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mask131 · 6 months

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While I'm at it, because I just had a little beef with a fanatical Christian who couldn't believe I was born in a Christian setting because I had a pentagram as an icon (you see the kind of person)... [Edit: For more details they were a clearly antisemitic Orthodox person who, after refusing to believe I was anything else than Jew, atheist or a devil-worshiper, starting lashing out at me when I said I had a Catholic upbringing saying I was the cause of the crusades and the reason Hitler was alive, yada yada, you know the kind of crazy religious person]

So I decided to have a brief Christianity talk. Not much but just this:

If you ask me, yes, there is a Christian mythology, even though people do not like this term - because there is a bunch of Christian legends and Christian myths that form a Christian folklore and a set of Christian tales with distant, weak or inexistant links to ACTUAL Christian teachings, rites and the actual Christian religion.

And I do believe that folk-Christianity is a fascinating thing that deserves to exist alongside official, actual Christianity. Santa Muerte, and the local saint celebrations, and strange Christmas and Epiphany beliefs, and this story about God and Saint Peter getting drunk at a farmer's house, and the fairytale about Jesus and the Virgin Mary throwing the devil and his wife in an oven to save the girls they wanted to eat... Anyway, no matter how much one can try to destroy folk-Christianity it will always survive because it was centuries and centuries of rites and beliefs spread across several continents, and you can't destroy that easily.

The thing that many people do not get is that a lot of what is Christianity today was completely made up. There's not a lot of Christianity today that was originally in the Bible. There's a lot of Christianity as practiced by the first Christians that was lost. The dates and meanings of celebrations like Easter, All Hallows Day or Christmas kept changing all year long. Lots of saints were completely invented. Don't even get me started on the apocryphal Gospels!

This is why studying and understanding the history and evolution of a religion always allow one to be more understanding of what the religion currently is and what is actually an "option" in it. Religions never stayed the same thanks to times changing, scholarly debates, schisms dividing it into various branches, political and economical forces being at play, translations from one country to the next - and that's not just true for Christianity, but also for all other religions. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism... They all had their own evolution, they all are today very different from what they started as, and to better understand them one needs to learn of their past, what they were, what they still are, what they're not anymore. Heck, today there are talks in India of kicking out and banishing all Buddhists when the religion started there! But now, Buddhism's main nations are China and Japan, and its Indian roots almost entirely forgotten...

Fanatics usually fail to do this study of their own religion's history and evolution, because they imagine that the past was just always a carbon-copy of the present, and that their beliefs stayed unmovable monolith coming straight from God (or whatever principle they follow) instead of something that went through centuries of men and women and governments.

Just look at why and how Protestantism came to be. People realized the Church had added a lot of stuff that wasn't there when Christians first appeared, and decided to return to the "original" Christianity, rejecting all the added, invented stuff. Like the celibacy of priests: Christians priests married and had children in the first centuries following the Christ's death. And the only reason Catholic priests took a vow of celibacy and virginity was because of economic concerns with inheritance matters. Jesus never asked those that followed him to never have children or never marry or never have sex.

Or take the existence of Purgatory! Completely invented by the Church around the Middle-Ages, never spoke about by the Christ or part of the original Christian religion, then quickly removed a few centuries later as a non-existent, borderline heretical superstition, and that yet survived in folk-Christianity, and then in popular culture.

In conclusion, I would have to say that there is one book that made me realize a lot of things about religion as a whole, and that convinced me to go from Catholic-Christian to simply deist. Terry Pratchett's book "Small Gods", which exactly put into words my feelings about the world: there is a difference between religion and organized religion. There is a difference between belief and the organizations built around this belief, between faith and the hierarchy created around this faith. The Church is like a shell that was built around the turtle that is the faith/belief/god - and sometimes, when the shell becomes too big and too heavy or too unfit for the creature it hosts, it smothers, hurts and kills the faith/belief/god, until there is only the shell. And people stop referring to the turtle, and only speak and interact with the shell.

This is the perfect explanation of how Jesus only preached peace and love and friendship and forgiveness, and its priests later invented the Inquisition and caused the witch-hunts.

#christianity #religion #christian history #christian religion #catholicism #catholic religion #folk-christianity #christian mythology

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maya-chirps · 4 months

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Simbang Gabi: The 9 Days Before Christmas

An image of a red parol from Peakpx.com

The Philippines is well-known for its extremely long Christmas celebration that a lot of foreigners often look at with confusion. Traditionally, Filipinos may start putting up their trees, playing festive songs, and counting down to the 25th as early as September in a season that's colloquially called the "ber months" or the "ber months season" (Petrelli, 2021). This period often lasts up until January or February where some houses may still keep their trees and decor pushing as far as March.

Even with this technicality, however, you'd be hard-pressed to find Filipinos truly celebrating from the very beginning of September genuinely ending it by the end of February. Most often, actual celebrations start after Undas, a period encompassing All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day on the 1st and 2nd of November respectively to commemorate the dead, similar but a lot more subtle than other Catholic countries own Day of the Dead like in Mexico's Dia de Los Muertos and Italy's Giorno dei Morti. This time period is often the start of people doing more Christmas-y things such as Kris Kringle activities leading up to the main Christmas party.

The main markers of the true start in itself is the Advent season, which starts on the Sunday nearest to the 30th in Western Churches like Roman Catholicism and leads up to Christmas ("Advent", n.d.). This is where Catholics would go to Church every Sunday leading up to Christmas to light the Advent Wreath until the final candle on its center on Christmas day on the 25th. As the Philippines is heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism, Filipinos follow the Western start of Advent and most celebrations often fall in the middle of this time period. Even the middle of Advent, however, Filipinos have a waiting period to count down before Christmas - Simbang Gabi.

What is Simbang Gabi?

Simbang Gabi (en. night mass; going to mass at night) is a Philippine Christmas tradition wherein Roman Catholic Filipinos would attend mass nine days every single morning or night before the actual Christmas celebration. Traditionally, the masses were held every morning at 4:00 AM from the 16th to the 24th which would then be capped off by Christmas Eve Mass at night or Christmas Mass on the 25th with its early schedule earning it the name Misa de Gallo (en. mass of the rooster) (Lazaro, 2020). In most dioceses, however, they often have an anticipated mass schedule that start a night earlier than the morning masses (Hermoso, 2022).

Besides being called Misa de Gallo, I had also heard the celebration being called Misa de Aguinaldo (en. mass of gifts) in some places. This shares the same name as the similar Puerto Rican tradition Misa de Aguinaldo which is also a nine-day mass held in the morning, typically at 5:00 AM which is also deeply-rooted in Puerto Rican Christmas traditions (Álvarez, 2018).

History

A vintage greeting card posted by the Facebook group Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959 (2020)

Being a Christmas tradition, it is not surprising that Simbang Gabi could trace itself back to the Spanish colonial period.

A common misconception of its origins states that the practice first started in Mexico. Hermoso (2018) states that it started on the year 1587 by Friar Diego de Soria of the Convent of San Agustin Acolman when he requested the Vatican to allow church service to be held outdoors because of an overflow of attendees during the Christmas time. Pope Sixtus V later approved of this request and even decreed that these kinds of masses be held in the Philippines at the dawn of the 16th of December. What this doesn't account for was that the practice of going to church for the Eve of Christmas dates back to even earlier than the 16th century.

The cover for an English translation and compilation of Etheria's writings by M.L. McClure and C.L. Feltoe, D.D. (1919)

The first recorded instance of Christians celebrating Christmas by going to early mass leading up to the actual date was first written by Egeria (also called Egeriae, Etheria, or Aetheria), a Christian Galician woman who first recorded it during her travels to the Levant where she notes the early morning masses and festivities from the time of the Epiphany to the Nativity. She writes in her letters later called the Itinerarium Egeriae (en. The Travel Guide of Egeria; The Pilgrimage of Etheria).

"Octave of the Festival. On the second day also they proceed in like manner to the church in Golgotha, and also on the third day; thus the feast is celebrated with all this joyfulness for three days up to the sixth hour in the church built by Constantine (...) And in Bethlehem also throughout the entire eight days the feast is celebrated with similar festal array and joyfulness daily by the priests and by all the clergy there, and by the monks who are appointed in that place (...) and immense crowds, not of monks only, but also of the laity, both men and women, flock together to Jerusalem from every quarter for the solemn and joyous observance of that day." - Egeria, 381-384; The Pilgrimage of Etheria (trans. McClure & Feltoe, 1919):

The practice of attending early morning masses up until the main festivities of the Nativity was later adopted by more Western Christian communties during the time of Pope Sixtus III when he celebrated what is widely considered the first Midnight Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, not only stemming from the popularity of the Christians from Jerusalem but also the popular belief that Jesus was born at midnight (The Pillar, 2021).

The prayer spoken within the midnight vigil was then called the "mox ut gallus cantaverit" which translates to "when the rooster crows", aptly named because of the early hours the vigil tended to last which then coincided with the crowing of roosters ("Misa del Gallo: origen, historia y por qué se celebra en la madrugada del 25 de diciembre", 2022). The practice was continued by the Spanish with the name Misa de Gallo (also called Misa de Aguinaldo)which later spread throughout the Spanish Empire and could now be seen practiced in countries like Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and of course the Philippines.

There seem to be two variations of this: the nine-day series of masses before Christmas (found in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela) and the single early morning mass before Christmas day (found in Spain and Bolivia). It isn't clear if Spain and Bolivia simply dropped the nine-day tradition or if the nine-day tradition was restarted in these other colonies, however.

In the Present Day

An image of crowds outside a church during Simbang Gabi uploaded to Wikimedia by Erwin Malicdem

Today, the Simbang Gabi continues to be a popular tradtion for most Filipino Roman Catholics, even those who aren't typically as religious most parts of the year. This is given the fact that a popular belief is that when a person completes all of the nine days, they may receive a wish to whatever they desire. This is such a common belief that Bishop Broderick Pabillo, a Manila auxiliary bishop, had to remind people that the point of the tradition is to remember Jesus and his nativity (Punay, 2016). Besides this, it is also a common challenge among Filipinos to try to complete it as is or see how many days out of the nine could they actually attend.

It is not uncommon for churches these days to hold an "anticipated" mass the night before the actual date starting instead on the 15th and ending on the 24th with a Christmas mass, instead of starting on the 16th and ending on the 25th. This newer tradition had come from the reign of Filipino dictator President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. during the Martial Law years in the 70s, when Filipinos were not allowed to go out after a curfew until 4 in the morning (Macairan, 2023). This allowed more people and especially those who may not be able to start their day early or those who may have other obligations in the morning to attend masses at night time, typically at around 6 PM - 8 PM.

The only large controversy that I could remember about Simbang Gabi was back in 2011 when the event was banned from being conducted within the Philippine Center in New York City. The ban came about because of it supposedly violated Canon Law which prohibits religious worship in unconsecrated ground or in other words places that aren't seen as places of worship. In an article by Adarlo & Pastor (2014), Rev. Dr. Joseph G. Marabe, the at-the-time head of the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz and a priest-in-residence at St. Patrick's Cathedral where the ban took place, explains in an interview with news site The FilAm:

"It’s not allowed by law to have Holy Mass in an unconsecrated place. Worship should take place in a sacred place. That was an explanation but not a decision. The Archdiocese decides." - Rev. Dr. Joseph G. Marabe, head of the Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz in Chinatown, New York (2011)

The ban was later lifted on 2014 after community leader Loida Nicolas Lewis wrote a letter to the diocese to reconsider the ban which led to the return of the almost 30-year-old tradition that year (Balitang America, ABS-CBN North America Bureau, 2014).

Besides being a huge part of current traditions, a lot of Filipinos, and especially Filipino youth, use the event as an excuse to go out during the night to hang out with friends and even go on dates with their partners. It is not an uncommon sight to see a group of teenagers, often wearing maybe less than typical church clothes, by the edge of the Church seemingly attending mass. Whether or not they're actually being attentive is hard to decipher. Either way, this has led to an explosion of memes almost every year just mocking these kinds of people or making fun of their own.

A screenshot of the "Simbang gabi starter pack" posted by user rhapido on 9Gag.com (2022)

Earlier versions of this meme could be seen posted throughout Filipino social media during the early 2010s

A meme posted by the Facebook page FEU Memes (2012)

The barkada (en. friend group) going to Simbang Gabi had been an older tradition that has found a lot more popularity in the contemporary era because of social media. My mother had told me that she used to use it as an excuse herself back in the 80s to hang out with her friends at night time. This may be a continued past time for especially younger people for years to come.

There's also many street foods associated with Simbang Gabi that may not be unique to the event itself but are nevertheless heavily associated with the event due to their widespread sale during this time period. Foods like bibingka, puto bumbong, kutsinta, and other popular rice cakes dominate the scene which definitely satisfy the hungry parishioners who had, most likely, not eaten breakfast or dinner before going to church. With their strong associations with Simbang Gabii and Filipino Christmas as a whole, I might discuss these on a later date.

Simbang Gabi, from my experience

Growing up and living in the Philippines and especially being raised Catholic within a Catholic town named after a Catholic saint and going to a Catholic school named after another Catholic saint, it probably won't shock you that I, myself, had tried to complete the nine days of Simbang Gabi myself. I had attempted it several times with only maybe trying seriously by myself once in my life. It was quite the experience to just try to dedicate yourself into completing a goal to do something for nine consecutive days straight.

My first attempt was when I was in Junior High and it was with my sister and two people who worked for my parents and had helped watch over us. It was something that I always wanted to try doing and especially since I was gaining a lot more independence at the time so what better to try it out without the rest of the family? With adult supervision, of course.

Since we lived quite away from the actual church, the place was already packed even an hour before the actual mass started. There was barely any seats left and even less standing room leading to a huge overflow of people stuck outdoors, only hearing mass from the outdated speaker system that they had erected in place of the old bell tower.

The mass in our church was often done in the dark during the night out of an deliberate and probably aesthetic choice with only the alter being illuminated by the lights. The rest was lit up by the scattered about Christmas decor throughout the church and the church patio. It always felt like going to some liminal space that other nights at church just doesn't give.

Once the mass has been concluded, people rush out of the doors in thick crowds to find their way into the footpaths leading on to the main town streets. Some opt to stay behind to enjoy the food stalls that had pop-up for the night to eat bibingka, puto, sapin-sapin, and palitaw among other things. Some of the teens had decided to raid the nearby small park and playground as a hang-out spot to talk the night away before they rush home for their curfews. Meanwhile others were just rushing to get home as soon as they can, with people lining up to go to the rudimentary parking space that the church created while the others who didn't own their own vehicles forced to compete for the very few commuter vehicles still riding through the night, hunting for passengers.

This was before we had our own car, so we were with the latter crowds of people, trying to peer through the dark streets only illuminated by the scant Christmas lights that still refused to turn off as the night progressed. Every so often, two headlights excite the crowd and a swarm of them start running in anticipation with not care or tact if they would crush children or separate families all to take a seat on the night jeepneys, some the few commutes left after 9.

My sister was an expert in finding her way through it, reaching out to the doors to form a barricade for herself and the rest of us to prevent others from taking our seats before letting herself in. I still think I would've been left behind if it weren't for her doing that out of sheer competitiveness with the crowds.

We settled into our seats and squeezed in tightly to allow other passengers in so we could all go home as soon as we can. It was a tight but otherwise uneventful commute every night with nothing but tired people waiting for their stops and slowly emptying the once packed vehicle. Since we live in the outskirts of the town, we were often the last few and at times, the drivers would transfer us to other jeeps just so they can go home themselves. This had sometimes instead left us to walk the remainder of the way there through unpaved highway sidewalks.

After a few nights of it, I became more and more reluctant to continue because of the frenzy that it had almost every single night and it was extremely inconvenient for my time and the time of those with me. I didn't complete it then and I hadn't seriously tried until 9th Grade, which honestly was more uneventful.

That attempt was mostly my siblings and I staying in Makati City and Taguig City and going to easily traveled to churches that we could walk to by foot, and high-end malls that have annual Simbang Gabi masses for their shoppers, facilitated by the local diocese and the local fancy church. I was able to complete those easily because I was often dragged either by my siblings or my grandmother who used to never miss a day of church when she was still more active.

It was less about the challenge at that point and more of an obligation which isn't a bad thing and honestly is probably closer to how it should be celebrated.

I hadn't gone to Simbang Gabi since 2019 and I don't have any plans to try this year either. Not really because I don't want to necessarily, but specifically because I physically can't. I still think its pretty fun to do and honestly maybe a good excuse to meet with my friends that I haven't seen in a while. Sadly, I just simply cannot do it now nor in the near future.

Maybe one day I could once again go out at those cold December night to meet my friends and maybe eat some bibingka on my way home but I guess I'll just leave every one else to it.

Sources

Introduction

Advent. (n.d.). In Britannica. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Advent

In The Philippines Christmas Eve Includes A Late Night Street Food Feast, Filipino Christmas, HD wallpaper [image]. (n.d.). Peakpx. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.peakpx.com/en/hd-wallpaper-desktop-wxdle

Petrelli, M. (2021, December 20). The country that celebrates Christmas for more than 4 months a year. CNBC. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/philippines-the-longest-christmas-celebrations-in-the-world-.html

What is Simbang Gabi?

Álvarez, F. (2018, November 22). Una tradición matutina la Misa de Aguinaldo. Primera Hora. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.primerahora.com/noticias/puerto-rico/notas/una-tradicion-matutina-la-misa-de-aguinaldo/

Hermoso, C. (2022, December 15). 9-day ‘Simbang Gabi’ begins on Dec. 16; anticipated masses to begin tonight. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://mb.com.ph/2022/12/15/9-day-simbang-gabi-begins-on-dec-16-anticipated-masses-to-begin-tonight/

Lazaro, J. (2020, December 11). The Christmas tradition of Simbang Gabi: After five centuries, this Filipino Christmas tradition lives on. U.S. Catholic. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://uscatholic.org/articles/202012/the-christmas-tradition-of-simbang-gabi/

History

Hermoso, C. (2018, December 15). ‘Simbang Gabi’ a manifestation of the Filipinos’ strong faith in God, says bishop. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://mb.com.ph/2018/12/15/simbang-gabi-a-manifestation-of-the-filipinos-strong-faith-in-god-says-bishop/

Etheria (1919). The Pilgrimage of Etheria (McClure, M., & Feltoe, C. Ed. & Trans.). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Retrieved on 13 December 2023, from https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm (Original work published 384 C.E.)

McClure, M., & Feltoe, C. (1919). [An image of the book cover of "The Pilgrimage of Etheria"]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm

The Pillar. (2021, December 21). What time is Midnight Mass?. The Pillar. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/what-time-is-midnight-mass

Misa del Gallo: origen, historia y por qué se celebra en la madrugada del 25 de diciembre. (2022, December 24). Marca. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.marca.com/tiramillas/actualidad/2022/12/24/63a6c106268e3e7c468b45e8.html

Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959. (2020, December 25). A Vintage Greeting Card showing Philippine Christmas… Maligayang Pasko from Vintage Philippine Islands 1920-1959 [image]. Facebook. Retrieved 15 December 2023, from https://www.facebook.com/510513375695362/photos/a.1701322009947820/3595821097164559/?type=3

In the Present Day

Adarlo, S., & Pastor, C. (2014, November 3). Fr. Joseph Marabe breaks silence over Simbang Gabi ban (Part 2). The FilAm: A Magazine for Filipino Americans in New York. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://thefilam.net/archives/16127

Balitang America, ABS-CBN North America Bureau. (2014, September 19). Simbang Gabi returns to NYC after a brief ban. ABS-CBN News. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://news.abs-cbn.com/global-filipino/09/19/14/simbang-gabi-returns-nyc-after-brief-ban

FEU Memes. (2012, December 15). eto yung mga madalas ko makita sa gilid ng simbahan e [image]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://www.facebook.com/PIYUMEMES/photos/a.210778985704527/317211885061236/?type=3

Macaira, E. (2023, December 15). Simbang Gabi: It’s the mass, not the time. Philippine Star. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/12/15/2318980/simbang-gabi-its-mass-not-time

Malicdem, E. (n.d.) The Bamboo Organ Church or the St. Joseph Parish Church of Las Piñas City in the Philippines during "Simbang Gabi" or Night Mass on Christmas eve. Photo was part of Schadow1 Expeditions coverage of Las Piñas during Christmas season. [image]. Retrieved on 15 December 2023 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simbang_Gabi#/media/File:Las_Pinas_Church_during_Simbang_Gabi.jpg

Punay, E. (2016, December 19). ‘Simbang Gabi’ won’t grant wishes – Bishop. Philippine Star Global. Retrieved on 15 December 2023, from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/12/19/1654920/simbang-gabi-wont-grant-wishes-bishop

rhapido. (2022, November 30). Simbang gabi starter pack [Screenshot]. 9Gag. Retrieved 15 December 2023, from https://9gag.com/gag/a5Xnzgr

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the-cricket-chirps · 1 month

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Bertram Brooker, Crucifixion, 1927-28

#bertram brooker #canadian artist #canadian painter #canadian painting #canadian art #religious art #crucifixion #christian history #christianity #modern art #art history #aesthetictumblr #tumblraesthetic #tumblrpic #tumblrpictures #tumblr art #aesthetic #beauty #tumblrstyle

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dailyhistoryposts · 1 year

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On This Day In History

November 8th, 1901: Eight die in a bloody protest Athens, Greece, as anger erupts about translating the Christian Bible into modern Greek.

#history #world history #religious history #christian history #greek orthodox #gospel riots

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many-sparrows · 6 months

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Martin Luther and Paul the Apostle would have either gotten along like a house fire or they wouldn't have been able to stand in the same room. It's about the self loathing.

#Jesus fandom #christ fandom #Jacob wasnt the only one to wrestle with God ya feel #godblr #martin luther #st paul #paul the apostle #religion #Christianity #christian history #reformation

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nickysfacts · 1 month

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All hail the Jewish Heartthrob of Darkness!

🖤🗡🖤

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actualmermaid · 10 months

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I present to you The Venerable John Boswell, who should be remembered by every church and every Christian who considers themselves “open and affirming.”

If you have heard of John Boswell, you've probably heard of his name in conjunction with words like "controversial" or "disputed." This is an absolute shame, because I've been getting to know him and his work over the last couple of months for a different project, and I've come to think of him as "my dead friend." According to an (alive) friend in religious studies, "a saint is just a dead friend who can pray for you," so I am presenting him in the form of a traditional icon.

Iconography:

"The Venerable": in one sense bitterly ironic, since Professor Boswell died young. On the other hand it calls back to the Venerable Bede, also a historian whose work has been "challenged."

Tongue of flame: a traditional symbol for the Holy Spirit. One of the traditional gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of "speaking in tongues" and the "interpretation of tongues." Professor Boswell spoke or read at least 17 modern and classical languages.

Harvard Doctoral robes: a symbol of his academic achievement and authority. Professor Boswell was educated and worked in some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, and was briefly the chair of the Yale history department before he had to step down because of his illness. Someone like Thomas Aquinas probably would have considered him a social equal. He was not "a single controversial historian" with a couple of crackpot theories.

Palm frond: a traditional symbol for martyrs. In a very broad sense, a martyr is someone whose death can teach us something, or is otherwise "theologically significant." Professor Boswell died of AIDS in 1994. HIV/AIDS is not "God's judgment upon sinners," as some conservative fanatics believe. It is a mindless disease that governments and other institutions (including churches) allowed to spread unchecked in gay communities for years, simply because they were gay. It was only when "respectable" people began coming down with it that medical research began in earnest and public health protocols were put into practice. It was, and still is in some places, a public health disaster even now that effective treatments for it exist. Professor Boswell was one of the vanguard of AIDS patients who died before effective treatments were available, and part of a generation of queer elders who should still be with us. He would be 76 years old in 2023.

"The crown of glory for me is with you": this is a line from "The Passion of SS. Serge and Bacchus," which Professor Boswell translated into English for the first time, which makes it widely available to people outside of small, elite academic circles. In the legend, Bacchus has been martyred and has appeared to Sergius in a vision. He uses this line to encourage Sergius to stay strong until they can be reunited in heaven. In another sense, the icon of Professor Boswell is encouraging the people who admire him to keep up his work. Keep digging up subversive, queer Christian history, and keep challenging him. We didn't stop writing English history after the Venerable Bede, and we won't stop writing LGBTQ Christian history after the Venerable Boswell.

Hagiography:

Professor Boswell, known as Jeb to his friends and family, was said to be remarkably kind, generous, funny, and sensitive. He was beloved by his students and respected by his colleagues. He became a devoted Roman Catholic when he was a teenager, and attended Mass daily. He was approachable and open regarding the challenges of being both gay and Christian, and was also openly critical of the Church in spite of (or perhaps because of) his personal faith. He challenged both religious conservatives, for obvious reasons, and also "enlightened secularists" whose dogma held that "organized religion," and Christianity in particular, was the root cause of all homophobic discrimination in the world. There are many people who would have preferred to let his life and work quietly slip into the past, and there are even some who have actively tried to erase him, but John Boswell will not be erased. In my opinion, Professor Boswell should be officially commemorated by every church that considers itself "Open And Affirming." This modern movement builds on work done by Professor Boswell, and he must be respected in all of his twinky, flamboyant, brilliant, and life-giving glory. He declared that queer people could know God without shame or self-censorship, and that the Church could be made to repent and welcome us as it once did.

Further Reading:

If you have a couple of hours, I recommend the single known video recording of one of his lectures: Jews, Gay People, and Bicycle Riders (1986). This is an excellent introduction to his work.

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/john-boswell-s-faith-lit-generation

https://qspirit.net/john-boswell-historian-gays-lesbians/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17004797/john-eastburn-boswell

https://www.wm.edu/as/dean/boswell/about/index.php

https://lgbtqreligiousarchives.org/profiles/john-boswell

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/pwh/index-bos.asp

https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/resources/5188

#my art #history #lgbtq history #christian history #christianity #saints

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beatrice-otter · 1 year

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Is Christmas pagan?

There’s a shitton of discourse around this every year, and a lot of the assumptions people have about the origins of Christmas and many Christmas traditions are either flat-out untrue or have no evidence behind them.

First is the claim that the date of Christmas is pagan in origin, that it was a co-opting of a Roman pagan holiday. This claim was made up in the 20th Century when people noticed that a) there were actually two different Roman holidays that overlapped with December 25th (Saturnalia and the Feast of the Unconquered Sun) and b) the accounts of feasting and partying for Saturnalia (we don’t have good records about the Feast of the Unconquered Sun, it was from one of the secretive mystery cults) sound a lot like the feasting and partying we do today for Christmas. There’s no evidence for this claim beyond “this sounds like it would make sense.” And there are significant problems with it.

Christmas was the last of the major holidays to be added to the Christian calendar, in the 4th Century AD; it’s not in the New Testament (unlike Easter and Pentecost, the two most theologically important holy days in the Christian calendar). We have the contemporary account of how they chose the date, which is not about pagan holidays but rather about numerology. They might have been lying, of course; but just because ancient numerology doesn’t make sense to modern people that doesn’t mean that they were lying about it. If you’re curious, here’s the story of how the calculations were made: at that time, they believed that Jesus had died on March 25. Jesus was perfect, therefore Jesus must have had a perfect life in numerological terms as well as everything else, therefore he must have died on the anniversary of his conception. (This is why Catholics celebrate the Annunciation--the day the angel came to Mary--as March 25th.) If Jesus was conceived on March 25th and had a perfect nine-month pregnancy, that puts his birth at December 25th.

As for the partying, Christmas was a time of fasting in the early church, not a time of partying. Solemn prayer and hymn-singing. No meat. Long worship services. If the date was chosen in relation to either Saturnalia or the Feast of the Unconquered Sun, the purpose was not to co-opt the pagan partying and say “hey, you can still have your midwinter parties in the Christian church!” but rather to contrast the drunken debauchery of the pagans with the sober piety of the Christians.

Christmas just wasn’t that important a date until Christianity started moving north (it shared prominence with Epiphany in the middle of winter, and was much less important than Easter). Up north, where the days are very short and everything is cold and dark, celebrating something in the middle of winter is very important to keep spirits up. And yes, the Germanic tribes and the Nordic peoples and the Slavs all had major festivals in midwinter, and many of the traditions associated with those festivals got attached to Christmas. (Trees, burning the Yule log, etc., etc.) But even up in the North where Christmas was much more important than it was in southern Europe, Christmas didn’t become The Biggest Celebration Of The Christian Year until the Victorians in the 19th Century.

Back to those pagan Germanic customs. Christian missionaries did not take those elements and incorporate them into Christmas celebrations. In fact, Christian missionaries and priests spent centuries trying to stamp those pagan elements out! They spent centuries telling people they were going to hell for still practicing paganism if they celebrated Christmas in a pagan way. For every priest who accepted or encouraged those pagan traditions, there were ten more trying diligently to stamp them out.

The pagan customs--trees, holly, etc.--have not survived because Christian priests co-opted and appropriated them. They have survived because the people who first practiced those customs kept them after converting, despite centuries of Christian authorities trying to stamp them out.

#Christianity #christmas #history #christian history

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creature-wizard · 1 year

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Early christianity and its foundings and christianity itself was not founded on hate dumbass. Early christians weren't antisemeties, racists, whatever you wanna say.

I super recommend How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee and Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D. Ehrman because you really, really just have no idea what you're talking about.

#answered #anonsense #history #christian history

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enbycrip · 1 year

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A thing you need to know is that the famous lovers Heloise and Abelard - a pair of quite well-known Christian philosophers from earlyish medieval France who are also pretty well known for the fact that Heloise’s relatives later broke in to Abelard’s rooms and castrated him one evening - did in fact have one child together.

They called the poor kid Astrolabe.

*Astrolabe.*

I‘m generally quite a big fan of Heloise (I go back and forth on Abelard and quite often want to slap him) but she chose the name and that’s serious child cruelty.

That’s like modern parents calling a kid GPS 🤣

This is what a 12th century European astrolabe looks like btw. It’s a nautical navigation device which had been around since the classical period all over Asia, Europe and Africa.

They were such utter nerds calling their kid after that. (As an utter nerd, I do get the impulse 😄)

It does make Astrolabe *really* easy to track through the records *because no one fucking else is called fucking Astrolabe*.

(Astrolabe was raised by Abelard’s sister Denise because his parents were too busy being religious philosophers. I can’t help picturing her calling him Astro Boy (Garçon d’Astro?). His folks, particularly Abelard, did at least try to help him out in his career in the church when he was older, though given Abelard was basically a walking argument that pissed everyone around him off almost continuously that might actually have been more of a hindrance than a help…)

#heloise and abelard #medieval history #christian history #medieval philosophy #european history #astrolabe #nerds in love #nerds of history #womens history #history

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littledreamling · 1 year

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Hob Gadling who taught himself how to read in order to become a printer with the first book to ever be printed : the bible. Hob Gadling become knight getting a humanist education, learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew and studying the holy text in every iteration. Hob Gadling who has had plenty to reconsider about his faith throughout his life due to his immortality but never his queerness (and Hob Gadling has found out early on he is not straight), suddenly hearing the bible quoted to support homophobia out of nowhere in the 1980s. Hob Gadling pushing back and campaigning without care that he might be endangering the secret of his immortality against this "new translation". Hob Gadling till present days calling that out, loud and clear everywhere he goes to make sure any queer-secretly-religious or religious-secretly-queer kid (and not-kid-anymore) gets to hear it, because he might have his own quarrels with religion but he also knows how important faith can be to someone and he's not about to let bigots manipulate that against his people !!

Listen I’m a whore for religious Hob and this hits the nail on the head. I’m a little brain dead at the moment as I just got back from a bachelor’s party but I’ll attempt to do this ask justice (and if I don’t, I’ll come back to it because I live and breathe for Hob Gadling and all of his complexities).

The first words Hob ever heard recited to him were out of a bible. Growing up, Hob’s parents dragged him to church every day for Mass, where he would hear the Latin words wash over him like a cool, cleansing water and while he didn’t understand the words, they meant something to him nonetheless. When his parents and siblings died, either from the plague or other natural causes, he made sure they got their last rites, the words that would comfort and strengthen their souls on their journey to Heaven, and he took comfort in the fact that those same words would comfort and strengthen his own soul one day. He saw the priest, solemn and wise, cupping his bible with the reverence he showed to the bodies in the ground, a respect and adoration and dedication that shook Hob to his core.

The first book Hob ever touched was a bible. He still couldn’t read it, he simply placed the type letters where he was told, but the unadulterated joy and pride he felt, holding his very first book, the first book he had ever printed entirely by himself, was a feeling like no other. He couldn’t understand a single word of it, but he could’ve recited it with perfect clarity; he had placed that exact same type in that exact same order countless times, eliminating each mistake one at a time until every page was perfect. It wasn’t fancy, just a simple bible for a local parish, but deep down, Hob always thought of that one bible as his.

The first book Hob ever read was a bible. He had traveled to Venice and Florence, centers of Humanist learning and intellectualism, in the early 1500’s to learn Latin and Greek and Hebrew; to study Ancient Greek and Rome society and culture; to immerse himself in the knowledge of history, language, philosophy, art, and literature; to become educated in translation, letter-writing, public speaking, and military affairs; to study Plato and Aristotle and their texts on philosophy. He studied Jewish and Ottoman thought and better understood his own faith all the better for it (and then spent the next two hundred years unlearning all of the prejudices and biases that he had learned from the Christian-centric and racist tutors). From then on, he made it a point to always have a bible in his house. It was a constant between every life he lived; it was the second-to-last item he sold in the 1600’s (the last thing being his portrait of his lovely and lost Eleanor and his son Robyn) and the second thing he bought as soon as his fortune turned a tide (the first being an apple, an irony that he and Death chuckled over later). Even when England was under Protestant rule, as it would be for a long time, he kept a Latin bible tucked away, out of sight but never out of mind, and when the stresses of his daily life and the mind-bending reality of his everlasting life weighed heavily on him, he would pluck that bible off the shelf (he never had to dust it off, he kept it as clean and pristine as it was when he bought it) and let those cool, cleansing words wash over him once again.

This sounds like a fic, I just realized, and in some ways it is, but it’s also a deep reality of who Hob is and what he holds in utmost importance. I can also offer this little-known tidbit of information (that I think the Sandman fandom would benefit from knowing): homosexual relationships were incredibly common in the early Renaissance, at least in Italy (though if the Italians, with their proximity to the Papacy, were willing to risk it for the biscuit, the rest of Europe was probably jumping on the bandwagon too).

Among nobility, men were expected to marry around the age of 30 whereas women were expected to marry around the age of 15-20. Men were also expected to be sexually experienced in their marriage. So the question is, who exactly are they having sex with? And if you just said “each other” out loud, you’re absolutely correct. In Italian culture, noble men would frequently have sexual relationships with each other prior to getting married to their wives. Now, a lot of these men would never identify as homosexual as we would define it today; these sexual relationships were more along the lines of a gender role to be performed than any real attraction towards men, and it was seen as more of a mentor/mentee situation-the older man in the relationship was showing the ropes of sex to the younger man in the situation and then, when the older man got married, the younger man would then find someone younger to mentor. It was a way of building friendships and bonds, which sound laughable to us now, but were a genuine and deeply respected aspect of society; the feelings they had for each other were strictly platonic in the majority of cases (though gay people have always existed and I’m sure Hob Gadling would’ve reveled in this aspect of society) and would lead to business and family connections later down the line.

I want to stress that these connections were not romantic in nature; it was just a participation in society, but it also means that Hob Gadling has definitely had sex with men before, especially if he had (as I said about halfway through this extraordinarily long post) traveled to Italy for his education. He would’ve first been subservient (as the younger men were) and then moved to a more dominant role once enough time had passed for people to believe that he was getting closer to the age of marriage. He definitely would’ve realized that he was attracted to men then, if he hadn’t already in his hometown as a teenager. What’s more, these men engaged in homosexual relationships were also devout Catholics! Religion had absolutely nothing to do with it, and this would’ve been Hob’s first and lasting impression of homosexuality. Religion has nothing to do with it! It’s simply a part of society, an aspect of the larger culture that most ignored in favor of minding their own business. He would’ve been horribly enraged at the fact that modern Christians took up arms against homosexuality when Christians have had a long (long) (long) history of homosexuality and queerness.

And he’d teach that. In every class where it was relevant, in every conversation where it came up, in every religious debate. He’d make a point of mentioning that history that so many are so quick to cover up because it’s important. It’s important to him and it’s important to other queer people, not because it’s a part of queer history (again, for the vast majority of these men, they were not gay or queer in any way) but because it’s important to understand just how recently Christianity’s crusade against queer communities has cropped up (that’s not to say, however, that the church in any way condoned Renaissance Italian men and their gay sex because they decidedly did not, but it wasn’t an act punishable by death, nor was it punished at all. If anyone had a problem with it, it was their eventual wives, but they had a bigger issue with the prostitutes that their husbands would see on a regular basis even after their marriage).

So yes, to sum up my incredibly rambling post, Hob Gadling 100% has a very unique and deep connection with his religion, though he keeps it very separate from his relationship with his sexuality because that’s how it’s always been. He’s a Godly man and he’s a queer man and the two can coexist.

#thank you for the ask!!#this was such a delight to write #I’ve been ranting to my roommate about this for days and I’ve just been procrastinating writing a post about it #so thanks for the excuse to get it all down!#I don’t have spurces for any of this except for Dr. Clines (my wonderful history professor)#and he has a PhD in Renaissance Italian history so we all take his word as gospel #but I’m sure there are plenty of resources for anyone who wants to find them!#I can also ask my professor for some of his sources and add them if anyone wants them!#but yeah I love queer christian Hob Gadling #I’m so sorry this is so long #the sandman #sandman netflix #hob gadling #queer history #christian history #neil gaiman #sandman neil gaiman

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