What did the Romans give to Christmas? The
customs of the Christian religion, like everything that belongs to
the modern world, have nothing pure and simple in their nature. They
are the growth of long ages, and of widely different systems, parts
of which have been fused into one living whole. In this respect they
resemble our language, our blood, our literature, and our modes of
thought and feeling. We find Christianity in one sense wholly
original; in another sense composed of old materials; in both senses
universal and cosmopolitan. The Roman element in Christmas is a
remarkable instance of this acquisitive power of Christianity. The
celebration of the festival takes place at the same time as that of
the Pagan Saturnalia; and from the old customs of that holiday,
Christmas absorbed much that was consistent with the spirit of the
new religion. During the Saturnalia the world enjoyed, in thought at
least, a perfect freedom. Men who had gone to bed as slaves, rose
their own masters. From the _ergastula_ and dismal sunless cages
they went forth to ramble in the streets and fields. Liberty of
speech was given them, and they might satirise those vices of their
lords to which, on other days, they had to minister. Rome on this
day, by a strange negation of logic, which we might almost call a
prompting of blind conscience, negatived the philosophic dictum that
barbarians were by law of nature slaves, and acknowledged the higher
principle of equality. The Saturnalia stood out from the whole year
as a protest in favour of universal brotherhood, and the right that
all men share alike to enjoy life after their own fashion, within
the bounds that nature has assigned them. We do not know how far the
Stoic school, which was so strong in Rome, and had so many points of
contact with the Christians, may have connected its own theories of
equality with this old custom of the Saturnalia. But it is possible
that the fellowship of human beings, and the temporary abandonment
of class prerogatives, became a part of Christmas through the habit
of the Saturnalia. We are perhaps practising a Roman virtue to this
day when at Christmas-time our hand is liberal, and we think it
wrong that the poorest wretch should fail to feel the pleasure of
the day.

Of course Christianity inspired the freedom of the Saturnalia with a
higher meaning. The mystery of the Incarnation, or the deification
of human nature, put an end to slavery through all the year,