The first season of the Church Year in the Liturgical Calendar is Advent. Perhaps the biggest controversy of late regarding this season in the pop culture of the Anglo-sphere has been the date of Christmas. In the days of the Early Church in Britain, the Venerable Bede recorded that the Church catholic almost schismed over the date of Easter, so it’s not an unusual problem.
From the Da Vinci code to Zeitgeist people have become convinced that Christianity ‘stole’ paganism’s event on Dec. 25th (a much more valid accusation would be All Souls Day – were I an infidel). Such was not at all the case. There was a belief among the Jews at the time of Christ that great prophets were conceived (in a sense born), and died on the same day (perhaps begun by lazy tombstone-engravers?). It then becomes obvious why Dec. 25th. Jewish Passover was in the spring, which was when Christ was killed. 9 Months after Mar. 25th is Dec 25th. Voila! Easter and Christmas. Problem solved (at least for the Western Church). The Greeks had a different system by a few weeks, but by and large everyone agreed to celebrate it then.
Now, it is claimed that the Pagans celebrated the birth of the Sun god, Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun on Dec. 25th by these skeptics. Aha! The Christians merely poached the date.
Like so much popular history, this claims is based on literally no information in the historical record. Some scholars even claim that if there was such a celebration it was post-Christian and an imitation of nativity celebrations! But because I like to kick my opponents while they’re down, let’s pretend that there actually was a celebration of the sun god of Rome on Dec. 25.
1. Romans had thousands of gods, all of which were presumably born on a day. Had the god of the Shepherds been born on Dec. 25th, someone could make a documentary claiming that Christ’s birth was a myth since he claimed to be the Good Shepherd and obviously was a mere imitation of god x. With a man as collossal as Christ is, it’s easy to link him to many different things and so any quick connection between the Sun god and God the sun becomes weak.
2. Likewise the cool connection between the Sun god and God the Son only works in English. In Latin – the language the Romans spoke – you have Solis (sun) and Filius (son). There’s no literary resemblence.
3. C.S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and JFK all died on the same day, Nov. 22, 1963. Does this mean there was a conspiratorial plot or that one of these figures was invented? Of course not, there are millions of coincidences we see constantly in everyday life.
In any case, all calendars are merely conceptions of time. There’s no such thing as “monday” except in the minds of people. So when we say Christ was born on a day in the calendar, this is merely an abstraction (though the solar year does have consistency). Dec. 25th may not have been the exact day Christ was born, but it seems as good a day as any other to celebrate it, and since it has passed into Tradition and practice and is not abhorrent to the Scriptures, let us keep the feast!
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” – Matthew 1:21