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of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.16

1. Haldane, Reasons of a Change, 50–51.

2. Goldsmith, History of Rome, 42.

3. Minucius Felix, Octavius, ch. 25.

4. Bannerman, Church of Christ, 1:414.

5. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:396.

6. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism.

7. Miles, Christmas, 23.

8. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 3:380, n. 1, quoting Codex Justinianus.

9. Bauckham,“Sabbath and Sunday,” 302–7.

10. www.bookofconcord.org, Art. 28; Calvin, Selected Works, 2:157–63.

11. Journal of Calendar Reform, 23:128n.

12. Weigall, Paganism, 231.

13. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 1:30.

14. Grant, Collapse and Recovery, 51.

15. Dyer, British Popular Customs, 396.

16. Nissenbaum, Battle for Christmas, 4.

      Down the Centuries

T. K. Cheyne’s Encyclopædia Biblica cites a famous learned Jesuit—A.Lupi—declaring in 1785 that there is not a single month in the year to which the Nativity has not been assigned by some writer or other.17 This ought to remind us of the great ambiguity in establishing Christ’s birth, an ambiguity purposed by God in his providential sovereignty.

      The first date connected with the birth of the Lord Jesus, was not December 25 but January 6. The origin of this Epiphany festival is very obscure, neither can we say with certainty what its meaning was at first, the date probably having a pagan origin in connection with the birth of the world (the Egyptians celebrating the winter solstice on this date since 2000 BC). The Alexandrian Gnostic heretic—Basilides—teaching between 117 and 138 AD, and his followers, appear to be the first in the church to link this date with the Lord’s birthday. Epiphany had come to be regarded as referring to two different events: the appearance of the wise men to worship Jesus and his appearance to be baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, although it also alluded to his birth/nativity. (In the Greek Church to this day, Epiphany remains of greater significance than Christmas, and in the Armenian Church, December 25 is not recognized at all.)

      Respecting the early church fathers, Irenaeus (130–202) from Polycarp’s hometown of Smyrna in Asia Minor, Origen (184–254) from Alexandria in Egypt, and Tertullian (160–225) from Carthage, modern Tunisia, do not include Christmas or Epiphany, or their dates on their lists of feasts and celebrations (although Origen’s teacher—Clement of Alexandria (d. 215)—recorded that some Christians believed Jesus to have been born in April). Tertullian (dogmatic in his belief that Christ had been crucified on March 25, a date also believed by some to be the sixth day of Creation when Adam was made) rebuked Christians for partaking in pagan festivals.

Writing probably between 200 and 210, he states, “The Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din and sports, and banquets are celebrated with uproar.”18 We do not know if those referred to were believers brought up as Christians or those who had more recently come into the church. In any event, they obviously were still attached to the prevailing festivals of paganism in their society. (Brumalia was the month-long pagan feast centered upon crop sowing that immediately preceded Saturnalia; Matronalia at the beginning of March, celebrated the goddess of childbirth.)

Origen, who spent the last twenty-five years of his life in Palestine, writing around 248, laments that in spite of Paul’s criticism of believers in Galatia and elsewhere observing Jewish festal days, Christians were still “observing” different days such as Preparation, Passover, and Pentecost. There is, however, no mention of pagan days and Origen makes it clear that the most important day to be observed is the Lord’s Day.19 Sextus Julius Africanus (c. 160–240) was a Christian traveller and historian who wrote Chronographiai in 221, popularizing the belief that Christ was conceived on March 25 and therefore born on December 25. In coming decades this led some in the church to desire the recognition and celebration of December 25 as Christ’s birthday, something that Origen emphatically denounced in 245, not on the basis of the date chosen but on the principle that such birthday celebrations lacked biblical warrant, as he said himself, as if Christ “were a king Pharaoh.”20 (Pharaoh and Herod being the only examples in the Bible where birthdays are recorded, both days characterized by murder: Gen 40:20; Matt 14:6.)

      As we noted in the preceding chapter, in 313 Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity (he claimed to have been converted but his policies and lifestyle merely display a recognition of Christianity’s importance in the politics of his empire, not of any saving change in his heart). Paganism was not banished but all religions tolerated. This legalization made it easier to establish universal dates of feasts and organize their celebration; indeed, some historians credit Constantine with replacing the pagan events on December 25 with what would later become known as Christmas or the Nativity.

      The Arch of Constantine I, Rome, built in 315 AD.

      Constantine established the capital of the eastern part of the empire in Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honor. With the exception of Julian, who in 362 sought to displace Christianity and restore the empire’s former power by embracing polytheism (including Mithraism), the subsequent emperors after Constantine all observed Christianity.

      In the East, the concelebration of the two events of Christ’s birth and baptism continued for some time after Rome had instituted the separate feast of Christmas. Gradually, however, as the church in Rome grew in its power and influence, the Roman use spread: at Constantinople, December 25 was introduced in about 380 by the theologian Gregory Nazianzen; at Antioch it appeared in 388; and at Alexandria in 432 (the church of Jerusalem refusing to adopt the new feast until the seventh century).

      Moreover, the Arian controversy raging at this time over Christ’s Divinity (debated in several convened councils, from Nicaea, just south

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