Christmas is a worldwide celebration of the birth of Jesus held each year on December 25.[1] In many countries, Christmas is the most actively celebrated holiday. In modern times, December 24, or Christmas Eve, is a focus of secular celebration. The holiday is associated with gift giving, Santa Claus, greeting cards and Christmas trees. The word Christmas is a contraction of "Christ's mass."
Traditionally, Christians prepared for Christmas during the preceding four weeks, called Advent. Christmas Day, together with the following eleven days, is referred to as the Twelve Days of Christmas.
The actual birth date of Jesus is unrecorded. The selection of December 25 was made by the Roman church in the early fourth century. At that time, December 25 was considered the date of the winter solstice. Several churches, including the Russian Orthodox Church, use the Julian calendar to the set the date of the feast. December 25 on the Julian calendar corresponds to January 7 on the international calendar.
Nativity
editThe Nativity narratives, which describe the birth of Jesus, are among the best-known passages in the New Testament. One narrative is in the gospel of Luke and another is in Matthew. Both describe the birth of Jesus in the town of Bethlehem, near Jerusalem. In Luke account, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, and Jesus is born there and laid in a manger.[2] Angels proclaim him a savior for all people, and shepherds come to adore him. In the Matthew account, astronomers follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the King of the Jews. King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later settles in Nazareth.
Etymology
edit"Christmas" is a contraction of "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse. The word is first recorded in 1038.[3] "Christ" (khrīstos) is the Greek equivalent of Hebrew messiah (māšîaḥ).
History
editDate of the feast
editThere is no information regarding the date of Jesus’s birth in the Bible, and ancient writers proposed numerous dates. Jesus died on Passover, or 14 Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Early Christians marked Passover on the quartodecimal, the date considered equivalent to 14 Nisan on the local calendar.[4] In the second century, Christians celebrated the full cycle of the life of Jesus on the quartodecimal. Various dates, including March 25 and April 6, were used.[5]
Various Christian writers assigned the first day of Creation to March 25, as it was the equinox. It is equivalent to 14 Nisan in the sense that Passover is the first day of Creation in rabbinic tradition.[6] As for April 6, it is 14th day of the first month on the Macedonian calendar.[7]
In 165, Pope Soter reassigned the Resurrection to Sunday, thereby creating Easter.[8] As the various events of Jesus's life were assigned their separate feasts, the focus of the quartodecimals narrowed to Incarnation. Modern scholar Thomas Tally argues that Christmas originated in North Africa, calculated as nine months after a feast on March 25.[9] The date of Epiphany, January 6, was calculated as nine months following the April 6 quartodecimal.
Equinox and solstice
editWhen Caesar instituted the the Julian calendar in 45 BC, the date of the spring equinox was assigned to March 25 while the date of the winter solstice, or Bruma,[10] was on December 25.[11] These are conventional dates; The astronomical dates have always been a few days out of synch with the calendar.[12] In modern times, these dates are the feasts of Annunciation and Christmas.
A sermon by Augustine connects Christmas to the winter solstice:
| “ | Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.[13] | ” |
De Pascha computus (243) places the birth of Jesus on the same date as the creation of the Sun (March 28). To support this claim, it is asserted that Jesus is the "Sun of righteous" mentioned by the Prophet Malachi.[14] This Old Testament text is also a favorite in early Christmas sermons.[15]
English scientist Isaac Newton noted that the dates of Christmas and various other feasts correspond to dates of astronomical significance. "All which shews that these days were fixed in the first Christian Calendars by Mathematicians at pleasure, without any ground in tradition; and that the Christians afterwards took up with what they found in the Calendars."[16]
Early chronology
edit- 160-225 -- Tertullian gave the date of the passion as March 25.[17]
- 203-204 -- Hippolytus of Rome gave March 25 as the date of the passion, Creation, and the first day of spring. Incarnation is given as April 2.[17]
- Before 221 -- Sextus Julius Africanus gave March 22 as the first day of Creation. He gave March 25 as the date of Incarnation and Resurrection.[17]
- 243 -- De Pascha Computus gave March 28 as the date of the creation of the moon and the birth of Jesus. The passion is dated as April 9.[17]
- 245 -- Origen criticizes the pagan celebration of royal birthdays, implying Christmas was not yet celebrated in his time.
- 274 -- Aurelian established the feast of Sol Invictus.
- 303 -- Arnobius ridiculed divine birthday celebrations.[18]
- 311 -- The North African Donatist sect split from Rome. The Donatist are thought to have celebrated Christmas. This suggests that the feast already existed at the time of the split.[19]
- 336 -- Calendar of Filocalus begins this year on December 26. This suggests that Christmas was celebrated in Rome at the end the preceding year.[20]
Early celebration
editIn 245, the theologian Origen denounced the idea of celebrating Jesus' birthday "as if he were a king pharaoh."[21] In 303, Arnobius also ridiculed divine birthday celebrations.[22] This suggests that Christmas was not yet celebrated in his time. The first mention of Christmas as a feast appears in the Calendar of Philocalus, which is believed to cover events that occurred in Rome in the year 336.
In ancient Rome, the holiday celebrated most energetically was New Year’s Day (January 1). With Christianization, celebration moved to the nearest Christian feast, namely Epiphany on January 6. Epiphany continued to overshadow Christmas in the Early Middle Ages. After Charlemagne was crowned emperor on December 25, 800, Christmas began to gain prominence, eventually displacing Epiphany as Europe's winter holiday.
References
edit- ^ Christmas, Merriam-Webster.
"Christmas," The American Heritage Dictionary (2016).
"Christmas", Oxford Dictionaries. - ^ "biblical literature." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. [1].
- ^ Martindale, Cyril Charles."Christmas". The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
- ^ Paul writes to the Corinthians about "Passover" and "Pentacost," so both he and the Corinthians must have celebrated these festivals. See Tally, pp. 2-4 and 1 Corinthians 5:7.
- ^ Tally, pp. 8-10.
- ^ Tally, p. 11.
- ^ Roll, p. 95.
- ^ Tally, p. 22.
- ^ Tally, Thomas J., The Origins of the Ligurical Year (1986, 1991), p. 87.
- ^ bruma, Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid. University of Notre Dame.
- ^ Bradt, Hale, Astronomy Methods, (2004), p. 69. "The Julian calendar was also set so that the vernal equinox fell on March 25, 46 BCE, the traditional date at the time."
Roll, "Solstice and Equinox," pp. 63-66. - ^ Writing around AD 70, Pliny, Rome's best-known science writer, gave the date of the solstice as December 25.[2] The astronomical date of the solstice was Dec. 22 at this time, so Pliny is giving a conventional date.
- ^ Augustine, Sermon 192.
- ^ Tally, p. 90. See ESV
- ^ See "Earliest Greek Patristic Orations on the Nativity: A Study Including Translations” by Beth Elsie Dunlop for a collection of such sermons.
- ^ Newton, Isaac, Observations upon the Prophesies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John, Chap. XI. "They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, on the 25th of March, which when Julius Cæsar corrected the Calendar was the vernal Equinox; the feast of John Baptist on the 24th of June, which was the summer Solstice; the feast of St. Michael on Sept. 29, which was the autumnal Equinox; and the birth of Christ on the winter Solstice, Decemb. 25, with the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John and the Innocents, as near it as they could place them."
- ^ a b c d Roll, p. 87
- ^ McCracken, George, Arnobius of Sicca, the Case Against the Pagans, Volume 2, p. 83. "Therefore if this is a fact, how can Jupiter be god if it is agreed that god is everlasting, while the other is represented by you to have a birthday, and frightened by the new experience, to have squalled like an infant."
G. Brunner, "Arnobius eine Zeuge gegen das Weihnachtsfest? " JLW 13 (1936) pp. 178–181. - ^ Roll, p. 102.
- ^ The Chronography of 354
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Hijmanswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ McCracken, George, Arnobius of Sicca, the Case Against the Pagans, Volume 2, p. 83. "Therefore if this is a fact, how can Jupiter be god if it is agreed that god is everlasting, while the other is represented by you to have a birthday, and frightened by the new experience, to have squalled like an infant."
G. Brunner, "Arnobius eine Zeuge gegen das Weihnachtsfest? " JLW 13 (1936) pp. 178–181.
Excess
editThe Calculation hypothesis
editAccording to the Calculation hypothesis of Louis Duchesne, the date of the passion on the Jewish calendar (14 Nisan) was (mistakenly) converted to a Christian date of March 25.[1] A Jewish tradition current at this time asserted that the date of a prophet's birth was the same as that of his death.[2] Early Christian writers asserted the March 25 was both the date of the passion and of the incarnation.[3] Christmas was calculated as nine months later, according to Duchesne.[4]
A passage by Augustine (354 – 430) is used to support the Duchesne hypothesis:
| “ | For He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day he also suffered....But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.[5] | ” |
This argument is full of arbitrary assumptions. Why was the mistaken March 25th date for the passion never corrected? How did a Jewish tradition concerning a prophet's birth get transposed into a Christian tradition concerning Incarnation? The making of the calculation sausage was less convincing than the result: Christmas could be placed on the winter solstice. As a cardinal solar date, this was theologically appropriate.
Various churches in Asia dated the passion as April 6.[6] This corresponds to 14 Artemisios on the Macedonian calendar. Thus the 14th day of the first month on the Jewish lunar calendar was converted to the 14th day of the first month on a solar calendar.[7] As a result, eastern churches celebrated the nativity on Epiphany, January 6. This ancient practice is preserved by the Armenian church.
Aside from Augustine, the March 25 date of the passion is mentioned by Tertullian, also a North African. Christmas is thought to have originated in North Africa, so the quartodecimal feast may have lingered this region. In the seventh century, Annunciation was placed on the March 25. This holiday is not based on the forgotten quartodecimal, but calculated as nine months before Christmas.
History of Religion hypothesis
editThe History of Religion hypothesis suggests that Christmas developed from pagan winter solstice festivals. In the 1740s, German scholar Paul E. Jablonski suggested that Christmas was derived from a festival in honor of Sol Invictus.[8] In 1889, German scholar Hermann Usener elaborated this theory.
In 274, Aurelian (r. 270-275) established a festival for this god. The date of this festival is unknown. According to Steven Hijmans, "December 25 was neither a longstanding nor especially important feast day of Sol...In fact there is no firm evidence that this feast of Sol on December 25 antedates the feast of Christmas at all."[9]
References
edit- ^ Duchesne, Louis, Origines du culte chretien (Paris 1889).
- ^ Roll, 95-96.
- ^ "Annunciation", Catholic Encyclopedia (1907): "All Christian antiquity (against all astronomical possibility) recognized the 25th of March as the actual day of Our Lord's death."
- ^ Roll, pp. 88-89.
- ^ Roll, Susan K., Toward the Origins of Christmas (1995), p. 102. Quote is from De Trinitate.
- ^ Roll, p. 73.
- ^ Roll, p. 95.
- ^ Roll., p. 130.
- ^ Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, Number 47/3 (2003), 277-298.