Christmas and Paganism Part 2: Jesus’ Death, Early Christianity, Ancient Judaism and Christmas

Part 1: December 25th was not an Ancient Pagan Holiday
Part 2: Jesus’ Death, Christmas and the Early Church
Part 3: The Winter Birth
Part 4: Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

In part 1, we established that Christians did not borrow the birth date of Sol, Mithras or Tammuz for Jesus. Nor did they appropriate the festival of Saturnalia.  In actuality, Jesus’ birth date was appropriated by pagans to counteract Christianity, after the date of His birth had already been established on December 25th.

Let’s look at how early Christians came to establish Jesus’ birthdate on December 25th, by going back to ancient Christian sources:

1. The Infancy Gospel of James 130 A.D

The earliest Christian source for the December 25th date of Jesus’ birth comes from the early 2nd century in the infancy gospel of James.

According to this text, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, served in the Temple during the Day of Atonement.  Just after this service period,  John the Baptist was conceived. This would have been around late September on our calendar or Tishri on the Hebrew calendar.

This would place the birth of John the Baptist in June and Christ in December, according to the 6 month difference in their births as listed in the Bible. The September service of Zacharias in the Temple is also upheld by a course roster in the Dead Sea Scrolls and research by Josef Heinrich Friedlieb who established that the first priestly course of Jojarib would have been during the destruction of Jerusalem on the ninth day of the month of Av. Thus, the course Jojarib was serving during the second week of Av and the course of Abijah would have been during the second week of the month of Tishri or the week of the Day of Atonement..

Note on the date of Christmas, from 30 Days, an Italian publication:

December 25 is explained as the ‘Christianization’ of a pagan feast, ‘birth of the Sol Invictus’; or as the symmetrical balance, an aesthetic balance between the winter solstice (Dec. 21-22) and the spring equinox (March 23-24). But a discovery of recent years has shed definitive light on the date of the Lord’s birth. As long ago as 1958, the Israeli scholar Shemaryahu Talmon published an in-depth study on the calendar of the Qumran sect [Ed. based , in part, on Parchment Number 321 — 4 Q 321 — of the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls], and he reconstructed without the shadow of doubt the order of the sacerdotal rota system for the temple of Jerusalem (1 Paralipomenon/Chronicles 24, 7-18) in New Testament times. Here the family of Abijah, of which Zechariah (Zachary) was a descendant, father of John the herald and forerunner (Luke 1, 5), was required to officiate twice a year, on the days 8-14 of the third month, and on the days 24-30 of the eighth month. This latter period fell at about the end of September. It is not without reason that the Byzantine calendar celebrated ‘John’s conception’ on September 23 and his birth nine months later, on June 24. The ‘six months’ after the Annunciation established as a liturgical feast on March 25, comes three months before the forerunner’s birth, prelude to the nine months in December: December 25 is a date of history.

John Chrysostom wrote of the temple roster and the birth date of Jesus, which by Chrysostom’s calculations was in December:

His third argument follows the approach of the De solstitiis in using the Lucan chronology and the assumption that Zacharia was High Priest during the feast of Tabernacles in the year John the Baptist was conceived. Chrysostom counts off the months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and dates Mary’s conception from the sixth month of Elizabeth’s, Xanthikos on the Macedonian calendar, then counts off another nine months to arrive at the birthdate of Christ. -Sunsan K Roll {2} , ‘Toward the Origins of Christmas’, pp. 100-101 (1995).

2. Clement of Alexandria 196 A.D.

The Catholic Encyclopedia on Christmas states that:

About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria in the Stromata says that certain Egyptian theologians “over curiously” assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ’s birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus.”….. “though they did this believing that the ninth month, in which Christ was born, was the ninth of their own calendar.

Clement, however, also tells us that the Basilidians celebrated the Epiphany, and with it, probably, the Nativity, on 15 or 11 Tybi – 10 or 6 January.

January 6th on the Julian Calendar is our December 25th. The Eastern Churches retain the use of the Julian Calendar to this day.  Those who use the modern calendar keep Christs birth on the 25th of December. Epiphany commemorates when the Magi visited Christ.

Clement stated that the Basilidians were keeping Jesus’ birth in the late 2nd century on what would be our December 25th and that the Egyptians were in error for keeping it in May.

Clement believed that Christ was born on January 6th on the Alexandrian Calendar:

Writing shortly after the assassination of Commodus on December 31, AD 192, Clement of Alexandria provides the earliest documented dates for the Nativity. One hundred ninety-four years, one month, and thirteen days, he says, had elapsed since then, which corresponds to a birth date of NOVEMBER 18TH or, if the forty-nine intercalary days MISSING FROM THE ALEXANDRIAN calendar are added, January 6TH  -Encyclopedia Romana, Sol Invictus

Clement of Alexandria gives us the date for the birth of Christ at least 75 years before Aurelian inititated the games of Sol in 274 A.D.

Clement also cited March 25th for the death of Christ and for His conception or the annunciation.

3. Hippolytus of Rome 200 A.D.

Hippolytus also listed Jesus’ death on March 25th and His birth on December 25th:

For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls.

Some reject Hippolytus’ commentary on Daniel as not authentic, however, even if it were not, Hippolytus upholds the March 25th conception and death multiple times in other works that are known to be authentic:

Hippolytus, a younger contemporary of Clement, does state that the Nativity had occurred on December 25…. Although the statement may be a later interpolation, he reiterates several decades later (in AD 235) that Jesus was born nine months after the anniversary of the creation of the world, which Hippolytus believed to have been on March 25 (Chronicon, 686ff). The Nativity then would be on December 25.-Encyclopedia Romana, Sol Invictus

Note that the anniversary of the creation of the world was believed to be on March 25th.

4. Julianus Africanus 221 A.D.

Julianus Africanus is another early Christian who believed that the conception of Christ was the same date as the crucifixion,  which he cited as March 25th.

Sextus Julianus Africanus, before 221: 22 March = the (first) day of creation, 25 March = both the annunciation and the resurrection. -Susan K Roll, ‘Toward the Origins of Christmas’, p. 87 (1995).

Julianus wrote around 221 A.D. This is 52 years before the first possible pagan source for the December 25th date, Aurelian.  Again, a March 25th conception would bring us to a December birth. Therefore, early Christians based Jesus’ birth date on the date of His death by simply counting nine months ahead arriving at December 25th:

But a North African Christian named Sextus Julius Africanus had a different idea. He contended that the Son of God became incarnate not at his birth but at his conception, so if Mary conceived him on March 25, he would have been born nine months later on December 25.- IBID

5. The Constitutions of the Apostles 250 A.D.

Another early Christian writing, the Constitutions of the Apostles, cited the 25th of the ninth month as Jesus’ birth date on the Hebrew Calendar:

Brethren, observe the festival days; and first of all the birthday which you are to celebrate on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month (Tebeth/December); after which let the Epiphany be to you the most honoured, in which the Lord made to you a display of His own Godhead, and let it take place on the sixth of the tenth month; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Constitutions of the Holy Apostles: Sec. III.—On Feast Days and Fast Days

Note: The ninth month on the Hebrew Calendar, Tebeth, corresponds to our December.

So why did the early Church base Jesus’ conception and birth on His death? The answer to this question is found in Ancient Judaism:

The Talmud 2nd Century A.D.

In ancient Judaism it was believed that all great prophets died on the date of their conception. Jesus, early Christians believed, had been conceived on the day He died, March 25th. Therefore ,He was born sometime in December:

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born … and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)14 Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later  -Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.

“It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25 March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.” -William J. Colinge, Historical Dictionary of Catholicism

This idea, known as the Integral Age Theory, was the basis for the December birth date for Christ. Thus, the calculation of Jesus’ birth on December 25th came to us from Judaism, not paganism.

French Scholar Duchesne was one of the first to point this connection out:

In a passage of only a few pages in his Origines Du Culte Chretien (first edition 1889, fifth edition 1920), Duchesne sets out his theory for the origins of Christmas. He first discounts the notion that Christmas was instituted to as a deliberate distraction for Roman Christians from the feast of Saturnalia (disproven because Saturnalia runs from 17-23 December) and secondly that Christmas was intended as a rival for the feast of Natalis Invicti, which Duchesne believes identical with Mithras, which fails to account for the 6 January date. While allowing for the historical indeterminacy of the date, Duchesne cites the 25 March date for Christ’s passion given by Clement of Alexandria, the De Pashca Computus, Lactantius, Tertullian and Hippolytus in both the Paschal Tables and the “Commentary on Daniel”.…..Therefore, according to Duchesne,the incarnation (or annunciation to Mary) must have taken place on 25 March, and the birth of Christ on 25 December”

Conclusion

Thus far we have shown that the December 25th date for the Nativity is exclusively Christian in origin and related to the integral age theory in ancient Judaism.  In Part Three we will look closer at the myth that Jesus could not have been born in winter and the claim that He was born during the feast of Sukkot. However, the evidence shows that He was born in December, during the celebration of Hannakuh, as we will see in the next part.

Part 1: December 25th was not an Ancient Pagan Holiday
Part 2: Jesus’ Death, Christmas and the Early Church
Part 3: The Winter Birth
Part 4: Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

For more information on the historicity of Christmas as a Christian celebration and Scholarship proving it to have no pagan connections please see:
Biblical Archaeology – How December 25th became Christmas
Answering Islam – Christmas: Pagan Festival or Christian Celebration? Dr. Anthony McRoy
Mere Christian – How the Pagans Stole Christmas!
Lutheran Satire – Horus Ruins Christmas
LogosApologia – Christmas on December 25th is not from Paganism!
Steadfast Lutherans – Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies-Christmas

Image by ?Merry Christmas ? from Pixabay