Reason for the season: Why is Christmas on Dec. 25?
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Time to lay a popular myth to rest. You know it. It goes like this: Those naughty Christians co-opted the pagan holiday Saturnalia, commemorated in winter among the Romans, and bent it to their own purposes.
It’s not true. Not. Historically. True.
Fact one: Christmas is an afterthought in Christian celebration. It doesn’t appear on any Christian calendar until Pope Julius I noted it as a holiday in the year 336. Emperor Justinian only decreed it an official celebration in 529! Even then it was not universally celebrated. This absence of emphasis mirrors the New Testament, in which only two books contain stories about that birth: Matthew and Luke. In the earliest Gospel, Mark, Jesus bursts on the scene a man in full. No birth even mentioned. It was not important for Paul or other letter writers of the New Testament.
The important Christian celebration was Pascha, feast of the Resurrection, aka Easter, already observed in New Testament times. Pentecost comes in second, probably followed by a calendar of local martyrs. Lent developed as a period of catechesis and penance before Pascha. In the eastern end of the church, the Baptism of Christ at Epiphany has always been more important. Christmas does not win, place, or even show in this horse race.
Fact two: Saturnalia was celebrated from the 17th to the 23rd of December. If Christians wanted to usurp a pagan holiday, why not overlap it completely? Why would their holiday occur four to eight days later? Saturnalia was over by Dec. 25.
Fact three: The festival of Sol Invictus, which occurred on Dec. 25, was not instituted in the Empire until 274 during the reign of Aurelian. The common myth may have it backward: Aurelian may have tried to make Sol Invictus a major festival because Christianity was already popular. The age of persecution ended with Diocletian (ca. 280) and 40 years later Constantine made Christianity an official religion of the Roman Empire. Diocletian’s persecution would have been the most rigorous had it not been for the fact that many Romans were already Christians, among them members of the upper and ruling classes, who were opposed for obvious reasons. Enforcing of the edicts of persecution was, in any case, unevenly applied across the empire.
Fact four: Christians have always wondered about the date of Jesus’ birth. Common belief these days is that he was born in August, quite far calendrically from December. Why, then, Dec. 25? There are many answers to this question. One answer reckons from the birth of John; according to the New Testament, John was born six months before Jesus. Zachariah, John’s father, gets the news John will be born while serving his annual turn in the Temple priesthood. Short version: Zechariah’s turn would have come nine months before the birth of John, thus, 15 months before the birth of Jesus, which calculates to Dec. 25 or thereabouts. A second answer concerns the Festival of the Annunciation, March 25, at which the Archangel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear a child and call his name Immanuel. This Festival always occurs near Passover. It interrupts the flow of Lent and sticks out like a sore thumb in this penitential season. Popular belief held that “the Just,” heroes of faith and righteousness, were conceived and died at Passover, as did the just man Jesus. This could explain the Annunciation on March 25.
We may never know definitively why Dec. 25 is commemorated as Christmas, but we can safely conclude that it was not because Christians wanted to usurp a pagan festival. Merry Christmas!
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Fr Gabriel Rochelle is retired priest of St. Anthony of the Desert Orthodox Church, Las Cruces. Contact him at: gabrielcroch@aol.com.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Reason for the season: Why is Christmas on Dec. 25?
