Watch out! Jesus could attack you in the toilet on Christmas Eve.

Traditionally, many Jews avoided Torah study on Christmas Eve. This practice was accompanied by the prohibition of sexual relations on that day and the custom of staying up late participating in communal games, such as cards, and eating garlic. All these practices had the same purpose: to keep Jesus of Nazareth away on Christmas Eve (Nittel Nacht).

Among the Jews, Jesus Christ was not even named, especially in official texts, so he was referred to as "That Man". In the publication Literarische Bleter (1924-1939) it was reported that, as he was a scholar, they feared that he would appear physically on Christmas Eve, when his power was most manifest, and demand payment for his teachings. In fact, it was claimed that Jesus flew in search of those who studied the Torah and, if he found them, he would take them away and/or defecate with disgust on them. In 1511, the testimonies of Jews who converted to Christianity said that Jews believed that Jesus is condemned by God on Christmas Eve for his transgressions and false doctrine to walk around the whole world entering all the latrines. Because of this, at that time, people avoided going out to defecate that night for fear of meeting the "Whore's son".

These customs are attested to by Christians as early as 1615, when Samuel Friedrich Brenz noted that Jews drank, ate garlic and played on Christmas Eve, indicating that by doing so they avoided the visit of the Crucified One, who stayed in the house of the one who reads the sacred texts and prays.

Protection against Jesus

Studying the Torah normally offers protection against evil but, in this case, it strengthens and attracts Jesus. In order not to be helpless, one had to resort to the apotropaic properties of garlic and its aroma, which could ward off impure forces (qlifoth), as Rabbi Isaac Weiss (1873-1942) indicated. These dark forces would influence the conception of any child, so it was logical to avoid copulation. In fact, Baal Shem Tov (1678-1760) indicates that all Jewish apostates were conceived on that day. For Rabbi Hayyim Palache (1788-1869), the prophet's influences would beget a heretical son.

As a dark force, Jesus was considered the prince of dogs, so on this night one had to be careful, since an unusual dog could follow the unwary.

First accounts

The habit of avoiding Torah is mentioned as early as in Mekor Hayyim (c. 1660-1692) by Rabbi Yair Bacharach, which speaks of the "custom of avoiding religious study on the night of the feast of That Man." A Jewish communal ordinance of 1708 first cites the prohibition of gambling "on Christmas when young and old shall gamble freely" and "similarly on parturientas," when "women shall gamble alone among themselves." Sexual abstinence on Christmas Eve is attested for the first time in the North Italian editions of the Ethical Will (zava'ah) of Judah he-Hasid of the early 18th century where, as early as 1718, he said: "a wife who performed ritual immersion on Christmas Eve should not allow her husband to sleep with her". Finally, the custom of eating garlic is found in a rejoinder to a treatise by Samuel Friedrich Brenz which mentions "eating garlic on Christmas Eve" as one of the many blasphemies of the Jews." Furthermore, Solomon Tzvi Hirsch of Aufhausen confirms and defends its consumption in Der Jüdische Theriak (1615), citing the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 11:4-6) to show that this predates Christianity. According to Hirsch, the choice of the day was practical, for they took the opportunity to revive this practice when they were not trading with Christians, thus not disturbing them with its odor.

According to what the Jewish convert Lothar Franz Fried vaguely pointed out in 1715, these practices were carried out to get rid of Christ and avoid his influence, including the belief that children conceived on this date became Christians. Both he and Rabbi Moses Schreiber (1762-1839) observed this tradition as a unified set of practices. For Schreiber, they were so indivisible that he stated that their origins could not be explained separately.

Origin

As the rabbis realized at the end of the eighteenth century, this custom did not stem from a logical basis from a religious point of view, but from the superstitions of the women and children of the popular classes in their contact with Christians. Although the rabbis tried to prohibit it, they met with its rejection and it could only be limited to the educated elites. 

Christian custom

Johann Wülfer shared in 1681 an anonymous letter, whose author he calls Apella, where he indicates that it may have arisen from the custom of Christian women and girls to dress in white and carry bells through the streets on Christmas Eve. This would frighten the children, at least, until it is revealed to them that it is Christkind, the Christ Child, who would bring them gifts. The Christian children would have shared this with the Jews, making it clear that they could be punished if they did not pray, and have initiated terror for Jesus.

Although it is unknown why the children would be terrified in the first place, this is an attested practice, where Christkind visits the homes of children under the age of 10 and this they must kneel and pray, receiving nuts and candy as a reward. It is possible that the terror was caused by his companions or similar figures, such as Perchta. As Paul Hilscher (1682-1748) relates, at Christmas time living and dead beings departed from purgatory. Among them, the demonic army appeared with an abnormal anatomical structure, such as lack of head or face in the chest. The ghosts of unbaptized children also appeared. They were all led by the devil and his demons, who would join the witches and lords of the dark arts on Earth to accomplish their evil goals.

 

Although the custom of dressing up as the dead was typical of the Advent season, in German-speaking lands, Christmas began to gain importance around the Protestant Reformation and customs began to migrate to this day. As a result, the streets were lined with those who depicted the Christ child and those who dressed up as monsters and ghosts.

As the Jews would do, Christians then abstained from copulation and sacred activities; they held vigils, making sure the fire was still lit, and ate garlic or left it on the table to fend off the dead. Among Christians, children conceived at this time could also be corrupted by developing an affinity for the supernatural forces dominant in those days. It was thought that priests unwittingly invoked female monsters during the Midnight Mass and that participants could see witches flying around the church grimacing.

Jesus the heretic

As told in the Toledot Yeshu, Jesus was a sorcerer and unbelieving heretic who served the penalty for the sins he had not repented of in life with punishments such as immersion in boiling feces. He was said to have been able to perform his miracles by pronouncing the secret name of God, engraved on the letters of the Sancta Sanctorum of the Temple of Jerusalem, which he copied on a piece of skin torn from his groin when he entered illicitly as a young man. This would have lasted until the wise men unmasked him, thanks to the hero Judas Iscariot, and executed him. As sinful Jews were regularly released from their condemnations, it was fitting that Jesus also emerged with the rest of the condemned souls. Moreover, like the Christian monsters, Jesus could appear deformed, mutilated, putrefied, with animal features and oozing fluids.

Source

• Scharbach, R. (2013). The Ghost in the Privy: On the Origins of Nittel Nacht and Modes of Cultural Exchange. Jewish Studies Quarterly, 20(4), 340-373.