[Note: This blog entry has been expanded into the article, Choosing the Date of Christmas: Why is Christmas Celebrated on December 25?. This new article is more thorough and updated.]
Sure enough, this time of year a variety of Messianics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, non-denominational types, and others, are out to prove that Christmas is pagan and those who celebrate it are engaged in sinful activity. I have seen the paltalk rooms and the websites, filled with hefty doses of discredited 19th century historical treatises. I am not remotely convinced by these arguments, because I do not accept the basic logic that leads one to conclude Christian holidays are pagan. For example, I don’t really believe a day can be pagan. God created every day, and aside from a possible interest in pagan holidays for historical reasons, I don’t really care what a pagan did on any day thousands of years ago. Some pagan somewhere celebrated something every day of the year; it’s a fact! Also, I don’t believe a practice can be pagan either. I believe a practice can be wrong, and one reason it can be wrong is that it is fundamentally anti-Christian, but just because a pagan originally did something doesn’t necessarily mean it cannot be appropriated by Christians. When I put up a Christmas tree, I do so to honor Christ on his birthday. As far as I know, God doesn’t run a patent office whereby if a pagan did something (like take a tree inside his house), it can never be used in the future by Christians for good purposes.
At any rate, I am still convinced that Christians chose the date of December 25th for Christian reasons, not pagan reasons, although if the ancient Christians countered a few pagan celebrations along the way, even better. Sure Christmas is not celebrated in Scripture (although the nativity stories, forming the basis of the celebration of Christmas, are recorded in two gospels), but I have never found that to be a big deal. The Church was developing and determining its own separate way from Judaism during the first century AD, and as this happened, Christians began developing their own Church calendar apart from the Jewish feasts, feasts whose celebration was not required of Gentile converts to the Church.
I had the pleasure of hearing a lecture by Dr. Joseph F. Kelly of John Carroll University at the Ohio Catholic Education Association conference this year. According to his research, summarized in his book The Origins of Christmas, the main reason early Christians chose December 25th for the date of Christmas relates to the date of the creation of the world. Jewish thought had placed the date of creation on March 25th, and it was early Christian writer Sextus Julius Africanus who suggested that Christ became incarnate on that date (it makes great symbolic sense!). According to Sextus Julius, since Christ became incarnate from the moment of his conception, this means that, after 9 months in the Virgin Mary’s womb, Jesus was born on December 25. While the scope of Julius’ influence is unknown, nonetheless, we encounter a Jewish reason why the date of December 25th was chosen for the birth date of Jesus.
There are other good, Jewish reasons, why Christians chose the date of December 25th based on the estimated date of the death of Jesus, which some early Christians theorized happened on March 25th. Based on the Jewish idea that great people were conceived on the same date as their death, some early Christian writers thought that Jesus, who died on March 25th, was also conceived that date. Again, this means he was born on December 25th. Scholar William Tighe (common visitor to many Catholic and Anglican blogs) makes a strong case for his theory in his essay Calculating Christmas. This line of speculation was occurring about the same time other Christians were speculating about the date based on the date of creation. Perhaps this interest in December 25th is because Christians were already celebrating it on this date?
So there you have it, two excellent hypotheses explaining why ancient Christians chose December 25th as the date to celebrate the birth of Jesus. No pagan conspiracies, no evil work of the pagan emperor Constantine, just solid Christian symbolic reasoning.
You may be asking, “but wasn’t Christmas chosen to counter pagan festivals?” Well, yes, in a sense, but not in the same way that the anti-Christmas crowd claims. According to Kelly, Christians of the late third and early fourth centuries had been engaged in a propaganda war with pagans since the Emperor Aurelian established the Sol Invictus, the feast of the unconquered Sun, on December 25th. For Christians, Jesus was the true Sun, the Sun of Righteousness (a title derived from Malachi 4:2). In fact, Aurelian may have established the Sol Invictus because of the rising popularity of Christianity, and may have established the date of the Sol Invictus in response to Christian celebrations already occurring that day!
Ok, Kelly explained the issue of the Sol Invictus, but what about Saturnalia? Many armchair historians on the internet claim that Christmas is really just the Saturnalia festival dressed up. According to Kelly, since the festival of Saturnalia always ended at the latest on December 23, the claim that Christmas was chosen to coincide with Saturnalia is rather weak. However, since the celebration of Saturnalia occurred around Christmas time, it is very possible that this made December 25th even more of an ideal date, because it offered an alternative to the popular pagan festival in Rome. Is there anything wrong with Christians wanting to “steal the thunder” from a pagan festival? I sure hope not! Thus, December 25th was an ideal choice for Christ’s birth based on a variety of Jewish and Christian, and not pagan, reasons.
Actually, I can prove Christ was born in December (or darn close):
The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary “in the sixth month” of the Jewish year…that is, in Adar (our February/March). Now count nine months for the pregnancy and you come to Kislev (our November/December).
According to some Church Fathers, Jesus was born during Channukah.
Therefore, Jesus Christ was born of the Holy Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judea in the Jewish month of Kislev (December) during the Festival of Lights. And I say likely on what is December 25th.
Simpler still, a hopelessly plain-spoken traditionalist priest (Fr. Wolfe, FSSP) came out shooting straight from the hip on this issue. He asks in a live sermon, “What mother here can forget the date of thier first child’s birth?” As the Catholic Encylopedia relays “No doubt, the words of St. John (19:27), “and from that hour the disciple took her to his own”, refer not merely to the time between Easter and Pentecost, but they extend to the whole of Mary’s later life.” Traditions are pretty clear that Mary, our inheritance from the last will & testament of Christ (“Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” ), remained with the Apostles after Pentecost, encouraging the faithful, and recieving pilgrims.
Think about that. If you lived with the Mother of Our Lord, what would you ask of her? EVERYTHING.
“Mother what was Jesus’ favorite food? When was He born? What games did He play as a child? What were His first words?…”
They knew when His birthday was.
Furhter, we all celebrate it on the same day. People who tell you eastern Christians celebrate it in January are confused by (a) the Epiphany or (b) use of the Julian calendar! From as far East as India to as far West as Spain, it is on the same date on all liturgical calendars. Coincidence?
This has only been doubted in the recent era by folks adhearing to sola scriptura (though the veracity of this date using Biblical evidence is possible!) and modern biblical scholars who rely heavily on a historical critical method that does not consider ancient traditional teachings. The idea that we can’t be sure of the dating of Scripture or what in Scripture is authentic, is just plain odd and foreign to a Catholic.
December 25: Not just a memorial, an actual birthdate.
simple,
I understand what you’re saying…I am just using Scripture as a proof to counter those who say we just “made up the date”. Using the Lucan account and the Jewish calendar is an irrefutable method.
I think our arguments are complimentary! You lay the foundation for a good Scriptural apologetic with tradition, I offer suggestions from tradition with a Scriptural apologetic.
I point out how red the red circle is, you point out how round it is.
” Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary on December 25th [D] in Bethlehem, his birth was announced by a star in the east, which three kings or magi followed to locate and adorn the new savior. He was a child teacher at 12, at the age of 30 he was baptized by John the Baptist, and thus began his ministry. Jesus had 12 disciples which he traveled about with performing miracles such as healing the sick, walking on water, raising the dead, he was also known as the “King of Kings,” the “Son of God,” the “Light of the World,” the “Alpha and Omega,” the “Lamb of God,” and many others. After being betrayed by his disciple Judas and sold for 30 pieces of silver, he was crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days was resurrected and ascended into Heaven.
First of all, the birth sequence is completely astrological. The star in the east is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, which, on December 24th, aligns with the 3 brightest stars in Orion’s Belt. These 3 bright stars are called today what they were called in ancient times: The Three Kings. The Three Kings and the brightest star, Sirius, all point to the place of the sunrise on December 25th. This is why the Three Kings “follow” the star in the east, in order to locate the sunrise — the birth of the sun.
For more answers and truth go here:
http://zeitgeistmovie.com/
There is NO god. Man created god in his image.
[...] Bennett at Per Christum has an excellent article beginning with this [...]
I wanted to share the following short You-tube videos in case someone who might need to see them, regarding the pagan origins of Christmas.
YouTube – Christmas unWrapped- The History of Christmas [1/5]
YouTube – The pagan origins of… Christmas
Thank you for this post. Some of the information I have never heard before, and am looking forward to researching using your updated article. Not all Messianics are anti-Christmas. I am one Messianic who chooses to celebrate. In fact, I wrote a series of blog articles defending Christmas from the ‘pagan origin’ teaching, including one about the date of December 25.
The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary “in the sixth month” of the Jewish year (NiceneHobbit)
Read it again, Hobbit: Luke 1:24-26 “And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months…(26) And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,…(30) And the angel said unto her,…(36) And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.”
In other words, it is NOT the sixth month of the Jewish Calendar, but the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy that is referred to.
Now, Christmas is pagan in the sense that it is based on birth stories invented by Catholics from pagan sources with a misconstrual of Isaiah 7 (about Mahershalalhashbaz, not Jesus) being thrown in.
Jesus Himself says “of all those born of women none is greater that John” (Matthew 11:11) thus Himself implying that He was not born of a woman at all (neither a virgin, nor an honorable housewife, nor a whore), and again He says “I am the bread that came down from heaven…the bread I will give is my flesh” (John 6:51) by which He implies that He actually brought His body of flesh down with Him from Heaven, circumventing birth altogether, rather than deriving His flesh from any woman’s womb.
We should be able to distinguish between the Christian truth and the Catholic mythology that is based on paganism and take Jesus’ own words over the contradicting stories of ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke.’ Jesus was not born; He came IN the flesh; He wasn’t born INTO the flesh
Two Words: PROBABLE CAUSE. If you fit the prlfioe (looking/acting like a bomber) then they have probable cause to search further. That’s why the “you can’t prlfioe” crowd has it wrong and why your question is moot.Like or Dislike: 0 0
[...] a liturgical background, and other websites run by Catholic and Episcopal scholars make similar arguments for a Christian vs. a pagan origin for the date of Christ’s birth. Check out [...]