Why Is Christmas on December 25?

Part 5: Summary and Conclusions

Author. K.R. Harriman

Adoration of the Magi. Detail from the mosaic decoration of the triumphal arch, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, ca. 435.

We could continue further into abstruse depths on observances of December 25 as the date for Jesus’s birth, but this should be sufficient (for more on the history of Christmas observance, see Talley, Origins, 134–55). It is more important to summarize where we have been in this journey through the early church:

1) One of the chief criticisms of the CT is that it seems to attribute an astounding level of chronological ingenuity to the patristic authors. However, this is precisely what we have observed through the various efforts in early church accounting for the birth of Jesus. Their calculations are flawed in various ways, but they certainly seem to have used calculation to arrive at or to support their conclusions about Jesus’s date of birth. Still, CT by itself is insufficient.

2) While the rabbis did not provide the goods of an integral age theory that lies at the basis of common articulations of the CT, they nevertheless illustrate a chronological interest they shared in common with our patristic authors, namely in correlating events of creation and salvation history on the same month or the same day. This fits with a larger theme of patristic theology that I cannot get into here of correlating creation and redemption/new creation in events, themes, images/symbols, and so on.

3) In addition to the events of creation, the patristic authors had an affinity for connecting the gospel and the events of salvation history with natural aspects of creation, particularly astronomical objects and phenomena. In this respect, both Jews and Christians shared the larger culture’s interest in solar, lunar, and astral objects and phenomena as primal symbols with multitudinous possibilities of association. A chief difference is that the Jews and Christians were interested in these things as cosmic entities and events as “signs” and markers of significant time (per Gen 1:14), but not as deities, as they were to others. Quite apart from chronological considerations, the winter solstice was associated with the extension of days in the increase of sunlight; thus, it is easy to see why the early church could have seen this day as being symbolically appropriate for Jesus’s birth.

Adoration of the Magi. The Epiphany panel at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 6th c.

4) Those who have proposed that the date of Jesus’s birth was determined on the basis of the date of both his death and annunciation do not seem to have a strong basis in the actual evidence. In some cases, there is express link between these dates, but when that link is present it seems less like there is a causal link from one to the other and more like a confirmatory link for each other, particularly because of the other chronological arguments brought in.

5) Biblical texts do in fact seem to play a significant role in these chronologies, whether it is the prophecy of Daniel 9 or the implied and explicit chronological information of Luke 1 (and, to a lesser extent, Luke 2). While some of this biblical information was certainly misinterpreted, its importance to these determinations is evident.

6) The December 25 date was neither the only nor the earliest proposed in the textual evidence available today. A variety of Christians across the Roman world (we have seen representatives from multiple places in North Africa, Rome/Italy, Asia Minor, Syria, Cyprus, Galilee, and Judea, as well as one later reference from Scythia Minor in the case of Dionysius Exiguus) engaged in an ongoing debate about such dates for centuries. As noted earlier, our terminus ad quem for the celebration of this day is 336 and it is difficult to be more definite than that on when Christians began celebrating Jesus’s birth as a festival. But we have seen that by then multiple accounts had implied or explicitly stated a birth date for Jesus in winter or specifically on the winter solstice of December 25. It was not a consensus of the early church, but it is interesting how many different threads lead in this direction.

It seems clear that the early church fathers show no evidence of taking over a pre-existing pagan festival and that their reasoning for identifying December 25 as Jesus’s birth — and even those who do not arrive at the conclusion attest to the same type of reasoning — rests on varying mixes of chronological calculations, biblical texts, correlations of events in creation and salvation history, and associations with astronomical objects and phenomena (particularly the cycle of the seasons). In the closing years of the fourth century and onwards, there was also a reliance on the strength of tradition, which by that time attested most broadly to December 25.

Adoration of the Magi. Detail from the Sarcophagus of Crispina, mid-4th c.

It is possible, however, that all of this reasoning was presented after the fact to rationalize a conclusion reached on other grounds. As there was not necessarily a decisive moment or document that made December 25 popular in the West and it was more of a development, we cannot point to decisive arguments that definitely led to this conclusion, as we might be more equipped to do in the cases of the ecumenical councils. There remains a lot of mystery about the history of Christmas outside of what these documents attest. It is possible that one or more of the identified bases was convincing to enough people for the date to develop into a matter of tradition that others could accept on the basis of its popularity and the trust placed in those who passed on the tradition. Or it could be that the date was established as one early tradition among others and that the arguments developed later to support the pre-existing tradition.

At the same time, we cannot rule out that the fathers accurately represent the type of reasoning that led to the emergence of this tradition. Considering that our evidence for this conclusion far outweighs the probability of the HRT, I see no problem with asserting the plausibility of our account here as an explanation for why much of the church settled on December 25 as the day of Jesus’s birth, even if their calculations were not necessarily accurate. Whether December 25 — or something approximating it — could have been Jesus’s actual birthday according to the information we have in the Gospels is beyond the scope of this analysis (although again, I have addressed this in the essay linked in part 1). But on the bases of what the patristic authors actually say, as well as the lack of evidence for alternative theories, such as the integral age and the HRT, we have good reason to think that the process of thought in the early church that led to this date assignment was based on calculation, biblical interpretation, historical and astronomical correlation, and — at some point — tradition. In one way or another, they may have gotten calculations wrong, but we should acknowledge their aim to get it right and their desire to honor their Lord whom they regarded as their Creator and Redeemer; the one through whom all of space and time was made and through whom they will be made anew; their true Sun of Righteousness in the midst of this age of darkness; their long-expected Messiah proclaimed by the grand story of Scripture. It is this same one that we should honor with worship on December 25 and on every day that he has made.

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Read all 5 installments in K. R. Harrimans excellent series:

• Why Is Christmas on December 25?. Part 1: Scope, Stakes, and Saturnalia | by SAROLTA TATAR | Christianity — History and Culture | Dec, 2020 | Medium
• Why Is Christmas on December 25?. Part 2: The Sol Invictus Factoids | by SAROLTA TATAR | Christianity — History and Culture | Dec, 2020 | Medium
• Why Is Christmas on December 25?. Part 3: The Apologetic False Trail | by SAROLTA TATAR | Christianity — History and Culture | Dec, 2020 | Medium
• Why Is Christmas on December 25?. Part 4: What the Church Fathers… | by SAROLTA TATAR | Christianity — History and Culture | Dec, 2020 | Medium