The above question may have occurred to many of us at one time or another so the Editorial Board of the Gnus Almanac, decided to do a bit of research. The Bible offers a few clues.
Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospel of Mark or the Epistles of Paul, or Acts. The date is not given nor is the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season while in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Still, most scholars remind us that we are extracting a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.
There is not much extra-biblicaly (our term) either. Evidence from the first and second century is, surprise, fairly sparse. There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) went so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices which is a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time. As far as we can tell, Christmas was not feted at all at this point although there are rumors of Black Friday sales events, Amazon Prime Days, and the annual trampling of Walmart employees.
Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were what interested first- and early-second-century A.D. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing interest. This shift can be seen in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul (Epistles)c. 48-64 AD and Mark c. 70 AD make no mention of Jesus' birth. However, the Gospels of Matthew – c. 66–70 AD, and Luke c.85–90 AD, provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood were related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas c. 180 AD, and the Proto-Gospel of James c. 145 AD. These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education……..but not the date of his birth.
Finally, in about 200 A.D., a Christian teacher in Egypt made a reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement wrote “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of (the emperor), Augustus. (Augustus became Emperor in 27 B.C so that would put the year of Jesus’ birth at 1-3), and in the 25th day of (the Egyptian month) Pachon (May 20 in our Gregorian calendar]) … Another school of thought says He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi (April 20 or 21). Glad we could clear that up for you. “Why a child of four could understand this. Someone fetch a child of four”………..Groucho Marx.
Obviously, there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth during the late second century. Within a hundred years, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the Western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6. For most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas, which is all the more reason for 12 drummers drumming, not to mention a partridge in a pear tree.
The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.” In about 400 A.D, St. Augustine mentioned a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25. So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6? There are two theories. The first is extremely popular, while the other is less often heard outside scholarly circles, though far more ancient.
The most common theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 B.C the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world. If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated. But………………this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth. St. Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the True Sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. Early Christian writers never hinted at any recent calendrical engineering, and they clearly didn’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they saw the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods. So where did the “let’s connect to pagan feasts” idea come from? In the 12th century, a marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi stated that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars inspired by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea. They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly. Et voila! So we have a supposition built on a marginal note in an obscure book equals popular theory. More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs, but they were incorporated much later as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern thinkers to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.
The other theory accounting for December 25, dates Jesus’ birth from the date of his death during Passover. This idea was first suggested by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and later fully developed by American Thomas Talley. But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth. Jesus’ conception carried with it the promise of salvation through his death. It may be no coincidence, then, that the early church celebrated Jesus’ conception and death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. Around 200 A.D. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. Again, March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception. Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25. This idea appeared in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which came from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise stated: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March (March 25), which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”
Based on this theory, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice. Augustine, who was from North Africa, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he wrote: “For he (Jesus) is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”
And there you have it.
Ultimately, December 25 was chosen, perhaps as early as A.D. 273. By 336 A.D., the Roman church calendar definitively records a nativity celebration by Western Christians on this date. Eastern churches maintained the January 6 commemoration together with Epiphany until sometime in the fifth or sixth centuries when the 25th day of December became the widely accepted holiday. Only the Armenian church held to the original celebration of Christ's birth with Epiphany on January 6.
A third theory is that December 25 was chosen so that 20th and 21st century advertisements and commercials could feature snow.
The actual term Christmas appeared in Old English as early as 1038 A.D. as Cristes Maesse, and later as Cristes-messe in 1131 A.D. It means "the Mass of Christ." This name was established by the Christian church to disconnect the holiday and its customs from pagan rites probably because of St. Augustine’s statement, "We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of Him who made it."
A few centuries ago Christmas was not the peaceful, yet hectic, busy and occasionally stressful family holiday we know today. Back then, Christmas' proximity to Saturnalia resulted in it its absorbing some of the Roman festival's excesses such as a carnival-like period of feasting, reveling, gambling, gift-giving and upended social positions. Enslaved people could don their masters' clothes and refuse orders and children had command over adults. Christmas in the Middle Ages featured feasting, drinking, riotous behavior and caroling for money. There would be a reaction. Religious Puritans disapproved of such excess in the name of Christ and considered the holiday blasphemous. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, went so far as to cancel Christmas when he seized control of the country in 1645. Decorations were forbidden and soldiers patrolled the street in search of celebrants cooking meat. Those happy go lucky Puritans in the American colonies took a similarly sour view of Christmas as Yuletide (note: Yule comes from the Norse December season), festivities were outlawed in Boston from 1659 through 1681.
Christmas has also become a secular celebration of family — one that many non-practicing Christians and people of other religions are comfortable accepting as their own. This secular nature of Christmas was officially acknowledged in 1870 when the United States Congress made it a federal holiday.
Sources - Biblical Archaeological Society, Christianity, About.com – Mary Fairchild, ChristianHistory.net -Elesha Coffman,
How Christmas Works - Sarah Dowdey
