Regarding Christmas: Did they (whoever 'they' might be) lie, or even perhaps, did they practice a 'viable' deception?
No, we can't say that. The early Fathers are quite open in their speculation regarding the date. Clement, Tertullian, Eusebius and others not only put up their own dates, but point out the speculations of others. This may seem strange, but the date was nowhere near a big a deal as it has subsequently become. Easter is, East and West, the 'Feast of feasts' or 'Solemnity of solemnities' in the Liturgical cycle of the church.
So where does that leave us?
The common and popular idea, that the Christians simply took a pagan feast day, is tosh. December 25 is mentioned in the early 4th century, and in those days Christian writers didn't really associate Our Lord with solar imagery, so the notion looks very thin.
Furthermore all the evidence we do hold shows the Christians of this time forcefully rejected any association with pagan feasts, festivals or practices. It's a popular assertion, but it's an anachronism — informed scholarship rejects the idea completely. There's just too much evidence to the contrary.
Later, yes. By the late 4th century the Church was happy to appropriate dates, places, practices because they held that there is but one God, and those 'virtuous' pagan practices, like the remembrance of the dead, or offering prayers to the deity, were directed towards the same God whom they perceived only dimly, in myth and metaphor.
So, hats in the ring for Christmas.
For my part, I reject the 'appropriated pagan date' as being a popular misconception.
I tend to reject astronomical workings (without even going into the mystery of the Magi) as there's no really conclusive evidence, although lots of plausible ideas — a comet, a supernova, a conjunction of the planets ... and of course it's all well and good following a star to the East, but when do you stop? You'll end up in China, or Japan or somewhere, surely? (Or back where you started. imagine the chagrin at that!)
Not that I reject it altogether. I tend to accept the school of scholarship that says the Magi were astronomer/philosophers within the Hebrew tradition, followers of the Temple of Solomon.
A better working from Scripture is September. The census would happen around then, after the harvest, as was the common custom. Shepherds would still be in the fields with their flocks...
Zacharias was a priest serving in the Jerusalem temple during the course of Abijah (Luke 1:5). Historical calculations for the year most likely place Zacharias service corresponding to June 13-19. It was during this time of temple service that Zacharias learned that he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a child (Luke 1:8-13). After he completed his service he went home, and Elizabeth conceived (verses 23-24). Assuming John's conception took place near the end of June, adding nine months brings us to the end of March as the most likely time for John's birth.
Since Elizabeth (John's mother) was in her sixth month of pregnancy when Jesus was conceived (Luke 1:24-36), adding another six months (the difference in ages between John and Jesus) brings us to the end of September as the likely time of Jesus' birth.
Now my favourite is this:
In Donatist writings, dating from late 3rd early 4th century, we find December 25 date.
Our Lord's conception carried with it the promise of salvation through his death (cf Luke 2:34). It was not without reason then that the Early Christian Church celebrated His conception and death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. This is based on the existing idea of the cyclical nature of time. Our current linear notion is very late.
Around 200AD Tertullian (in Carthage) reported the calculation that Nisan 14 (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman calendar. March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25. (It was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation – the commemoration of Our Lord's conception.) Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.
This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled
On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: "Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March (March 25), which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered." Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.
Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In
On the Trinity (c 399–419AD) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th."
In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar – April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6 – the eastern date for Christmas. In the East, too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, "The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world."
Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).
Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the Annunciation, the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross, a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death as stated in Scripture.
The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: "In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born ... and in Nisan they (our ancestors) will be redeemed in time to come." (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)
Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany would most likely have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.
The 'actual' celebration of Christmas in its liturgical context is the Mass. All the other elements of the festivities were, over time, incorporated from cultural practice, and continued to do so, as is evidenced by Christmas trees, Santa Claus and, Lord help us, the TV ad showing the CocaCola trucks winding through snow-clad forests (one of my daughters regards the first CocaCola ad as the start of Christmas. Where did I go wrong?
)
But the fact remains that December 25 was there, and were there at a time when Christians would accept only the data from within their own tradition, which included the Hebrew Scriptures, even though, tragically, the schism with Judaism had, by then, set itself in stone in the hearts of men.
So, for reasons theological, philosophical, metaphysical and symbolic, December 25 seems the mostlikely and viable date for me, but if it turns out to be another, I won't be heartbroken. It is not a Rule of Faith, it's doctrine, but it's not dogma.
Posted on this day, the Feast of St Deiniol (d.584AD), first Bishop of Bangor.
