Bill Petro

HISTORICAL CLIMATE OF EASTER

What was the historical climate surrounding the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This man born to die, not just in the normal sense, but in some special sense, entered Jerusalem amidst a torrent of political, social and economic turbulence. The events in Palestine at this time are rarely linked to the larger context which controlled the province: the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, the culmination of Jesus’ career was really a tale of two cities - Jerusalem and Rome. In these historical notes we will examine this climate. Some of the subjects we will examine include:

THE CHARACTERS:

• Pilate: who was he, what were the pressures he faced, did he fly a plane?

• Herod: the “fox”, was he as clever as his father, Herod the Great?

• Pharisees & Sadducees: how were they related, which held the greater power, and how were their names spelled?

• The Sanhedrin & the High Priests: what was the makeup and jurisdiction of the council. Who was the current High Priest, Annas or Caiaphus, the New Testament calls them both High Priest?

THE EVENTS:

• Palm Sunday: what was the climate of the city when Jesus entered?

• The Trial: what took place during the trials, what laws were involved?

• The Crucifixion: what was involved on Good Friday?

• The Resurrection: what do we know about it?

Our story begins during the last week of March, A.D. 33. The relationship between the Jews and Rome went back at least 100 years. In 63 B.C. a dispute arose between two factions of the high priestly family. One of the factions appealed to Rome for assistance. The result of this was that General Pompey arrived in Palestine during his reorganization of the East and made Judea a Roman client kingdom. Herod the Great was appointed king (remember him from the Christmas story?). Upon his death in 4 B.C. the kingdom was divided into 4 tetrarchies among his sons. His son Herod Antipas (we’ll meet him again) was given Galilee and Pereae. Archelaus received Judah, Idumea, and Samaria which he ruled so poorly that he was banished and replaced by a succession of Roman governors or prefects. Judea was neither one of the more important, nor more illustrious provinces and for that reason was not ruled over by a member of the more noble ‘senatorial‘ class. Instead, a member of the equestrian class (equus=horse Lat., ‘knight’ or official), the middle class which made up an important part of the Roman bureaucracy and military. The sixth of these governors was Pontius Pilate.

For centuries the Jewish people had awaited the coming of a Messiah, “the anointed one” of God who would rule on the throne of King David and deliver them from their oppressors. This expectation ran throughout the Old Testament, with a number of themes attached: God’s vice-regent on earth, a deliverer from political oppression, a suffering servant who would deliver the people from their sins, an eternal ruler. During the period between the Old and New Testaments, ca 400 B.C to A.D. 65, a large amount of literature surfaced, called apocryphal and apocalyptic literature, repeating and embellishing the concept of the Messiah. (The Greek word of the Hebrew Messiah is christos, or “anointed one”, from which we get the word Christ. Christ was not Jesus’ name, but rather a title, Jesus the Christ.) Before the Romans, the Jewish people had suffered under a number of occupying oppressors, including the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Medeo-Persians. After almost a hundred years under the Romans the expectation for the Messiah had reached almost a fever pitch. This was the condition when Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

Inspired in part by Paul L. Maier’s In the Fullness of Time

PALM SUNDAY

The week we now call Holy Week, started with Palm Sunday. Why was this week so important that three of the gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and The Fourth Gospel (John) dedicates its entire last half? Jerusalem, which had a normal population of about 50,000 at this time, had at least tripled in size because of the influx of pilgrims celebrating the Jewish holiday Passover. Early Sunday morning Jesus made his baldly public entry into the city. This was the end of all privacy and safety, and the beginning of what would be an inevitable collision course with the religious and political authorities. Crowds began to gather to see the rabbi from Galilee. The procession began accompanied by shouting and singing from the throngs as they threw down their garments on the pathway to cushion his ride - an Oriental custom still observed on occasions - as well as palm fronds, the symbol of triumph. The Old Testament prophet Zechariah had foretold the arrival of the Messianic king in Jerusalem via the humble conveyance of a colt. Here the crowd hailed Jesus as “the son of David”, a loaded name used at a loaded time. The priestly establishment was understandably disturbed, as the palm was the national emblem of an independent Palestine. These were Jewish flags. What if Jesus should claim to be the heir of King David?

Recent archiological excavations have turned up Roman coins, which have the head of Emperor Tiberias (idolatrous to the Jewish subjects) but overstamped with a palm.

The “conspiracy” against Jesus had been building for at least 3 years, and the sources record seven instances of official plotting against him, two efforts at arrest, and three assassination attempts before this time. This intrigue was no spur of the moment idea. A formal decision to arrest Jesus had in fact been made several months earlier. The Jewish religious officials were afraid that if Jesus were to continue performing his signs, he would win over the people and the Romans would come in and destroy the Temple and nation. According to legal custom at that time, a court crier had to announce publicly or post an official “wanted” handbill in the larger towns of Judea about forty days prior to a trial. Small wonder that there was some debate over whether Jesus would dare appear in Jerusalem for the next Passover. This discussion ended abruptly on Palm Sunday.

There were political reasons for dealing with Jesus. There had been a dozen uprisings in Palestine in the previous 100 years, most of them subdued by Roman force. Another Messianic rebellion under Jesus would only shatter the precarious balance of authority, break Rome’s patience, and might lead to direct occupation by Roman legions.

Religiously, Jesus was a dangerous item. The people were hailing the Teacher from Galilee as something more than a man, and Jesus was not denying or blunting this blasphemous adulation. Personally, the Pharisees had been bested by Jesus in public debate, being called vipers, whitewashed tombs, and devourers of widow’s houses. Humiliated, they would be only too happy to conspire with the scribes, elders, and chief priests. There were economic motives for opposing Jesus as well. Seeing the commercialization of the Temple, Jesus had driven the dealers and animals out, as well as turning over the tables of the moneychangers causing a major disruption in business. There were many reasons for dealing with Jesus.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

from Paul L. Maier’s In the Fullness of Time

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

Although much of the life of the patron saint of Ireland is shrouded in legend, he was probably born around the year 389. What we do know about him comes from his book, “The Confession”, which he wrote near the end of his life. It begins,

“I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful…My father was Calpornius, a deacon, a son of Potitus, a presbyter, who was at the village of Bannavem Taberniea.”

He was born it seems in the Severn Valley in England. He was British, not Irish. He was doubtless educated in pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain under a Christian influence with a reverence for the Roman Empire, of which he was a citizen. His father was a landowner and together with his family he lived on their estate. At the age of sixteen, when he claimed he “did not then know the true God,” he was carried off by a band of Irish marauders. Irish tradition says he tended the herds of a chieftain in the county Antrim. His bondage lasted for six years during which time, as he wrote, “turned with all my heart to the Lord my God.”

He fled 200 miles to the coast of Wicklow, and encountered a ship engaged in the export of Irish wolf-dogs. After three days at sea the traders landed, probably on the west coast of Gaul, and journeyed twenty-eight days through the desert. At the end of two months Patrick parted company with his companions and spent a few years in the monastery of Lerins. After returning home from the Mediterranean the idea of missionary enterprise in Ireland came to him. He seems to have proceeded to Auxerre where he was ordained by Bishop Amator and spent at least fourteen years there.

While in Ireland Patrick was both an evangelist of the gospel of Jesus and an organizer of the faithful. He battled heresy as well as engaged in trials of skill against Druids. There is some evidence that he traveled to Rome around 441-443 and brought back with him some valuable relics. On his return he founded the church and monastery of Armagh. Some years later he retired, probably to Saul in Dalaradia.

As one travels through Ireland, there are many stories and legends about Patrick. One in Dublin has it that the St. Patrick Cathedral (pictured at the top) is situated at the site of an old well where Patrick would baptize converts into the faith. There is a stone tablet in front of the church commemorating the location (pictured at right).

Other legends report him ridding Ireland of snakes, though it is unlikely that post-ice age Ireland had snakes. For another view on this, see my three articles on the history of St. Patrick at this link.

In modern times the feast associated with his death on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, has become primarily an ethnic holiday celebrating Irish heritage in much the same way as Columbus Day is a celebration of Italian ethnicity in the United States. Indeed, major Irish celebrations of the day in the United States predated large public celebrations in Ireland itself! In Chicago, there are two St. Patrick’s Day Parades. However, you can’t close down the schools on St. Patrick’s Day without showing ethnic bias. So Massachusetts’s Suffolk County, among other counties, closes the schools to commemorate March 17, 1776, the day the British troops cleared out of Boston in the American Revolutionary War. For the record, they call it Evacuation Day.

Update: Due to Holy Week occurring this year unusually early in the calendar, St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in some cities has been moved to March 14 or 15. Especially in cities where traditional parades take place the Sunday before March 17, which this year coincides with Palm Sunday. This calender conundrum will not occur again until 2160.

Bill MacPetro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

ST. VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine or Valentinus, is the name of at least three martyred saints. The most celebrated are the two martyrs whose festivals fall on February 14, the one, a Roman priest, the other, bishop of Terni. It would appear from the legends that both lived during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (Gothicus); that both died on the same day; and that both were buried on the Via Flaminia, but at different distances from Rome. A third was a martyr in the Roman province of North Africa about whom little is known. It seems that the first celebration of the feast of St. Valentine was declared to be on February 14 by Pope Gelasius I in 496. Many authorities believe that the lovers’ festival associated with St. Valentine’s day comes from the belief that this is the day in spring when birds begin their mating. There is another view held, however.

In the days of early Rome a great festival was held every February called Lupercalia, held in honor of a god named Lupercus. During the founding days of Rome the city was surrounded by an immense wilderness in which were great hordes of wolves. The Romans thought they must have a god to watch over and protect the shepherds with their flocks, so they called this god Lupercus, from the Latin word, lupus, a wolf. One of the amusements on this festival day was the placing of young women’s names in a box to be drawn out by the young men. Each young man accepted the girl whose name he drew, as his lady love. Whether the customs of Lupercalia are perpetuated in Valentine’s Day remain unknown.

In any event, customs have changed throughout the years, during Christian times the priests put the names of saints and martyrs into the boxes to be drawn out. The name that was drawn out was called one’s “valentine” and the holy life of that person was to be imitated throughout the year. It was at one time the custom in England for people to call out “Good morning, ’tis St. Valentine’s Day”, and the one who succeeded in saying this first expected a present from the one to whom it was said, making things pretty lively on St. Valentine’s Day.

Paper valentines date back to the 1500’s but it took the enterprise of America to make a buck at it. Esther A. Holland, who produced one of the first American commercial Valentines in the 1840’s sold $5,000 worth - when $5,000 was a LOT of money - in the first year.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

ASH WEDNESDAY

In the western church the first day of Lent is called Ash Wednesday from the ceremonial use of ashes, as a symbol of penitence, in the service prescribed for the day. The custom is still retained in the Roman Catholic Church as well as the Anglican, Episcopal and Lutheran Churches. The ashes, obtained by burning the remains of the palm branches blessed on the previous Palm Sunday, are placed in a vessel on the altar and consecrated before High Mass. The priest then invites those present to approach and, dipping his thumb in the ashes, marks them as they kneel with the sign of the cross on the forehead, with the words:

Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.

This ceremony is derived from the custom of public penance in the early church. When the custom was extended to the entire congregation is not known, although it seems to have been in common use by the late 10th century.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

MARDI GRAS

In French, Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” and is celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday as a last “fling” prior to the 40 days of Lent which precede Easter. Lent is a word that comes from the Middle English word “lente” which means “springtime” - so named for the season of the year in which it usually occurs. While the practice of Lent is not mentioned in the Bible, it has been a tradition in the Christian world since the mid 4th century. It seems to parallel the 40 days of fasting in the wilderness that Jesus experienced following his baptism.

Historically, Lenten fasting became mandatory, especially abstinence from eating meat. While recommended by St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in 330 AD, by the Middle Ages Lent was enforced throughout Europe, especially the forbidding of meat during the final weeks before Easter.

The word “carnival” comes from an old Italian word that means to “go without meat” or “removal of meat.” Festivals like Mardi Gras sprang up throughout parts of Europe as a means to prepare for the coming times of self-denial. Venice especially was a “party town” for centuries with its Carnevale di Venezia and it’s elaborate masks. The three days before Ash Wednesday is also known as “Shrovetide,” where shrove is an Old English word meaning “to repent.” In England, the Tuesday just before Ash Wednesday is called Shrove Tuesday and is celebrated by eating of rich food, that won’t be used during Lent.

As the Protestant Reformation spread throughout Europe, Lent became regarded more as a Roman Catholic institution, and was increasingly ignored by Protestants as a traditional observance. This tendency did not reverse, especially in the US, until the 1980s. Today, more Protestant churches participate in Lent with devotions and Scripture readings, as well as special Ash Wednesday services.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF EPIPHANY

January 6 is known in the Christian calendar as Epiphany. It is sometimes called the “Twelfth Night” being the 12th Day of Christmas. It signifies the event of the Magi, or Wise Men visiting the baby Jesus, and is known in certain Latin cultures as Three Kings Day. In the Eastern (Orthodox and Oriental) churches it is known as the Theophany (God Manifest), commemorating Jesus’ baptism — recounted in all four Gospels — with the attendant appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove and the voice of God the Father.

So, the 12 Days of Christmas don’t end at Christmas, Advent does. Instead, the 12 days start with Christmas, and end with Epiphany, sometimes called Christmastide. The “season” of Epiphany lasts from January 6 through the day before Lent.

Epiphany is a Greek word that means manifestation, appearance, or showing forth. Historically, Epiphany began in the eastern Church as the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ. As the celebration of Christmas spread eastward, Epiphany changed to its present meaning. It is ironic, this year, as Chanukah overlaps Christmastide — that Epiphany is so close to Chanukah — as we recall that the villain in the Chanukah history was Antiochus Epiphanes IV, or “Antiochus, God made manifest.”

In the Western churches (Protestants, Catholics, and Anglicans) Epiphany commemorates the “adoration” of the Christ Child by the Magi as they presented their gifts, thereby “revealing” Jesus to the world as Lord and King. In some traditions, the “Twelfth Night” party on January 5 is followed by the exchange of gifts on January 6th. The Russian church’s “Feast of the Nativity,” Christmas, is celebrated at this time.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

Audio version

HISTORY OF CAESAR AUGUSTUS

Perhaps it is fitting that our last article on the History of Christmas should be about the first person mentioned in St. Luke’s story of the first Christmas. He was neither Palestinian, nor Jew, nor shepherd, nor wise man. He was in fact, 1500 miles away, the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus. Were it not for his decision, Jesus would not have been born in Bethlehem, but in Nazareth, the home of Mary (and this would have messed up all the Old Testament prophesies). But because of Augustus’ decree Mary and Joseph, descendants of the often married King David, returned to Bethlehem, the city of David. It was here that Mary’s first born child was born, according to Luke, in a manger as there was no room at the inn. Certainly they had not called ahead, and there were a lot of travelers at the time, it being the Christmas season and all.

Some sixty years earlier, the Roman general Pompey had conquered Palestine and was at this time a “client kingdom” ruled by a local king, Herod the Great, who was directly responsible to the Roman emperor. Augustus himself, grand nephew and adopted heir to Julius Caesar, in addition to being emperor was a religious reformer, for he tried to revive the drooping interest in Rome’s state religion. By his day, the average Roman had abandoned his beliefs in the gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon and philosophical skepticism was growing, while the more credulous joined the foreign eastern mystery cults. Feeling that this neglect of the gods was demoralizing Roman society, he set about his religious revival with enthusiasm bestowing temples and shrines on the Empire, restoring eighty-two temples in the city of Rome alone. He became “pontifex maximus” (highest priest) in the state cult and tried to spark a moral renewal in society.

Many Roman men and women of the time were indulging in a very easy morality to escape what they called “the tedium of marriage”, and soon marital and birth rates had dwindled alarmingly. One day, August was disturbed enough to stalk into the Forum and devise a crude test of the situation: he told a crowd of men gathered there to separate into two groups, the bachelors on one side, the married men on the other. Seeing the handful of husbands he said:

What shall I call you? Men? But you aren’t fulfilling the duties of men. Citizens? But for all your efforts, the city is perishing. Romans? But you are in the process of blotting out this name altogether! … What humanity would be left if all the rest of mankind should do what you are doing? … You are committing murder in not fathering in the first place those who ought to be your descendants!

… and on to other such gems of imperial logic.

Augustus followed this with legislation designed to reverse the tide by making promiscuity a crime, while conferring political advantages on a father of three children. Bachelors who shirked “the duty of marriage” were penalized in their right to inherit, and they could not even secure good seats at the games! Bachelors trying to circumvent such penalties by “marrying” infant girls were quickly countered by setting the minimum age for engagement at ten for girls, with a two-year upper limit for the length of engagement.

Perhaps it was to gauge his success in raising the marriage and birth rates that Augustus was so concerned about the imperial census, for he took several, as in the Christmas story, during his lengthy reign. Such enrollments, of course, were also the basis for the Roman system of taxation, but the Emperor was pleased enough with the results that he proudly mentioned his censuses in eight place among the thirty-five “Acts of Augustus” for which he wished to be remembered, items that were later engraved on two bronze plaques outside his mausoleum. A subscription for the “Acts of Augustus” also appears at the Temple of Augustus in Ankara, Turkey, pictured here.

Some scholars have doubted that imperial Rome would require her subjects to return to their original homes for such enrollments. But this requirement has been supported by the discovery of a Roman census edict from 104 A.D in neighboring Egypt.

“Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt, says: The house-to-house census having been started, it is essential that all persons who for any reason whatsoever are absent from their homes be summoned to return to their own hearths, in order that they may perform the customary business of registration…”

Had Augustus ever seen these three names on the census returns from Bethlehem?

Joseph Ben-Iacob, carpenter
Mary Bath-Ioachim, his wife
Yeshua or Jesus, first-born son

It is very unlikely, and certainly he never learned the significance of what happened in Bethlehem because of his decision to take the census. And at the time of Augustus’ death in 14 A.D. Jesus was about 19 years old, an apprentice carpenter in Nazareth, and the Emperor still could not possibly have heard of him. Augustus would have been astounded to know that later ages would assign his own death to the year 14 A.D. (anno domini, “in the year of the Lord”) rather than the Roman date, 767 A.U.C. (ab urbe condita, “from the founding of the city”) all because of this unknown subject, born in Bethlehem. And as the years went by this “King of the Jews” would lead a kingdom far more vast than Augustus ever knew.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

from Paul L. Maier’s In the Fullness of Time

THE HISTORY OF THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are the dozen days in the liturgical calendar of the Western Church between the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi to visit at his house in Bethlehem (Epiphany, January 6). The Eastern Church celebrates during Epiphany rather than Christmas Day. In Hispanic and Latin American culture, January 6th is observed as Three Kings Day, or simply the Day of the Kings.

Question: Aren’t the Twelve Days of Christmas the days before Christmas, when you shop for presents?

Answer: No, the four week season before Christmas is called Advent, meaning the coming of Christ. The dozen days following Christmas are the Twelve Days of Christmas, sometimes known as Twelfth Night. The Twelfth Night is the holiday which marks the twelfth night of the Christmas Season, the eve of Epiphany. During the Tudor period in England, the Lord of Misrule would run the festivities of Christmas, ending on this Twelfth Night. Shakespeare’s play by the same name was intended to be performed as a Twelfth Night entertainment and was first performed during this time in 1602.

This festival was particularly popular during the Middle Ages especially in England, where some of the traditions were adapted from older pagan customs. Modern Neopaganism celebrates this time. This period is also called Yule or Yuletide, which while it serves as an archaic term for Christmas, hearkens back to earlier German and Norse traditions.

Question: But wasn’t this song used as a memory aid for catechism by Catholics in England during the period 1558 until 1829, when Parliament finally emancipated Catholicism there, who were prohibited from ANY practice of their faith by law - private OR public — where each gift is a hidden meanings to the teachings of the faith?

Answer: This is unlikely for several reasons:

At first glance, there is nothing in this song that is uniquely Catholic in belief as compared to Protestant catechism. Any of the items in it could be embraced by Catholic and Protestant alike. While Queen Elizabeth I’s “Act of Uniformity” truly did abolished the “old worship,” and the open practice of Catholicism was forbidden by law until Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, nothing in this song would have been taken as particularly Catholic or offensive to Anglican sensibilities. Indeed, during the highly Puritan time of the Commonwealth between 1649 and 1660 under the Cromwell government, Christmas was not celebrated in England until the time of Charles I and the restoration of the English monarchy.

Secondly, while there are differences between Anglican (Church of England Protestant) and Catholic belief, none of those show up in the “hidden meaning” of the song, with the possible exception of the number of sacraments.

However, it may be possible that this song has been confused with another song called “A New Dial” (also known as “In Those Twelve Days”), which dates to at least 1625 and assigns religious meanings to each of the twelve days of Christmas though not for the purposes of teaching a catechism. During those days there was a custom of singing songs called a “memory-and-forfeits performance” in which people added verses to a song cumulatively until the loser of the game forgot the first verses.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

HISTORY OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL

This week in 1843 saw the publication of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” No other book or story by Dickens or anyone else (except the Bible) has been more enjoyed, criticized, referred to, or more frequently adapted to other media. One of my favorites was catching Patrick Stewart doing his one-man version of the play at the Old Vic Theatre in London. None of Dickens’ other works is more widely recognized or, celebrated within the English-speaking world. Some scholars have even claimed that in publishing A Christmas Carol Dickens single-handedly invented the modern form of the Christmas holiday in England and the United States.

Indeed, the great British thinker G.K. Chesterton noted long ago, with A Christmas Carol Dickens succeeded in transforming Christmas from a sacred festival into a family feast. In so doing, he brought the holiday inside the home and thus made it accessible to ordinary people, who were now able to participate directly in the celebration rather than merely witnessing its performance in church.

Many of our American conceptions of what a “traditional” Christmas is, comes from this time in Victorian history. Indeed, Queen Victoria of England had just married a few years earlier, and her German husband, Prince Albert brought some of his native customs to England (including the Christmas tree), beginning some of the traditions of Victorian Christmas.

In the mid-seventeenth century, the Cromwellian Revolt abolished Christmas as well as the monarchy. However well the monarchy was subsequently “restored,” the traditions of the winter holiday never recovered. But religious prescription was not the only cause of the decline of Christmas. Even by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution, especially in the north, was changing the communities that still tenuously kept the customs of their ancestors.

By the time the Carol was written in 1843, the lavish celebrations of the past were a distant, quaint memory. Some still remembered them, and even before the Carol a few popular books attempted to record the celebrations of the past, such as The Book of Christmas by T.H. Hervey (1837) and The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving (1820). But social forces beyond simple nostalgia were at work, rekindling the need for winter celebrations.

Dickens was one of the first to show his readers a new way of celebrating the old holiday in their modern lives. His Christmas celebrations of the Carol adapted the twelve-day manorial (Yule) feast to a one-day party any family could hold in their own urban home. Instead of gathering together an entire village, Dickens showed his readers the celebration of Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, with his immediate family and close friends, and also the Cratchit’s “nuclear family”: perfectly happy alone, without the presence of friends or wider family. He showed the urban, industrial English that they could still celebrate Christmas, even though the old manorial twelve-day celebrations were out of their reach. Dickens’ version of the holiday evoked the childhood memories of people who had moved to the cities as adults.

The Cratchit family, although quaint and sentimental to modern readers, was a familiar portrait of the lower-middle class families who originally read the Carol, familiar in fact to Dickens himself, who modeled the Cratchit’s lifestyle on his own childhood experience of when he himself lived in Camden Town. (Dickens’ own father was in and out of Debtors’ Prison.) Dickens demonstrates that even in poverty, the winter holiday can inspire good will and generosity toward one’s neighbors. He shows that the spirit of Christmas was not lost in the race to industrialize, but can live on in our modern world.

The publishing of his book was immensely popular, though in a time of great religious controversy, and its lack of babes, wise men, stars, mangers, and other icons of the Christian nativity inspired a multitude of sermons and pamphlets at that time. Although A Christmas Carol is generally associated with the Christian winter holiday season, for it does contain references to the Christian Jesus; its themes are not exclusive to Christianity and it inspired a tradition for decades in Christmas books and celebrations that appealed to many non-Christians.

Dickens’ preface to the book reads:

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D., December, 1843.

But the punch line to the book, is the very last sentence, which rarely fails to bring a tear to this historian:

It was always said of Scrooge, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed,
God Bless Us, Every One!

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

excerpts from Prof. Gerhard Rempel, Lectures in Western Civilization