DISPELLING THE MYTHS OF TIME

One of the more recent Christmas traditions has been the repeated assertions, both in the press and from many pulpits, that the 25 th December could not have been Jesus’ actual birthday.

According to this position, He could have been born on almost any other day of the year, except 25 December. It is asserted that 25 Dec. had originally been the pagan winter solstice festival, which had been taken over by the Christians to promote the new faith. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into this new Christian celebration. Numerous articles, booklets, radio programmes and even T.V documentaries have been produced asserting this position.

However, this opinion is itself based upon historical myths, incomplete research and ignorance of history.

Christians have celebrated the incarnation and nativity of the Lord Jesus on December 25 since the earliest centuries. Long before the conversion of Constantine and the end of the persecution by the Roman Empire, 25 December was already established as a venerable and tenured tradition for celebrating Christmas Day.

The assertion, therefore, that Christmas is a creation of the Roman Catholic Church and that it has something to do with the mass, is false. The tradition of Christmas, the Christ Festival, long pre-dates the establishment of what became the Roman Catholic Institution.

It is true that one Roman Emperor, Aurelian, did attempt to inaugurate 25 Dec. as a pagan festival “the birth of the unconquered Sun.” This was in AD 274. Aurelian was attempting to breathe new life into a declining paganism devastated by the advances of Christianity. However, the Roman pagan festival was instituted after the Christians had already been celebrating the birth of Christ on that day for many decades. Their pagan festival was an attempt to create an alternative tradition, which already was associated with the birth of Christ, and of some significance to the Roman Christians. This is not a case of Christians imitating the pagans. The pagans were attempting to imitate the Christians, by celebrating the Sun on the day when Christians celebrated the Son of God.

Already in the 2nd Century, church councils had attempted to establish the actual time of Christ’s birth. This was tied up with discussions over the date of Easter, the commemoration of Christ’s Death and Resurrection. Because Scripture identifies Christ’s death at the time of the Jewish Passover, the time of year could be known with precision. However, differences in the Jewish, Greek and Latin calendars, and the discrepancies between the Lunar (moon) and Solar (sun) date keeping caused intense debate over whether to observe Easter on a fixed date, no matter which day it fell on, or to ensure that it always fell on a Sunday, the first day of the week, as identified in the Gospels.

On the basis of records available to them at that time, the early church established 25 March as the Feast of Annunciation to mark when the Angel first appeared to Mary, and as the date of Christ’s conception. They also came to consensus that Christ was born 9 months later - on 25 December.

The first suggestion that I heard that Jesus could have actually been born on 25 December was from Dr. R.J. Rushdoony when I visited him at Chalcedon. Next I had the opportunity of climbing Lions Head with Prof. Dr. Rev. Francis Nigel-Lee (at that time the Principal of the Queensland Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Australia). Both Dr. Rushdoony and Prof. Nigel-Lee challenged my presuppositions concerning the “impossibility” of 25 December being the actual date of birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. George Grant in The Christian Almanac (Cumberland House, Nashville, Tennessee, 2000) states on page 753: "Christians have celebrated the incarnation and nativity of the Lord Jesus on December 25 since at least the early part of the Third Century - just a few generations removed from the days of the Apostles. By 336, when the Philocalinn calendar - one of the earliest documents of the Patriarchal church - was first utilized, Christmas Day was already a venerable and tenured tradition."

It needs to be noted that, from the earliest days of the Roman Imperial calendar, the New Year was celebrated on 25 March – the first day of spring (in the Northern hemisphere). This is why September, October, November, December derived from the Latin words, Septem (7), Octo (8), Novem (9), and Decem (10).

The celebration of the New Year on 1 January dates back to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1600 in Scotland and 1752 in England.

From the 17 th Century, 1 January began to be celebrated in Christian nations as a day of Renewal – a renewal of vows, vision and vocation. It was on this day that guild members took their annual pledge, that husbands and wives renewed their marriage vows, and young believers recommitted themselves to walk in the Grace of the Lord.

25 December occurs in the northern hemisphere during the darkest time of the year. 25 Dec is one of the longest nights, and one of the shortest days of the year. So the early church establishing that the incarnation, when Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, occurred on the first day of spring, 25 March, and that His advent occurred when He was born at the darkest time of the year.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined… For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His Name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His Government and peace there will be no end.” Isaiah 9:2-7

1 January, as the first day of the New Year, follows 8 days after the birth of Christ, on the day when he would have been circumcised and come officially under the Covenant. 6 January was observed by the early church as the date when the wise men from the East brought gifts to the newborn King.

It is remarkable how so many people today, with no historical research, and next to no knowledge of the historical realities and complexities of 2,000 years ago, can assume that they know better than learned men and Church councils convened much closer to the events in question for the express purpose of ascertaining the most accurate dates of Christ’s birth, Crucifixion and Resurrection. But then we live in a world where everything is being questioned - even God’s Law and the Word of God.

So much of what we take for granted comes from the secular news media, secular educational institutions and from Hollywood. Not exactly institutions renowned for their friendship with the Christian Church. Anti-Christian bias and prejudice predominates in so much of the media today, and it is inevitable that many of us in the church have adopted views which are neither taught in the Scriptures, nor justified by historical research. There is a rising tide of anti-Christian intolerance worldwide. Through Hollywood and the news media, in schools and universities, through legislation and judicial pronouncements, Christians are losing freedoms at such a rate that, unless the church wakes up and works together to restore Christian freedoms, we will be seeing many more encroachments upon our schools, churches and homes.

Karl Marx declared: "The first battlefield is the rewriting of history." Our children have been bombarded with social engineering, values clarification, life skills, sex education, rewriting of history and promotion of evolutionism in the classroom. Every tenet of Christianity is under attack, even the very definition of marriage itself. Numerous Marxists and atheists, including in the ANC government in South Africa, have expressed their intention to abolish Christmas as a public holiday.

Even in the market place we are seeing many businesses acknowledge Islamic holidays such as Ramadan, but completely deleting all references to Christian holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. Of course, we cannot approve of the crass commercialisation and exploitation of Christian holidays such as Christmas. However, they do present us with wonderful evangelistic opportunities.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide celebrate Christmas as their biggest holiday of the year. We have always found it useful to remind people that Jesus is the reason for the season and that wise men still seek Him. To proclaim the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, that Jesus is Emmanuel - God with us. We also emphasise not only the Crib, but the Cross and the Crown. Jesus Christ died for our sins and He will come again.

The first time He came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the next time He returns it will be as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of kings and Lord of lords, to judge the living and the dead.

We should celebrate that Christ’s coming did replace desperation with joy, oppression with celebration, human sacrifices with Christmas festivals; Christ replaced Baal, Molech, Apollo, Mars, and Thor. At the time of greatest darkness, Christ came. “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:5

We do realise that the date of when the Lord may have been born is hardly relevant to the Gospel message, and nowhere did the Lord command us to remember His birth, although we are commanded to remember His death. We do not worship a babe in a cradle, but the Son of God who died on the cross, rose from the dead and is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

Christmas is a time to celebrate Christ’s victory over paganism. New Year’s day is a time to renew our vows, vision and vocation, and the first day of spring to celebrate the life of Christ.

Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74
Newlands
7725, Cape Town
South Africa
E-mail: admin@frontline.org.za
Web: www.frontline.org.za

Sources: The Christian Almanac, by Dr. George Grant & Gregory Wilbun, Cumberland House, 2000 www.Kingsmeadow.com
www.chalcedon.edu