Open Thread 20241225 – Pagan inclusion, or Creation calculation – how did Christmas come to be?

Recently, I accidentally discovered that a long-held belief of mine was very likely untrue! As I sure you all can identify with, this was somewhat disconcerting. Who likes to be wrong? But I am a researcher, and accepting what one finds when researching is imperative. I thought I would share what I found out with you all, since it is Christmas, and that is crux of the matter.

I thought for many years that Jesus was not really born on Christmas Day. That day was chosen, I believed, because pagan cultures already celebrated on that day, and Christianity wanted to include (subsume, some would say) those religions. This is called the “History of Religions” theory.

There was Saturnalia, for example, celebrated originally on December 17, and later from the 17th through the 23rd; and the December 25 holiday Sol Invictus (the Unconquered or Invincible Sun). The earliest reference I had seen to the celebration of Jesus birth on December 25 was in 354 AD. It is from Depositio Martirum of the Chronography of 354, and reads:

‘December 25, Christ is born in Bethlehem of Judea.’

However, I was to find that this is NOT the earliest that such a thing was suggested, by a long shot!

I stumbled across this reference to Hippolytus, who in his day attempted to date every Passover all the way back to the date of the Creation, and the first Passover full moon (he believed God created the moon in the “full” phase). To do this, Hippolytus created a “lunar table.” A statue of him was discovered in Rome in 1551 AD and now sits in front of the Vatican Library. On the right side of the statue is a carving of this lunar table, taken from Hippolytus’ Canon, written in 222 AD.

This lunar table was designed to calculate the dates of past and future Passover full moons, by determining the date of the full moon occurring on the Vernal Equinox. The date of this Equinox was fixed on March 25 in the Julian Calendar. This turned out to be more difficult than Hippolytus thought, and his calculations went awry within just three years of calculating the dates.

However, that is not the point of discussion here. The point is, Hippolytus noted two things in his Canon; one, that the Passion of Jesus occurred on Friday, March 25, 29 AD. The second is, he wrote that the “genesis” of Christ occurred on April 2, 2 B.C. The word for “genesis” here is γένεσις. There is debate on whether this word means conception or birth, but given what I have read in the last week, I am strongly inclined to the former meaning. Researcher Thomas C. Schmidt has done a fantastic study of this. You can read the research here; I highly recommend it:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://tcschmidtblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/schmidt-calculating-december-25-as-the-birth-of-jesus-in-hippolytus1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjBxdjTi7SKAxVCJDQIHWFZAFUQFnoECA8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2lhWZdxL_02fUb4XjMbIa8

This was my starting point, but I branched out when I realized there were others who believed early on that Jesus was conceived on or about March 25. In 221, Julius Africanus, the Roman Christian historian, wrote that Jesus was conceived on March 25, the anniversary of the day Africanus believed God created the Earth. This would logically, given a nine-month gestation period, put Jesus’ birth on December 25.

So, there are now two sources who believed Jesus was born on December 25, as early as 221 AD. Is there an even earlier source? Turns out, it looks like there is!

Clement of Alexandria calculated Jesus birth backwards (what a way to figure, but whatever) from the death of the Emperor Commodus, thusly:

From the birth of Christ, therefore,
to the death of Commodus are, altogether,
194 years, 1 month, 13 days.

This would put Jesus’ birth on January 6. It is still celebrated on that date by the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Clement continues:

“And there are those who have determined
our Savior’s genesis
not only the year,
but even the day, which they say took place
in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus
on the 25th of Pachon…

And treating of his passion, with very great accuracy,
some say that it took place
in the sixteenth year of Tiberius,
on the 25th of Phamenoth,
but others the 25th of Pharmuthi
and others say
on the 19th of Pharmuthi the Savior suffered.

Indeed, others say
that he came to be on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi.”

The important word in there is “genesis,” most likely meaning conception. The translation of “genesis” as conception is consistent with Clement’s usage of this word in other contexts, for example:

“It is not therefore frequent intercourse by the parents, but the reception of it [the seed] in the womb which corresponds with genesis.” (Clement of Alexandria Stromata 3.12.83.2)

The 25th of Pharmuthi coincides with the Vernal Equinox in the Egyptian calendar and also matches one of the possible dates which Clement gives for the Passover of Jesus’ crucifixion.

This shows that in the time Clement wrote his Stromata, between 198 and 203 AD, where this information appears, there were already people who believed that Jesus was conceived on or about March 20-21, or on the Vernal Equinox.

What we know about the pagan holiday Saturnalia is, it was originally a one-day celebration on December 17. It was later extended to December 17-23. This is one celebration that has been suggested as a reason why Christians decided to put Jesus’ nativity on December 25, but this holiday never fell on that date.

A December 25th holiday, Sol Invictus, was instituted in 274 AD by the Emperor Aurelian, who made this the primary god of Rome.

“The festival of Sol Invictus on the 25th December in the later Roman empire combined the festivals of both the old sun god (Sol Indiges) and the new official sun god (Deus Sol Invictus). The Circus Maximus had been dedicated to Sol Indiges since ancient times, and then was dedicated to Sol Invictus. The Roman emperor Aurelian created the cult of Sol Invictus during his reign in AD 270-275 (in the 3rd century) and, on his coins, Sol was described as ‘Dominus Imperii Romani’, the official deity of the Roman empire.”

It has been suggested over the centuries that the “chosen” date of December 25 as the birth of Jesus was in response to the imposition of Sol Invictus. However, given that we know that 75-50 years PRIOR to Sol Invictus being instituted, Christian leaders believed Jesus was born on December 25, it is just as likely that Aurelian instituted the holiday against the Christian belief! This is actually more likely in my opinion, given the facts that: a) Romans were inclined to incorporate the gods of conquered cultures into their belief systems and had done so for centuries; and b) by the time of Jesus, Jews had been admonished against the practice of including foreign gods in their culture for literally thousands of years. This was almost the entire background cause of sin in the Old Testament.

This theory, that Jesus’ birth date was not chosen to subsume another religion’s holiday, but was instead “calculated” by early Church leaders from the Creation of the world, or from the dates of Passover full moons, is called the “Calculation Theory.”

This theory does not prove that Jesus was actually born on December 25, but rather it does strongly suggest, at least to me, that the date of his birth was NOT chosen in response to a foreign religion, but in accordance with the beliefs and dates spelled out in God’s Word, the Old Testament. Hippolytus used the dates in the Old Testament to calculate the years from the Creation to the birth of Jesus, as did Clement of Alexandria.

From Hippolytus Chronicon:

(§686) . . . from Adam until the transmigration into Babylon under Jeconiah, 57 generations, 4,842 years, 9 months. (§687) And after the transmigration into Babylon until the generation [generatio] of Christ, there were 14 generations, 660 years, and from the generation [generatio] of Christ until the Passion there were 30 years and from the Passion up until this year which is year 13 of the Emperor Alexander, there are 206 years. (§688) Therefore all the years from Adam up until year 13 of the Emperor Alexander make 5,738 years.
Chronicon §686-688

It is quite notable to me that there is a “9 months” period stated in this calculation, the span of human gestation. From Schmidt:

“Hippolytus only gives extraneous months on two occasions, once in §654 where he adds six months to David’s reign, and in §675 where he states that Jehoahaz reigned three months.”

So it is a rare case in his calculations to include months at all. The possible reasons for the nine month addition, how the translation of one word [generatio] affects the interpretation of it, and much more is found in Thomas C. Schmidt’s excellent research linked up above, if you want to read it.

I still don’t know for certain that Jesus was actually born on December 25. But I DO know that early Christians, based on their calculations of when God created the Earth, and when Passover full moons occurred and their dates, almost certainly believed that He was. And for now, that is good enough for me!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!