The first certain mention of Dec. 25 is in a Latin chronographer of A.D. 354, first published entire by Mommsen.' It runs thus in English: "Year 1 after Christ, in the consulate of Caesar and Paulus, the Lord Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of December, a Friday and 15th day of the new moon." Here again no festal celebration of the day is attested.In certain Orthodox religions, Christmas is celebrated on what most consider January 7, 13 days after the December 25 Christmas date. Most people today use the Gregorian Calendar, but the January 7 Christmas date is based on the Julian Calendar, according to which it is December 25.
Christmas - 1911 Encyclopedia
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, in the fifth century, circus games were outlawed on December 25, by the Codex of Theodosius. It wasn't until the sixth century that Christmas became a legal holiday -- work was banned -- according to the Codex of Justinian. Later that century, Christmas became a holy period running from the 25th of December through Epiphany, preceded by a fast throughout Advent, that period in which modern children daily open little paper doors.
In Touchstone Magazine's Story Behind December 25, William J. Tighe argues that "the pagan festival of the 'Birth of the Unconquered Sun' instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians." Comments?
As Terence Lockyer points out below, this accepted traditional position has been challenged. As Judith Weingarten writes in Whose Christmas Is It Anyway? (Updated):A recent doctoral dissertation by S.E. Hijmans at the University of Groningen (NL) takes a fresh look at whole kit and caboodle.* The new Dr Hijmans is the first to have noticed that there is absolutely no evidence to show that the Games of the Sun founded by Aurelian ever took place on December 25th. On the contrary, no feast day for Sol is mentioned on that day until 80 years later in the Calendar of 354 and, subsequently, in 362 by Julian the Apostate in his Oration to King Helios (the Sun).
References: "When Was Jesus Born?" by John Thorley.
Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 28, No. 1, Jubilee Year (Apr., 1981), pp. 81-89
"Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,"
by Roland H. Bainton
Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 42, No. 1/2 (1923), pp. 81-134
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Comments
Sol Invictus probably precedes Christmas in using December 25th as a festival date; later bishops of Rome were infuriated that as their flock entered cvhurch on that day to celebrate the nativity of Christ, they still bowed to the rising sun in the East! Can check the ref. if need be.
On the question of the relationship between Sol Invictus and the date of Christmas, Judith Weingarten has recently made an interesting post drawing on a 2009 PhD dissertation.
An article in Biblical Archaeology Review magazine by Andrew McGowan makes the same argument as the William Tighe article but with footnotes and references.
http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp
I’m inclined to think it more likely than the more common story that early Christians chose December 25 because it was the day of a pagan festival.
I’m certainly no expert, but to my mind Mr. Grocock’s suggestion that the Christian bishops were “infuriated” at their flock facing east does not seem so likely, as they consciously designed their churches so that worshippers would face the east (the orient, hence our modern usage of “orientation”). However, this minor point does not affect the dating of either Sol Invictus or Christmas; it would not be hugely incongruous with early hermeneutics to “read Christ backward” into a pagan feast. The early Christians similarly adopted, for example, the Roman iconographic shepherd carrying the lamb as an image of The Good Shepherd. I do repeat that I am not an expert and could be way off; just giving my intuitions…
The earliest pagan festivities began with the death and celebrated “resurrection” of Nimrod’s genitalia several thousand years before Abraham. The Xmas tree and yulelog traditions started with the fir tree that spang up miraculously one night after Nimrod’s wife/mother buried the pieces outside the city walls of Babel shortly after his murder and subsequent multi-pieced hacking……
Just where did the three names for the Magi come from. Were there historical people named Gaspar, Melchoir, & Balthasar?