The Ghosts of Christmas Past
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immaculate deception by martin zamyatin Ernesto Biondi, “Saturnalia” The Ghosts of Christmas Past But before leaving Rome, Constantine The enmity of the Christians toward moved the reigning pope, Miltiades, out of each other surpassed the fury his drab papal lodgings, installed him in the of savage beasts against man. Lateran Palace, and showered him with gifts. Ammianus Marcellinus, 4th c. (The luxurious palace actually belonged to Constantine’s wife, Fausta, an obstacle he tHE USEFULNESS CONSTANTINE easily overcame—by murdering her in 326.) found in Christianity to advance his political In return for his generosity, Miltiades and military ambitions apparently didn’t would indulge Constantine’s every whim, extend to the religion’s aspiring capital, beginning the papacy’s long descent into Rome. (While mandatory for his subjects, pre-occupation with earthly riches and power. Constantine delayed being baptized himself By the late fourth century, the once great until he was literally on his deathbed—in Roman Empire was in well into decline, its order, perhaps, to be absolved of any interior beset by corruption and its outer interim sins, such as boiling alive his first provinces under siege by hordes of Huns wife or strangling his eldest son.) from Central Asia. Within Rome itself, rival After adopting Christianity as the official clerics engaged in petty turf wars. religion of the empire, he moved its capital The future saint Jerome of Stridon was to Byzantium—renaming it Constantinople back in Rome during this period—in service —and never set foot in Rome again, aband- to Pope Damasus I—having earlier been run oning the city to the ever-squabbling clergy. out of town after a sex scandal. Damasus had secured the papacy in a Damasus funded the endeavor by remov- most enterprising manner. Playing both ing the bones of hundreds of ordinary sides of the street, he worked for his papal Christians from the catacombs, which—once predecessor Liberius, as well as for broken up into suitably small pieces—were Liberius’s arch-enemy, Felix II. sold as relics of saints to gullible pilgims. There was at this time still no formal Jerome’s imaginative rendition of Jesus’s method for choosing a new pope, and when words in Matthew 16: “And I say also unto Liberius died in 366, a faction loyal to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I Ursinus installed him as his successor, while will build my church…” has been cited ever a faction loyal to Felix favored Damasus. since by popes as biblical ‘proof’ of Peter’s (Ursinus served a brief, contentious reign —and hence the papacy’s—divinely but is now considered—along with Felix— ordained authority. (After his benefactor’s to be an antipope.) death in 384, Jerome was embroiled in yet After failing to secure the necessary another sex scandal, and was once again support to oust Ursinus, Damasus resolved forced to flee the city, this time for good.) to settle the dispute by hiring a gang of But the most enduring way Damasus thugs to ambush his rival’s supporters. rewrote his tainted legacy was by formal- Those who escaped the initial attack holed izing the celebration of Christ’s birthday on up in the Liberian Basilica. Undeterred, December 25, thereby usurping the ancient Damasus’s gang barricaded the building’s Roman festival of Saturnalia, held annually exits and climbed up onto its roof. for centuries at the Winter Solstice. After breaking open a suitably large hole, Saturn was the god of renewal and they showered the terrified clerics below liberation, and the festival was marked by with shards of broken tile and masonry. several days of feasting, public drunkenness, When the three day siege finally ended, 137 gambling and ribald merriment. dead and dying clergy were dragged from Not surprisingly, the holiday was the shattered church, and Damasus was pope. immensely popular, and to appease the Despite securing a pardon from Emperor peasantry, Damasus expropriated not only Gratian, the ruthless manner in which the traditional festivities but also much of Damasus had attained the papacy dogged the rite’s pagan trappings and ritual— him throughout his eighteen-year long reign. including the now-familiar ‘Christmas’ trees The resourceful pope set to work restoring and cookies, Yuletide holly, and mistletoe. his tarnished reputation by spearheading the Over time, the practice of singing and doctrine of apostolic succession—which dancing naked in the streets was reduced to asserted that the apostle Peter was the first innocuous Christmas caroling, and Bishop of Rome, and thereby all succeeding mandatory offerings to the emperor to the popes were in turn Christ’s sole divinely- voluntary gift-giving of jolly Saint appointed representatives on Earth. Nicholas, or Santa Claus. To bolster the pope’s claim to supreme Today, millions of devout Christians authority, Damasus commissioned Jerome celebrate this annual holiday, oblivious to its to translate the Bible into less accessible pagan origins and unaware that the Bible Latin, which would be the officially- itself specifically forbids their participation, sanctioned version for the next millennium. branding it ‘the way of the heathen.’.