The Twelve Days of Christmas

One of the things that bothers me every year about the Christmas season (and I know I’m not the only one) is how sadly commercialized it’s become. “Christmas” seems to start the day after Halloween, and continue up to the 25th of December — but no further. Once Christmas day is over and done with, all the decorations suddenly disappear (must make room for the New Years decorations, after all), and life returns to normal.

My family, however, has always had fun celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, where Christmas day is day one, and they continue through the next eleven days. We’d get the majority of all our presents on Christmas day, but we’d also get smaller (often silly) presents, one a day until the twelve days were done.

Today, mom sent me a neat bit on the origin of the Twelve Days of Christmas. I’d not heard this before, so never knew that the song wasn’t secular — in fact, it’s actually a “coded” catechism song. Neat to find out about that… …and as it turns out, it appears to be an urban legend. Heh. Well, it sounded good…

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas is actually a catechism song. Between the years 1558-1629, English Catholics were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Without regular mass, sacraments, or catechism lessons from the priest, there was little parents could do to help their children learn and remember all about their faith. This song was created to keep the Catholic faith in their lives, even though hidden for the time.

Instead of referring to a suitor, the “true love” mentioned in the song refers to God Himself. The “me” who receives the presents symbolises every baptized person.

‘A partridge in a pear tree’ is Jesus Christ. A mother partridge will feign injury to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings. The children hearing this song would know that, and would understand the parallel between the acts of a mother bird, and the sacrifice of Christ.

The other symbols continue the symbolism:

• 2 turtle doves — the Old and New Testaments;
• 3 French hens — Faith, Hope and Charity;
• 4 calling birds — the Four Gospels;
• 5 golden rings — the first five books of the Old Testament, which give the history of man’s fall from grace;
• 6 geese a laying — the six days of creation;
• 7 swans a swimming — seven gifts of the Holy Spirit;
• 8 maids a milking — the eight Beatitudes;
• 9 ladies dancing — nine choirs of angels;
• 10 lords a leaping — the Ten Commandments;
• 11 pipers piping — the eleven faithful Apostles;
• 12 drummers drumming — the twelve points of belief in the Apostles’ Creed.

THE OLD ROMAN CREED

The Catechism of the Council of Trent apparently assumes the Apostolic origin of our existing Creed, but such a pronouncement has no dogmatic force and leaves opinion free. Modern apologists, in defending the claim to apostolicity, extend it only to the old Roman form (R), and are somewhat hampered by the objection that if R had been really held to be the inspired utterance of the Apostles, it would not have been modified at pleasure by various local churches (Rufinus, for example, testifies to such expansion in the case of the Church of Aquileia), and in particular would never have been entirely supplanted by T, our existing form. The difference between the two will best be seen by printing them side by side (Creeds R and T):

	R (Roman)	T (Council of Trent)
1	I believe in God the Father Almighty;	I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and earth
2	And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;	And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
3	Who was born of (de) the Holy Ghost and of (ex) the Virgin Mary;	Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,
4	Crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried;	Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried;
5	The third day He rose again from the dead,	He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
6	He ascended into Heaven,	He ascended into Heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
7	Sitteth at the right hand of the Father,	From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
8	Whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.	I believe in the Holy Ghost,
9	And in the Holy Ghost,	The Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints
10	The Holy Church,	The forgiveness of sins,
11	The forgiveness of sins;	The resurrection of the body, and
12	The resurrection of the body.	life everlasting.

Neglecting minor points of difference, which indeed for their adequate discussion would require a study of the Latin text, we may note that R does not contain the clauses “Creator of heaven and earth”, “descended into hell”, “the communion of saints”, “life everlasting”, nor the words “conceived”, “suffered”, “died”, and “Catholic”. Many of these additions, but not quite all, were probably known to St. Jerome in Palestine (c. 380. — See Morin in Revue Benedictine, January, 1904) and about the same date to the Dalmatian, Niceta (Burn, Niceta of Remesiana, 1905). Further additions appear in the creeds of southern Gaul at the beginning of the next century, but T probably assumed its final shape in Rome itself some time before A.D. 700 (Burn, Introduction, 239; and Journal of Theol. Studies, July, 1902). We know nothing certain as to the reasons which led to the adoption of T in preference to R.