Why December 25?
December 19, 2009, 11:52 am
Posted by Celia Wren
This interesting article from Biblical Archeology Review disputes the oft-cited hypothesis (see this pair of letters from readers in today’s Washington Post, for instance) that the early Christians selected Dec. 25 as the date for Christmas as a way of appropriating and eclipsing mid-winter pagan celebrations like Saturnalia.
Alas, I cannot claim to read Biblical Archeology Review regularly; the always invaluable website Arts & Letters Daily linked to this piece.
Thank you for this reference. As Providence would have it, just yesterday I came across this in one of Augustine’s Christmas sermons:
“He who was born of the Father outside time’s day was born of a mother on this day. He created this day on which He chose to be created, just as He was made from a mother whom He made. This very day from which days gain in light symbolizes the work of Christ by which our inner man is renewed from day to day (2 Cor 4:16). A day befitting a temporal creature had to be the birthday on which the eternal Creator was created in time.” (Sermon 186; Sermon III on the Lord’s Birthday; PL 38, 1000)
And then a little word-search found this:
“Our Lord Jesus who was with the Father before He was born of a mother chose not only the virgin from which to be born but the day also on which to be born. Mistaken people often choose days, a day for planting, another for building, another for going on a journey, and sometimes even another day on which to marry. When they do this they do it so that anything born on that day will be successful. Still no one can choose the day on which he is born. But He who could create both could also choose both. But He did not choose that day as those choose who vainly hang the fates of men on the disposition of the stars. For He was not made happy by the day on which He was born; instead He made the day happy on which He Himself deigned to be born. The mystery of His light attends the day of His birth. The Apostle says: “Night has passed; day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day” (Rom 13:12-13). Let us recognize the day, and let us ourselves be the day. For we were night when we were living without faith. And because the faithlessness which, like night, had covered the whole earth was to be lessened as faith grew, so on the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ night begins to suffer loss and light to take increase. Let us hold this day solemn, then, but not like non-believers because of this sun, but for the sake of Him who made this sun. The One who was Word became flesh so that for our sakes He could be beneath the sun. Under the sun in the flesh, in majesty, however, above the whole world in which He created a sun. Now even in the flesh He is above this sun which they worship in place of God whose minds are blind and who do not see the true sun of righteousness.” Sermon 190; Sermon VII on the Lord’s Birthday; PL 38, 1007)
Fr. Komonchak–
Thanks for the interesting excerpts from Augustine, in which he ties Christ’s choice of His birth date to the lengthening of the daylight. I don’t think it lessens the symbolism his audience no doubt perceived, but Augustine was not aware (or perhaps little aware) of the Southern Hemisphere and the tilting of the Earth on its axis, where his allusions to the increasing daylight would have been perceived as factually incorrect. Still, his choice of language and imagery (e.g., “He was made from a mother whom He made”) is quite beautiful.
Hugo Rahner discusses another important dimension in the celebration of the Nativity. Noting its fairly late development both in the East (where it was originally celebrated on January 6) and in the West he argues that
“we must always regard a double protest as being implicit in it (feast of the Nativity): first there was the protest, already noted, against the mysteries of the pagan sun-cults, but there was also the protest against the Gnostics who denied the divinity of Jesus at the time of his birth.”
Some of the Gnostics had argued that one version of the words of Luke 3, 22 (at Jesus’ baptism), “Thou art my Son; this day I have begotten thee,” indicated that Jesus was not fully divine at His birth and thus His baptismal day should be commemorated as the true birthday of Jesus and the fleshly birth given little notice.
In Rahner’s view early Christians firmly rejected these excessively spiritualist and esoteric Gnostic teachings when they began their celebration of the Nativity.
Hugo Rahner, Greek Myths and Christian Mystery, pp. 141-2.
I suppose that much the same “incarnational” understanding was behind St. Francis’ later emphasis on the manger scene.
Augustine never says anything badly. But I wonder when the winter solstice actually occurred in the calendar in use in the early fifth century. There had already been three two many 29ths of February at that point with the Julian calendar. Does that help? Or does it mean that the solstice came three days earlier on the calendar than it ought to have? I think the latter.
We discussed this in my RCIA program last year when I was a catechumen. One of my catechists was inspired by John 3:30 when John the Baptist says, “He must increase; I must decrease.” Taking Augustine one step further, my teacher pointed out that the feast day of John the Baptist is June 24th when (in the Northern hemisphere) the sun is the highest in the sky and Christmas is a full 6 months later when the sun is lowest in the sky.
The Holy Spirit inspired my teacher to suggest that when all seems easiest, warmest, and sunniest, we need a John the Baptist to remind us that our joy is a grace from God. And when are world seems hardest, coldest, and darkest, our Christ Jesus is sure to come to us. I’m not sure of any historical accuracy to the idea, but it certainly puts me in the right frame of mind for the season.