How Did Christians Decide Christmas Was On December 25th?

The Nativity by He Qi

A 12th century biblical scholar named Jacob Bar-Salibi wrote a bible commentary dated to 1171 A.D., a copy of which was discovered in the 19th century. In a note written in the margin of the copy that was found is the claim that Christmas was moved from January 6th to December 25th to coincide with the Roman pagan holiday Sol Invictus. From this, Christian critics, legalist Christian sects, and Christian cults condemned the celebration of Christmas as being of pagan origin. While the Bible makes no mention of the date when Christ was born, there is quite a bit of evidence that He was not born in December, namely that the Bible states that there were Shepherds keeping their flocks in the fields at night, which is not something they would have done in the winter. There are other ways to estimate the time of Christ’s birth, but suffice it to say, He was not born in December. Does that mean that Christmas is a celebration of pagan origin?

20th century scholarship, much of it still unknown outside of work by historians and scholars of ancient texts, has actually refuted this idea by looking at the Christian practices and writing of the time the supposed borrowing took place. When Aurelian proclaimed Sol Invictus to be an official cult of the Roman Empire on December 25th, 274 A.D. and thus making that day the feast day of Sol Invictus, most Christians were not celebrating the birth of Christ. There was some interest in determining the date of His birth, with Clement of Egypt writing in 200 A.D., recording some of the proposed dates as March 21st, April 15th, 20th, or 21st, or May 20th. At any rate, one of the reasons why Christians were persecuted from the foundation of the religion until the tolerance of Constantine in 312 A.D. was that they did everything they could to remain wholly separate and distinct from non-Christians. They would not have adopted a holiday from pagans at all from 274 to 312, as well as for many years after.

It was not until the late 6th century that Pope Gregory suggested “Christianizing” pagan celebrations in hopes of getting pagans to adopt Christianity. This also explains why many modern Christmas decorations like the Christmas tree, Yule log, wreath and lights all have pagan origins. No Christian writer prior to Gregory even suggested such a thing. On the contrary, their works suggested the exact opposite, encouraging pagans to throw off all semblance of paganism. Augustine in the third century, wrote a book titled Confessions in which he describes his conversion to Christianity and his separation from paganism and in addition to defending Christianity against pagan scholars, he lifts up his mother as an example by telling how she would stop any activity when she found it had the slightest similarity to pagan celebrations. Since Augustine was the model theologian for the early church and many theologians of his time and for centuries after tried to be like him, it should come as no surprise that there is no encouragement from any writer until Pope Gregory to adopt Christian celebrations and paganize them.

The problem is that Christmas appears as a Christian celebration long before the time of Pope Gregory. Pope Julius I proclaimed December 25th to be the official date to celebrate Christ’s birth in 350 A.D. The first official celebration of Christmas in the Roman Empire was on December 25th, 336 A.D. There is even a record that shows that Christians in Antioch (present day Turkey) celebrated Christmas on December 25th in about 150 A.D. The earliest record of the term “Sol Invictus” is from 158 A.D.

If Jesus was not born in December and Christians did not take the date from pagans, where did the date of December 25th come from? Early Christians may have determined the date by determining Christ’s death. In about 200 A.D., Tertullian of Carthage said that Jesus died on March 25th. A rabbinical tradition that important events repeat on the same date caused Tertullian and other North African Christians to believe that the annunciation—Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit—happened on March 25th as well. Augustine was familiar with the March 25th date and reported it in a sermon he preached.

“For he is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”

In other words, if Jesus was conceived on March 25th, a belief held by Christians for at least 74 years before Aurelian’s proclamation of Sol Invictus, then simply adding nine months gives a date of December 25th according to the same tradition. The evidence is quite clear that Christians were using this date for 124 years prior to Aurelian’s proclamation and even several years before a belief in Sol Invictus even began.

No matter how this issue is approached, the birth of Christ was believed by Christians to have been on December 25th long before the proclamation of Sol Invictus