Posted on 12/07/2005 2:36:38 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth—like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat—often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true.
William J. Tighe, a history professor at Muhlenberg College, gives a different account in his article "Calculating Christmas," published in the December 2003 Touchstone Magazine. He points out that the ancient Roman religions had no winter solstice festival.
True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start one, "The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," on Dec. 25, 274. This festival, marking the time of year when the length of daylight began to increase, was designed to breathe new life into a declining paganism. But Aurelian's new festival was instituted after Christians had already been associating that day with the birth of Christ. According to Mr. Tighe, the Birth of the Unconquered Sun "was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians." Christians were not imitating the pagans. The pagans were imitating the Christians.
The early church tried to ascertain the actual time of Christ's birth. It was all tied up with the second-century controversies over setting the date of Easter, the commemoration of Christ's death and resurrection. That date should have been an easy one. Though Easter is also charged with having its origins in pagan equinox festivals, we know from Scripture that Christ's death was at the time of the Jewish Passover. That time of year is known with precision.
But differences in the Jewish, Greek, and Latin calendars and the inconsistency between lunar and solar date-keeping caused intense debate over when to observe Easter. Another question was whether to fix one date for the Feast of the Resurrection no matter what day it fell on or to ensure that it always fell on Sunday, "the first day of the week," as in the Gospels.
This discussion also had a bearing on fixing the day of Christ's birth. Mr. Tighe, drawing on the in-depth research of Thomas J. Talley's The Origins of the Liturgical Year, cites the ancient Jewish belief (not supported in Scripture) that God appointed for the great prophets an "integral age," meaning that they died on the same day as either their birth or their conception.
Jesus was certainly considered a great prophet, so those church fathers who wanted a Christmas holiday reasoned that He must have been either born or conceived on the same date as the first Easter. There are hints that some Christians originally celebrated the birth of Christ in March or April. But then a consensus arose to celebrate Christ's conception on March 25, as the Feast of the Annunciation, marking when the angel first appeared to Mary.
Note the pro-life point: According to both the ancient Jews and the early Christians, life begins at conception. So if Christ was conceived on March 25, nine months later, he would have been born on Dec. 25.
This celebrates Christ's birth in the darkest time of the year. The Celtic and Germanic tribes, who would be evangelized later, did mark this time in their "Yule" festivals, a frightening season when only the light from the Yule log kept the darkness at bay. Christianity swallowed up that season of depression with the opposite message of joy: "The light [Jesus] shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).
Regardless of whether this was Christ's actual birthday, the symbolism works. And Christ's birth is inextricably linked to His resurrection.
Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is the Culture Editor of WORLD Magazine and the Executive Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary. He is the author of 14 books, including Loving God with All Your Mind and Postmodern Times.
Saturnalia (from the god Saturn) was the name the Romans gave to their holiday marking the Winter Solstice.
O.K., trivia question:
The Roman Emperor thought that the shortest day of the year was Dec. 25th. Yet we see it as December 20th or 21st. Why?
Hint: the observations of his astronomers was probably correct, as are ours.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas.
Sounds a little bit like Calypso Louie trying to explain something.
The Jehovah's Witnesses aren't going to like this one bit.
Nonsense.
Trying to re-write history is always dangerous, and a is a favorite pass time of liberals. When conservatives do it they only harm themselves.
An alternative article at: http://www.revneal.org/Writings/jesusbirth.htm
Two possible reasons:
1. Precession of the solstices
2. Innaccuracy of the calendar w/regards to the way they did leap years.
Exactly!
the '25th'.....'25th'......of Kislev.......Kislev is ALWAYS on the 25th!
Merry Christmas and Happy-Joyfull Hanukkah!
.....................................Kislev-December 25th!
Jesus is coming to Rapture the CHURCH.......NOT the kingdom!
'Narnia'......is NOT a christian work but is about an anti-Christ-lion!
.................'Narnia' is therefore......Pro U.N. and Pro Islam!
When Pope Gregory XIII came up with the calendar reform in 1582, his purpose was to get the date of the vernal equinox back to where it was in A.D. 325, when the Council of Nicaea had set the rules for calculating the date of Easter.
Wild guess, but I'd say the additional days added to July, August and a couple others, pushed 12/25 back that many days, but obviously not the actual solstice.
O.K., trivia question:
The Roman Emperor thought that the shortest day of the year was Dec. 25th. Yet we see it as December 20th or 21st. Why?
Hint: the observations of his astronomers was probably correct, as are ours"""
Karrl Rove changed it?
Bingo! They didn't have telescopes, computers, and atomic cesium clocks in Boulder, CO.
I always thought that God rested on the seventh day.
It is not the DATE that is important; it is the EVENT.
Frankly, I'd like to see a True Christian Christmas celebrated ... oh, say, ... Jan. 31, just to set it aside from the bloated, secularized holiday that "Xmas" has become. There would be no fanfare, no slavering merchants hawking their Chinese junk in the Temple. No vacation days, no phony carols being Muzak'd through the malls. Just a quiet celebration with friends and loved ones of the greatest gift ever given Mankind. And a humble request to be worthy of it.
The Roman Emperor thought that the shortest day of the year was Dec. 25th. Yet we see it as December 20th or 21st. Why?
Hint: the observations of his astronomers was probably correct, as are ours
The 25th is the day the sunset begins to occur later. Between the 20th an 25th the day lengthens by an earlier occuring dawn
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