The Date of Jesus

The Date of Jesus' Birth

How December 25th Became Jesus' Birthday

William S. Abruzzi

(2018)

Although December 25^th is the date on which most Christians celebrate Jesus' birth, no one knows either the day or the year in which Jesus was born. The December 25^th date was established during the late 4^th century, nearly 400 years after Jesus died, and continues to be rejected by some 200-300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians who celebrate the event on January 6^th. Establishing the date of Jesus' birth was a work in progress for nearly four centuries, during which various dates were proposed. It appears most likely that the December 25^th date resulted from the borrowing of a then-popular pagan mid-winter celebration.

Early Christians did not celebrate Jesus' birth. The birth of Jesus did not acquire the same importance in early Christianity as did Easter (Brown 1977: 28), which was celebrated shortly after Jesus' death.¹ There is no mention of its celebration in Acts. There is also no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130-200) or Tertullian (c. 160-225). Near the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria (150-215) (Stromata I, 21,145.5) ridiculed those who tried to establish the birth date of Jesus. Indeed, birth celebrations were rejected as unchristian. As late as the third century, Origen of Alexandria (184-253) (Commentary on Matthew XIV, 6) objected to the celebration of any birthday as being a pagan custom, pointing out that in the Bible only the "heathen and the godless" (such as Pharaoh and Herod) celebrated their birthdays. Origen goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, a strong indication that Jesus' birth was not marked with similar festivities at that time.

Jesus' birth also had no theological significance. For Christians, it was Jesus' death and resurrection that mattered, not his birth. Every Lord's Day (later called Sunday) was celebrated as a "day of resurrection." From the very beginning of Christianity the feast of Easter and the holy days associated with it --which specifically celebrated Jesus' death and resurrection-- constituted the foundation of Christian worship. Likewise, all festivals honoring his apostles and later Christian martyrs were associated with their deaths, not their births. As Cullmann (1956: 21) notes,

Our Christmas festival of December 25th was unknown to the Christians of the first three centuries. Down to the beginning of the fourth century this day, subsequently to become a central date in the Christian Church, was allowed by the Christians to pass by unhonoured and unsung, without any assembling together for worship, and without Christ's birth being so much as mentioned.

And, of course, there is no mention of snow or cold temperatures in either Matthew's or Luke's infancy narrative, which effectively rules out a December birth.² As Jenkins (2011: 47) points out, "No sane Judean shepherd would have been out on the hills watching his flocks in December." Having shepherds "tending their flocks in the field" in December (Luke 2: 8) demonstrates an ignorance of Palestinian climate and sheepherding ecology in which animals are more likely to be corralled and protected in the winter and pastured primarily during the warmer months when the fields are covered with grass.

Bethlehem

(December 2015)

Jerusalem

(January 2013)

Christmas did not become a significant Christian holiday until the 4^th century CE. One indication of the late date for the origin of Christmas is the fact that it recurs on a fixed calendar date every year. This is a result of its being based on the later Roman solar calendar rather than on the earlier Jewish lunar calendar, as is Easter, the celebration of which occurs on a different calendar date each year. In addition, according to Kraabel (1982: 275), Jesus is not presented as an infant in the earliest Christian art and literature, but rather is portrayed sometimes as a youthful figure similar to Dionysius and Apollo, but more often as an older, ageless figure. The earliest painting of the Virgin and Child, with Balaam holding a scroll and pointing to a star (see Numbers 24: 17), is dated to at least the third century and possibly later.

". . . a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel " (Numbers 24: 17)

Virgin and Child

(Catacombs of St. Priscilla, Rome)

It was only a matter of time, however, that Jesus' birth (Incarnation) would take on soteriological importance.

Once faith in the crucified and exalted Lord had been taken as the starting-point of theological reflection on the question of Christ's person and work, his incarnation was bound to become more and more central in devout speculation. (Cullmann 1956: 24)

Given initial ecclesiastical indifference with respect to Jesus' birth date, numerous proposed dates circulated during the earliest Christian centuries (see Cullmann 1942; Strittmatter 1956; Kraabel 1982). At the beginning of the third century, Clement of Alexandria noted that Christian groups had proposed several different days as the date of Jesus' birth. According to Clement,

There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord's birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar]. . . . Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21]. (Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145; quoted in McGowan 2012; see also Winter 1955:235)

Significantly, while Clement discussed several proposed dates, he did not mention December 25^th as one of the dates claimed at the time. Clement himself (Stromata 1:21) thought that Jesus was born on November 18^th and wrote,

From the birth of Christ, therefore, to the death of Commodus are, in all, a hundred and ninety-four years, one month, thirteen days. [This calculates to be November 18^th.]³

Several spring dates were proposed as the birth dates of Jesus, including April 2nd, April 19th, March 25th, March 28th and May 20th (see Cullmann 1956: 21-23; Kraabel 1982: 274-275). The preference for a spring date was based on the belief that the world was created in the spring. According to Genesis (1: 4-5), it was on the first day of creation that "God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." The belief was that on the first day of creation light and darkness were divided into two equal parts. The first day of creation must, therefore, have occurred on the vernal equinox, the date when night and day are of equal length. While the vernal equinox falls on March 21st in our modern calendar, it occurred on March 25th in the Roman calendar. Because Jesus represented the "new creation," it was believed that his birth would have coincided with the date of the original creation. This would have been consistent with the gospels claim that Jesus was crucified in the spring. Since Jesus, as a perfect divine being, would have lived complete (not partial) years, it follows that his crucifixion would have occurred on March 25th.⁴

Based on a slight modification of the above argument, De Pascha Computus, dated 243 CE (see Cullman 1956: 22; Talley 2000: 269), calculated that Jesus' birth occurred on March 28th. Many early Christians associated Jesus with the sun (see below), following Malachi's (4: 2) reference to the messiah as the "sun of righteousness." Genesis (1: 14-19) states that the sun was created on the fourth day of creation. Following the belief that the first day of creation was March 25th, the sun --and by extension Jesus' birth-- would have occurred on March 28th.

But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, (Malachi 4:2)

A similar theological arithmetic was used to argue for a December 25th birth date. During the third century, Julius Africanus claimed that December 25th would have been Jesus' birth date, based on his belief that Jesus would have been conceived (the real beginning of his life) on March 25th and would have gestated a perfect 9 months in the womb. Africanus similarly assumed that Jesus would have lived in perfect whole years and would, therefore, have been crucified on March 25th. In about 400 CE, Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists,⁵ who kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation (McGowan 2012).⁶ The use of the March 25th death date to justify the December 25th birth date clearly illustrates the popularity of the former with regard to dating Jesus' birth. Basing the latter date on the former date would have given it greater legitimacy and, thus, would have facilitated the Roman Church's attempt to establish the orthodoxy of the December 25th date.

Egyptian Gnostic followers of Basilides in the 2nd century celebrated Jesus' birthday on January 6^th. According to Ray (2000: 116-129), celebrations of the nativity in Palestine initially took place in the middle of May. These celebrations were later moved to January, and then finally to December during the 4th century. The Feast of the Nativity continues to be celebrated on January 6^th by the Armenian Orthodox Church. A tradition is also found in Epiphanius (Panarion [c. 374-377] LI, MPG tome XLI, col. 928 ff.), bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, according to which Jesus was born in the 42nd year of Augustus' reign (29 years after the Jews had become subject to the Romans) on the 13th Tebeth in Jewish, the 11th Tybi in Egyptian, or the 8th Audyneos in Syrian cylindrical reckoning, which corresponds to the night linking the 5th and 6th of January in the Julian calendar (743 years ab urbe condita)⁷ (Winter 1955:234).

According to Roll (2000: 274-275), the earliest "hard evidence" that December 25^th was celebrated as Jesus' birthday comes from the Chronograph or almanac of Furius Dionysius Philocalus (354 CE). This almanac contains three lists of dates, which "taken together serve to indicate that by the year 336 the nativity of Jesus stood at the start of the new year." (see also McGowan 2012). However:

One list, the Fasti consulares, a chronological listing of the consuls of Rome, includes the statement, "Christ is born during the consulate of C. Caesar Augustus and L. Aemilianus Paulus on 25 December, a Friday, the 15th day of the new moon." According to Roll (2000: 275), this statement was awkwardly inserted into a secular list of Roman consuls containing several factual errors, raising questions regarding its authenticity.

A second list, Depositio episcoporum, contains the names of Roman bishops who lived from 255 to 352 CE. The entries are arranged in order of their death dates beginning on December 26. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: "Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea" (McGowan 2012). However, the last two entries --Marcus, who died in 336 and Julius who died in 352-- are out of order, suggesting a later insertion (Roll 2000: 275). Since Sylvester, the most recent of the popes listed in correct order, died in December 335, Roll believes the source material can be reliably dated to the year 336. He thus concludes, "the fact that it is arranged as if December 25 is the beginning of the year . . . suggests that the nativity feast had by then acquired its position as the start of the Christian year" (ibid.) Significantly, a civil calendar included as part of the same Chronograph notes December 25 as N(atalis) Invicti, a Roman civil holiday honoring the birth of the invincible sun (ibid.), with no mention of the nativity of Jesus (ibid.).

Equally problematic, according to Roll, is a note contained in the third document Depositio martyrum, which begins: "Christ is born on the eighth of the calendar of January, in Bethlehem of Judea" (ibid.). The problem here is that the source in which this date is found is a list of martyrs who died in Rome and who were buried in or near the city. The belief at that time was that a Martyr's death date was their birthday into heaven, and that this was the day that should be celebrated. However, Jesus' death date is not indicated, making the inclusion of Jesus' birth date (as the day he was physically born) among the list of birthdates (i.e., death dates) of martyrs highly problematic. Roll (ibid.) suggests that Jesus' birth date may have been a later insertion into this document.

It was not until the late 4^th century that December 25^th became established as the official date of the nativity in the West, and, even then, had to be promoted among the general populace by offering a theological justification. Gregory of Nazianzen had preached sermons on the feasts of Christmas and the Epiphany in 379-380. In his sermon for the Epiphany, he claimed to have been the exarchos (originator) of the Christmas feast, not in 379, but apparently shortly before (ibid.). John Chrysostom (349-407), Archbishop of Constantinople, preached his sermon In diem natalem, on the date of the Nativity in 386, with the goal of justifying the introduction/imposition of this feast in the Eastern Church less than ten years before (Roll 2000: 276). Chrysostom used several arguments to support December 25^th as Jesus' birth date.

Citing the words of Gamaliel: "If it be of men, it will come to naught; but if it be of God you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God" (Acts V, 38-39). Chrysostom argued that the validity of the December 25th date is confirmed by its widespread acceptance by the Christian community within a comparatively short period of time (Strittmatter 1942: 601-602). This justification is both factually incorrect and illogical. It took over 300 years for the majority of the Christian community to accept December 25th as the birth date of Jesus. There was widespread resistance to this date, and it only succeeded in becoming established as a result of its imposition by the Roman Church. Also, a whole variety of false beliefs have been rather quickly accepted by large numbers of people. Gamaliel's quote (assuming it is authentic) could just as easily be used to validate the beliefs of other religions, including Muslims, Hindus and Mormons.

In his sermon In diem natalem of 386, Chrysostom supported this position by appealing to the records of the census of Quirinius mentioned in Lk 2:1-7 (Kraabel 1982: 278). He claimed that the December 25th feast originated at Rome, where the records of the census of Quirinius were preserved, though those records were never produced. Indeed, it is highly unlikely that they even existed or would in any way have confirmed a December 25th date.

Chrysostom further argued that, according to Luke (1: 8-13), Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, received the message of the archangel Gabriel six months before the tidings were brought to Mary while performing his priestly rituals in the Holy of Holies in the temple.

Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechari′ah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechari′ah, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John." (Luke 1: 8-13)

Only on one day of the year, Chrysostom argued, was the high priest permitted to enter the Holy of Holies; this was on the tenth day of the seventh month. Calculating that Jesus' conception occurred 6 months later and that his birth occurred 9 months after that, Chrysostom determined that Jesus was born in the month of Appelaios (December in the Roman calendar). There is, however, no historical foundation for this; at no time was anyone named Zechariah ever a High Priest, and the altar of incense was not located inside the Holy of Holies (Winter 1955: 234). Furthermore, Luke's description of the birth of John is so directly modeled on the birth of Samuel (1Samuel:1-2; see Freed 2001:87-89; Abruzzi When Was Jesus Born?, note 35) that it cannot be considered an accurate historical account upon which to determine the date of Jesus' birth.

Constantine and the Celebration of Christmas

Some have associated the origin of the celebration of Christmas with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity. Indeed, many have placed significant emphasis on the personal role of Constantine and his program to recognize Christianity. Other scholars, however, point to Constantine's decree in 321 limiting labor on Sunday as evidence of his continuing devotion to Sol Invictus, the Roman Sun God, at least as much as to the day of the resurrection of Christ (Talley 2000: 265).

Sol Invictus

While Constantine was committed to making Constantinople the new Rome, several factors contradict the argument that he introduced December 25^th as the day to celebrate Jesus' birth. One objection concerns the fact that no recognition was given to Jesus' nativity on the day of the natalis invicti at Constantinople throughout Constantine's lifetime (Talley 2000: 267). Indeed, Roll (2000: 288) notes that, although Constantine resided in Constantinople from 324 until his death in 337 and deliberately had Constantinople designed to include houses of Christian worship, the city did not mark the Christmas feast until almost 380 CE (as represented in the sermons of Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen), nearly half a century after Constantine's death. Talley (2000: 271) emphasizes the same point.

Surely the majority of scholars today understand the sermon of Gregory Nazianzen, preached at Constantinople on the Feast of Lights (January 6) in 381, as indicating the introduction of the December nativity festival at Constantinople by Gregory himself twelve days earlier. In that sermon, Gregory refers to the celebration of the nativity on the preceding December 25, describing himself as the exarchos of the feast, an expression that most have understood to mean "institutor." Such an understanding of the institution of Christmas at the eastern capital would be consistent with Chrysostom's assertion in a Christmas sermon preached at Antioch in 386 that this date for Christ's nativity had been known in the area for less than ten years. If, with Cullmann and Auf der Maur and others who have urged a personal role for Constantine, we accept December 380 as date of the introduction of Christmas at Constantinople, and also suppose that the establishment of the festival of Christ's nativity on the Dies natalis solis invicti at Rome was under the influence of Constantine, how are we to account for the absence of that festival at Constantinople during Constantine's lifetime? His limitation of labor on Sunday seems to have continued in Constantinople, but neither there nor elsewhere in the East do we encounter any attempt by Constantine to give Christian expression to the Dies natalis Solis Invicti. This suggests that the frequently asserted association of the two festivals was lost on Constantine.

As already indicated, evidence exists that Christ's nativity was being celebrated in North Africa prior to the accession of Constantine (Talley 2000: 265). Furthermore, Christmas was observed in Rome in 336, the year in which Constantine celebrated his tricennalia [30^th anniversary] at Constantinople, in contrast to his journey to Rome for the vicennalia ten years earlier (Talley 2000:270). As Talley (ibid.) notes,

If Constantine had any interest in the coincidence of the nativity of Christ and the natales of Christ and Sol Invictus at Rome, there is no sign that such an interest followed him to Constantinople. The absence of a nativity festival on December 25 is inexplicable at Constantinople, and even more so at Bethlehem, if Constantine himself had any role in the establishment of such a festival at Rome. (Talley 2000:270)

Constantine was not baptized a Christian until shortly before he died. He also never renounced his devotion to the Sun. In 321 CE he designated Sunday, the traditional Roman day dedicated to the sun, as the Christian "Lord's Day," making it an officially sanctioned Roman holy day and weekly day of rest. This act of giving the Christian Sunday legal status would have been consistent with his attempt to integrate traditional Roman sun worship into Christianity which, because it was widely dispersed throughout the empire and organized into a central hierarchical church organization, served his goal of uniting the empire. As Cullmann (1956: 31) clearly notes,

Constantine was not so much a Christian as a conscious syncretist: he strove after a synthesis of Christianity and the valuable elements in paganism. Christianity was the religion he most favored simply because its organization made it the best able to unite the empire. . . . But Constantine may well have thought that the multifarious religions of the empire could somehow be carried on within the single framework of Christianity. We hear nothing of any deliberate attack on paganism cults. All his life, however, he promoted the worship of the sun. He allowed himself to be represented in two statues as the sun god with shining rays, and permitted the following inscription to be placed on the pedestal: 'To Constantine, who brings light like the sun'.

Several other sources indicate Constantine's continuing devotion to the sun. One of these sources involves the coins minted during Constantine's reign (see Alfoldi 1932; Bruun 1962; Schweich 1984; Kiernan 2001; Dunning 2003; Clark 2009; Constantine the Great Coins; Christian Symbols on Roman Coins). Images of Sol Invictus and other pagan symbols abound on Roman coins throughout Constantine's reign. By contrast, "of the approximately 1,363 coins of Constantine . . . roughly one percent might be classified as having Christian symbols" (Constantine the Great Coins). The most common symbols that can be interpreted as Christian include the chi-rho and other variations on the cross. However, the use of these symbols pre-dates Christianity; consequently, they cannot be assumed to be Christian symbols when they appear on Constantinian coins (see Bruun 1962; Dunning 2003). The chi-rho, for example, appeared for the first time in the third century BCE on a Greek bronze coin during Ptolemy's reign (ibid.; Dunning 2003: 7). Significantly, the first overtly Christian legend on a Roman coin does not appear until 350 (Christian Symbols on Roman Coins), a full 13 years after Constantine died. The coin contains a small chi-rho held by the emperor while he is being crowned by Victory. The accompanying legend consists of the famous words reportedly said by God to Constantine in his vision before his victory in the battle of Milvian Bridge: HOC SIGNO VICTOR ERIS ("With the sign, you will be victorious"). The Christian interpretation of this vision derives largely from Eusebius (260-339), the bishop of Caesarea and a Christian polemicist who promoted Constantine as the first "Christian" emperor in his History of the Church and The Life of Constantine. It is not clear whether Constantine saw such a vision, or if he believed he had that the god in question was the Christian god (see Dunning 2003; Wallraff 2001).

Coin with Constantine and Sol

Commemorative coin with She-Wolf Nursing

Romulus and Remus, Mythical Founders of Rome

(330 CE)

Medallion with Constantine wearing a Helmet

containing the Chi Rho symbol

(315 CE)

Also, while several images of Sol appear on the Arch of Constantine, no images of Jesus or any symbols that can be considered Christian appear anywhere on the arch (see Wallraff 2001; Marlowe 2006).

Sol on the east facade of Constantine's Arch

In describing Constantine's Arch, Wallraff (2001: 256) states rather clearly,

Constantine won his victory over Maxentius instinctu divinitatis, as the famous inscription on his triumphal arch reads. It has been debated as to what deity this is referring; in any case there is no iconographic evidence whatsoever to support a Christian interpretation. On the other hand, the arch is full of solar symbols. There can be no doubt that at this stage Sol invictus was at least as important to Constantine as Jesus Christ.

It is likely, therefore, that the inscription instinctu divinitatis ("inspired by the divine") displayed prominently on the arch refers to Sol rather than to Jesus.

Translation

To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the greatest, pious, and blessed Augustus: because he, inspired by the divine, and by the greatness of his mind, has delivered the state from the tyrant and all of his followers at the same time, with his army and just force of arms, the Senate and People of Rome have dedicated this arch, decorated with triumphs.

Marlowe (2006) describes the size and placement of the giant colossus of Sol (125 feet, if the rays extending from the crown are included) that stood adjacent to the Constantine's Arch in the Roman Forum. She maintains that the statue was framed by the arch and that it was situated in such a way as to dominate the entire landscape of the Forum. Similarly, the principal forum at Constantinople contained an imposing column some 115 feet high upon which stood a statue of Constantine portrayed with the attributes of Apollo, the Greek sun god. The emperor's devotion to the sun was, thus, evidently alive and well, with no indication that he abandoned the sun god for Jesus.

Constantine's Column Today

(Istanbul)

How and Why December 25^th Became Jesus' Birthday

Once it is understood that December 25^th was not the original day on which Christians believed Jesus was born and that this specific date was not established by the Roman Church until the late fourth century, the question becomes how and why did December 25^th become the official date for celebrating the nativity of Jesus throughout Western (though not Eastern) Christianity.⁸ Two explanations have dominated modern discussions of the issue: one liturgical, the other historical.⁹ Thomas J. Talley, an American Anglican liturgist and a proponent of the liturgical explanation [a.k.a., the Calculation Hypothesis] supports the explanation initially presented by Louis Duchesne (1843-1922) in which

the nativity date of December 25 was arrived at by computation from the date already established for the passion in the West early in the third century, March 25. The primitive pascha celebrated the entire mystery of Christ, including the incarnation, and christological development early identified the point of incarnation as the conception at the annunciation to Mary. This would put Christ's nativity nine months after the March 25 date assigned to the passion and conception, on December 25. (Talley 2000: 266)

In other words, a March 25^th conception was followed by a perfect nine-month pregnancy, resulting in a December 25^th birth date. The conception date would, thus, have been identical to Jesus' death date. Duchesne theorized that the December 25^th date was reached by taking the traditional date of Jesus' death, March 25, and concluding that it was also the date of his conception, following the numerological belief that Jesus would have lived an exact number of years. His birth would, therefore, have occurred on December 25^th, exactly nine months after his conception. Talley (ibid.) supports this hypothesis by claiming that these dates of conception and death were accepted by Augustine¹⁰ in an early North African tractate, and were contained in traditions referred to by both John Chrysostom and Epiphanius.¹¹ Duchesne's thesis is, of course, simply a rehash of the kind of arguments used by early Christians to justify a whole variety of different birth dates; indeed, his explanation is essentially a modern retelling of Julius Africanus' thesis in the early third century (see above). The Catholic Encyclopedia, however, notes that "there is no contemporary evidence for the celebration in the fourth century of Christ's conception on 25 March,"¹² rendering Duchesne's theory moot.¹³ According to Cullmann (1956: 22), the January 6th birth date for Jesus in the East was rationalized in a manner similar to that of December 25th in the West. January 6th is 9 months after April 6th, which was regarded there as the date of Jesus' conception and crucifixion. A liturgical explanation for this date is, therefore, equally problematic.

Inasmuch as beliefs evolve over time and change from place to place, it is necessary to examine the time and place that the institutionalization of Jesus' birth date occurred in order to understand both why a date was established at all, as well as why a specific date was chosen. In addition, since various dates were proposed and accepted, it is necessary to understand the process through which one date became canonical and all others declared heretical. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to focus on the political conflict that existed among competing Church factions and the role that the institutionalization of one date to the exclusion of all others played in the consolidation of the Roman Church's power and authority over other churches. More specifically, if we are to understand why Jesus' birth date became celebrated on December 25^thin the West, we need to explain it systematically; i.e., we must consistently explain: (1) why the celebration of Jesus' birth emerged at all; (2) why it was celebrated on December 25th initially only in the west; and (3) why it was originally celebrated on January 6th in the east. We also need to understand why these two dates became significant theological issues in the ongoing conflict between eastern and western Christianity. In order to achieve such an explanation, we need to examine the context in which the celebration of Christmas emerged; it did not occur in a vacuum. To this end, the promotion and eventual supremacy of the December 25^th date for Jesus' birth must be understood as part of the ecclesiastical politics of the day.

. . . mainline or orthodox (Nicene) Christians undertook to defend their beliefs against, on one hand non-Christians of whatever belief system, and on the other hand fellow Christians in various splinter groups who supported beliefs and practices condemned by the mainline Church as "heresy." It was in this atmosphere of polemics and fear for the unity of the Christian movement in the fourth century that the new feast of Christmas came to be used as a means of promulgating Nicene doctrine concerning the nature of the incarnation and the equality of the Son with the Father, while castigating, explicitly or implicitly, both non-Christian festivals and sun-worship practices, and the threat posed to the Church from various Christian factions. . . . by the fifth century bishops were making use of the feast to counter non-mainline teachings, a process strikingly visible in the ten consecutive Christmas sermons of Leo I. (Roll 2000: 278-279)¹⁴

Numerous competing Christian sects existed throughout the Roman Empire. Eventually, it was the church in Rome, with imperial support, that came to dominate the faith and to define authoritative Christian beliefs and practices. In the process of Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, and of the Roman church becoming the official Christian authority within the empire, Western Christianity incorporated into its theology and structure several beliefs, images and institutions that it borrowed from pagan Roman religious practice.¹⁵ Included among these were the establishment of "holy places", a belief in saints (i.e., spirits of departed individual who, because of their divine status, could assist those still living), a college of religious officials, and the establishment of a centrally-controlled calendar of holy days that organized religious worship throughout the empire (see Helgeland 1980: 1292-1298; Kraabel 1982: 276; Markus 1994). Indeed, as McGowan (2012) points out, "many early elements of Christian worship --including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs, and much early Christian funerary art-- would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers." Kraabel (1982: 276) similarly comments on the ease with which the beliefs and rituals associated with "holy places" and religious worship directed by the imperial Roman calendar passed "smoothly and almost unnoticed into a new Roman religion" (i.e. Christianity). Indeed, the celebration of Christmas and Easter, which together incorporate a belief in a virgin birth, the incarnate union of a male god and a human female, and a divine salvic death and resurrection, all have precedence in pagan beliefs and practices.¹⁶

Roman belief in the deification of individuals is illustrated in the base of a column currently located in the Vatican courtyard, which presents the Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. One of the iconographic features adopted by Christianity from Greco-Roman paganism was the portrayal of winged divine beings.

Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina

pedestal of the Column of Antoninus Pius

(c. 161 CE - Rome)

Iris the Heavenly Messenger in Greek Mythology

Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory

(Ephesus)

Winged Victory of Samothrace

(190 BC)

The Christian image of a winged angel (below) follows very closely on that of Greek and Roman images of divine beings.

Oldest Representation of a Winged Angel

Prince's Sarcophagus

(Istanbul, 4th century)

Images of Jesus as the "Good Shepherd" also have precedence in earlier Greek and Roman portrayals.

Jesus as Good Shepherd

(Catacombs of Priscilla-Rome-3rd century)

Christ as Shepherd of Souls -allegory originated in image of Moschophoros from Greek art

The Good Shepherd

(Domitilla Catacombs - Rome)

The Moschophoros

(Calf-bearer),

(ca. 470 BCE)

Acropolis Museum, Athens

Hermes crioforo

("ram-bearer")

Similarly, a divine birth was attributed to many gods in the ancient world.

Scenes depicting the divine birth of Amenhotep III

(c. 1390 - c. 1352 BCE)

Miraculous Birth of the Buddha from the side of his mother

Conception of Alexander the Great¹⁷

Birth of Romulus and Remus through the God Mars

impregnating the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia ¹⁸

The newly instituted Christian calendar performed the same social and political function as the pagan Roman calendar it replaced: the promotion of imperial unity. In pagan Rome, December 25th was an important annual festival celebrated in honor of the rising sun, the supreme deity established by Aurelean and promoted by Constantine, who pursued a deliberate policy of uniting the worship of the sun with the worship of Jesus. To this end, the official establishment of Christmas on December 25th followed logically from the previous imposition by the Roman Church (also under Constantine's direction) of Sunday as both the "Lord's Day" and the day for the celebration of Easter.¹⁹

The uniformity imposed on the celebration of Easter went along with the uniformity imposed on the celebration of "the most honorable day of the sun," which Constantine had set aside four years earlier as the weekly day of rest (C. Just. III.12). This also contributed towards unifying the empire --under a monotheistic sun-religion. While the movement was in the direction of Christianity, the formulation did not exclude the cult of Sol Invictus. . . . This process, begun by Constantine, was continued and expanded by later emperors. In 386 explicitly religious reasons were given for reiterating Sunday as a day free of all business (C. Theod. II.8.18). Finally in 425 the "Church Year" is legally in place: each Sunday, plus Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost are to be solemn free from circus, theater and other spectacles (C. Theod. XV.15.5). Even pagans in their "stupidity" and Jews in their "madness" must conform. . . . As the empire moved in a Christian direction, so also did the calendar, including with Christmas. (Kraabel 1982: 279)

In the newly established Church calendar, Christmas functioned originally as a counter to the Natalis Solis lnvicti. ("Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun'') on December 25, which had been inserted into the Roman calendar by the emperor Aurelean in 274 following his defeat of Palmyra the previous year (Strittmatter 1942: 613). Under Aurelean, Sol Invictus became the supreme deity in the Roman pantheon, and the traditional day of the winter solstice, bruma (December 25), became the Natalis Solis lnvicti, the paramount feast in the calendar of the Empire (the sun, "born" on that day, "grew" every day thereafter). At the same time, Aurelean dedicated a magnificent temple to the newly established supreme god in the Campus Agrippae and formed a priestly college of senatorial rank (perhaps a model for the College of Cardinals in the Roman Church) charged with the responsibility of serving this new supreme deity (Strittmatter 1942: 613). Numerous Roman gods had been associated with the sun at one time or another. Macrobius (Saturnalia 1 17-23, c. 400) argued that Apollo, Bacchus, Mars, Mercury, Asclepius, Hercules, Adonis, Osiris, Saturn and Jupiter had all at one time or another been identified with the sun. However, under Aurelean, Sol Invictus became the supreme deity. Ultimately, the emperor Julian even wrote a lengthy Hymn to King Helios during his brief reign (361-363) (Kraabel 1982; 278).

One by one, a whole series of divinities -Apollo, whose numerous epithets are carefully reviewed; Liber or Bacchus, Mars, Mercury, Aesculapius, Hercules, Adonis, Osiris, Saturn, Jupiter-are identified as one deity, the Sun. It is not insignificant that the last Pagan emperor of Rome should have left us an elaborate panegyric on this divinity, whose spiritual offspring he believed himself to be. (Strittmatter 1942: 613-614)

Worship of the sun eventually passed to Mithras, the new rising god who, while initially considered Sol Invictus' ally, eventually replaced him as the paramount Roman solar deity. As Christianity arose and competed with Mithraism for both adherents and influence during the third and fourth centuries (with Jesus serving as Rome's most recent incarnation of sun worship), Mithraism became a particular focus of Christian hostility.

Jesus and the Rising Sun

As Christianity spread from its Palestinian homeland into the wider Roman Empire, it encountered numerous other religions with which it had to compete and whose beliefs it would have had to confront or accommodate, if it was to succeed. First and foremost was the official religion of the empire, which had shifted towards the primary worship of the Sun at the head of a pantheon of gods, especially, as indicated above, after the emperor Aurelian (270-275 CE) promoted Sol Invictus to the position of a monotheistic state god and established December 25^th as the day to celebrate Sol Invictus' birth (McGowan 2012).

As the Christian Church pursued religious leadership in the Empire, it would have been in the Church's interest to make that transition as easy as possible in order to convert Roman pagans. Linking Jesus' birth with that of the sun would have been central to that process. Consequently, it would have been useful to link Jesus to the sun, as was done for several previous Roman gods (see Macrobius Saturnalia 1 17-23, op cit.). Linking Christ with the Sun did, in fact, occur early in the development of Christian thought. Constituting a form of solar christology, Christ was frequently represented as the sun; indeed, among his titles was Sol iustitiae, ["Sun of Justice"] (Roselaar (2014: 204). By the middle of the second century the term 'Sunday' replaced the former 'Lord's Day', indicating that in Christian thought the resurrection of Christ had already become associated with the symbolism of the sun.

Sol Iustitiae

("Sun of Righteousness")

Albrecht Durer

1499/1500

National Gallery of Art

Washington, DC

Christian tradition eventually assigned the birthdays of John the Baptist and Jesus to the summer and winter solstices (June 24th and December 25th) respectively, having John born on the day from which the sun decreases and Jesus born on the day from which it increases (see Winter 1955:235, note 15). This association of John and Jesus with the changing position of the sun continued the increasing theological linkage and subordination of John to Jesus initiated in and elaborated through the four canonical gospels (see Abruzzi, The Birth of Jesus). The Venerable Bede (673-735) in his De temporum ratione (725), an influential medieval source for calculating Easter and other significant dates in biblical history, more precisely defined Christian beliefs regarding the births of Jesus and John by placing them within ancient Roman calculations for the solstices and equinoxes. In Bede's reckoning, Jesus was conceived and crucified on the 8th kalends of April [March 25], at the spring equinox. and born on the 8th kalends of January (December 25th) at the winter solstice, while the Baptist was conceived at the autumn equinox on the 8th kalends of October [September 24] and born at the summer solstice on the 8th kalends of July [June 24] (see Nothaft 2011: 507). Nothaft (ibid.) adds that other sources existed that also applied the symbolism of increasing and decreasing light associated with the births of Jesus and John respectively. One source, claiming to have been written by John Chrysostom himself, maintained that this symbolism was already suggested in the Gospel of John (3:30) where John the Baptist, referring to Jesus, is quoted as saying, "He must increase; I must decrease."

According to Roll (2000: 289), several early patristic writings contained references to Jesus as representing the light or the "new sun".

The oldest extant liturgical texts for Christmas are found in the Veronensis and include nine sets of formularies which link the themes of light and the birth of Christ. The opening prayer for Mass at midnight in the contemporary Roman Missal, based on the Gelasian Sacramentary, echoes the theme of Christ as light, and implicitly the "true sun" of the world. (Roll 2000: 289)

As mentioned previously, the author of De Pascha Computus writing in 243, attempted to link Christ's birth with that of the Sun. Ambrose (c. 339-397), bishop of Milan, described Christ as "the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order" (McGowan 2012), and in a Christmas sermon stated,

Well do Christian people call this holy day, on which our Lord was born, the day of the new sun; and they assert it so insistently that even Jews and pagans agree with them in using that name for it. We are happy to accept and maintain this view, because with the dayspring of the Saviour, not only is the salvation of mankind renewed, but also the splendour of the sun. (quoted in Cullmann 1956: 36)

Pope Leo the Great (440-461) also employed analogies of Jesus with light and with the sun in several of his Christmas sermons, contrasting him to the "darkness" represented by one or another non-Christian religions and heretical Christian sects (Roll 2000: 289). Augustine alluded to the pagan festival of December 25th in his summons to Christians not to worship the sun on this day, like the pagans, but him who created the sun(Cullmann 1956: 31). Similarly, in his Christmas sermon in 386, John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, preached,

"Let us rejoice, therefore, and exult, beloved. For if John in his mother's womb leaped at Mary's coming to Elizabeth, much more ought we, who have seen not Mary, but our Saviour born this day to leap and exult, to marvel and stand amazed over the magnitude of God's dispensation, which exceeds all thought. For consider how great a thing it would be to behold the sun descended from heaven and running about the earth, emitting hence its rays to all. But if in the case of a visible body of light this occurrence would strike all beholders, reflect with me and consider what it is to see the Sun of Righteousness sending forth His rays from our flesh and illuminating our souls. (quoted in Strittmatter 1942: 600)²⁰

Talley (2000) points out that even Constantine, who himself converted to Christianity and, in the process, became instrumental in Christianity becoming the official religion of the empire, made an explicit connection between Jesus and the sun.

That the emperor . . . [Constantine] . . . intended the new capital to be a clearly Christian city did not mean that he had renounced his devotion to the Sun. At Constantinople, the principal forum was adorned with a porphyry column upon which stood a figure of Constantine with the attributes of Apollo. The emperor's solar piety was evidently alive and well, but did he there, as he is said to have done at Rome, seek to associate the nativity of Jesus with that of Sol Invictus? . . . It seems beyond dispute that in some sense or other Constantine associated Christ with the Sun, as had many before him on the basis of Mal 4:2. Such identification of Christ as "Sun of Righteousness" found iconographic expression at Rome in a famous mosaic ceiling in the tomb of the Julii in the Vatican necropolis (Talley 2000: 268-269).²¹

Jesus as Helios

(Tomb of Julii, Vatican Necropolis)²²

Several scholars have further argued that the adoption by the Christian Church of pagan Roman religious practices and institutions, most importantly those associated with the worship of the sun, was not coincidental. Several early Christian authorities were well aware that they were adopting a traditional Roman midwinter ceremony as Jesus' birthday and encouraged their congregations in this regard. As Cullmann (1956: 31) points out, the numerous statements made by early ecclesiastical authorities "show that the fixing of the festival of Christ's birth on December 25th was not done in ignorance of the pagan significance of the day."²³ Indeed, in a sermon attributed to Maximus of Turin (c. 465), the bishop called for the explicit adoption by Christians of the Roman celebration of the birth of the sun.

The common people do well, indeed, to call this birthday of our Lord the 'new sun,' and make the assertion with such emphasis that Jew and Gentile find themselves in agreement in this terminology. Let us willingly make this custom our own, for with the Saviour's rising not only the salvation of the human race, but also the radiance of the sun itself is renewed. (quoted in Strittmatter 1942: 616-617)

It was also not a coincidence that Sunday, named for the sun and reserved in Roman religion for the worship of the sun, was adopted by Roman Christianity as the day to worship Jesus and to celebrate his resurrection. Jesus replaced all previous Roman solar deities as the personification of the sun and the one god integral to the emergence of the Christian calendar, which completely replaced the previously dominant Imperial calendar.

The Sun God was then the official supreme deity of the empire taken over by Constantine. The Christmas festival was inaugurated with the ''triumph of Christianity," to supplant this cult of the sun with another. From the Christian side, this process was aided by prior developments in christology including the application of the term ''Sun of Righteousness" (Mal. 4:2) to Christ. The earliest instance is apparently in chap. XI of_ the Protreptikos of Clement of Alexandria, who died ca. 215. It occurs in a passage from de Pascha Computus (AD 243) quoted at the beginning of this essay. It is then frequently in Origen and later writers. When these texts are put together with others which use sol or helios of Christ without direct reference to the Malachi text, it becomes clear that a kind of solar christology was developing which could be pointed in the same direction as the cosmic piety represented by Sol Invictus. (see Strittmatter, pp. 614-617). . . . What happened to December 25, however, is a good deal more than the replacement of one sun-god or sun-festival with another. What was done was not only to change a single holiday but rather to impose the essentials of an entire Christian calendar on the Roman empire. (Kraabel 1982: 278)

At the same time, while several early Christian leaders actively borrowed the traditional Roman mid-winter ceremony to serve as the celebration of the birth of Christ, some expressed concern regarding the incomplete separation of the two festivals.

Admonitions like those of Augustine and Pope Leo had now clearly become necessary, for this deeply-rooted pagan festival of the 'unconquered sun god' did not, in fact, simply disappear, but persisted in many practices which passed over into the Christian festival. So when Christmas was separated from another Christian festival, that of Christ's baptism, it fell under the influence of a pagan one. At first this influence was felt in Christian customs. We learn, for instance, from a Syrian theologian that Christians also now began the practice of lighting bon fires on this day. (Cullmann 1956: 32)²⁴

Pagan Romans had also introduced the mid-winter holiday of Saturnalia into the annual calendar, which was celebrated from December 17-25. Throughout this celebration,

Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose "an enemy of the Roman people" to represent the "Lord of Misrule." Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival's conclusion (December 25^th), Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman. (Judaism Online).²⁵

During the 4^th century, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival in an effort to convert the pagan masses. Christians had little success, however, in refining the practices of Saturnalia. According to Nissenbaum (1997: 4),

In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior's birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.²⁶

The scholarly consensus today, then, is that the celebration of Jesus' birth was moved to December 25^th in order to both counteract and accommodate pagan beliefs and practices, most notably the Roman celebration of the Dies natalis solis invicti, the annual ritual celebrating the rebirth of the Sun (the winter solstice). By celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25th, and placing it within its holy calendar, the Church effectively replaced and co-opted a pre-existing pagan holiday that was embedded within the former Imperial Roman calendar. In the process, the Church associated Jesus with a whole variety of attributes (most notably his association with the sun, his representation of the victory of light over darkness, and his purported miraculous birth) that had been attributed to existing (and competing) pagan high gods, most notably Sol Invictus and Mithras, the most recent personifications of Imperial Rome's paramount god. It is also clear that Church leaders were well aware of the adaptations they were promoting.

Several sources have over the centuries acknowledged that the Roman celebration of the birth of the sun served as the basis for choosing December 25th to commemorate the birth of Jesus. A note inserted into a manuscript written by the Syrian, Dionysius Bar-Salibi, in the late 12^th century (apparently by someone other than Dionysius) offered the following explanation for why the Nativity is celebrated on December 25^th.

The Lord was born in the month of January, on the day on which we celebrate the Epiphany; for the ancients observed the Nativity and the Epiphany on the same day. . . . The reason for which the Fathers transferred the said solemnity from the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December is, it is said, the following: it was the custom of the pagans to celebrate on this same day of the twenty-fifth of December the feast of the birth of the sun. To adorn the solemnity, they had the custom of lighting fires and they invited even the Christian people to take part in these rites. When, therefore, the Doctors noted that the Christians were won over to this custom, they decided to celebrate the feast of the true birth on this same day; the sixth of January they made to celebrate the Epiphany. They have kept this custom until today with the rite of the lighted fire. (see Roll 2000: 280)

The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston offered a similar explanation in 1687.

The early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens' Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.²⁷

In fact, it was its link to paganism, in particular the celebratory excesses associated with the holiday, that resulted in strong Puritan opposition to the celebration of Christmas. In his An Anatomie of Abuses (1583), Phillip Stubbes, an English Pamphleteer, wrote disapprovingly,

That more mischief is that time committed than in all the year besides, what masking and mumming, whereby robbery whoredom, murder and what not is committed? What dicing and carding, what eating and drinking, what banquetting and feasting is then used, more than in all the year besides, to the great dishonour of God and impoverishing of the realm. (Durston 1985: 8)

The observance of Christmas was generally banned by the Puritans and was even made illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681, due to its perceived pagan origins (see Kraabel 1982: 279; Nissenbaum 1987: 3). According to Kraabel (ibid.), classes were not cancelled in Boston public schools on December 25th, and "any student staying home to celebrate Christmas was severely punished."

A second and equally important basis for the deep-seated Puritan objection to the celebration of Christmas was the holiday's association with the Roman Catholic Church. In its First Book of Discipline, published in 1561, the newly founded Kirk ("Church") of Scotland rejected those holidays not present in the Scriptures, which they considered "Papist" inventions. It listed Christmas among the many

holy dayis of certane Sanctis commandit by man, suche as be all those that the Papistis have invented . . . [and which] . . . becaus in Goddis Scripturis thai nather have commandiment nor assurance, we juge thame utterlie to be abolischet from this Realme. (Laing 1846-64: 185-186; quoted in Nothaft 2011: 504)

The prolific Pamphleteer, William Prynne (1633), also denounced Christmas as a Papist repackaging of ancient Roman rites.

If any here demaund, by whom these Saturnalia, these disorderly Christmasses & Stageplayes were first brought in among the Christians? I answer that the paganizing Priests and Monks of popish (the same with the heathen Rome) were the chiefe Agents of this worke. (quoted in Nothaft 2011: 521)

The Puritan "War on Christmas" (see Durston 1985, 1996) was inextricably connected to the English Civil War (1642-1651), which pitted Protestants against Catholics. According to Durston (1985: 8),

The celebration of Christmas thus became just one facet of a deep religious cleavage within early seventeenth-century England which, by the middle of the century, was to lead to the breakdown of government, civil war and revolution. When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made a concerted effort to abolish the Christian festival of Christmas and to outlaw the customs associated with it . . .

Western vs. Eastern Dates for the Nativity

Church leaders in the late 4^th century had to employ considerable pressure throughout the eastern empire to get Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25^th. Significant local opposition existed to the imposed date, due in large part to the fact that the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th, already held a traditional place in the eastern liturgical calendar as the feast of the Incarnation (Roll 2000: 276). While John Chrysostom succeeded in establishing the December 25th date in Constantinople in 379, and shortly thereafter in Cappadocia and Syria (Strittmatter 1942: 604), other churches throughout the eastern empire resisted. Egypt (Alexandria) did not capitulate until 431.²⁸ The Church in Palestine held out even longer; it was not until the middle of the 6th century that the Jerusalem Church abandoned its opposition to the December 25th date (Cullmann 1956: 33; Kraabel 1982: 277). The Armenian Church completely refused to adopt the new date and continues to celebrate both the Nativity and Baptism on January 6th.²⁹ Significantly, the January 6th birth date was rationalized in the East using the same theological arithmetic as was employed to justify the December 25th date in the West. January 6th is 9 months after April 6th, which was in the East regarded as the date of Jesus' conception and crucifixion (Cullmann 1956: 22).

The celebration of Jesus' birth on January 6th long pre-dated that of December 25th. The January 6th date was celebrated throughout the eastern empire, including in Palestine, the very land where Jesus lived. The Gnostic followers of Basilides were celebrating the birth of Jesus on January 6^th as early as the 2^nd century, and likely before 160 (Kraabel 1982: 275). January 6^th was still being celebrated as Jesus' birth date in the mid-4^th century in Gaul and in Spain, and there is no evidence for the celebration of the nativity on December 25^th in Gaul [present-day France] before 400 (Strittmatter 1942: 609). According to Cullmann (1956: 25-26), an early 4th century Egyptian papyrus exists, which is "the oldest Christmas liturgy we possess, and in it Christmas is still observed on the night of January 5^th-6^th." The papyrus contains the liturgical formula for a church choir celebrating the feast of the Epiphany on January 5th-6th, the date when Jesus' baptism in the Jordan was celebrated. However, a segment of the papyrus contains instructions for that part of the festival celebrating Jesus' birth and includes an account of the birth in Bethlehem, the flight to Egypt, and the return to Nazareth.

January 6th was, thus, celebrated quite differently in the eastern and western churches. Whereas only the story of the star and the visitation of the Magi was observed on that date by the Roman Church (Cullmann 1956: 26),³⁰ Jesus' birth, his baptism, the visitation of the magi, and the wedding feast of Cana were all celebrated on January 6th in the eastern church. At the same time, in Gaul and Spain January 6th was the day to commemorate the Nativity, the Baptism, and Miracle of Cana and even, at times, the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes (Kraabel 1982: 275). Furthermore, Strittmatter notes that, while the Roman mass book for January 6th only celebrates the visitation of the Magi, the Baptism and the Miracle of Cana are both mentioned in the Breviary, where Stanzas 8, 9, 11, & 12 of Sedulius' hymn, A solis ortus cardine sung at Vespers concern the adoration of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, and the miracle of Cana (Strittmatter 1942: 626, note 93).³¹

The feast of the Epiphany was celebrated with great splendor in Palestine. According to Cullmann (1956: 27-28),

The well-known account by the noble pilgrim Aetheria (Egeria), who spent 3 years in Palestine.^* She could not find words adequate to describe the magnificence of the of the festival. She tells how all, along with the bishop, repair in solemn procession to Bethlehem on the night of January 5^th-6^th in order to hold a service at night in the cave where Jesus was supposed to have been born. Before daybreak, the whole procession moved off to Jerusalem. As January 6^th dawns, they reach Jerusalem and enter the Church of the Resurrection, whose interior is illuminated with thousands of candles. They depart the church and reassemble by mid-day.

^* Etherie, , "Sources chretiennes," Journal de Voyage. Paris 1948, p. 203 ff.

Cullmann (1956: 27) also notes that the Syrian Church Father, Ephraem (306-373) called the January 5-^th-6^th festival the most sublime of Christian festivals and stated that on the eve of January 6th every house was decked with garlands. According to Cullmann (ibid.), Ephraem rejoiced at the nocturnal festival.

"The night is here" he says, "the night which has given peace to the universe! Who would sleep on this night when the whole world is awake!"

According to Ephraem, the evening festival celebrated the birth of Christ, including the adoration of the shepherds and the appearance of the star, while the following day was dedicated to the adoration of the magi and to the baptism of Christ in the Jordan. (ibid.)

The whole creation proclaims,

The Magi proclaim,

The star proclaims:

Behold, the king's son is here!

The heavens are opened,

The waters of Jordan sparkle,

The dove appears:

This is my beloved son!

An important element in the conflict over celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25th vs. January 6th concerned the issue of when Christ became incarnate. The Orthodox (Roman) view was that the human and the divine came together in Jesus at his birth. Early Gnostics, on the other hand, believed that Christ first appeared on earth at Jesus' baptism, which they celebrated as the Epiphany, from the Greek epihaneia ("appearing"). The feast originally had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus as told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but rather relied on Mark's gospel in which the divine spirit first enters Jesus at his baptism (Mark 1: 10-11).³²

The notion that Christ "appeared" instead of being born was a widespread belief among early Christians. Gnostic Christian texts virtually eliminated any belief in a human origin for Jesus. For Gnostics, Christ was a spirit who inhabited a human body, not the body itself. It is also significant that no birth story exists in the Gospel of John, which states simply, "In the beginning was the Word . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (see John 1: 1-14). Similarly, in the second-century Protevangelium of James, the infant Jesus first appears in a bright cloud.

And they stood in the place of the cave, and behold a luminous cloud overshadowed the cave. And the midwife said: My soul has been magnified this day, because mine eyes have seen strange things -- because salvation has been brought forth to Israel. immediately the cloud disappeared out of the cave, and a great light shone in the cave, so that the eyes could not bear it. And in a little that light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared, and went and took the breast from His mother Mary. And the midwife cried out, and said: This is a great day to me, because I have seen this strange sight. And the midwife went forth out of the cave, and Salome met her. And she said to her: Salome, Salome, I have a strange sight to relate to thee: a virgin has brought forth -- a thing which her nature admits not of. (Protevangelium of James: 19)³³

Gnostic belief in the exclusive spirituality of Jesus' existence (Docetism) led many Gnostic Christians to adopt the Egyptian god Osiris' birth as a model for the birth of Jesus. Osiris' birth was celebrated on January 6 and was marked by a heavenly voice crying, "The Lord of all comes forth into the light" (Plutarch. ls.et Os. 355 E.; quoted in Kraabel 1982: 275). Hippolytus reported on Basilides' version of the Christmas story,

The light came down from the Seven upon Jesus the son of Mary, and he was illuminated and set on fire by the light which shown upon him. (ibid.)

This belief stood in direct conflict with the Imperial Roman Church, which fought against Arianism, Nestorianism, Gnosticism and all other forms of docetism. At the Council of Nicaea (325), the Church established Jesus' humanity as canonical, declared any form of Docetism as heretical, and expressly denounced any doctrine which denied that Jesus became incarnate at his birth. The Council of Constantinople (381) reaffirmed the declarations made at Nicaea and established as canonical the Trinitarian doctrine proclaiming the equality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, finalizing the Church's doctrinal position on the humanity of Jesus.³⁴

The January 6th date had other precedents in pagan ritual. As previously discussed, early Christians associated Jesus with the sun and with the bringing of light to the world (cf. Matt 5: 14; John 8: 12, 9: 5, 11: 9; 2 Corinthians 4: 4). This facilitated Jesus' replacement of Sol/Mithras in the December 25th nativity celebration in Rome. The concept of light played a central role in the celebration of Jesus' birth on January 6th as well. A feast of Dionysus (son of Zeus), associated with the lengthening of the day was celebrated on January 6^th (Cullmann 1956: 25). January 6th was also the date on which the lengthening of the days was celebrated by pagans in Alexandria at the birth of Aeon to the maiden, Kore (Cullmann 1956: 28). Strittmatter (1942: 618-619) describes in detail an Egyptian ceremony honoring the virgin birth of Aeon on this date and indicates that similar celebrations took place elsewhere, including at Petra and Elousa.

In addition, on the night before January 6^th the waters of the Nile were believed to possess special miraculous powers (Cullmann 1956: 25). Strittmatter (1942: 621-623) states that Pagans, Christians and Jews all celebrated January 6^th with a ritual dedicated to its "Magical Water." Plutarch linked this ritual to the cult of Osiris. Both Pliny the Elder, and Pausanias describe a fountain in the temple of Dionysus on the island of Andros from which wine gushed forth on the feast of the god on the Nones (the 5th of January). Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus (365-403) and a native of Palestine, claimed that the ritual celebrated the miracle of Cana in which Jesus changed water into wine. John Chrysostom, on the other hand, asserted that it commemorated Jesus' baptism, which by "His descent into the Jordan, Christ hallowed the waters." The fact that Epiphanius and Chrysostom offered conflicting explanations of the same ritual suggests the ritual pre-dated its Christian application. The ritual's pre-Christian origin is further suggested by the fact that the blessing of the waters, which was to become such a conspicuous feature of the liturgy of this feast, is not mentioned by any Christian writer before the fourth century (ibid.).

By choosing January 6th to celebrate several significant events in the life of Jesus, most notably his birth, the Egyptian Church gained the same result as that achieved by the Roman Church through its celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25^th. It co-opted and replaced an important and deeply embedded pagan festival in order to promote Jesus as the new universal god. The only difference is that, because the Roman and Alexandrian churches had to accommodate distinct pre-existing pagan beliefs and practices in their respective regions, the Roman Church celebrated Jesus' birth on December 25^th, while the Egyptian Church commemorated it on January 6^th.

The celebration of different dates for the birth of Jesus became one of the doctrinal issues that divided the early Church. The Roman Church had a theological need to separate the Nativity from the Epiphany; by enforcing the December 25th date, the Roman Church not only co-opted a Roman pagan festival, it also negated the legitimacy of the January 6th celebrations and, by extension, the authority of the Alexandria Church, which led the opposition to the Roman Church's quest for political and ecclesiastical hegemony (see Baynes 1926; Hardy 1946). Many Christian communities fought the imposition of Roman orthodoxy, causing major rifts within the Church, one part of which involved the celebration of Jesus' birth.³⁵ These rifts resulted in substantial, frequently violent conflicts between competing Christian communities, especially during the fourth and fifth centuries. Numerous sources examine the political conflict that raged among competing factions in the early Church and the extent to which that competition resulted in violent confrontations and the calling of ecumenical councils by opposing factions in order to counter the rulings of councils called by their opponents. (see Baynes 1926; Bauer 1934; Jones 1959; Betz 1965; Frend 1972; Grant 1975; Gregory 1979; Jenkins 2011; Palmer 2014). Several sources specifically examine the conflict between the Eastern Church (led by Alexandria) and the Western Church, centered initially in Rome and later in Constantinople (see Baynes 1926; Hardy 1946; Haas 1991; Jenkins 2011: passim). Bart Ehrman (1993) provides a skillful analysis of how the theological controversies that plagued the early Church resulted in the Roman (Orthodox) Church altering the original meanings of several New Testament texts to more closely support its theology over that of competing factions within the Church, "corruptions" that have survived to the present day as canonical New Testament scripture.

As indicated, a significant focus of this conflict centered around the competition between the patriarchates of Alexandria and Constantinople, which served as the principal representatives for Eastern and Western Christianity respectively (Baynes 1926; Hardy 1946; MacCulloch 2009: 215-240).³⁶ The Egyptian Church was the leader of the monophysite faction in the monophysite-miaphysite controversy³⁷ that divided the Church into frequently violent, mutually opposing factions during the 5th century. Murder, assassination and clergy-led mob violence were all part of the turbulence that characterized the 5th century (see Frend 1972). In this ecclesiastical conflict, monophysitism served as a fundamental ideological identifier of Egyptian opposition to Roman rule. Conflict over competing dates for the birth of Christ would have been subsumed within this larger theological debate, and as the Western (Roman) Church defeated the Eastern Church for supremacy within the empire, its dating of Jesus' birth won out over that promoted by the Egyptian Church. The Third Canon of the Council of Constantinople (360) had raised the see at Constantinople to the second position in the Church, after that of Rome, since Constantinople was now the "new Rome", i.e., the new capital of the empire. The intensity of the conflict between the two competing patriarchs (Chrysostom and Theophilus) reached such a peak that both attempted to have the other declared a heretic.

The Council of Chalcedon (451), marked the final victory for the patriarch of Constantinople over Alexandria, and thus the supremacy of the Western Church and its theology. Dioscorus, the existing Patriarch of Alexandria, was deposed by the Council and replaced by Proterius, chosen by Constantinople. This victory of Constantinople and its theology produced a violent reaction in Alexandria.

Nothing could secure the real acceptance at Alexandria of a bishop imposed from without after the deposition of their own Patriarch. The imperial emissaries found the city in full revolt and lost two thousand men to the insurgents; only reinforcements sent post haste from Constantinople were able to establish Proterius uneasily on the patriarchal throne. (Hardy 1946: 92-93)

Proterius' tenure as the Patriarch of Alexandria did not last very long, however. He was lynched in the baptistery of the Caesareum in 457 (Hardy 1946: 93), and his body torn to pieces by an Alexandrian mob (Frend 1972: 26).

Gradually, the Roman Church's power and its Orthodox theology came to dominate the empire, most notably following Theodosius' edict in 381 proclaiming (Roman) Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. This put the full force of the empire behind the Roman Church in its battle to define and control Christian orthodoxy (see Kraabel 1982: 277-279). The Church's eventual hegemony within the empire and its elimination of most competing Christian factions was thereafter assured by the support it would receive from successive Roman (and later Byzantine) emperors (cf. Luibheid 1965; Cleve 1988). The celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25, thus, spread outwards from Rome until it replaced the January 6th celebration throughout most of Christendom.

* * * * *

NOTES

^{1.    McGowan (2012) maintains that
Easter was originally celebrated as a Jewish Christian reinterpretation of Passover,
becoming a distinctly Christian feast by the mid-second century CE where an
"apocryphal text known as the
Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus
instruct his disciples to 'make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the
Passover.'"

2.
Neither Matthew's nor Luke's birth narratives
has any historical
validity. They are theological, not historical, documents (see Abruzzi,
The Birth of Jesus;
When Was Jesus Born?)

3.
Many contemporary Christians, including the late
Joseph Fitzmyer
SJ (former

Professor of Biblical Studies at
the Catholic University, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and
president of the Catholic Biblical Association)
have placed Jesus' birth
on September 11, 3 BCE (cf.

When Was Jesus Born. Bible Says Septembeer 11, 3 BC).
Fitzmyer's comment on the date of
Jesus' birth is contained In the Catholic Church's official commentary on the
New Testament.

4.
Tertullian
(Adversus
ludaees c. 207 CE) is the earliest known
author to assign March 25 as the day of Christ's death (Cullmann 1942:
612, note 41).}

5. The Donatists were a Christian sect that emerged in Rome's Africa Province (North Africa) following the persecutions of Christians by the Emperor Diocletian (303-305 CE), and which persisted for a little more than a century. The Donatists were followers of bishop Donatus Magnus, who first appeared in Church records in 313 CE as Donatus of Casae Nigrae. At that time, Pope Miltiades pronounced him guilty of re-baptizing clergy who had lapsed and of forming a schism within the Church. The Donatists were highly critical of the Church for readmitting Christians who renounced their faith during the Diocletian persecutions. The Donatists contended that such traditores could not be reinstated without being re-baptized and re-ordained. They also refused to accept the legitimacy of sacraments performed by traditore priests and bishops readmitted into the Church until they had been both re-baptized and re-ordained. The Catholic Church continues to refer to Donatism as a significant, if somewhat short-lived, schism within the Church (see Catholic Encyclopedia).

6. Cullmann (1956: 29, note 13) argues that Augustine's criticism of the Donatists failure to observe January 6^th does not imply that they celebrated Christ's birthday on December 25^th.

7. Ab Urbe Condita (AUC), "from the founding of the city" [Rome], 722 BCE in the modern calendar. All Roman dates were calculated AUC. The year, 743 AUC, corresponded to 11 BCE in the modern calendar.

8. December 25^th became the accepted date for the birth of Jesus in the western Roman Empire only. January 6^th was retained in the east for many years, where it was not originally associated with the magi alone, but with the entire nativity story (see discussion below).

9. According to Roll (2000: 273), these two alternative explanations have persisted at least since a debate on the topic was organized by the Abt-Herwegen-Institut in 1949, though with less competitive and mutual exclusiveness than initially presented. The debate, according to Roll (2000: 273-274) has demonstrated a somewhat nationalist orientation, with American and Anglo-Saxon scholars tending to support the liturgical explanation and German and other Continental scholars generally preferring the historical explanation.

10. According to McGowan (2012), Augustine in his sermon On the Trinity (Sermon 202, c. 399-419) wrote

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.

11. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, writing before he became Pope Benedict XVI, supported the liturgical view in his Spirit of the Liturgy (Ratzinger 2000: 107-109).

12. The full text:

The Astronomical Theory

Duchesne (Les origines du culte chrŽtien, Paris, 1902, 262 sqq.) advances the "astronomical" theory that, given 25 March as Christ's death-day [historically impossible, but a tradition old as Tertullian (Adv. Jud., 8)], the popular instinct, demanding an exact number of years in a Divine life, would place His conception on the same date, His birth 25 December. This theory is best supported by the fact that certain Montanists (Sozomen, Church History VII.18) kept Easter on 6 April; both 25 December and 6 January are thus simultaneously explained. The reckoning, moreover, is wholly in keeping with the arguments based on number and astronomy and "convenience", then so popular. Unfortunately, there is no contemporary evidence for the celebration in the fourth century of Christ's conception on 25 March.

13. Neville (2000: 7) also asks, "If we're numbering years according to the life of Jesus, why don't we celebrate New Year's Eve with Christ's birth on December 25, or with the date of his conception on March 25 (which also coincides with the arrival of Spring)? As it happened, both of these dates were popular days for celebrating the beginning of the New Year throughout the Middle Ages. January 1 only became universally recognized as New Year's Day with the general adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

14. The 4th and 5th centuries were a period of intense and frequently violent conflict within the Church regarding such fundamental Christian beliefs as the divinity of Jesus and the virginity of Mary. Numerous ecclesiastical councils were called in which opposing factions alternately established their beliefs as official Church doctrine. (see Jenkins 2011; Gregory 1979; Grant 1975; see below, note 36, also Abruzzi, The Birth of Jesus).

15. Numerous religions originating throughout the far-flung reaches of the empire were to have a significant impact on Christian beliefs. As the capitol of the largest empire in the ancient world, Rome became a magnet attracting large numbers of people from a diversity of regions and cultures. As a result, many of the empire's religions competed with one other there for followers. In the process, they frequently adopted each other's beliefs and practices.

Rome was the hub of the empire, the natural centre for anyone with a message to spread --which was of course why the Apostles Peter and Paul made their way there in the first place. Early Christianity jostled for space cheek and jowl with the other blossoming new religions of empire, a fact graphically illustrated by the presence of Mithraic shrines under the ancient churches of San Clemente and Santa Prisca. (Duffy 1997: 11)

The centripetal pull of Rome for a wide variety of religious beliefs, including Christianity, was disparaged at the time by Tacitus (Annals 15.44) in his discussion of Nero's persecution of Christians for the burning of Rome in 64 CE.

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular (emphasis added).

16. The belief in miraculous births was quite common in the ancient world (see Abruzzi, When Was Jesus Born?). Many gods and heroes were believed to have been born either through a divinely conceived virgin birth or as the result of the impregnation of a human female by a male god. Such beliefs were attributed to Romulus, one of the mythical founders of Rome, Mithras the ancient Persian god; Krishna, a supreme god in the Hindu pantheon, and Horus, the patron god of ancient Egypt, to name but a few. The Egyptian sun god RA was believed to have been born of a virgin, while Mutemua, the virgin queen of Egypt purportedly gave birth to the Pharaoh Amenhotep III as a result of a god holding a cross to her mouth. Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongolian Empire, was also believed to have been born of a virgin, while Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor during whose reign Jesus was born, was believed to have been the offspring of a union between his mother and Apollo. Similarly, in Greek mythology, while Perseus' mother, Danae, was locked away as a young girl to prevent her from having children, Zeus appeared to her in the form of a shower of gold and impregnated her.

Numerous biblical scholars have even commented on the extraordinary similarity of circumstance and language surrounding the conceptions of Isaac to Sarah (Gen. 17: 15-19), of Samson to Manoah's unnamed wife (Judges 13), of Jacob and Esau to Rebecca (Gen. 25:20), of Joseph to Rachel (Gen. 30:22-24) and of John the Baptist to Elizabeth (Luke 1:7) to that of Jesus to Mary (Luke 1:26-38). All of these births focused on women incapable of conception due either to virginity or infertility, whose pregnancy resulted from divine action.

Similarly, a belief in Deities who, like Jesus, died and were resurrected was also quite widespread in the ancient world, including: Tammuz and Ishtar in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology; Bel in Babylonian mythology; Baal in Canaanite mythology; Horus, Osiris and Amun in Egyptian mythology; Adonis, Cronus, Cybele, Dionysus, Orpheus and Persephone in Greek mythology; Brahma, Vishnu and Siva in Hindu Mythology; Mithras in Persian mythology; and Aeneas, Bacchus and Prosperina in Roman mythology.

If Jesus was to be accepted as a credible god in the ancient world, he would have to have possessed at least the characteristics of the other gods and heroes with whom he had to compete.

17. As with Jesus, Alexander the Great’s birth was accompanied by magical elements. Alexander's father was Philip of Macedonia, and his mother was Olympias. According to Plutarch, Philip was a descendant of Heracles, the son of Zeus. Alexander's mother was Olympias. Philip and Olympias each had separate dreams the night before Alexander was conceived. Olympias dreamed "that there was a peal of thunder and that a thunder-bolt fell upon her womb." Philip dreamed that he placed "a seal upon his wife's womb; and the device of the seal, as he thought, was the figure of a lion." However, Philip saw a divine serpent sleeping with Olympias, which he interpreted as a sign that he should not sleep with his wife, "because he feared that some spells and enchantments might be practised upon him by her, or because he shrank for her embraces in the conviction that she was the partner of a superior being." In other words, Olympias was not impregnated by Philip, but by a divine being.

18. Sibling rivalry is portrayed frequently in the myths of founding fathers and is a common motif in epic literature. Romulus killed his brother Remus and became the first king and founder of the city of Rome, just as as Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4: 1-16), and as Jacob stole the birthright from Esau (Genesis 27).

19. No supreme authority existed in Christianity until the fourth century when Constantine and later Theodosius I promoted the position of the Roman Church in the empire. Prior to this, Christians were divided into numerous competing sects, promoting many different and conflicting gospels and beliefs about Jesus (cf. Bauer 1934; Pagels 1979; Bescov 1983; Robinson 1984; Hedrick 2002; Ehrman 2003a, 2003b; Carrier 2014). One issue of note that divided early Christians was the date for the celebration of Easter. Churches in Asia Minor celebrated Easter on the Jewish Passover (14th of Nissan), whether or not it fell on a Sunday. Roman Christians, on the other hand, celebrated Easter every Sunday and had not yet developed a separate annual commemoration. As Christians from Asia Minor settled in Rome, they continued to observe Easter on Passover, setting themselves apart from Roman Christians and from those in the West generally. Victor, the first Latin bishop of Rome (189-198 CE), was determined to assert Roman authority and excommunicated all Christian churches not celebrating Easter on the Sunday after Passover. Victor's actions may be seen as early steps in the process of establishing Roman authority throughout Christianity. It was not, however, until the Council of Nicaea (325) that the Asian churches abandoned the celebration of Easter on 14 Nissan (see Frend 1982: 75-76; Duffy 1997: 9-16).

20. According to Strittmatter 1942: 616), the earliest application of the term, "Sun of Righteousness" to Jesus was by Clement of Alexandria (c. 215-216). He adds that by the beginning of the third century, sol iustitiae, (Sun of Justice - Latin) elios dikaiosynes, (Sun of Justice - Greek) was used by Christian teachers and preachers as a formal designation of Christ.

21. While Talley acknowledges the connection made between Jesus and the sun in early Christianity, as already mentioned, he is a strong proponent of a liturgical explanation for the celebration of the Nativity on December 25^th and is highly critical of the solar/pagan origin theory of Christmas.

Those who argue for the derivation of Christmas from Aurelian's solar festival on the winter solstice regularly appeal to that image of Christ as Helios, driving the chariot of the Sun across the heavens, as evidence for the identification of the date of Christ's birth with that of the Sun. In fact, although it clearly identifies Christ and the Sun, that mosaic has no more connection with the winter solstice itself than does the very similar central rondel of the zodiac floor mosaic at Beth Alpha. (Talley 2000: 269; see also pp. 271-272)

22. This particular mosaic, which is dated to the late 3rd or early 4th centuries, is located on the ceiling in the Tomb of Julli (Mausoleum "M") in the necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Disagreement exists regarding whether it represents the sun god Helios (Sol Invictus) riding a chariot or Christ possessing the attributes of the sun god with an aureole riding his chariot framed by rinceaux of vine leaves based on the Gospel of John (15:1): "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser." The existence of other mosaics in the same tomb, "depicting Jonah and the whale, the good shepherd carrying a lamb, . . . and fishermen have encouraged its interpretation as a Christian tomb." (Wikipedia)

23. According to McGowan (2012), Christians were initially slow to adopt pagan practices, especially during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian (303-312), but became more open to embracing these practices during the 4^th century. He even states that Pope Gregory the Great "in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs." Indeed, many Mithraic temples were either converted to Christian churches or served as the physical foundation upon which Christian churches were built once Christianity replaced Mithraism as the official religion of the Roman Empire.

24. See Wilkinson (1981), Egeria's Travels in the Holy land, p. 275.

25. Some of the more egregious customs of the Saturnalia carnival were revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when, for the amusement of the Roman populace, Pope Paul II forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city as part of the Carnival celebration that took place to mark the beginning of the Lenten season. According to one contemporary account,

Races were run on each of the eight days of the Carnival by horses, asses and buffaloes, old men, lads, children and Jews. Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran from the Arch of Domitian to the Church of St. Mark at the end of the Corso at full tilt, amid Rome's taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily. (quoted in Kertzer 2001:74)

This specific treatment of Jews during Carnival continued for two centuries until they were ended by Clement IX (1667-1669). However, other equally degrading practices were continued. Rabbis of the ghetto in Rome "were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles" (Kertzer 2001: 33, 74). Such practices were not limited to Rome. The carnival celebration In Pisa during the 18^th century included the custom of students chasing after the fattest Jew in the city, capturing him, weighing him, and forcing him to give them his weight in sugar-coated almonds (ibid: 74-75). When in 1836 the Jewish community of Rome sent a formal request to Pope Gregory XVI to end such rites, he responded, "It is not opportune to make any innovation" (ibid: 75).

26.    Accordingly. the earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets [a precursor of modern caroling] ("The History of Christmas. "Judaism Online).

27.    Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England (London, 1687), p. 35. (quoted in "The History of Christmas," Judaism Online.)

28.   According to Strittmatter (1942: 604-605), John Cassian, a close disciple of John Chrysostom, spent ten years in Egypt between 385 and 400. He later wrote (between 420-428) that there was at that time still only one feast celebrated in Egypt, claimed by some to be Jesus' birth and by others to be his baptism. He was very explicit that there were not two distinct feasts, as in the West. Ten years later, he noted that the situation had changed.

29.   According to Kraabel (1982: 277), an Armenian lectionary which reflects the services in Jerusalem during the first half of the fifth century, notes that December 25 is the Commemoration of James and David, though it does state that "during this day in other cities they keep the Birth of Christ." Kraabel (ibid.: 280, note 17) later indicates that "David" refers to King David, and "James" originally to the patriarch Jacob and later to James the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem [referred to as "The Lord's Brother" by Paul and listed as one of Jesus' brothers by both Mark (6:3) and Matthew (13:55)]. Kraabel believes that December 25th was a major festival that served as a kind of "Founders' Day" for the Jerusalem Church. In the Iectionary the Nativity and Epiphany are celebrated on January 6 with an afternoon service at the Shepherds' Cave (Luke 2:8-20) and a reading of Matthew (1:18-25) at the Cave of the Nativity (ibid.)

30.   In a sermon preached during the reign of the emperor Julian (361-363), who sought to re-impose Roman polytheism, Bishop Optatus of Milevis in Numidia [in present-day Algeria] encouraged his congregation to persist in the face of persecution by citing the example of the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents under Herod (Roll 2000: 276). According to Roll (ibid.), the significance of this sermon for the introduction of the Christmas feast lies in its

linking of the key nativity narrative, the coming of the Magi (which had not yet been separated out and assigned as the lection for the western feast of the Epiphany) and the seldom-used story of the massacre of the innocents, together with the dating of the feast in December in northern Africa.

31. In many regions of the West, January 6th was the day on which many catechumens were publicly baptized (Strittmatter 1942: 624). Rome, however, eventually forbade the practice.

32. This is not the only instance in which the very meaning of a holy day associated with the celebration of Jesus' birth changed over time. Inspired by the nativity story as told in the second-century Protevangelium of James, the church of the Kathisma of the Theotokos ("Seat of the God-Bearer") was constructed some three miles north of Bethlehem to mark the place where Mary paused to give birth to Jesus during her trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The interpretation of this church changed following the later construction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built to mark the purported site of Jesus' birth in that town. Once the official celebration of the nativity began at the Bethlehem Church, the interpretation of the Kathisma Church changed from celebrating Jesus' birth to commemorating the holy family's flight to Egypt (see Shoemaker 2001, 2003; Abruzzi, The Birth of Jesus), even though the church is situated several miles north of Bethlehem and, thus, not on an expeditious route for a family fleeing to Egypt in order to escape the slaughter of children by Herod's soldiers. The site of the Kathisma Church was still being visited in the late 6th century (see discussion of the Piacenza Pilgrim, composed between 560-570: Shoemaker 2003: 22; Abruzzi, The Birth of Jesus.

In order to understand the evolution and diversity of Christmas beliefs and practices in the early Church, it is important to note that, not just the celebration, but the very meaning of Christmas has varied significantly as its has been imported into significantly different social and cultural contexts. One need only look at the contemporary celebration of Christmas around the world to see how its meaning and form have changed in response to fundamental changes in the social and economic foundations of various modern societies.

Just as December 25^th, the celebration of the birth of the Sun (Sol Invictus/Mithras) became transformed into Christmas, the birth date of Jesus as a result of changing social and political conditions in ancient Rome, Christmas today has evolved into quite a different phenomena in modern secular societies. It has become so strongly associated with consumption in modern industrial societies that it is celebrated as a day associated with the purchasing and giving of gifts, not just in the U.S. and other western "Christian" societies, but also in Japan, China and elsewhere which are not Christian. (Kraabel 1982: 279)

33. The Protevangelium of James is the earliest written document describing Jesus' birth in a cave, though other contemporary accounts provide evidence that such a belief was widespread (see Kraabel 1982: 276). Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, also mentions such a cave in his Diologue 78. Origen (184-253) claimed that he both visited the cave and saw the manger in which Jesus was placed during his visit to the Holy Land some 75 years later. So important was the cave story to early Christians that when Constantine decided to build three churches in Palestine, he had them all built over pre-Christian "sacred caves." (Eusebius I.C. 1X.17). In a letter to Paulinus of Nola, Jerome (Epistle 58: 3) stated that the Bethlehem cave, dedicated by Constantine, had previously been part of a grove dedicated to Tammuz, the Mesopotamian god of fertility, and Adonis, the mortal lover of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty and procreation (Kraabel 1982: 276). Eusebius claimed that Constantine demolished the pagan cave and constructed a Christian shrine in its place.

The pious empress honored with rare memorial the scene of her travail who bore the heavenly child, and beautified the sacred cave with all possible splendor. The emperor himself soon after testified his reverence for the spot by princely offerings, and added to his mother's magnificence by costly presents of silver and gold, and embroidered hangings. (Eusebius, v.C III.43; quoted in Kraabel 1982: 276)

Belief in Jesus' birth in a cave persisted for several centuries. At least two reports exist of pilgrims visiting the cave during the 4th century: an anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux in 333, and Egeria (Etheria), who visited the Holy Land between 381-384.

34. Several modern researchers have, in fact, questioned Jesus' historicity, maintaining that Jesus was a later mythical creation to serve the needs of a growing cult, as were Zeus, Jupiter, Osiris, Mithras and the many other gods of the ancient world, (cf. Wells 1988; Zindler 1998;Thompson 2005; Price 2011; Thompson and Verenna 2014; Carrier 2014; Carrier et.al. 2013; Dykstra 2015). One of the bases of their claim is the absence of any clear extra-Biblical mention of Jesus. It is not until at least 40 years after Jesus' supposed death that any biographical material about Jesus emerges. The earliest New Testament writings about Jesus are those contained in Paul's Epistles. Paul is primarily concerned with the spirit "Christ"; he presents no biographical information about Jesus and gives very little hint that Jesus was an actual human being. Paul makes no mention of Jesus' birth, his crucifixion or of any other events in his life. What little biographical information about Jesus does emerge, appears much later in the various gospels (both canonical and non-canonical) that are both inconsistent and highly contradictory. In addition, several of the phenomena surrounding Jesus' birth and death, as well as many miracles and teachings attributed to him were also attributed to many of the gods that preceded him.

35. Some of the theological conflicts that plagued the early church included, not only the birth date of Jesus, but also the humanity of Jesus, the nature of the relation of Jesus to God (the Father) and the belief in Mary as Theotokos ("God-bearer"). The Nicene Creed was issued at the Council of Nicaea (325), which was dominated by the Roman Church and supported by Constantine, to establish its beliefs as authoritative and to delegitimize all competing Christian beliefs as heretical. The Council established as Christian orthodoxy a belief in (1) the equality of Jesus with the father, (2) Jesus as both human and divine (see note 37); (3) Jesus' incarnation through birth by the Virgin Mary, (4) Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and (5) a belief in only one "catholic and apostolic Church" as the legitimate successor to Jesus and interpreter of his mission (validated by the principle of "Apostolic Succession"). These various conflicts tore at the very foundations of Christianity, resulting in numerous, frequently violent, ecumenical councils held by opposing factions within the Church. They also produced several schisms within the Church, culminating in the Schism of 1054 that led to the complete separation of the Eastern and Western Churches.

36. Two different versions of the New Testament even existed, one associated with the Western (Roman) church and the other with the Eastern (Alexandrian) Church (see Abruzzi, When Was Jesus Born?, note 34).

37. Monophysites claimed that following Jesus' Incarnation, he had only a single "nature" which was either divine or a synthesis of the divine and the human. Miaphysites, on the other hand, claimed that Jesus retained two distinct natures after his Incarnation: one divine and one human. This theological conflict involving the fundamental nature of Jesus' existence raged for several centuries resulting in the death of tens of thousands of Christians on both sides of the controversy. Jenkins (2010: xii) goes so far as to claim that

The intra-Christian violence of the fifth- and sixth-century debates was on a far larger and more systematic scale than anything produced by the Inquisition.

It was not until the Council of Chalcedon in 451 that the Church formulated the statement that eventually became the official theology of the Roman Empire --that Christ had two natures joined into one person. This Council did not end the controversy, however, as monophysites were still numerous and influential in the Church and continued to prevail in the eastern regions of the Empire, such as Syria, Palestine, and Egypt (see Jones 1963:17; Jenkins 2008; MacCulloch 2009). They were ultimately defeated only after decades of bloody struggle. As heirs of the very oldest Christian churches, the very churches with the most direct and authentic ties to the apostolic age, they eventually found their interpretation of Christ ruled as heretical (Jenkins 2010:xi), as did many other varieties of Christianity, including those such as the Ebionites and Nazarenes, both of whom revered James (Jesus' brother) and claimed a direct connection to Jesus and his apostles (see Abruzzi, The Birth of Jesus, note 12) The monophysite-miaphysite controversy never completely ended and eventually underlay the "Great Schism" in 1054 that divided Christianity into competing Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

* * * * *

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