Why Christmas Is Celebrated at Night

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 12-22-15 | Msge, Charles Pope

[Syncro]

"Outside the Bible but inside Born Again Christians via the Holy Spirit.... Jesus is the Word, and he lives in His followers, and we live in Him... This is all accomplished by the Holy Spirit, [dwelling within us, and within the Body of Christ, the] Church."

I TOTALLY agree with what you said, Syncro -- the above quote, with the insertion, as noted.

You're not agreeing with me, you are agreeing with a doctored quote, changing it from a Christian comment into a Catholic one.

Do you do that often? Twist what someone says to agree with your belief system? For shame, how disappointing.

Here is my statement, the way it was presented originally with quotes from you in italics:

How do you know?

From sources outside of the Bible.

Outside the Bible but inside Born Again Christians via the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the Word, and he lives in His followers, and we live in Him.

This is all accomplished by the Holy Spirit, not the Catholic Church. (<^_____ re many posts "we wrote the Bible")

Scriptural reference available upon request.

Here is the part you changed to make it seem we agreed, right after will be your "edit."

This is all accomplished by the Holy Spirit, not the Catholic Church. (<^_____ re many posts "we wrote the Bible")

Your "edit":

This is all accomplished by the Holy Spirit, [dwelling within us, and within the Body of Christ, the] Church."

What you left out was a very important part of my post to you. After Holy Spirit I said not the Catholic Church.

You left that out, and made it seem that The Catholic Church IS the body of Christ. And with the placement of the quote marks, made it look like I said that.

Is that how you get people to become Catholics, with deception and trickery? Is that how you became a Catholic?

Lets take the brackets off of your post, and see what it says:

"...This is all accomplished by the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us, and within the Body of Christ, the Church."

We can assume by the Church, you mean the Catholic church.

It looks like you have grieved the Holy Spirit by making it seem that He is saying that the body of Christ is TOTALLY contained within the Catholic Church.

It's been explained many times by Born Again Christian followers of Jesus and His Word that the body of Christ is made up of EVERY born again Christian with Jesus as the body's Head. Some Catholics have joined the rest of the Christians there.

I have said the following many times, but is needed to be said again:

Believe whatever you wish, fine with me.

But do not try to get Christians to change their beliefs and follow Catholicism.

Oh and BTW that picture is atrocious and so inaccurate. So are the ones flying across the RF latest comments page earler of a floating (female human or angel?) figure standing on the heads of babies.

Lots of pics of rosaries also.

Really Mrs. Don-o all those trappings will not help anyone come closer to God.

I actually had other things to do this Christmas Eve, but could not let your misleading post go unanswered.

[Zuriel]

**Midnight mass is so very special. We always have a large turnout.**

Yes, and it’s the fashionable place to be for some. On our way home, as we were leaving town, my wife and I noticed several young (and not so young) women wearing yoga pants, of all things, walking up the side walk and steps to the local RCC church service. (I’m sure other churches don’t discourage immodest apparel though. There are some teachings from Paul’s epistles that probably just aren’t popular these days).

Whenever my wife sees women wearing those, she says to me, “They might as well being wearing nothing but pantyhose”.

Do people really feel humble before God? Behavior says a lot(clothes is part of behavior).

[Syncro]

We can know we have eternal life just by the things John has written...Nothing outside the scriptures is required...It's all there in the book

Amen Iscool!

It's such a simple straight forward method that many miss it.

Busy with trinkets, vain repetitions*, pictures, statues and idols.

*King James Bible
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

[CTrent1564]

Yosemitest:

It is not built on paganism nor is it a satan deception. You may believe that, which is a typical argument of fundamentalist rural protestants. Origen did indeed make that statement, others did not. If you are going to quote Origen, then why don’t you take him in his totality of beliefs. You might not like what you read. As for the 25th of December, that does not become a pagan feast date until Aurelius was the emperor around 274, and that feast was celebrated actually every 4 years, not every December 25.

Rather than link Catholic sources, the Wikipedia article on this subject is quite good. No early Church Father wrote that 25 December was chosen to Christianize the pagan holiday. THat idea was argues in the 12 century by a Syrian Bishop and later taken up by Higher Critic German Protestant Scholars in the 19th century, picked up by American Fundamentalist protestants in the 20th and also by secular atheist who make the same claims, the Church took over pagan holidays to destroy the pagan culture and use it to convert pagans to Christianity. While that may have indeed happened, the early Church had no such thinking.

And again, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, as I have already cited provide evidence for the key date of 25 March. You read what you want to read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

[CTrent1564]

As I have stated earlier, I am well aware that Christmas was not on the early list of feast. Easter was very early on universally celebrated, it was Pascha/Easter that was fixed first as to when it would be celebrated. Once Easter was fixed, Christmas was fixed to link it to the Paschal mystery, which is where 25 March, which was also cited by Saint Clement of Alexandria (and for the record, January 6 and 10th were also dates of Christ Birth mentioned in that text) as the date of his death, which also Tertullian cites. Julius Africanus, reasoned since the Jews viewed 25 March as the date of creation, and Passover, etc, and Christ died that date (a widely held belief in the 2nd and 3rd century), he claims the advent of Christ occurred on this date, by this he meant the Incarnation. Thus 9 months from the Incarnation gives us his birth.

[CTrent1564]

A very nice article succinctly summarizing what I wrote. Note that the early Romans before Aurelian had no concept of December 25th as a date to celebrate the sun, the Roman festivals of the Sun before 274 were both in August.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-012-v#

[CTrent1564]

A nice site from Saint Augustine’s Trinity. See Book 4 Chapter 5 where we ties the 25 March date, which I have cited frequently using numerous cites as a key date for early Church Theologians. Going back to the 2nd century, Tertullian, Saint Clement of Alexandria and Julius Africanus (early 3rd), this date was key. The Roman Church using their calendar thought it was the date of his death and Africanus concluded, using the theology that a prophet died and was conceived on the same date to posit that the Incarnation was 25 March. The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church today have this date as the Feast of the Annunciation. 9 months from 25 March you get 25 December. I can fine no arguments from Saint Augustine that the reason the Church chose 25 December was to co-opt the pagan holiday to the unconquered Son, which did not originate until 274 during the time of Aurelian and was a feast celebrated not every year, but every 4 years.

http://newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm

[BlueDragon]

I understand if you can't answer my question

I had already supplied sufficient answer to that question prior to the question being posed.

If one decided to get fully technical about it -- I had asked you pretty much the same question, first.

Which makes it to be that it is you who "can't" answer the question.

Or is it more like won't answer?

It's the game-playing you indulge yourself with, attempted to be won at others' expense which I object to, vladi.

If you intended to go somewhere with it --- which would have led to, as you asserted; having to assume that other than the means of conception, and because of the manner which Christ was conceived in Mary; that her pregnancy and the birth of Christ was not the more usual human way -- then you could have simply said so, explaining why --- instead of making it out to be that that failure on your own part is somebody else's fault.

So what now?

Just where were you going? Let me guess...

The fusing of the two natures (the human, and the divine) into one inseparable "nature" would be what made the human, bodily considerations as for his birth into form of a man, be otherwise so different than how human beings are otherwise generally born that it could not at all be considered that the Messiah's own birth was otherwise 'normal' as that would pertain to what Mary went through as earthly, & fully human birth mother?

There had been in past eras a great deal of speculation on this point.

Yet, you made an assertion.

Go ahead. Explain it. Cut to the chase. Get to the point instead of getting twisted, crooked mileage out indulging in put-down/insult the protestant game-playing, along the way.

[BlueDragon]

Note that the early Romans before Aurelian had no concept of December 25th as a date to celebrate the sun

But there was a festival of sorts among Romans associated with the winter solstice.

That doesn't mean that the early church chose December 25th as date of birth of Jesus, but does have some nearby to the date, near-parallel with pagan notions and practices.

[BlueDragon]

Sloppy review/editing in that prior.

Should have wrote;

That doesn't mean that the early church chose December 25th as date of birth of Jesus most primarily because of desire to supplant (and do away with) pagan practices (which previously were the prescribed State religion).

[BlueDragon]

Goodbye.

I choose to not play your game.

If you otherwise have grounds for the initial assertion which you made, then feel free to establish grounds for that.

[CTrent1564]

BlueDragon:

That is your view. Protestants, or more accurately, certain stripes, have maintained that the Early Church Chose December 25 “precisely to supplant or co-opt” pagan practices. Because of this, some, again not all, Protestants maintain the Church allowed itself to be influenced by Pagan Culture, etc.

I maintain that that theory is not supported by the growing body of research in this Area. As I cited earlier, Pope Benedict Emeritus in his book Spirit of the Liturgy Chapter 5 “Sacred Time” (pp92-111) devotes and entire chapter to the subject of the Liturgical calendar, both Easter/Pascha and Christmas and Epiphany.

His quote “The Claim used to be made that December 25 developed in response in opposition to the Mytras Myth or a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered Sun promoted by the Roman emperors in the 3rd century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion” (pp.107-108).

So rather than go on, let me put it this way, can you provide 1 cite from 100 to say 451 AD from any Church Father or From the Councils of Nicea, Constantinopile, Ephesus or Chalcedon that indicates that the Church was motivated to set 25 December as Christmas in response to the Roman pagan feast, motivated for any reason, to supplant it, to do away with it, whatever reason?

[CTrent1564]

I have been down this road with this guy before. He will not answer it because his Church has Nestorian beliefs to some degree. He will get ticked off about it but he and I went through this debate some 3 to 5 years ago.

[CTrent1564]

BlueDragon:

Again, the only other festival that was held was Saturnia to honor the planet Saturn. It was originally on December 17, later expanded to a week long celebration ending on December 23. So it is close to 25 December obviously, but the date does not match up for 1, and 2 it relates to Saturn, not the Sun.

As I noted earlier, the earliest festivals in Rome had feasts in August to Honor the Sun, that was the case till Aurelian put a Sun Holiday on 25 December around 274, but even then, best I can tell, that feast was every 4 years, not annual.

And again, the early Church had already been dealing with the Incarnation of Christ, conception and birth, etc, some 100 years before.

[CTrent1564]

BlueDragon:

Here is an article from an Anglican Liturgical scholar. He makes a statement consistent with what I have said (based on reading Pope Benedict Emeritus Spirit of the Liturgy) and my own reading of the pastristic sources regarding Christmas. He states in his article that No Church Father before 400 AD ever said that 25 December was set to supplant or co-opt the pagan feast on that date, which was itself a late 3rd century Feast.

To be correct, Syrian Bishop in the 12th century made the claim that it was to supplant the Roman pagan feast that 25 December was chosen, but this is 800 years after the fact, and given the rise of Islam, this guy was cut off from Rome and the Rest of the Church not under the thumb of the Muslims. Apparently, it was from this text that 19th century Protestant theologians made this claims, some of them stating that this showed a corruption of the Church, etc.

But the growth of patristic scholarship starting the late 19th century and continueing to our time as shown that the claim the early Church Chose 25 December to supplant or co-opt the pagan feast is just not supported by any writer of the period starting in the 2nd century (Saint CLement of Alexandria till the 4th century when Christmas was fixed in the West and most of the East (see Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine Chrystostem writings on Christmas, etc)

In summary, the attacks on Christmas by the secular atheist, who claim the Catholic Church supplanted pagan festivals and in doing so destroyed pagan culture etc. is also made frequently against the Catholic Church. If this site were full of secular atheist, I would make the same arguments against them.

I just wish some of the Protestants on this site will stop once they read the evidence that has been provided based on Liturgical scholarship that has been done over the last 30 or so years.

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

[BlueDragon]

You attribute motive wrapped in false allegations.

You really should knock that off.

[CTrent1564]

BlueDragon:

Where did I make a false allegation in any post?

[BlueDragon]

As I noted earlier, the earliest festivals in Rome had feasts in August to Honor the Sun

So they had more than one day of festival in regards to the Sun, including observance of alleged rebirth of the Sun on the winter solstice (as I provided link for, previously) -- while Saturnalia had crept further into December also, having made the Roman pagan festival(s) somewhat interrelated. Yet you had tried to pass off there being any connection as something that came from mere opinion of a much later centuries German Protestant. It was to that aspect I initially objected.

Like I had noted previously, things are not quite as simple as you had presented them to be.

Somehow you don't seem to be understanding what it was I was saying.

It was not that the choice was made based solely upon supplanting the pagan festival (which had been up until Constantine the State-approved, and even in some aspects required religion) but that the later Roman State religion -- which is Christianity -- adopted customs from those earlier pagan festivals and incorporated those in with official observance of the birth of Christ. That much can not be disputed, regardless of what methodology the speculations relied upon to set the date.

Meanwhile, you pulled the stunt on another regarding their own citing of Origen, putting it like if someone cited an early author, they then had to accept all which that writer postulated, while you, of course, get to play by another set of rules, picking and choosing as you may to suit your own agendas.

The setting of the date of Christ's birth came not from early church traditions, but employing a postulation derived from rabbinical source. Yet those sources were for a long while(?) not followed in regards setting the date of Passover, that date (among the Hebrews) having always been something of a moving target. It remains so, to this day.

If one were to need follow the sources and accept all as you inferred that one must when, or if for example citing Origen, then that rule as it were should apply to needing follow Hebrew methodology of setting date for Passover -- which would effect what day of the year Easter Sunday would fall, and that fluctuating, rendering March 25th just one date among many. That in turn, would result in the observance of 'Christmas Day' be something of a floating date, also, since the actual year of Christ's birth is still also something of an open question -- which was settled not through traditions as passed down (as if the actual year had been remembered precisely) but more arbitrarily in centuries later times.

None of that equates with Jesus not having been born, lived, died and resurrected just as the NT texts indicate.

[CTrent1564]

BlueDragon:

The German Protestant Scholar I mentioned, Paul Ernst Jablonski was indeed one of the chief proponents of the theory that the Church CHose 25 December to supplant or co-opt the pagan Holiday. That is a fact. The article I linked clearly cites that consistent with what I said. I am aware that Origen did not argue for trying to find the date to celebrate Christmas. Nothing new. He is one voice that is against doing that. However, there are several other sources that indicate that there were attempts to find the date to celebrate Christmas and such celebrations were going on in the late 2nd century. Again, Saint Clement of Alexandria in Stromates Book 1 Chapter 21 indicates as much. Julius Africanus around 223 in his chronology sets His Advent as March 25 (Incarnation). Saint Hyppoltus of ROme in about 204 AD mentions Christ First advent being on 25 December and his death 25 March. Most scholars believe March 25 date is his writing (this would be his death), the 25 December date was probably a copyist interpolation added later in the 3rd century as none of Saint Hyppotytus of Rome’s contemporaries site 25 December and they likely would have known.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm

Still if you take Tertullian stating 25 March was the date CHrist Died, Julius Africanus stating 25 March was both his Death and incarnation and Hyppoltus of Rome stating 25 March was his death, and Clement of Alexandria documenting his death around the same time, I think he cited 21 March, then setting his incarnation on 25 March and 9 months later gets you to 25 December naturally within the 9 month Human gestation period, which the ancients new about.

So again, the date of 25 March was an early important date in the late 2nd century that was a starting point from which Christmas was set in the West, even though other areas of the Eastern Church were already celebrating Christmas at several other dates per Saint Clement of Alexandria.