* The Liturgical Year: Dom Gueranger
And firstly, with regard to our Saviour's Birth on Dec. 25, we have St. John Chrysostom telling us in his homliy for this Feast, that the Western Churches had, from the very commencement of Christianity, kept it on this day. He is not satisfied with merely mentioning this tradition; he undertakes to show it is very well founded, inasmuch as the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Saviour's Birth, since the acts of the enrollment, taken in Judea by command of Augustus, were kept in the public archives of Rome.The Holy Doctor adduces a second arguement, which he founds upon the Gospel of St. Luke, and he reasons thus: we know from the sacred Scriptures that it must have been in the fast of the sevent month (Lev 23.the 7th month, Tsiri, corresponded to out Sept, beginning of October) that the Priest Zachary had the vision in the Temple; after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived St. John the Baptist; hence it follows that that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel's visit, and conceived the Saviour of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, that is to say March, the Birth of Jesus must have taken palce in the month of December.
* Or, one could ignore the Records of the Enrollment, the Bible, Tradition, Ecclesiastical Calendars etc and continue to sow enmity and error in an attempt to discredit the Church Jesus established (matt 16:18)
"hence it follows that that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel's visit, and conceived the Saviour of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, that is to say March, the Birth of Jesus must have taken place in the month of December."
For all the protestations above about "adopting pagan festivals", St. John Chrysostom's account is far more realistic in that it was the date of the Annunciation (March 25th) which was the determining factor for the date of the Nativity.
There is complicated OT typology which the fathers used to determine the date of the Annunciation, as well as St. Luke's Gospel, but the ancient Christian belief was that Adam was created on March 25th, Christ became incarnate on March 25th and Christ was crucified on March 25th.
All this nonsense about "Christianising" pagan festivals is hogwash spewed forth by the ignorant who have no Tradition and who don't understand how the early Christians read the Bible.
Since your argument, and that of Chrysostom, is now suspect because of the response of Xenia and his excellent article, (post #26) I would like to hear your take on it.