origins of Christmas traditions and ideas, but what struck me most, and what I keep running into online, is the very idea that “Paganism” was even a real thing, that “Christianity” is truly separate from it, or that “pagan traditions” could somehow truly exist separately from “Christian traditions” with regard to Christian holidays. It doesn’t seem useful to think about history in this way, and it also has so much toxic potential, which we see borne out by fundamentalist Christian types.
It makes as much sense to me to say “Actually, the Christmas tree [or whatever] is pagan” as it does to say “actually, keeping a sabbath day is Jewish”. That it is to say, the idea that some traditions existed before or alongside Christianity before being adopted by Christians, seems like a much healthier & more productive framing than leaning into this idea, created in the minds of 3rd and 4th century Christian elites, that there were “pagan” practices & “Christian” ones.
Not that you’re doing that here, quite the opposite - I’m having some trouble articulating what I mean, but I wondered if you might do a video exploring this kind of thing sometime if you haven’t.
My understanding is that "pagan" comes from the Latin "paganus", meaning countryside. Also, that, as a basis for its modern use, comes from the Roman military. It was an answer to the question, "What religion do the people follow here?" The answer pagan had the meaning of- 'Whatever the f*ck religion they practice in this country. I don't care.'
So, in agreement with you, the current meaning actually suggests there is Christianity on one side and a multiplicity of traditions that are not Christian (pagan) on the other side.
@@sigmaoctantis1892 However you want to call it, there's an actual basis for it. Christianity, and before that Judaism, were strange religions around the time Christianity started, as they flat-out denied the existence of other gods. Older Judaism, like practically everyone else around the time, had their own god(s) but did not doubt that other people had their own, and all of them were real gods. (That's why the OT god effectively says "I'm jealous, worship only me, not those other gods!" - a lot like many husbands to their wives (and the other way around, too).
And people on both sides of this divide obviously noticed that there was a qualitative difference there. That doesn't imply any side was better than any other, but there was a real difference, and over time, that difference was caught by the term "pagan". You might prefer to talk about monotheism and polytheism instead; just remember that the important difference is not really about the number of gods, but about how people relate to those and other gods. (There are more differences, such as faith being a big topic for Christians and practically irrelevant (as in nobody cared what their neighbors believed, just what they *did,* but they certainly usually believed) to pagans at the time.)
@@KaiHenningsen I'm sorry, but I can't work out what your point is.
Yay for Religion for Breakfast! Set notifications, too, folks.
ETA: I love how you walk everyone through the research into this claim!! Beautifully done, neighbor.
Imagine one had to write a book about all these types of misconceptions... I'd imagine it would be a thick tome!
Really appreciate and enjoyed seeing how the method was used to try and identify the primary source for the date of Christmas. Christmas is celebrated as the birth of the savior from his virgin mother. The virgin birth was influenced by Greco-Roman culture. Greco-Roman culture was polytheistic or "pagan". Therefore the primary belief modern Christians hold was influenced by pagan stories. Stolen is a poor word, but one cannot separate the holiday from the time and space from which the story originated.
I'm not even sure that's a sound claim it's a celebration of Jesus' birth, not specifically the virgin nature of that birth.
@@mycaleb8 In any case, the date was calculated based on a variant of the common usages of historians of the day, who usually dated the birth to the same date as the death (no birth certificates) - in this case, they matched the death with the conception, instead, which meant the birth was nine months after easter, which they then pinned on March 25, making Christmas December 25. 🤷Again, no birth certificates, what can you do?
@@KaiHenningsen I was aware.
Dan, you just got yourself another Patreon supporter. Cannot wait for the classes!!
In for instance in Scandinavia the word“Jul/Yule” is older than Christianity, and the priests took the word to heart ("appropriated it") at a very early stage. So the Christian holiday is thus called “Jul” in our oldest sources. But the holiday itself is purely of Christian origin, even though some try and point it as a form of pre-Nord Norse tradition which is wrong, only the ‘word’ predates the Christianity holiday.
Appreciated breakdown. It's seems so easy to suggest it's related to solstice Celebrations. Since it's the right time of year.
It is after all the birth of a new solar year. At least in the northern himisphere anyway.
Masterful analysis.
Dan, Great job but would you share this at the office holiday party though? 😂. Happy Holidays
I just watched a video yesterday by the Freedom From Religion people that said that Christians stole Christmas and that the real reason for the season is the Winter Solstice. And then I saw another Catholic video that said that they have now proved that Jesus was in fact born on 25 December. Earlier I had seen a video that said that He was born on 24 November.
YES, everyone trying to spin Christmas into Their Narrow Narrative!
Excellent work.
Thanks for the great work.
Wait, I have to check sources? J/K. I like the process embedded in the video.
What about the fact that Jesus was born in the summertime? So why are we celebrating on the winter solstice?
We have no idea when Jesus was born from sources even 200 years after his birth. The 25th of December is derived from the earlier 25th of March death date claim, where they used that day of the year as his conception and 9 months after that is the 25th of Dec. Dan has another video on this exact topic!
@@kylewilliams8114so why did they choose to use the conception there instead of the birth which was common practice at the time?
@@TheRealBrit no one knows when he was born, nor had anyone cared to till that point. However, they did have a traditional date for the death, so they extrapolated from that as was the custom of the time.
@@kylewilliams8114 Yes I'm aware nobody knew, I was pointing out that the custom was to use the death date AS the birth date. Using the death date as the birth date as was the custom at the time would put Jesus' birth on March 25th or there abouts, but for some reason this was oddly changed to be conception this one time instead of birth date which meant the birth would line up ever so nicely with all the other religions who celebrated in December. Why was that?
Australian Christmas is summer so you're claim is invalid.
Then why is December 25th the date chosen? The first known reference of December 25th was by Julius Africanus in the 3rd Century, and it wasn't until Constantine in the 4th Century that the date become fully established as December the 25th. Prior to that determination, Christian communities used various dates, including January 6th, March 25th, and other dates in April and May?
Classic Chortlemuffin
NOT, all Christians celebrate Christmas on the 25 of December !
So, this is a false claim of stealing a pagan Holiday.
There R other reasons why December 25 was chosen by the Western church! Like believing Jesus was conceived on March 25 and 9 months later you have December 25.
Not the Eastern church which celebrates on January 6.
The Armenian Orthodox Church celebrates on January 6 as both the birthday of Jesus and the date of his baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. Because this is the date they had settled on in the fourth century (and April 8 for the annunciation) . The majority of Eastern Orthodox denominations observe Christmas on January *7* actually because that is still December 25 on the old Julian calendar, and their solution to the dates changing in adopting the Gregorian calendar was to eventually, designate a modified Julian calendar for liturgical purposes . It jumped 12 days ahead but is also gradually shifting due to not having a leap year.
This confused me for years. I think I have it right now. But still
Yes, forget about the calendar changes: I think the Dutch celebrate Jesus birthday on December 25 and Santa Claus giving gifts on January 6 in the Netherlands!
They were combined in the US by Dutch merchants of NYC!
Armenian church Blessings of water on Jan 6.
Last name originally Armenian before Elis Island change of spelling!
@@davidjanbaz7728 generally immigrants to America chose to change their own surnames due to social pressure or other things. Ellis Island had the record of the names on the ships roster from the people’s country of origin, where they wrote them down correctly. In genealogy research you can see these records and it’s easily debunked. Though I understand the ease of a common myth for story purposes. My grandfather always told me that his family had to change his German name because of the wars, I have no idea if this was true though . Or which war?
And in some parts of Italy and Spain the gift giving holiday is Epiphany , I think?
@@83croissantit was changed as my father told me it was and He was not happy about it and didn't contribute with my Uncle to buy a brick with the Name Janbaz on it at Ellis Island.
It did happen !
Academic essay in video format.
Detective Dan 🕵️♂️
The first I recall of the Christmas is pegan was on the 700 Club. My grandmother used to watch The 700 Club on TV. That would have been back in the 1980s or 1990s. (Actually I might not have the exact name of that show)
They claimed that the traditiond had been "Christianized*
excellent stuff
Boys and girls, this is what, "Do your own research" looks like.
It's also what, "Show your work" looks like.
Throughout history it's quite clear that religions were absorbed into other religions. It's really not that surprising that Roman pagan religions were absorbed by Christianity. I have personally seen how indigenous peoples gradually blended their tribal beliefs into Christianity because that was the dominant religion. The generations that follow have let go of the tribal beliefs and gods but still kept the rituals. Maybe we don't have documented sources but I would not say it's a mistake to say Christmas is a pagan holiday. Even the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli shares a birthday with Jesus and also was born of a virgin who was impregnated miraculously.
BRUMALIA? Not saying stolen but blended into the new festival of the new religion. Tree cutting was part of Brumalia.
Why did you shave Dan?
Many Pagan festivals occur during the period of the Winter Solstice. The Christians just wanted to "Get Into the Act".
Love how you and Religion for Breakfast @ each other. I'm going to get my PhD so I can join your club.
Well researched. However, did pagans have no festivals, no merry making?
In all probability they did. In all probability they needed to. From a psychological point of view it's very depressing to have no warmth and little light. So for me I'm inclined to believe there is a mid winter festival involving eating, drinking and celebrating, joining with others and sharing gifts.
There is a need to overcome the darkness, then as now. And converted to Christianity it became a time to remember the birth of Christ at this time.
They absolutely celebrated the winter solstice, and in Rome they also had Saturnalia starting on December 17 and running for up to 7 days. I'm not suggesting such festivals didn't exist, just that there are no data that indicate Christmas was an appropriation of any of them.
@@maklelan I've changed my mind on this to some extent. The idea the festival is just adopted by pagans is widespread but probably false, at least to the extreme in which it's expressed.
The date of the birth of Christ is probably derived from an assumed date of conception and working forward 9 months. Obviously the date of 25 December is a liturgical determination for the purpose of our community's celebrations.
I take my hat off to you Dan. This 6 minute video must have taken days to research
This seems to me... to miss the point.
The notion that appropriation might have been pre-meditated or 'planned' in some way seems immediately nonsensical. What seems more the case is that 'Christs day Mass' falls midwinter... And by the 7-8th C had begun to attain a more central significance for Christians at which point various pagan winter festival traditions began to be assimilated into the 'christmas' tradition.
Sometimes this is obvious such as the edict to celebrate both Christmas and Yule together as described in the saga of King Haakon Haraldsson the good.(10 C.) Sometimes less so e.g the Bofana practice of gifts in socks which got assimilated into st Nick's myth after his bones were moved to Bari. Or the merger of St Nick with the separate tradition of old father Yule/Christmas.
And it's pretty clear that most everything important about Christmas (big party) was celebrated in numerous European cultures, long before Christianity, and evidently before those cultures had meaningful contact with Christianity.
The root of the appropriation is a function of theism generally and monotheism specifically: if all things derive from a 'god' then those things are easily subsumed. Two prime (non Christmas) examples are the Logos(pre Christian Greek with parallels in China, India etc) and the Golden rule which is recorded in Sandskrit, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and cantos of the Tao te Ching.
The biggest reason the appropriation of Christmas is even an issue, comes from Christians getting their knickers in a twist over inclusive phrases like 'happy holidays'... And claim 'Jesus is the reason for the season', which seems emphatically refuted by the history, which all evidence suggests pre-dates Christianity by a couple of millennia.
LOL 😂 : the happy holidays is a resent appropriation of the American Christmas holiday!
It has nothing to do with ancient pagan holidays!
Is finding sources to back up claims missing the point? If one can base claims purely off of vibes, is there a point to doing archeology?
@@hive_indicator318 Durrington Walls is pretty sound archeology... . And I can't think of many historians that dispute winter festivals being held across Northern Europe for at least a couple of Millennia prior to Christianity even being imagined., never mind achieving contact with the culture concerned.
It's really not clear what you think is 'vibes'
@@davidjanbaz7728Pretty unsustainable... Given American 'christmas traditions' in the first instance are pretty recent by any reckoning, and all 'traditions' are pretty malleable in the second instance, and in the third that numerous cultures represented in NA still celebrate winter festivals far older than 'christmas'.
So it's not clear how 'happy holidays' appropriates anything... Rather as far as I can see... It would be one of the few things that might be claimed to be uniquely American .
Trying to defend you on the expats Malta group on Facebook about this. I shared your video there in a comment
Given the timing and apparent language of the original text, is it possible that the original writer or certainly commenter were Muslims? That is, that neither the original writer or commenter made a mistake but that someone intentionally made this claim in order to discredit Christianity.
The Gospel of Barnabas is still promoted in some Muslim circles as an accurate gospel, even though there's internal problems with the original text and it has apparently been traced to a Jew in the middle ages that had converted to Islam.
From the Quran or Hadith it is asserted that Christians corrupted and changed the Bible, changed passages and meanings.
Considering the timing and location I'd wonder if some Muslims in the middle ages, during the height of the crusades were looking to defame Christianity.
Nevermind there's plenty of real fodder against Christianity and the Bible... And against the Quran for that matter.
I developed some software that automatically paints Santas beard on Dan's face in any video now. Ive got him holding Odin's spear in one hand and a Sol Invictus Halo over his head hes also holding a miniture version of Saturnalia tree in the other hand.
Yes Dan we believe you, keep on pushing.
CSI: Maklelan
Given that, per the Bible, Jesus was born in the late spring possibly early summer, we know December 25 was NOT Jesus birthday. So someone, for some reason, decided hey let's celebrate the birthday 6 months earlier? And that's not appropriating? Seems weak
The date of December 25th for the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with anything pagan, it is a straightforward deduction from Scripture, analyzed in conjunction with historical knowledge about those who worked in the temple. To briefly summarize: The priestly course of Abias (the course of Saint Zacharias) was undoubtedly serving during the second week of the Jewish month of Tishri-the very week of the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of Tishri. In our calendar, the Day of Atonement would land anywhere from September 22 to October 8. Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist immediately after Zacharias served his course. This entails that Saint John the Baptist would have been conceived somewhere around the end of September, placing John’s birth at the end of June, confirming the early church’s celebration of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24. The rest of the dating is rather simple. We read that just after the Virgin Mary conceived Christ, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. This means that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. If you add six months to June 24 you get December 24-25 as the birthday of Jesus. Then, if you subtract nine months from December 25 you get that the Annunciation was March 25.
So, as can be seen, the date was derived from considerations having nothing whatsoever to do with Roman festivals or any other December-related cultural or non-Christian religious activities. Granted, as you allude to, modern scholarship has demonstrated that the birth of Jesus actually occurred more likely in either the Spring, at some point in early April, or in the fall, at some point in late September, but for people living almost 2,000 years ago however, they used what data they had, and none of it came from pre-Christian/pagan sources.
Why are you ignoring Pesach? Because Pesach in spring seems to feature rather heavily in why winter became associated with Jesus' birth in the 2nd/3rd century (don't recall which).
Problem is that Jesus was born into a Jewish family and not a westernised family, they didn't use Christmas trees as as part of birthday celebrations, this would be considered pagan, it goes against Torah, plus Jews aren't big on celebrating birthdays either, and tree's and reefs and tinsel are all western constructs borrowed from different cultures, and the Christmas Ham DEFINITELY wouldn't be put on the table!
Bringing trees into the home is not prohibited. Plenty of wooden items were used in homes.
Using it as the basis for an idol is prohibited, but trees are not.
@@huttj509 what do you think a Christmas tree is, it's a object of admiration and worship, they sing songs about them, they decorate with orbs and tinsel, they bow down and offer gifts, then their children bow down and receive gifts, it's very much a religious observance of Germanic origins,
However, having placing a "Christmas tree" in ones home if you follow Torah touches upon another issue of not following in the ways of the gentiles, which is a Torah prohibition.
Torah has 613 commandments for Jews and the 7 for Gentiles. Any tree (including a non-fruit tree) planted beside an idol, or beside an idol's altar or house of worship, is a forbidden decoration for the idol, and is therefore an asherah. Likewise, trees that are brought into houses of worship to celebrate the birthday of Yeshua are forbidden as long as they remain there. In private houses or businesses, it appears that they are not forbidden for benefit if they bear no symbols of the religion, if they are only used as a custom and not as an aid in worshiping with prayers or songs. They would certainly be permitted for benefit after being discarded (a clear act of nullification). @@thebook1889
Do I have to make a bad video on Jesus the Cynic to trick you into making a good one?
and does it really matter?
News Flash: Dan declares many Christians traditions & practices to be non-Christian in origin.
I'm sure Dan is right when he says, in effect;
Christmas was not just stolen from a specific pagan Festival as a complete pre-existing package deal.
I'm also sure Dan is right when he says;
•Christian converts brought their (non-Christian) practices with them.
•Certain Christian leaders appropriated (non-Christian) convention & practices into Christmas.
•Today's Christmas celebrations have been heavily influenced by non-Christian European Traditions.
So it appears, the claim that many non-Christian traditions, conventions & practices that are being used, in a so called Christian festival, are infact non-Christian (pagan) in origin, is valid.
This is what people essentially mean when they say Christmas is pagan in origin.
This begs the question, why are people, who regard themselves as Christians, observing non-Christian (pagan) traditions, conventions & practices?
You came to a lot of conclusions about what he thinks that he didn't say. Begging the question, indeed.
@@hive_indicator318 Get real - are you blind &/or deaf or perhaps dishonest?
Listen again and also read the transcript. Every point I said Dan said is virtually a direct quote from Dan. I didn't even paraphrase, I used the same words/terms that Dan did.
Demonstrate one thing I said that is not something Dan actually said.
@glenwillson5073 you didn't use quotation marks, so I didn't check what you said versus what he said. And traditions aren't the holiday. He not only didn't say the holiday doesn't have origins from Christians, he said the opposite. How people end up observing something has nothing to do with how the concept started.
@@hive_indicator318
▪︎"He not only didn't say the holiday doesn't have origins from Christians, he said the opposite."
Yes, Christmas does have origns with Christians.
But what Dan said, literally in so many words, is that many of these Christians brought with them traditions, practices & conventions that are non-Christian (ie. pagan) and incorporated these into Christmas.
I agree with Dan.
▪︎"How people end up observing something has nothing to do with how the concept started."
Yes this can certainly be true.
Let's say observing Christmas was instituted by God (which of course it wasn't) but let's say.
What do you think it would mean if people then introduced pagan traditions, practices & conventions into this observance?
God good with this do you think?
▪︎"And traditions aren't the holiday"
Remove the traditions (ie. the practices etc.) and the holiday ceases to exist.
If I don't do or observe anything Christmasie, am I observing the holiday?
This is not rocket science or even brain surgery, as they say.
As Dan says, many traditions, practices & conventions used in observing Christmas are non-Christian (ie. pagan) in origin, there is simply no denying it.
So the question remains, why are so called Christians observing a festival, not instituted by God, and using pagan practices & traditions in doing so?
Which begs a further question, are these people even Christian?
1. The Christmas tree: Ancient Germanic peoples decorated homes with boughs of evergreens at midwinter. Is the Christmas tree more likely an elaboration if this custom or is it based on the biblical verse, um, [crickets]
2. Crecganford had a very interesting video just up about tge winter solstice being the most important day for Neolithic people.
3. I need to dig further, but I have seen references to Yule being celebrated over 12 days.
4. Textual and archeological data? When studying the ephemeral customs of proliferate people, what exactly are you expecting to find? Fortunately, the pre-Celtic, pre-Germanic and WAY pree-Christian megalith builders left clear evidence of the critical importance of the solstices to early people.
5. The bible doesn't specify the date of Jesus's birth and doesn't mandate its celebration. Indeed, Scots Presbyterians, Puritans and Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas because of a combination of it being non-biblical AND mostly a bunch of carousing.
6. Who's squinting? Who is ramping up the merely not impossible? Did early church fathers really decide that Jesus's birthday really need to be celebrated in a way that no other religious founding figures is or did a wide variety of old solstice festivals lead to a wide variety of modern Christmas celebrations?
7. For all that, have a Good Yule, Scintillating Solstice and a Very Merry Christmas, Dan. I could hardly disagree more with you on this topic but deeply appreciate your channel and look your latest up every morning and throughout the day. Your work is very important.
For your first point, the ReligionForBreakfast video covers it. For 2-4, look at the primary sources from their citations. If they don't have citations, that might be a sign they're just saying things. For 5-7, it's either a moot point or something you might need to find the primary sources if you want answers.
@@hive_indicator318 Blah blah blah
@@hive_indicator318 Blah blah blah
@@johnrichardson7629 you truly don't care about facts, just your narrative? Noted.
@hive_indicator318 No, I care a lot about facts and, to this end, I care a lot about how one goes about investigating facts about the ephemeral customs of pre-literate people when you come equipped only with philology and archeology, two toolkits that are, as some might say, LAUGHABLY not up to the task
Anyway, the Religion for Breakfast video in exactly the way I expected it to and the rest if your response was a non-response pretending to be a response, which inspired my non-response without the cringe pretense.
Mincing words, not refuting the facts
I fell for this one for years because I wanted it to be true. But it's not
Actually it is you id like to communicate with regarding Daddy ( Yahweh) anyway in the meantime Christmas is based on the Christ oil that originates in your claus trum and travels down the body (like Santa &chimney etc ) then back up to the two cherubim (like the ark etc)if your brains he gave you.this god given oil dies this once a month,but everyone us too busy looking at all of his books 📖..hope this helps you realise what Christmas celebrations mean......blessed be Baba aka barbelo,wife 🕊️🤍🌹
Your are misinterpreting it. It's not that Christmas stole pagan practices, but that the Catholic Church had a habit of plunking Christian Holidays on the exact same times as the Pagan practices happened. It really doesn't matter which practice. Time was the more important element for them. A part of the reason for this was converting a population, especially during the time when International Law required the population of a country to be Catholic before that land could be taken over. So saying they "stole" pagan ceremonies or religious practices is a vast oversimplification.
He mentioned that in the video and there's still no data for this specific claim.
The earliest attested date for the celebration of Sol Invictus is 274 AD, but it wasn't originally celebrated on December 25th. There is evidence to suggest Sol Invictus was originally observed as early as August or October and was only later changed to December 25th as a possible way for the Romans to counter Christians celebrating Christmas, not the other way around.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum].
However, there is some conjecture of whether or not the above additions to this manuscript were very early (c. 600 AD) "additions" to the text (i.e., they were 'forged' into the text to evidence an early date for Christmas).
Even if that is indeed the case, both Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-240) and Clement of Alexandria (AD 153-217) commented on December 25th as the celebration of the birth of Jesus. So even if Theophilus never said the above quote, not long after his dates, Hyppolytus and Clement both commented on December 25.
In short, it's quite possible Christmas was already being celebrated by Christians by the early 2nd century AD which would predate Sol Invictus.
You forgot to add citations of primary sources about the holidays that were stolen.
I'm a little confused. So, was Dec. 25 the date celebrated as the birth of Sol Invictus? Is this Wikipedia article wrong? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus#:~:text=In%20AD%20274%2C%20the%20emperor,celebrated%20with%20thirty%20chariot%20races.