Winter solstice tree
Judea, a. 7th century. The prophet Jeremiah said that “the customs of peoples were vanity”, because they worship a piece of wood “with silver and gold, with nails and hammers” and “worship valueless objects, rather than worshiping the true God”. Jeremiah criticized the old custom of the “peoples of the north”, that is, of the Babylonians: they cut a tree and decorated the trunk to leave their offerings. The diviner did not predict the success that centuries later would have another piece of wood, the cross, worship.
Tertullian (ca. 160–ca. 220) fought the pagan cults of the Romans. During the festivities of Saturn, the streets were decorated in the Empire: they put the laurel at the doors and set the luminaires in the early winter.
The celts adorned the oak with fruits and candles in the winter solstice to ensure the return of the sun and plants.
The efforts of Jeremiah, Tertulian and other Christians who opposed the pagan tree were useless. And Christianity, as it could not destroy custom, made it its own, as so many other times. According to legend, in the 8th century, in the German region of Hesse, there was an oak dedicated to Thor which each year offered him a sacrifice in the winter solstice. The missionary Bonifazio cut off the tree and, after reading the Gospel, gave the natives a tiz, symbol of eternal life, “because the leaves are always green and the cup points to heaven.”
The habit of putting the pine in the houses during Christmas was spreading in these areas, although at first they were hanged on the roof by cups. The theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546) reportedly decided to place some candles on the branches of the Christmas tree, probably without knowing the tradition of the Celts, “because the stars shine like in the winter nights.”
At Christmas 1510, traders in Riga (Latvia) placed a fir in the market square, adorned it with roses, danced around it and finally set it on fire. In Tallín, Estonia, it is said that a few years earlier, in 1441, they had done something similar. And so, the two cities of the Baltic are disputed in a public square who first placed the Christmas tree, as if it were a new custom, as if Jeremias hadn't talked about this issue 2,000 years earlier.
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