This was started during the Christmas season but took awhile to assemble this.
What is the truth?
During the holiday season, people look forward to
celebrating with their family traditions. Whether it is gingerbread houses,
singing Christmas carols, or even lutefisk, traditions have a way to bring
people into the Christmas spirit like nothing else can. Besides baking, my
mother loved watching White Christmas each year and I would watch it with her.
With her gone, Wanda and I have kept that tradition as one of the ways we enjoy
Christmas because it reminds me of her.
Another tradition that appears this time of year is the
argument about the beginnings of Christmas. Many people argue that the
celebration of Christmas is really an adoption of pagan celebrations and some
go as far as saying that what is really being celebrated is the sun god
regardless of what people say they are doing. Many Christians don’t really care
and just celebrate the date as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus but
there are some Christians who argue that the date of Christmas was determined
independent of any pagan holidays but was based on the date of the death of
Jesus.
When these arguments are investigated, it is clear why the
issue is so cloudy. It is hard to determine what is fact and what is
conjecture. Different arguments give conflicting evidence about what happened
when. While I have done some research, it is not extensive nor complete. That
being said, I wanted to try to separate facts and opinions. This is a work in
progress and will be updated as new research is done and new arguments and
evidence are found.
At this point, it is clear that there is nothing that has
been proven. There is circumstantial evidence that Christians used an existing
pagan holiday to celebrate Christ’s birth. On the other hand, the contrasting
theory that the Christians used the idea that Jesus was conceived on the same
date on which he died as was a belief for prophets has little mention let alone
proof in the historical record. It is simply not true that either of these ideas
has been proven.
Since we are not dealing with a Deductive proof, as in a
mathematics/Geometry proof where the conclusion is a direct result from the
premises provided, we are in the realm of Inductive proof, which is more of a
weighing of the evidence at hand. Because of the limited evidence, it is hard
to be definitive either way. While opinions can and are formed, they should be
called as such and not proof.
Christmas Facts:
The first century Christians were more concerned with the
date of Jesus’ death than they were his birth. While Christians celebrate
communion to remember what He did, Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians links
the Passover celebration and the death of Jesus directly by telling his readers
to “keep the Festival” because Jesus was our Passover Lamb that was sacrificed
(1 Cor 5:7-8). The Epistle to the Apostles, written in the middle of the second
century, has a similar plea to celebrate the Passover because of Jesus death.
Saturnalia was a celebration of Saturn, the Roman god of
agriculture and time. By 133-31 B.C., it was a weeklong celebration starting on
Dec 17th. Using the Julian calendar, the festival ended on Dec 24th
and the Winter Solstice was on Dec 25th.
Around the year 200, early Church father Clement tried to
put dates on the birth and death of Jesus. For His birth, Clement said it was
in the 28th year of Augustus on the 25th of Pachon
(Egyptian month) which translates to May 20th. His death was dated
in the 16th year of Tiberius on the 25th of either
Phamenoth (March 21) or Pharmuthi (April 15).
About that time, another early Church father, Tertullian,
applied to Jesus the Jewish tradition that prophets would die on the same day
that they were conceived. This is a strange idea but talks to the idea of
completeness of their message.
In 274 CE, the Roman emperor, Aurelian, officially made Sol
Invictus the religion of the Roman empire. To celebrate the sun god, they held
chariot races every 4 years about October 19-22. This is a separate celebration
from the one they held in December.
The fact that Aurelian was able to make this declaration is
evidence that this is not a new cult. In fact, the earliest mention of them is
158 and Aurelian himself was born into a community of this religion. The image
associated with Sol Invictus was included in the Roman coins until 387.
By the 4th century, the Christian church was
divided between two dates for the birth of Christ. The Church in the east was
using January 6th while the Church in the west was using December 25th.
In the Middle of the 4th Century (336?), a Roman
Almanac has a list of various Christian bishops and myrters. The first entry is
for Dec 25th: Natus Christus in Betleem Judeae”, or Christ was born
in Bethlehem of Judea.
Historian of paganism Ronald Hutton quotes a Christian
writer “the Scriptor Syrus” who in the 4th century said that both
pagans and Christians celebrated on December 25th. “Accordingly,
when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians has a leaning to
this festival, they took council and resolved that the true Nativity should be
solemnized on that day.”
The no evidence that Sol Invictus was on Dec 25 before 354/362.
Church father Ambrose wrote in the 4th century
that Jesus was better than the other gods using imagery of the sun.
In 400, Augustine wrote against the Donatists and how they
were keeping the celebration of December 25th but not January 6th.
The Donatists started in 312.
The first mention that the date of Christmas was
deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts is found on a margin note by Syriac
commentatot Dionysius in the 12th century. His note was that the
date was moved from Jan 6 to Dec 25th to correlate with Sol
Invictus.
In 1687, The Reverand Increase Mather of Boston said that
Christmas was set at December 25th to correlate with Saturnalia.
While the Biblical accounts do not give many clues about the
timing of the birth of Christ, the Bible is quite clear that Jesus was
crucified around the Feast of Passover. Using this as the starting point, they
tried to figure out when Jesus was born. Because the calendars that those in
the east and those the west used were different, this starting point was
different. The east said he died on April 6th and the west said
March 25th. However, both used the idea that Jesus died on the same
day he was conceived and so added 9 months to arrive at January 6th
in the east and December 25th in the west.
Calculating Christmas by William Tighe. http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-012-v
How December 25 became Christmas by Andres McGowan. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/how-december-25-became-christmas/
You Call it Christmas, We Call it Yule… Pagans, Celebrate!
By Peg Aloi https://www.patheos.com/blogs/themediawitches/2015/12/you-call-it-christmas-we-call-it-yule/
Saturnalia by History.com editors https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/saturnalia
Why is Christmas Celebrated on December 25? By Sarah Pruitt https://www.history.com/news/why-is-christmas-celebrated-on-december-25
