CHRISTMAS DAY
It was not until the year 273 A.D., or rather-as the Christian Calendar had not yet been invented-the year 1027 A.U.C., that the 25th of December was adopted by Christians as the day upon which to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. The reason for the selection of that date is not far to seek. The winter solstice has, from the most remote antiquity, been the time devoted to special ceremonies in honour of the God, whoever he was, that men worshipped. Astronomically the Sun begins a new year of life at that annual period, and so, when Sun-gods were worshipped, the 25th of December, or some day approximate to that date, was always selected for the celebration of his birthday. Almost all religions have some root in the primitive worship of the Sun, and the Christians-when they adopted the winter solstice as their Christmas day-merely continued a custom which the adherents of most of the contemporary religions had carried on for many centuries before that time. That day was, of course, the birthday of Apollo, the great Sun-god; and it was also the day upon which were celebrated, by their respective worshippers, the births of Adonis, of Dionysos, and of Mithra. When we celebrate Christmas we continue the practice of hundreds of generations of our remote ancestors, who held festivals at that season every year for many centuries before Christianity had ever been heard of. The ritual remains; the explanation of that ritual changes. That explanation we call a myth when referring to a heathen story, the revealed truth when referring to our own!
The 25th of December was so highly regarded as a day suitable for the birthday of a god that it was selected for the apotheosis of Alexander the Great when he was first acclaimed as God in the temple of (Jupiter) Ammon in 322 B.C.
New religions inherit or copy the doctrines and festivals of the old. The Moslem "month of Haj" is celebrated at the time of the year when pre-Moslem pagan festivals had previously been held, and the ancient pagan rites are still carried out during the Haj celebrations.
When Christianity first reached England, Northern Germany, and Scandinavia, its missionaries found pagan rites of many kinds already connected with the day on which they celebrated Christmas. These missionaries and the priests who succeeded them incorporated many of these rites into their Church festival.
The mistletoe of the Druids, the yule logs which had been brought in every year to blaze on the open hearths, the feasting and carousing, have all come down to us from pagan days and from pagan sources. The side boards of the well-to-do are still often graced by the head of a boar, the successor of the beast which slew the man-god Adonis.
Even after the year 273 there was no universal agreement upon the 25th of December as Christmas Day. The pagan element was not yet sufficiently strong in Christianity to enforce a general reception of the ancient birthday festivals.
The Eastern Churches for long continued to observe Christmas Day on the 6th of January, and the Egyptians did the same until the year 431. But even the 6th of January was connected with the general god-birthday. Epiphanius contended that the birthday of Christ must be the 13th day after the 25th of December, these thirteen days corresponding to the twelve apostles and Jesus himself, and bringing Christmas Day to the Epiphany-a day long observed in Egypt as a festival of' "The Virgin," Kore Kosmou.
The Basilidians celebrated Christ's birthday on the 24th or 25th of April; other Christian sects celebrated it, so Clement of Alexandria informs us, on the 25th of May.
As many Churches commemorated the birth and the baptism of Christ on the same day, it is probable that such festivals originated before any birth story was known, and when all Christian gospels began, like St. Mark's, with the descent of the Christ spirit into Jesus at his baptism. On that day Jesus would be baptized, and Christ born also.
In all the speculations of these Christians of the first three or four centuries, we notice that it was not facts which dictated the doctrines, but doctrines which dictated the facts. The day to be chosen as the birthday of Christ was the day which fitted best the various theological doctrines already formed, not the day upon which Jesus had actually been born. No one knew what day that was, but nobody very much cared to know, as the important matter in the eyes of everybody was to select an auspicious and a suitable date.
No evidence was quoted, nor any tradition appealed to, to show that the 25th of December was the actual birthday. In fact, there was not, and there never has been, any evidence whatever as to date, except Luke's reference to shepherds watching their flocks by night, if that can be considered as evidence. Certainly, if shepherds watched their flocks by night, it could not have been in mid-winter that the birth took place, as even in Palestine flocks are folded at that time of the year, and not roaming about accompanied by shepherds as they are in the summer.
At the present day no Christian theologian maintains that the day of the year on which Jesus was born is known. Christmas as an anniversary is merely a convention. The only attempt which ever seems to have been made to show that Jesus was actually born upon December 25th, and that therefore the origin of Christmas Day was not pagan, was founded upon the premise that the Annunciation took place on the 25th of March. From that date-itself selected upon doctrinal and not upon historical grounds-a lapse of nine months brings us to the 25th of December, which would, therefore, if the Annunciation was a physiological process identical in its working with sexual conception, be the correct date for the birth. As, however, the 25th of March was itself a date inheribed from paganism, and not a date supported by evidence of any kind whatsoever, the theory has not gained acceptance even among theologians.
Easter, roughly corresponding with the vernal equinox- the time of the resurrection of vegetable life-was also a time of festival for the followers of many ancient religions; but the period of the year in which Easter is celebrated does correspond with the Biblioal story, as the crucifixion is said to have taken place at the time of the Passover-the two events being theologically parallel.
Yet Christians spilt torrents of each other's blood in quarrels about the fixing of the date of Easter, and accepted Christmas Day without much demur. So much the more easy did they find it to agree about the altogether unknown than about the partly, or supposedly, known.
The harmless festivities of Christmastide, and the spirit of peace and goodwill with which they are traditionally associated, are customs and feelings which it would be sad to see forgotten or eradicated; but for theological purposes Christmas stands on a par with the Mohurrum of the Moslems and the Krishna festivals of the Hindus. It could remain an occasion for jollity, merriment, and goodwill, consecrated by its antiquity and tender associations, even though its pretensions to be the anniversary of any historical event of more importance than its own annual occurrence be denied, or, with the indulgent smile of a peaceable philosopher, classed among the fairy tales. Peace and goodwill reign more easily when the followers of all the religions join together and celebrate the return of the sun and the beginning of a new year than when theologians assemble to decry the idolatry of others and to wrangle about which of the gods were really born on the 25th of December.
Next: APPENDIX II "SON OF GOD"