By Christos Klitsinaris
Every year at this time, the internet is filled with publications questioning the date of the Nativity of Christ.
They are the well known yet unknown doubters of Christianity.
Their most well-known excuse is that it replaced the already existing feast of the Sun, which pagans celebrated on this day.
Rather, the opposite happened as we will see.
It is true that in the early years of Christianity, the Nativity of Christ was celebrated together with the Epiphany on January 6th, but they knew that December 25th was the actual Day.
Saint Hippolytus of Rome (170-235) mentions it as being "eight days before the Kalends of January," that is, eight days before the beginning of January, which is December 25th.
The first official historical testimony of the separate Feast of Christmas on December 25 is in 336 AD. Meanwhile, until 354 AD there is no mention of a Roman festival of the Sun, not even in the Feriale Duranum, a Roman military calendar from Dura Europos, which dates to 227 AD.
The oldest Roman festivals in honor of the Sun, namely that of the 8th and 9th of August, perhaps the 28th of August, are attested by epigraphic material that is earlier than the first half of the 1st century AD and have no astrological correlation with equinoxes or solstices.
Emperor Julian the Apostate, a former Christian who sought to re-paganize the Roman Empire after it was Christianized by his uncle Emperor Constantine, was the one who in 354 AD sought to establish that the Festival of the Sun be celebrated on the same day as Christmas on December 25th in order to overshadow the birthday of Christ.
The date of December 25 was not accidental or speculative. Saint John Chrysostom states that the date was based on a detailed study of the Scriptures which indicated the birth of Christ was indeed December 25th.
This study has as its starting point John the Baptist, who was six months older than Christ. We know this from the words of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary on the day of the Annunciation: "Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren" (Luke 1:6).
The birthday of John the Baptist was discovered in the following way. The father of John the Baptist, we are told in the Gospel of Luke, was the Priest Zechariah of the division of Abijah, the eighth in the series of the 24 divisions of one week each (1 Chronicles 24 and 2 Chronicles 8 & 31).
After the Babylonian Captivity and the building of the Second Temple in 516 BC, the order changes and the Abijah division becomes the twelfth in the series, each lasting two weeks, because many Priests were killed during the Babylonian Captivity and the order and days of division were re-determined (Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 12).
Therefore, calculating the beginning of the Jewish Religious/Lunar year with the month of Nisan (mid-March) and counting 12 fortnights, we arrive at mid-September. Taking into account what Luke says that the childless Elizabeth conceived John a few days after the end of Zechariah's division, during which she experienced the great miracle of the vision of the Archangel Gabriel and the promise of the son she would give birth to, the Church has very carefully determined and celebrates September 23 as the day that John the Baptist was conceived.
From there on, things are simple.
Six months later, the Annunciation takes place by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, where, as we mentioned above, he revealed to her that her barren relative Elizabeth is six months pregnant. So between the Annunciation on March 25 (with the two missing days of February being calculated) and the Birth on December 25 is exactly nine months.
Saint John Chrysostom also mentions that in a Roman Codex the date of the Census of Caesar Augustus was found, which agrees with December 25 (Luke 2:1-3):
"It is clear that He was born during the first census. And it is possible for the one who desires to know exactly to read the original codices publicly stored at Rome and learn the time of the census. So what, someone says, is this to us - who are neither there nor present? But listen, and do not be unbelieving, because we have received the day from those who know these things accurately and who dwell in that city. For the ones living there, having observed it from the beginning and from ancient tradition, now have themselves transmitted the knowledge of it to us."
“The 25th day of December has been celebrated from the beginning as the birthday of Christ, and the knowledge of it is now transmitted to us…. It is manifest from Scripture that Christ was born at the enrollment or census, and the very day was certain from a written document in the Roman archives…. It is lawful for anyone to search these ancient records, publicly deposited at Rome, and there to learn the time of this enrollment.”
It should be noted that several other early Christian writers, including Saint Justin Martyr and Tertullian, appealed to these same census records when defending the Christian faith. The records may have existed into the 5th century when they were lost after the Goths and Vandals pillaged Rome.
As for their other excuse that it is not possible that Christ was born in the middle of winter since there were shepherds who grazed their animals at night (something that only happens in the warm months), I would like to say that nowhere do the Gospels say that the shepherds were there because they were grazing their animals on this Holy Night.
"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night" (Luke 2:8).
In Greek, the words used are "αγραυλούντες και φυλάσσοντες", which indicate that the shepherds lived or resided out in the fields where they kept or protected their flocks. There is nothing about grazing.
The shepherds lived constantly with their animals "in the same country," that is, in the same region where Christ was born, just as our Vlachs and Sarakatsanis lived all year round with their animals in huts until a few years ago. They took turns guarding (keeping) their flocks at night from wild animals, especially from theft.
Let us not forget that this is also the time when animals give birth and many shepherds even today stay up all night with them for any complications. Perhaps this was also symbolically fulfilled as the Lamb of God being born.
One such shepherd who lived as a young man with his flock in the very same pastures of Bethlehem was King David, the forefather of Christ, who protected his flock from raids by wild animals, even fighting and killing lions and bears that were snatching his sheep (1 Samuel 17:34-35).
Bethlehem was a place of many flocks of lambs and goats, in caves or pens of that time which were of rough construction (narrow or circular straw huts). The Arabs called it Bayt Laḥm (House of Meat), while the Jews called it Bet Lehem (House of Bread). That is, it was a place rich in meat and grain.
Ultimately the importance is not when Christ was born, but that HE WAS BORN. God came in the flesh for us.
See also: Christmas Origins Resource Page
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
