December 24, 2024 • 36 mins
Whether or not you yourself celebrate Christmas, there's no denying it's one of the world's most well'known holidays -- in fact, this commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ may be the most famous birthday in the Western world. Yet, as Ben, Noel and Max discover in this holiday episode, experts still don't know when Jesus was actually born. Humans didn't really celebrate Christ's birthday as December 25th until centuries after his death... which means one of the world's most famous birthdays was also one of the absolute latest birthday parties ever.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
for our number one super producer, mister Max Williams. Huzzah,
there's mister Noel Brown. They often call me Ben in
these parts. Guys, this is our holiday episode.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It's true. Would you guys believe that I was not
born anywhere near Christmas despite my name? I get that
all the time. Just not the case. I'm an August baby, Alio.
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The thing that sticks out to me as a fellow
LEO and a fan of the human experiment, is that
we have a bone to pick with history. We have
something that we think is a little bit ridiculous. We're
going to dive into it here first and foremost, we
hope you and your family are well. Whether or not
(01:20):
you celebrate Christmas, we have to tell you, even if
you're listening to this thousands or millions of years after
the episode publishes, Christmas was slash is a pretty big deal.
It is ultimately a birthday celebration.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Sure, you guys have.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Heard it right here in the United States, people often
say Jesus is the reason for the season.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
They do say that. It's true. Lest you think we're
going to be a couple of old grinches trying to
steal Christmas, that's not the case at all. Though. Jesus
has become a little less of the reason for the
season here in the United States anyway, in favor of
a bit more of a massive commercial, you know, gift
giving blowout. But you know, things change, That's just how
(02:07):
it goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
What we see here in the US currently, as we
record at the very end of twenty twenty four, is
that Christmas has become an economic necessity for a lot
of businesses. It turns out, by the way, this is
what we're doing. I love your point, Noel. We are
not denigrating any spiritual belief system. We are, in fact
(02:31):
sticky up for this one guy, because it turns out
that Christmas the most important birthday in Western discourse. It
happened about three hundred years after the fact. This is
the latest birthday party ever.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Jesus needs all the help he can get. Ben, It's true.
First off, heavens.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh yeah, oh jeez, yeah, we're not the Logians. We're
not priests, pastors and moms or rabbis. Wait, let's check
with Max. Max, do you have any theological qualifications?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Uh I, I do not know.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Okay, all right, and we're all we're all on the
same we're all the same wavelength. Yeah, that's right, nol
uh Jesus Christ, that's right, haters, technically the world's most
famous Jew, So take that.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Nazis so likely you've heard tell of jc H. There
are a lot of stories about him, and you may
or may not be amazed to know that he was
what's that guy? There's a meme now is a super
chill guy. Yeah, yeah, very big lebowski.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Right, this guy, this one individual exhibited phenomenal dare say
divine abilities? Noel, we're talking about a guy who has
power over time, creation, angels, death, destiny, truth, and of
course churches.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
True story.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
One time, one unchill time, he cursed a fig tree.
That is a tale the Jedi will not share with you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, well, maybe a more popular story of him being
unchill was when he flipped the tables of the money
changers in the in the bizarre in the markets, you know,
because he was against the kind of greed and manipulation
that they represented. So you know, a pretty chill, unchill
action if you ask me.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, acting with righteousness did not care for usurious people.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
And whether or not you believe in Jesus's mystical or
divine abilities, the fact remains that he was a dude
who was believed in by many and absolutely accomplished some
pretty fantastic things even outside of the realm of the
divine right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
M Yeah, the individual called Jesus today was, according to
the story, born in a town called Bethlehem, in a
manger basically a barn, a place whould put livestock. His
parents were not the one percent, but the baby was
on the way. They couldn't find a better place for
his mom, the famous Mary to give.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Birth right at the end. All that right, one of
the famous Mary's.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And so, as the story goes, a bunch of people
showed up right on time for this birth in Bethlehem.
And get this, Instead of helping the family get better shelter,
everybody who showed up hung out in the barn, and
they gave the family a series of what we would
call dramatically expensive, often unhelpful gifts, like when when's the
(05:38):
last time he needed some mirr.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What even is mr? I know it's like a fine
oil or lotion or liniment. What is it? It's like
a spice? What is murr? Again? I think it's like
a precious metal. It's a gum resin. Okay, so it's
like incense, right, it would smell good?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's been you. It's medicinal. It's also
used for perfume. And as you said, incense.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Got it? Uh?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth. Uh And this is
a village near Cephoris, one of two major cities there
in Galilee, the other being Tiberius. And he was born
to essentially a the laborer, you know, a carpenter, a
(06:27):
construction worker, the name of Joseph, and of course the
aforementioned famous Mary. Somewhere around six BCP and shortly before
the death of Herod the Great, who was a real
pain in the keyst if I'm not mistaken, Ben.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, Noel, Let's be honest. History is written by the
victors first off, So every story you will read about
Herod in the West shows him being a real beat
me here Max, a real piece of h He.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Could change, he could change. Yeah, like back here. You know,
he did sloppy steaks, but he could change.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I don't think he changed. He didn't change, and the
jump in here real quick.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
I didn't write about it because I wasn't able to
find enough sources. But there are some rumors out there
that how Herod went was very fitting for our Ridiculous
World death episode.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yes, and I'm glad you mentioned that, Max. Perhaps we
will resurrect that idea in the future. No joke left
behind hashtag. So look, we could imagine Herod had his
own series of things going on, but for our purposes today,
he's kind of a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
He's kind of not cool.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
If you go to the later writing of the disciples
of Jesus, who is not yet in his childhood called
the Christ, we see that Matthew and Luke are you know,
they're part of the wu tang of Christ when he
becomes known as the Messiah, and they are the ones
(08:02):
who tell the world yesterday and today that this carpenter,
this itinerant carpenter you mentioned, Noel Joseph is only legally
the father of Jesus. Instead, they argue Mary was a
physical virgin, meaning she had never had or encountered sexual intimacy,
(08:23):
and then boom, she was found to be with child
from the Holy.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Spirit, the virgin birth. It's a miracle in Bethlehem. And
if I'm not mistaken by all of these folks, the
three Wise men and the like followed a shooting star,
and they heard tell of the coming of this Messiah,
and they follow the star that led them directly to
this cowshd. Pretty interesting stuff, not to mention that the
(08:48):
whole virgin birth thing. Of course, if anyone seen the
Last Temptation of Christ, for example by good old Martysecrsaza,
you know there are other controversial takes on this the
story so plenty of stuff to explore on your own
if you want to.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, and originally there was not a guy doing a
kick ass backbeat. There was not a little drummer boy
that comes later in the Great Game of Telephone.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean that's to me, like, I think a
bit of a clearly some of this is in the
realm of fiction. I think the Little drummer Boy was
almost like just a representation of the Christmas spirit. I do.
I do love it though.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I love the idea of a kid showing up and
just doing some drums.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Rum pum, pump pump.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So by all accounts, our young individual Jesus was precocious.
We do not know a ton about this individual's childhood,
including can I get a spoiler sound cube his actual birthday?
(09:52):
Thank you Max. He appeared to learn things at a
prodigious rate. He was a very quick kid, and and
Judaism at this time usually only add one name. If
you need a greater specificity, you would add the father's
name or the place of the individual's origin. So for example,
(10:15):
we would say Macs of Michigan, right, it would say
Noll of Augusta, something like that.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And that kind of nomenclature I guess goes back way
further than this story. I mean, it is an ancient holdover.
Instead of having last names, even people were identified from
where they were born, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, or their provenance. That's patrilineal origins. So in his
time on Earth, in this moment in history, Jesus is
called things like Jesus son of Joseph makes sense, Jesus
of Nazareth makes sense, or Jesus the Nazarene, which is,
(10:52):
you know, Jesus the guy from Nazareth.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
He ultimately becomes the most famous Jesus. So eventually all
that stuff could probably just drop off like Madonna or
Share absolutely and we could do an entire etymology spinoff
episode on the nature of translation here and that great
game of etymological and linguistic telephone that we kind of
just explored a good bit, and that two parter we
did on the English alphabet. But for now we just
(11:18):
need to know. At some point there was a brilliant
child of uncertain patrilineal origin for the time, and he
wanted to just take everything in he could like a sponge.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And with some help from our good friends at Britannica,
we'll give you the following quote about the young Jesus
later called Christ. As a young adult, he went to
be baptized by the prophet John the Baptist, and shortly
thereafter became an itinerant preacher and healer. This goes back
(11:55):
to Mark one to two to twenty eight. Anyway, in
Britannica did not say anyway, I said anyway. That's editorializing,
So Britannica continues. In his mid thirties, Jesus had a
short public career, lasting perhaps less than one year, during
(12:16):
which he attracted considerable attention. Noel, do you want to
finish us out with this quote?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Pro I be honored. Britannica is one of my favorites.
And boo to ye who say they are not a
valid source. Y'all need to get a hobby. Sometime between
twenty nine and thirty three CE, possibly thirty CE, he
went to observe passover in Jerusalem, where his entrance, according
to the Gospels, was triumphant and confused with eschatological significance.
(12:43):
Get your minds out of the gutter. That word doesn't
mean what you think it means. It's like it's almost
like ecclesiastical right, or like having like a religious imbued
with religious fervor kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's the branch of theology or philosophy that is associated
with the end of the world humanity.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Okay, yeah, relating to death, judgment, and the final destiny
of the soul. Okay, this is a new word for me.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, it's a good one. You don't get to use
it all the time, but it is a fun one.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You do, you best use it with Gusto.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Bro, we should accuse people of being eschatological.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
They're going to think we're calling them shitty. Oh that's scatology. Really,
it really sounds similar. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
How different does on one sound me?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Word? What difference a day makes? It's ben we're still
high off our alphabet. Serious.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So this, uh, this story, this early story will be
familiar to any what are called people of the book,
practitioners inherents of Judaism, Islam or Christianity. As you know,
and we hope we're not. The first way you learned this.
The man called Jesus was apprehended and he sat through
(13:57):
a kangaroo court. No one, to be fair, no one
in the area had heard of kangaroos by this point.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah. It's a great concept though that we explore a
little bit on a listener mail of recent times over
on stuff that I want you to know. We had
a listener right, and about the origins of the concept
of a kangaroo court, meaning a court where the outcome
is determined ahead of time. And it is all but
symbolic for the purposes of saying no, we did that,
we did the thing. We gave you a trial, But
basically there is a predetermined outcome, and for Jesus that
(14:25):
was crucifixion. After like saw two levels of torture and brutalization.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, it was super gross. It was undeserved. The guy
was innocent, and I love the point you're bringing up.
He was killed due to political machinations of the Romans
at the time. And this is why this death via crucifixion.
This is why Christians today will have a cross in homes,
(14:57):
on flags, on mission and perhaps in tattoos.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
On the moons. Yeah, yeah, why not.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
The disciples of Jesus now called Christ, they proliferated what
they saw as his teachings throughout the world. The problem
is that the disciples of Jesus Christ didn't always agree.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
With one another. Yeah, they had.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Differences of opinion. They had one thing, they had one thing.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
They agreed on.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
They said, our guy, Jesus Christ did not in fact
permanently die.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
No, he was in fact resurrected on the third Day,
where he rolled aside the stone on the cave where
his body lay in state to the proclamations of he
has risen, you know, all of that good stuff. So
this is a really big deal for any followers of
Jesus after going through such a PTSD inducing situation, having
(15:56):
to watch their guy JC just get his absolute beaten
out of him by that Cato nine tails. Do you
guys see the Mel Gibson movie. I never bothered. It
just seemed like torture porn.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, the Passion of the Christ. I actually did you know?
I love a little bit of Discordianism back now, back when,
back when DVDs and Blu rays and physical media were
more of a thing. I printed up a series of
stickers that just said, is tonight the night? And I
(16:28):
stuck them on a bunch of Passion of the Christ DVDs.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
It's tonight the night that what will happen? Ben, I
don't understand it is tonight the night that you watched
that you watched? Okay, get it right? Remember when that?
I mean, I'm sorry not to get two side travel.
When that film came out, it was a golden moment
for Christian merch. Remember there were like little nails, bracelets
and things, and it all felt a little commercial and weird.
(16:53):
I don't know what. I guess it's good for the faith,
you know, probably as was mel Gibson's intent, him being
a card carrying Christian and potentially a virulent anti Semite.
Oh no potential about it. Yeah, I think he said
some things, right, Yeah, So all right, here we go.
We've got this story a guy who is holy has
(17:15):
transcended the mortal veil and ever since he's around though
he exits the tomb and he's there, but then he ascends.
Is that the idea that he sort of dematerializes I've
ever understood the function of that scene.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Well, he takes on the sins of every other person
who has ever lived, and if you obey Jesus Christ
and follow his teachings, then he will stick up for
you in the face of God. He is God, the
argument goes, so it's pretty important to get on his
good side.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I guess what I'm talking about my confusion around the
whole ascending into heaven. Think, if I'm not mistaken, there
are people in the Bible who saw him, yeah, like
like before that took place. So I'm just wondering, like,
what did that look like when he ascended. I've always
just wondered, like what that might have looked like if this,
you know, this story were to be true, if there
(18:11):
were people that saw him, you know, in his corporeal form,
and then did he like just kind of disintegrates and
become like, you know, air, and or.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Did he physically fly up right into the hospma. I
always wondering, well, people still thought the idea of being
forgiven was massively cool, and a great many people, including
several of our fellow ridiculous historians, are on board with
this idea today. It is spiritually incredibly important. We have
(18:42):
your back, folks. We're never here to yuck a yum.
We think it is objectively regardless of your personal beliefs.
We think it is very cool to be lost and
to be found and loved once more. That's pretty nuts.
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
And I personally, to quote the band King Missile, think
Jesus was way cool and have always been fascinated by
him and his acts, whether or not the divine aspects
of it turn out to be true. And I'm not
here to say one way or the other. And my
whole you know, questioning of the ascension into heaven was
not trying to poke fun at all there. I just
truly like if that were to have happened. I mean,
(19:21):
we do a critical thinking conspiracy show, we talk about
the stuff in the spiritual realm all the time. I
just wonder what that might have looked like, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
People are still trying to figure out how best to commemorate,
to emulate, and to celebrate the life and times of
Jesus Christ. Throughout the Western world and spoiler, a lot
(19:50):
of the non Western world. There are a ton of
people who celebrate the idea of the birthday of Jesus
Christ as both a sacred religious hall day and as
a commercial phenomenon. For for like more than two thousand
years at this point, people around the world have been
observing our buddy Jesus's Big Day with traditions and practices
(20:15):
that are both religious and secular in nature. Please check
out our earlier episodes on things like the Yule Lads
or things like Crampis, old.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Boot liquor, no doorway sniffer, window liquors, window liquors, an
affect one song.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
But they're all these I think are right.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Somewhat licking smelling. They're doing a milk it's cealing, goat milk.
There's a ghast it's noun verb. And they're like thirteen
of them. They're they're very weird.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, it is worth worth your time to go back
and check that one out, because I can't remember half
of them to save my life. But they're all pretty
weird and pretty delightful, and we name check them regularly. Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Popular customs in celebration of the birthday of Christ Christmas.
They include things like exchanging gifts. Depending on where you are,
you might wear a little hat, you might have a tree.
You'll probably go to church, you eat a nice dinner
Christmas dinner with friends and family, and then obviously, post
(21:22):
Coca cola, you wait for Santa Claus.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
To arrive hundred percent. And you know, pretty much all
the things you're describing are enjoyed by the secular and
the faithful alike. You know, me not personally being a Christian.
I have a Christmas tree in my house, and I
love exchanging gifts, and I love the customs and the
traditions of it all and try not to make it
too grossly commercial. But a lot of these things are
(21:45):
kind of marking the season too. It is kind of
hopefully encouraging a spirit of end of the year reflection
and generositude.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's great, and this is the thing, all right.
So December twenty fifth, as Chris Smith's Day, has only
been a federal holiday in the United States since eighteen seventy.
So yeah, yeah, oh quite recently.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I did know that. I just I'm still taken aback
by it. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And also, this is the thing, this is the point
of our episode. We hope it's pretty well known by
this point. December twenty fifth, as the current western calendar reckons,
was not the actual birthday of Jesus Christ. In fact,
if you look at the ridiculous history here, his first
(22:34):
acknowledged birthday was three hundred years late. You know, you
say you like the guy and you take three hundred years.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So for the first three hundred years or so of
what we would call Christianity as we know it, no
one was celebrating Christmas on December twenty fifth. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The calendar you're using now in the West, the Gregorian
calendar system shout out greg was a created until the
late sixteenth century and tier point Noel. For the first
three hundred years or so of the Christian Church's existence.
Get this, they didn't really care about birthdays, right, They
(23:15):
were much more death obsessed.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
It would seem the day on which a saint died,
which makes sense kind of because saints are usually often
martyred and so the death is when they become saints,
so it kind of does make sense to focus on
that rather than the birthday that would have been considered
much more important as it ushered them into the Kingdom
of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right right, you nailed it. So at the time, the
baptism of Jesus Christ received way more attention than his birthday.
People would say, all right, he's born on January sixth.
That was their idea for quite some time. The first
recorded by which we mean written mentioned of the celebration
(24:01):
of Christmas comes about in three fifty four CE, more
than three centuries after the actual guy was actually born.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Hundred percent and even today in twenty twenty four as
we record this, no one can really agree on when
Jesus was actually born. One thing that can be pretty
well agreed on is that it wasn't on December twenty fifth. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
A lot of folks will tell you that the actual
birth date was somewhere in early spring, which puts it
closer to Easter, which is also the holiday commemorating his resurrection. When,
as we discussed, the guy somehow rises to heaven.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, exactly, And this is something that we see all
the time I believe the term being religious syncretism. The
origins of Christmas and It's December Day much more likely
lie in the ancient Greco Roman traditions and more kind
of pagan celebrations.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, dude, there are three possible I would say, competing
celebrations for this rough calindrical parking space. The Roman Christian
historian sexist Julius Africanus.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Killer name Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, yeah, Well he didn't know it was hilarious to us.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I don't think it's hilarious. I think it's bad ass.
I want to be sextist Julius Africanus. I did Mike
drop right after saying that name. I believe that you man,
I got your back. I got you six on that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
So this guy traces the conception of Jesus later called
Christ to March twenty fifth. By the way, that's the
same date this guy argued the world itself was created.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. No,
I was just laughing at a word that I just
clocked a little further down in the outline. Shapoopy. Yeah, shapoopy.
That's just fun to say and fun. And I saw
it and I just immediately couldn't help but giggle. But generally,
if you're looking for another guy to pin this whole
reason for the season on, you're going to have to
(26:13):
look at a guy named Dionysus Exogus. Do we just
have not cool names? I think that's true. Bad. I
think names have gotten less cool. We need cooler needs.
I don't think that's a hot take. I think names
have gotten less cool over time. But Dionysus Exogus was,
in fact a sixth century monk who was the first
(26:34):
to date all of history. From December twenty fifth, Viv
watched a period piece and you've got some fancy lads
talking about the year of our Lord. Won't here you go? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, Other traditions disagreed with old Exegus, and they said,
maybe it was mid November, maybe it was March. It
is as we knew it did earlier. A real shapoopy.
Just please that word up and give our regards to
family guys.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Isn't shappoopy also a thing from Seinfelds. I know it's
a family guy thing. You've got a great clip here
and you should look that up. But I swear it
was something maybe it was shmoopy. I think I'm thinking
of Shmoopy. Shappoopy's different, but Shmoopy's also fun. So hey
travel with us back in time to the Roman Empire
during what they had no idea was going to be
referred to historically as the third century CE. Yeah, it
(27:27):
was just that day.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
For this spoiler, Rome as an empire was not immediately
on board with this whole Jesus thing. They were, first off,
super anti Semitic, and second they had a bunch of
other competing holidays. They're an empire, So there was something
called Soul Invictus, the celebration of the Unconquered Sun, which
(27:56):
occurred around the same time. This was a very busy
day as holidays go, because it marked the natural passage
of the seasons, the return of longer days after the
winter solstice. Also, additionally, the Roman Empire had a festival
called the Saturnalia, and folks, if you can guess what
(28:21):
people did back then during Saturnalia, We're just going to
give you the truth. They had big parties. They ate
a lot of family meals, and they exchanged gifts.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
With each other. What no orgies, well, you know for
a treat. Okay, fair enough. It was also the birthday
of the Indo European deity Mithra, God of Light, Lord
of Light. It's very Game of Thrones. The Red Woman.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah yeah, Mithra, who is kind of the pepsi to
the coke Heer, an ancient deity of cove eveance light.
As you said, noel oaths, justice, the Sun, and friendship.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
To the Roman soldiers were a big fan.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yes, yeah, they They kind of were the way that
kids might wear no Fear t shirts in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Maybe a little more intense than that, but I'm with you, Ben,
no question, But the question does become, what's the deal
with the first birthday? Why? December twenty fifth at all? Oh? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
To understand this, we have to introduce a guy named Constantine.
His full name, if he gets in trouble, is Flavius
Valerius Constantinus, also called himself Constantine One, or, in a
burst of humility, Constantine the Great. Now, this guy was
a real uh you know, he's like Taylor Swift. He's
(29:49):
a real up and comer.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
In Rome. He rules the.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Place from three h six CE to three point thirty seven.
He is the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.
Huge deal, big historical more than footnote.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
I mean, this is really what led to the proliferation
of Christianity and some of the later schisms that would
come out of that.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
He plays a pivotal role in elevating the status of
Christianity and Rome, because before Constantine, people of the Christian
faith were getting treated like trash. He is the guy
who made it legal in the Empire to practice Christianity.
Before him, it was illegal, it was a crime to
(30:38):
be Christian. He also said, let's stop persecuting the Christians
on a day to day basis. This is called the
Constantinian shift, and this initiated, to your point, the Christianization
of the Roman Empire, right leading to you know, things
like the Vatican.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
And Rome became the seat of the religion, you know,
for the entire world.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And back in three point thirty six CE, again, centuries
after this guy, the Church of Rome began formally celebrating
Christmas on December twenty fifth. Now we have to we
have to pause for a second because we're making Constantine
sound like a.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Super duper hero. But he probably had some other political
considerations with picking December twenty fifth as this celebration. For sure,
And it was also not to say that his hands
weren't covered in blood from like other stuff. Dude had
a reputation in other ways as being you know, just
as ruthless as many other people in his position. Yeah,
(31:45):
name one good emperor exactly then or now.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
There's a lot of speculation that this guy in his
administration purposely chose December twenty fifth, not because they thought
it was shout out to our pal Laura and Vogelbaum,
the actual facts birth date of Jesus Christ. The argument
is that they may have thought choosing this holiday for
(32:13):
Christianity would weaken the celebrations of existing pagan schools of thought,
things like Saturnalia occurring around the same time. The rollout
was not perfect, by the way, the eastern area of
the Empire, they were still on this January sixth thing,
and it took like fifty years minimum to get them
(32:36):
on board with December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well, people are still calling ex Twitter to this day,
so big changes sometimes take time to be fully adopted.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, and even then, after the adoption of this idea,
Christmas was not a major Christian festival, which we know
sounds very strange. People only started celebrate reading the birthday
of Jesus Christ in like a very big deal way
around the ninth century CE, almost a thousand years after
(33:11):
the Crucifixion. I'd like to quote Cheech Maren from Ghostbusters
where he says better late than never.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Cheach marens in Ghostbusters. Cheach maren is in Ghostbusters? Does
he just have like a walk on? I guess he's
totally blanking on this.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
He's the guy who sees the Titanic arriving when all
the ghosts come back, guys, and he just pop on.
He's the guy who says better late than never.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I know, I believe that. It's just I've never caocked
that big, big, big Cheach fan actually got a crappy
guitar signed by what kind of guitar. It's just like
a cheap kind of Fender strat that would come in
like a strap pack you might get a kid for
a Christmas. But it's awesome. It's signed by both Cheech
and Chong and I look forward to one day upgrading
some of the parts on it so I can actually
(33:56):
play it.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Oh yeah, Tommy's cool man. So we we want to
keep this brief. We know everybody has a ton of
stuff happening in twenty twenty five. We know you have
so many loved ones to get to whether or not
you celebrate the reason for the season on December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
We're just so.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Happy you're here and this is a great time of reflection.
We do have to point out, of course it's kind
of ridiculous, right, that's a super late birthday party.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Oh for sure, we wouldn't have covered if an if
it wasn't ridiculous. That's sort of our number one criteria
for this show. That's not true. We talk about stuff,
it's not ridiculous. All that. We try to bring that
ridiculous flavor that you know and love even to the
heaviest of topics.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And big, big thanks to our own wise men super
producer mister Max Williams Noel Brown first of.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
His name, Yeah I say that. Yeah, Can I say
that as far as far as I know? Can you
just add like a Roman one or a Roman eye
at the end of your name before it's in a year?
Why not? I'll try it on for size. Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Nice, Thanks also to uh our composer mister Alex Williams.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Have we thanked his brother Max Williams. Yeah, let's think
of twice. Yes, and also Christopher Raciotas and Eves chef
Coats both here in Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Hey, j Bahamas, Jacob's, Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance, Elizabeth, and
Zared our rude dudes over at ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Crime and not to mention our very own Ebenezer Scrooge figure.
Jonathan Trickier, I think, uh, we're gonna hear from soon
if we haven't already, have we already? Yeah? Max, it's
we got a hard nod for Max.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Jonathan, I know you called me a smart ass and
that email.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I saw it. I saw it. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
for our number one super producer, mister Max Williams. Huzzah,
there's mister Noel Brown. They often call me Ben in
these parts. Guys, this is our holiday episode.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It's true. Would you guys believe that I was not
born anywhere near Christmas despite my name? I get that
all the time. Just not the case. I'm an August baby, Alio.
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The thing that sticks out to me as a fellow
LEO and a fan of the human experiment, is that
we have a bone to pick with history. We have
something that we think is a little bit ridiculous. We're
going to dive into it here first and foremost, we
hope you and your family are well. Whether or not
(01:20):
you celebrate Christmas, we have to tell you, even if
you're listening to this thousands or millions of years after
the episode publishes, Christmas was slash is a pretty big deal.
It is ultimately a birthday celebration.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Sure, you guys have.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Heard it right here in the United States, people often
say Jesus is the reason for the season.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
They do say that. It's true. Lest you think we're
going to be a couple of old grinches trying to
steal Christmas, that's not the case at all. Though. Jesus
has become a little less of the reason for the
season here in the United States anyway, in favor of
a bit more of a massive commercial, you know, gift
giving blowout. But you know, things change, That's just how
(02:07):
it goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
What we see here in the US currently, as we
record at the very end of twenty twenty four, is
that Christmas has become an economic necessity for a lot
of businesses. It turns out, by the way, this is
what we're doing. I love your point, Noel. We are
not denigrating any spiritual belief system. We are, in fact
(02:31):
sticky up for this one guy, because it turns out
that Christmas the most important birthday in Western discourse. It
happened about three hundred years after the fact. This is
the latest birthday party ever.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Jesus needs all the help he can get. Ben, It's true.
First off, heavens.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh yeah, oh jeez, yeah, we're not the Logians. We're
not priests, pastors and moms or rabbis. Wait, let's check
with Max. Max, do you have any theological qualifications?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Uh I, I do not know.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Okay, all right, and we're all we're all on the
same we're all the same wavelength. Yeah, that's right, nol
uh Jesus Christ, that's right, haters, technically the world's most
famous Jew, So take that.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Nazis so likely you've heard tell of jc H. There
are a lot of stories about him, and you may
or may not be amazed to know that he was
what's that guy? There's a meme now is a super
chill guy. Yeah, yeah, very big lebowski.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Right, this guy, this one individual exhibited phenomenal dare say
divine abilities? Noel, we're talking about a guy who has
power over time, creation, angels, death, destiny, truth, and of
course churches.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
True story.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
One time, one unchill time, he cursed a fig tree.
That is a tale the Jedi will not share with you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, well, maybe a more popular story of him being
unchill was when he flipped the tables of the money
changers in the in the bizarre in the markets, you know,
because he was against the kind of greed and manipulation
that they represented. So you know, a pretty chill, unchill
action if you ask me.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, acting with righteousness did not care for usurious people.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
And whether or not you believe in Jesus's mystical or
divine abilities, the fact remains that he was a dude
who was believed in by many and absolutely accomplished some
pretty fantastic things even outside of the realm of the
divine right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
M Yeah, the individual called Jesus today was, according to
the story, born in a town called Bethlehem, in a
manger basically a barn, a place whould put livestock. His
parents were not the one percent, but the baby was
on the way. They couldn't find a better place for
his mom, the famous Mary to give.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Birth right at the end. All that right, one of
the famous Mary's.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And so, as the story goes, a bunch of people
showed up right on time for this birth in Bethlehem.
And get this, Instead of helping the family get better shelter,
everybody who showed up hung out in the barn, and
they gave the family a series of what we would
call dramatically expensive, often unhelpful gifts, like when when's the
(05:38):
last time he needed some mirr.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What even is mr? I know it's like a fine
oil or lotion or liniment. What is it? It's like
a spice? What is murr? Again? I think it's like
a precious metal. It's a gum resin. Okay, so it's
like incense, right, it would smell good?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's been you. It's medicinal. It's also
used for perfume. And as you said, incense.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Got it? Uh?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
So.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth. Uh And this is
a village near Cephoris, one of two major cities there
in Galilee, the other being Tiberius. And he was born
to essentially a the laborer, you know, a carpenter, a
(06:27):
construction worker, the name of Joseph, and of course the
aforementioned famous Mary. Somewhere around six BCP and shortly before
the death of Herod the Great, who was a real
pain in the keyst if I'm not mistaken, Ben.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yeah, Noel, Let's be honest. History is written by the
victors first off, So every story you will read about
Herod in the West shows him being a real beat
me here Max, a real piece of h He.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Could change, he could change. Yeah, like back here. You know,
he did sloppy steaks, but he could change.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I don't think he changed. He didn't change, and the
jump in here real quick.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
I didn't write about it because I wasn't able to
find enough sources. But there are some rumors out there
that how Herod went was very fitting for our Ridiculous
World death episode.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yes, and I'm glad you mentioned that, Max. Perhaps we
will resurrect that idea in the future. No joke left
behind hashtag. So look, we could imagine Herod had his
own series of things going on, but for our purposes today,
he's kind of a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
He's kind of not cool.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
If you go to the later writing of the disciples
of Jesus, who is not yet in his childhood called
the Christ, we see that Matthew and Luke are you know,
they're part of the wu tang of Christ when he
becomes known as the Messiah, and they are the ones
(08:02):
who tell the world yesterday and today that this carpenter,
this itinerant carpenter you mentioned, Noel Joseph is only legally
the father of Jesus. Instead, they argue Mary was a
physical virgin, meaning she had never had or encountered sexual intimacy,
(08:23):
and then boom, she was found to be with child
from the Holy.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Spirit, the virgin birth. It's a miracle in Bethlehem. And
if I'm not mistaken by all of these folks, the
three Wise men and the like followed a shooting star,
and they heard tell of the coming of this Messiah,
and they follow the star that led them directly to
this cowshd. Pretty interesting stuff, not to mention that the
(08:48):
whole virgin birth thing. Of course, if anyone seen the
Last Temptation of Christ, for example by good old Martysecrsaza,
you know there are other controversial takes on this the
story so plenty of stuff to explore on your own
if you want to.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, and originally there was not a guy doing a
kick ass backbeat. There was not a little drummer boy
that comes later in the Great Game of Telephone.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean that's to me, like, I think a
bit of a clearly some of this is in the
realm of fiction. I think the Little drummer Boy was
almost like just a representation of the Christmas spirit. I do.
I do love it though.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I love the idea of a kid showing up and
just doing some drums.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Rum pum, pump pump.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So by all accounts, our young individual Jesus was precocious.
We do not know a ton about this individual's childhood,
including can I get a spoiler sound cube his actual birthday?
(09:52):
Thank you Max. He appeared to learn things at a
prodigious rate. He was a very quick kid, and and
Judaism at this time usually only add one name. If
you need a greater specificity, you would add the father's
name or the place of the individual's origin. So for example,
(10:15):
we would say Macs of Michigan, right, it would say
Noll of Augusta, something like that.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And that kind of nomenclature I guess goes back way
further than this story. I mean, it is an ancient holdover.
Instead of having last names, even people were identified from
where they were born, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, or their provenance. That's patrilineal origins. So in his
time on Earth, in this moment in history, Jesus is
called things like Jesus son of Joseph makes sense, Jesus
of Nazareth makes sense, or Jesus the Nazarene, which is,
(10:52):
you know, Jesus the guy from Nazareth.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
He ultimately becomes the most famous Jesus. So eventually all
that stuff could probably just drop off like Madonna or
Share absolutely and we could do an entire etymology spinoff
episode on the nature of translation here and that great
game of etymological and linguistic telephone that we kind of
just explored a good bit, and that two parter we
did on the English alphabet. But for now we just
(11:18):
need to know. At some point there was a brilliant
child of uncertain patrilineal origin for the time, and he
wanted to just take everything in he could like a sponge.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And with some help from our good friends at Britannica,
we'll give you the following quote about the young Jesus
later called Christ. As a young adult, he went to
be baptized by the prophet John the Baptist, and shortly
thereafter became an itinerant preacher and healer. This goes back
(11:55):
to Mark one to two to twenty eight. Anyway, in
Britannica did not say anyway, I said anyway. That's editorializing,
So Britannica continues. In his mid thirties, Jesus had a
short public career, lasting perhaps less than one year, during
(12:16):
which he attracted considerable attention. Noel, do you want to
finish us out with this quote?
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Pro I be honored. Britannica is one of my favorites.
And boo to ye who say they are not a
valid source. Y'all need to get a hobby. Sometime between
twenty nine and thirty three CE, possibly thirty CE, he
went to observe passover in Jerusalem, where his entrance, according
to the Gospels, was triumphant and confused with eschatological significance.
(12:43):
Get your minds out of the gutter. That word doesn't
mean what you think it means. It's like it's almost
like ecclesiastical right, or like having like a religious imbued
with religious fervor kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's the branch of theology or philosophy that is associated
with the end of the world humanity.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Okay, yeah, relating to death, judgment, and the final destiny
of the soul. Okay, this is a new word for me.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, it's a good one. You don't get to use
it all the time, but it is a fun one.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You do, you best use it with Gusto.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Bro, we should accuse people of being eschatological.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
They're going to think we're calling them shitty. Oh that's scatology. Really,
it really sounds similar. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
How different does on one sound me?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Word? What difference a day makes? It's ben we're still
high off our alphabet. Serious.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So this, uh, this story, this early story will be
familiar to any what are called people of the book,
practitioners inherents of Judaism, Islam or Christianity. As you know,
and we hope we're not. The first way you learned this.
The man called Jesus was apprehended and he sat through
(13:57):
a kangaroo court. No one, to be fair, no one
in the area had heard of kangaroos by this point.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah. It's a great concept though that we explore a
little bit on a listener mail of recent times over
on stuff that I want you to know. We had
a listener right, and about the origins of the concept
of a kangaroo court, meaning a court where the outcome
is determined ahead of time. And it is all but
symbolic for the purposes of saying no, we did that,
we did the thing. We gave you a trial, But
basically there is a predetermined outcome, and for Jesus that
(14:25):
was crucifixion. After like saw two levels of torture and brutalization.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, it was super gross. It was undeserved. The guy
was innocent, and I love the point you're bringing up.
He was killed due to political machinations of the Romans
at the time. And this is why this death via crucifixion.
This is why Christians today will have a cross in homes,
(14:57):
on flags, on mission and perhaps in tattoos.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
On the moons. Yeah, yeah, why not.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
The disciples of Jesus now called Christ, they proliferated what
they saw as his teachings throughout the world. The problem
is that the disciples of Jesus Christ didn't always agree.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
With one another. Yeah, they had.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Differences of opinion. They had one thing, they had one thing.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
They agreed on.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
They said, our guy, Jesus Christ did not in fact
permanently die.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
No, he was in fact resurrected on the third Day,
where he rolled aside the stone on the cave where
his body lay in state to the proclamations of he
has risen, you know, all of that good stuff. So
this is a really big deal for any followers of
Jesus after going through such a PTSD inducing situation, having
(15:56):
to watch their guy JC just get his absolute beaten
out of him by that Cato nine tails. Do you
guys see the Mel Gibson movie. I never bothered. It
just seemed like torture porn.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, the Passion of the Christ. I actually did you know?
I love a little bit of Discordianism back now, back when,
back when DVDs and Blu rays and physical media were
more of a thing. I printed up a series of
stickers that just said, is tonight the night? And I
(16:28):
stuck them on a bunch of Passion of the Christ DVDs.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
It's tonight the night that what will happen? Ben, I
don't understand it is tonight the night that you watched
that you watched? Okay, get it right? Remember when that?
I mean, I'm sorry not to get two side travel.
When that film came out, it was a golden moment
for Christian merch. Remember there were like little nails, bracelets
and things, and it all felt a little commercial and weird.
(16:53):
I don't know what. I guess it's good for the faith,
you know, probably as was mel Gibson's intent, him being
a card carrying Christian and potentially a virulent anti Semite.
Oh no potential about it. Yeah, I think he said
some things, right, Yeah, So all right, here we go.
We've got this story a guy who is holy has
(17:15):
transcended the mortal veil and ever since he's around though
he exits the tomb and he's there, but then he ascends.
Is that the idea that he sort of dematerializes I've
ever understood the function of that scene.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Well, he takes on the sins of every other person
who has ever lived, and if you obey Jesus Christ
and follow his teachings, then he will stick up for
you in the face of God. He is God, the
argument goes, so it's pretty important to get on his
good side.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I guess what I'm talking about my confusion around the
whole ascending into heaven. Think, if I'm not mistaken, there
are people in the Bible who saw him, yeah, like
like before that took place. So I'm just wondering, like,
what did that look like when he ascended. I've always
just wondered, like what that might have looked like if this,
you know, this story were to be true, if there
(18:11):
were people that saw him, you know, in his corporeal form,
and then did he like just kind of disintegrates and
become like, you know, air, and or.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Did he physically fly up right into the hospma. I
always wondering, well, people still thought the idea of being
forgiven was massively cool, and a great many people, including
several of our fellow ridiculous historians, are on board with
this idea today. It is spiritually incredibly important. We have
(18:42):
your back, folks. We're never here to yuck a yum.
We think it is objectively regardless of your personal beliefs.
We think it is very cool to be lost and
to be found and loved once more. That's pretty nuts.
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
And I personally, to quote the band King Missile, think
Jesus was way cool and have always been fascinated by
him and his acts, whether or not the divine aspects
of it turn out to be true. And I'm not
here to say one way or the other. And my
whole you know, questioning of the ascension into heaven was
not trying to poke fun at all there. I just
truly like if that were to have happened. I mean,
(19:21):
we do a critical thinking conspiracy show, we talk about
the stuff in the spiritual realm all the time. I
just wonder what that might have looked like, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
People are still trying to figure out how best to commemorate,
to emulate, and to celebrate the life and times of
Jesus Christ. Throughout the Western world and spoiler, a lot
(19:50):
of the non Western world. There are a ton of
people who celebrate the idea of the birthday of Jesus
Christ as both a sacred religious hall day and as
a commercial phenomenon. For for like more than two thousand
years at this point, people around the world have been
observing our buddy Jesus's Big Day with traditions and practices
(20:15):
that are both religious and secular in nature. Please check
out our earlier episodes on things like the Yule Lads
or things like Crampis, old.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Boot liquor, no doorway sniffer, window liquors, window liquors, an
affect one song.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
But they're all these I think are right.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Somewhat licking smelling. They're doing a milk it's cealing, goat milk.
There's a ghast it's noun verb. And they're like thirteen
of them. They're they're very weird.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, it is worth worth your time to go back
and check that one out, because I can't remember half
of them to save my life. But they're all pretty
weird and pretty delightful, and we name check them regularly. Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Popular customs in celebration of the birthday of Christ Christmas.
They include things like exchanging gifts. Depending on where you are,
you might wear a little hat, you might have a tree.
You'll probably go to church, you eat a nice dinner
Christmas dinner with friends and family, and then obviously, post
(21:22):
Coca cola, you wait for Santa Claus.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
To arrive hundred percent. And you know, pretty much all
the things you're describing are enjoyed by the secular and
the faithful alike. You know, me not personally being a Christian.
I have a Christmas tree in my house, and I
love exchanging gifts, and I love the customs and the
traditions of it all and try not to make it
too grossly commercial. But a lot of these things are
(21:45):
kind of marking the season too. It is kind of
hopefully encouraging a spirit of end of the year reflection
and generositude.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's great, and this is the thing, all right.
So December twenty fifth, as Chris Smith's Day, has only
been a federal holiday in the United States since eighteen seventy.
So yeah, yeah, oh quite recently.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I did know that. I just I'm still taken aback
by it. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And also, this is the thing, this is the point
of our episode. We hope it's pretty well known by
this point. December twenty fifth, as the current western calendar reckons,
was not the actual birthday of Jesus Christ. In fact,
if you look at the ridiculous history here, his first
(22:34):
acknowledged birthday was three hundred years late. You know, you
say you like the guy and you take three hundred years.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So for the first three hundred years or so of
what we would call Christianity as we know it, no
one was celebrating Christmas on December twenty fifth. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
The calendar you're using now in the West, the Gregorian
calendar system shout out greg was a created until the
late sixteenth century and tier point Noel. For the first
three hundred years or so of the Christian Church's existence.
Get this, they didn't really care about birthdays, right, They
(23:15):
were much more death obsessed.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
It would seem the day on which a saint died,
which makes sense kind of because saints are usually often
martyred and so the death is when they become saints,
so it kind of does make sense to focus on
that rather than the birthday that would have been considered
much more important as it ushered them into the Kingdom
of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right right, you nailed it. So at the time, the
baptism of Jesus Christ received way more attention than his birthday.
People would say, all right, he's born on January sixth.
That was their idea for quite some time. The first
recorded by which we mean written mentioned of the celebration
(24:01):
of Christmas comes about in three fifty four CE, more
than three centuries after the actual guy was actually born.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Hundred percent and even today in twenty twenty four as
we record this, no one can really agree on when
Jesus was actually born. One thing that can be pretty
well agreed on is that it wasn't on December twenty fifth. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
A lot of folks will tell you that the actual
birth date was somewhere in early spring, which puts it
closer to Easter, which is also the holiday commemorating his resurrection. When,
as we discussed, the guy somehow rises to heaven.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, exactly, And this is something that we see all
the time I believe the term being religious syncretism. The
origins of Christmas and It's December Day much more likely
lie in the ancient Greco Roman traditions and more kind
of pagan celebrations.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, dude, there are three possible I would say, competing
celebrations for this rough calindrical parking space. The Roman Christian
historian sexist Julius Africanus.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Killer name Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, yeah, Well he didn't know it was hilarious to us.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I don't think it's hilarious. I think it's bad ass.
I want to be sextist Julius Africanus. I did Mike
drop right after saying that name. I believe that you man,
I got your back. I got you six on that.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
So this guy traces the conception of Jesus later called
Christ to March twenty fifth. By the way, that's the
same date this guy argued the world itself was created.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. No,
I was just laughing at a word that I just
clocked a little further down in the outline. Shapoopy. Yeah, shapoopy.
That's just fun to say and fun. And I saw
it and I just immediately couldn't help but giggle. But generally,
if you're looking for another guy to pin this whole
reason for the season on, you're going to have to
(26:13):
look at a guy named Dionysus Exogus. Do we just
have not cool names? I think that's true. Bad. I
think names have gotten less cool. We need cooler needs.
I don't think that's a hot take. I think names
have gotten less cool over time. But Dionysus Exogus was,
in fact a sixth century monk who was the first
(26:34):
to date all of history. From December twenty fifth, Viv
watched a period piece and you've got some fancy lads
talking about the year of our Lord. Won't here you go? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, Other traditions disagreed with old Exegus, and they said,
maybe it was mid November, maybe it was March. It
is as we knew it did earlier. A real shapoopy.
Just please that word up and give our regards to
family guys.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Isn't shappoopy also a thing from Seinfelds. I know it's
a family guy thing. You've got a great clip here
and you should look that up. But I swear it
was something maybe it was shmoopy. I think I'm thinking
of Shmoopy. Shappoopy's different, but Shmoopy's also fun. So hey
travel with us back in time to the Roman Empire
during what they had no idea was going to be
referred to historically as the third century CE. Yeah, it
(27:27):
was just that day.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
For this spoiler, Rome as an empire was not immediately
on board with this whole Jesus thing. They were, first off,
super anti Semitic, and second they had a bunch of
other competing holidays. They're an empire, So there was something
called Soul Invictus, the celebration of the Unconquered Sun, which
(27:56):
occurred around the same time. This was a very busy
day as holidays go, because it marked the natural passage
of the seasons, the return of longer days after the
winter solstice. Also, additionally, the Roman Empire had a festival
called the Saturnalia, and folks, if you can guess what
(28:21):
people did back then during Saturnalia, We're just going to
give you the truth. They had big parties. They ate
a lot of family meals, and they exchanged gifts.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
With each other. What no orgies, well, you know for
a treat. Okay, fair enough. It was also the birthday
of the Indo European deity Mithra, God of Light, Lord
of Light. It's very Game of Thrones. The Red Woman.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah yeah, Mithra, who is kind of the pepsi to
the coke Heer, an ancient deity of cove eveance light.
As you said, noel oaths, justice, the Sun, and friendship.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
To the Roman soldiers were a big fan.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yes, yeah, they They kind of were the way that
kids might wear no Fear t shirts in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Maybe a little more intense than that, but I'm with you, Ben,
no question, But the question does become, what's the deal
with the first birthday? Why? December twenty fifth at all? Oh? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
To understand this, we have to introduce a guy named Constantine.
His full name, if he gets in trouble, is Flavius
Valerius Constantinus, also called himself Constantine One, or, in a
burst of humility, Constantine the Great. Now, this guy was
a real uh you know, he's like Taylor Swift. He's
(29:49):
a real up and comer.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
In Rome. He rules the.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Place from three h six CE to three point thirty seven.
He is the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.
Huge deal, big historical more than footnote.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
I mean, this is really what led to the proliferation
of Christianity and some of the later schisms that would
come out of that.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
He plays a pivotal role in elevating the status of
Christianity and Rome, because before Constantine, people of the Christian
faith were getting treated like trash. He is the guy
who made it legal in the Empire to practice Christianity.
Before him, it was illegal, it was a crime to
(30:38):
be Christian. He also said, let's stop persecuting the Christians
on a day to day basis. This is called the
Constantinian shift, and this initiated, to your point, the Christianization
of the Roman Empire, right leading to you know, things
like the Vatican.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
And Rome became the seat of the religion, you know,
for the entire world.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And back in three point thirty six CE, again, centuries
after this guy, the Church of Rome began formally celebrating
Christmas on December twenty fifth. Now we have to we
have to pause for a second because we're making Constantine
sound like a.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Super duper hero. But he probably had some other political
considerations with picking December twenty fifth as this celebration. For sure,
And it was also not to say that his hands
weren't covered in blood from like other stuff. Dude had
a reputation in other ways as being you know, just
as ruthless as many other people in his position. Yeah,
(31:45):
name one good emperor exactly then or now.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
There's a lot of speculation that this guy in his
administration purposely chose December twenty fifth, not because they thought
it was shout out to our pal Laura and Vogelbaum,
the actual facts birth date of Jesus Christ. The argument
is that they may have thought choosing this holiday for
(32:13):
Christianity would weaken the celebrations of existing pagan schools of thought,
things like Saturnalia occurring around the same time. The rollout
was not perfect, by the way, the eastern area of
the Empire, they were still on this January sixth thing,
and it took like fifty years minimum to get them
(32:36):
on board with December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Well, people are still calling ex Twitter to this day,
so big changes sometimes take time to be fully adopted.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, and even then, after the adoption of this idea,
Christmas was not a major Christian festival, which we know
sounds very strange. People only started celebrate reading the birthday
of Jesus Christ in like a very big deal way
around the ninth century CE, almost a thousand years after
(33:11):
the Crucifixion. I'd like to quote Cheech Maren from Ghostbusters
where he says better late than never.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Cheach marens in Ghostbusters. Cheach maren is in Ghostbusters? Does
he just have like a walk on? I guess he's
totally blanking on this.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
He's the guy who sees the Titanic arriving when all
the ghosts come back, guys, and he just pop on.
He's the guy who says better late than never.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I know, I believe that. It's just I've never caocked
that big, big, big Cheach fan actually got a crappy
guitar signed by what kind of guitar. It's just like
a cheap kind of Fender strat that would come in
like a strap pack you might get a kid for
a Christmas. But it's awesome. It's signed by both Cheech
and Chong and I look forward to one day upgrading
some of the parts on it so I can actually
(33:56):
play it.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Oh yeah, Tommy's cool man. So we we want to
keep this brief. We know everybody has a ton of
stuff happening in twenty twenty five. We know you have
so many loved ones to get to whether or not
you celebrate the reason for the season on December twenty fifth.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
We're just so.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Happy you're here and this is a great time of reflection.
We do have to point out, of course it's kind
of ridiculous, right, that's a super late birthday party.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Oh for sure, we wouldn't have covered if an if
it wasn't ridiculous. That's sort of our number one criteria
for this show. That's not true. We talk about stuff,
it's not ridiculous. All that. We try to bring that
ridiculous flavor that you know and love even to the
heaviest of topics.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And big, big thanks to our own wise men super
producer mister Max Williams Noel Brown first of.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
His name, Yeah I say that. Yeah, Can I say
that as far as far as I know? Can you
just add like a Roman one or a Roman eye
at the end of your name before it's in a year?
Why not? I'll try it on for size. Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Nice, Thanks also to uh our composer mister Alex Williams.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Have we thanked his brother Max Williams. Yeah, let's think
of twice. Yes, and also Christopher Raciotas and Eves chef
Coats both here in Christmas spirit.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Hey, j Bahamas, Jacob's, Rachel Big, Spinach, Lance, Elizabeth, and
Zared our rude dudes over at ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Crime and not to mention our very own Ebenezer Scrooge figure.
Jonathan Trickier, I think, uh, we're gonna hear from soon
if we haven't already, have we already? Yeah? Max, it's
we got a hard nod for Max.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Jonathan, I know you called me a smart ass and
that email.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
I saw it. I saw it. We'll see you next time, folks.
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