When are the Twelve Days
The Twelve Days of Christmas are not twelve days leading up to Christmas. Advent is the time leading up to Christmas Day. The Twelve Days begin with Christmas Day and last until January 6, which is known as Epiphany. Epiphany is the day we celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men. For more on the Wise Men, read the Wise Men post. The days between Christmas Day and Epiphany constitute the Christmas season.
The 12 Days of Christmas do not lead UP to Christmas, but begin with Christmas Day and last until Epiphany, January 6. Share on XLet’s Talk Christmas Carols
By the way, did you know that the church isn’t supposed to sing Christmas carols during Advent? Thats right. The longing to hear the carols is supposed to heighten the desire for Christ’s coming.
I did not practice this in my churches for two reasons. First, it’s hard to get all our beautiful carols in on the two Sundays that fall during this time. Second, we hear secular Christmas music from October to December. I wanted the sacred music counterbalance. For every Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas, I needed a Come, Thou Long-Expected and O Come All Ye Faithful.
Back to Twelve Days. . .
There’s a legend that the Twelve Days is Christmas song has religious meaning. Supposedly, it was used by Catholics to convey the tenets of faith during persecution. Hugh D. McKellar, a Canadian hymnologist, published an article in 1979, titled “How to Decode the Twelve Day’s of Christmas,” in which he asserts this idea. He offers no evidence for his theory, but it is picked up and repeated. It appears to be erroneous. Both Tanya Pai at Vox and Snopes have done a good job of laying this out. Both articles are worth your time reading, so I won’t repeat their content here. The conclusion ultimately is that the religious correlations are flights of fancy and the stories apocryphal.
However, we can still use them as a basis of discussion.
Supposedly the two days and the items given by “my true love” (which is God, in case you weren’t sure) stand for the following things:
Partridge in a Pear tree—Jesus
Two turtle doves—Two Testaments of the Bible, Old and New
Three French Hens—Three Tehological Virtues: faith, hope, and charity
Four Calling Birds—Four Evangelists (Gospels)
Five Golden Rings—Pentateuch (first five books of Bible)
Six Geese A-laying—Six Days of Creation
Seven Swans A-swimming—Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit or Seven Sacraments
Eight Maids A-milking—Eight Beatitudes
Nine Ladies Dancing—Nine Fruits of the Spirit
Ten Lords A-leaping—10 Commandments
Eleven Pipers Piping—11 Faithful Apostles/Disciples
Twelve Drummers Drumming—12 Points of the Apostles’ Creed
Now that we’ve listed them, there are a couple reasons the Catholic catechism explanation doesn’t make much sense. While the numbers work, for the most part, these aren’t necessarily core tenets of faith, so it’s not highly effective as a tool for conveying faith. Also, it doesn’t emphasize those things which make Catholicism distinctive from Anglicanism (or other Protestant churches) with the exception of day seven.
Still, I’d like to talk about these items, and what I would have them stand for if I were writing the meanings. I guess I can do just that, since it appears Mr. McKellar did.
Day One–A Partridge in a Pear Tree
This one is pretty straightforward. Jesus is the partridge in a pear tree. He was crucified on a tree. He’s the One–one savior for all the world, one (ultimate) example of righteous living, one time God became flesh. He also established one Church and wants us to be one–with each other and with God.
39 Old and 27 New aren't all the books of the Bible. There are 14 books in the Apocrypha. Share on XDay Two–Two Turtle Doves
Supposedly, the two turtle doves represent the two testaments of the Christian Bible–the Old Tesatment and the New Testament. We call this the canon of scripture.
The Old Testament was accepted canon by time of Jesus. The 39 books which comprise it are the work of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, called the Great Synagogue. They created the library for the second temple period.
The New Testament came together both organically and with debate. There were many letters exchanged by Christians, many letters sent to churches from apostles, and many stories of Jesus’ life and ministry (gospels) written. Not all rose above the immediate circumstances to provide enduring advice and “the voice of God” speaking into the circumstances of life following Christ and ordering the church. However, 20 of the 27 books gained consensus almost universally in the churches. The other seven are Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2&3 John, James, Jude, and Revelation. For most of the seven, the issue was authorship and authority. Jude includes apocryphal stories. James blurs issue of salvation by faith alone for some readers, although this is less an issue for Catholics than Protestants. Eventually, however, the seven were included.
The 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New are not the only biblical books. Fourteen books comprise the Apocrypha. They are accepted as part of the canon of scripture by Catholics but not Protestants. The Jewish people consider them “of value” but not on the same level as holy writ, and this is how John Wesley (founder of the Methodist movement) viewed them. When included in a Bible, they appear between the Old and New Testaments.
If 12 days of Christmas as catechismal (for training in the tenets of faith), certainly would have mentioned these books held to a different veneration than other Christians.
Other interesting facts about the canon of scripture.
The books of the Old Testament aren’t organized in chronological order. The Pentateuch are the first five books. Then there’s a section of history, followed by Wisdom literature. Finally come the prophets–five major and 12 minor. The designations major and minor refer to length rather than significance. This provides a structure of -12-5-5-12 for total of 39 books.
The books of the New Testament have an organizational structure as well. There are four gospels, or stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, with varying details. See more on Day Four. Then comes History (Acts of the Apostles, which is Luke’s volume 2, the sequal to his gospel). The largest section are the letters, or epistles, and they fall into two groups–letters of Paul and then everyone else. Romans and Hebrews are less letters than sermons or instructives, but are included here. Hebrews is traditionally credited to Paul, but I think Apollo’s. The final book is a prophecy—the Revelation of John.
Day Three–Three French Hens
The three French hens are supposedly the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity (usually translated, love). You find these in 1 Corinthians 13.
If I were choosing the meanings . . .
If I were choosing the meaning of Day Three, I would have used it to consider The Trinity. This is the Christian doctrine that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit or Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. It is a difficult concept to explain sufficiently, but while we believe they are three distinct persons, they are ONE god.
The Wesleyan Quadrilateral explains how we approach theology, or thinking about God, with Scripture, Tradition, reason and experience. Share on XDay Four–Four Calling Birds
These are the four evangelists, or authors of the four gospels contained in scripture: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Their recollections of Jesus’ life and minstry vary from one another. Yet the authors, the churches who accepted and valued their gospels, and even the councils tht finalized the canon of scripture did not find these variances to diminish their value. The churches and their early leadership found no danger in their discrepancies and felt no need to harmonize them or try to hide their details.
Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. Synoptic just means similar. These three are similar in content and structure (whereas John is very different), and are clearly interrelated to one another. Mark is the shortest, and much of it appears in Matthew and Mark. There are three prominent theories about their relationship.
- The Augustinian hypothesis: Matthew wrote first and was utilized by Mark whose gospel was used by Luke;
- The Griesbach hypothesis: Matthew wrote first and was used by Luke, both of whom were used by Mark; and
- The Holtzmann/Streeter hypothesis: Mark wrote first and was used independently by Matthew and Luke.
Augustine’s hypothesis explains why Matthew appears first in our Bibl, but the last is the one to which I subscribe. Of Mark’s 11,025 words, only 132 have no parallel in either Matthew (18k+ words) or Luke (19k+ words). 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Matthew; and 88% is found in Luke.
If I were choosing the meanings. . .
If I were choosing the meaning of Day Four, I would use it for the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Methodist Christians approach theology, our thinking about God, with these four elements. I would assert that everyone does, though others deny it.
We discussed Scripture in Day Two.
Tradition means that we are not the first to whom God has spoken. We enter a story that is already being written (the story captured in Scripture). There is a great cloud of witnesses to whom God spoke, and there are others in our own time to whom God is speaking. This doesn’t mean that Tradition is never wrong; it is. But in the community, among others seeking God, I am less likely to go off on a tangent.
Reason speaks to the fact that God does not ask us to check our brain at the door. God is also the creater of the human mind as well as body, and we should use it in thiking about and approaching God. God is not offended by our thought processes. Furthermore, knowledge, learning and education are not threats to God. The more we learn, the more we can admire the handiwork of God in the complexity of creation. Science and religion are not enemies; they answer different questions. Sciences answers the how; religion answers the why.
Experience reminds us that God is creator of the physical world, including our bodies and brains, the ability to learn, reason, remember and grow. We experience God in our lives and in the world around us, and it informs out practice of faith.
Now, all of the elements are not equal. Quadrilateral with it’s prefix “quad” makes it sound like a perfect square, but this is not the case. Scripture is preeminent. To avoid this misinterpretation, some prefer to depict the four elements as a stool, with Scripture as the seat upheld by the other three as legs.
I like the image of a biscuit recipe, with each one in a different amount. Biscuits begin with flour, which represents Scripture. If you do not start with flour, you will not get a biscuit. Cornmeal will make a wonderful corn muffin, but not a biscuit. Butter pulls the loose flour together. This is Tradition, giving body to Scripture. But what’s in the bowl will look chunky and coarse. Milk softens and pulls it all together. This is Reason. Finally, a pinch of salt brings out all the best qualities and sharpens the taste. However, too much would ruin the biscuit. This is Experience–important, but lean too heavily upon it and you will ruin your theology.
There are two more parts to this series.
Read Part 2 here.
Read Part 3 here.
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