Word Power: Christmas

Today’s lesson in Word Power is to understand the history and etymology behind the word Christmas.

Christmas (Noun): [christ-mas]

1. A Christian feast commemorating the birth of Jesus.
2. December 25, the day on which the feast is celebrated.  (American Heritage Dictionary)

Etymology

Christmas has been celebrated by Christians for centuries as the day that Jesus Christ was born.  There is actually much disagreement by scholars over the actual date of Jesus’ birth.  Some scholars believe that Jesus was born in an earlier, warmer month when shepherds would have been tending to their herds.  Some people contend that Jesus was born on December 25th, and everything surrounding his birth was simply a miracle.  Either way December 25th, was chosen by the Catholic Church as the date of Jesus’ birthdate.

κριστος (kristos)

We all recognize the word Christ as the last name of the most famous person this world has ever seen.  In all honesty, Christ was given to Jesus because the people felt he was the “annointed one”.  In Ancient Greek, κριστος (kristos) meant annointed one.  Eventually in Latin, κριστος changed to Christus, which of course gave way to the more familiar Christ.

Mæsse (mass)

This word comes down to us from Latin and Greek roots.  In the Ancient Greek language the word μαζα meant barley cake.  Eventually this word gave way to the Latin word massa, which meant mass, dough, or lump.  In Old English the Latin word massa changed to mæsse and the meaning became a festival.  This was probably due either to the associations that bread and cake had with a festival or the fact that when Christians would go to church they would take part in the eucharist, which involved eating the body (bread) of Jesus and drinking the wine (blood).

Summary

When you combine the two words, Christos and mæsse, you get Christmæsse.  This eventually became Christmas, which was developed to give a name to the celebration of Jesus’ birth date.  It was long accepted by Christian writers that Jesus’ birthdate was in fact on December 25th.  It wasn’t until the 1800’s (the 18th century) that people like Sir Issac Newton began to challenge the validity of the notion.

Extra Credit

It is argued by scholars that December 25th, was chosen by the Catholic Church as the holiday to celebrate Jesus’ birth because the date was already used by the pagans as a holiday to celebrate the winter solstice.  This pagan holiday was called Saturnalia and it involved burning a Yule log, festive greenery, lights, and even exchanging gifts.  It is believed that December 25th was chosen as the date to celebrate Christmæsse in order to make it easier to convert pagans over to Christianity.

Image Used in Post

Christmas Tree image courtesy of Flickr user ryaninc published under the CC license.