There are a lot of traditions associated with Christmas. That’s true of families, Churches and - often less helpfully - wider society. Amongst those in the latter category will be the usual tedious outpouring of articles and pundits pontificating on a plethora of myths that are designed to benignly undermine and discredit the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, or as it’s known to most of us: Christmas.
Amongst these will be well-worn myths calling into question the historicity of the Gospels’ accounts of history. We’ll be told that the virgin-birth wasn’t ‘virginal’, and likely was never expected to be; the star wasn’t a ‘star’; there were no angels, and they didn’t appear to shepherds… and that it was all really just another ordinary day in Bethlehem that somehow got out of hand in a rather Monty-Pythonesque sort of way!
And irritatingly, this wearying nonsense will be presented as if it is the result of cutting edge scholarly research, the conclusions of which are now beyond reasonable doubt. And of course, written between the lines will be the slightly patronising dismissal of those ‘poor uneducated Christians’ who still believe all that primitive imagery and legend as if actually happened… And with a despairing chuckle, said pundit will shake their head on cue, grateful that they are counted amongst the enlightened ones… Ho! Ho! Ho!
But there is another, way of undermining our celebration of the birth of Christ, which calls into question the origin of the Festival. Jesus, we are assured was not born on 25th December. We’re all expected to be shocked and traumatised by this revelation. What’s worse we’re told - before we’ve managed to catch our breath - the whole thing is just a Christian veneer plastered over a pagan celebration in a clumsy and rather ill-conceived attempt at evangelism. The story is that a variously attributed pagan festival (Saturnalia is common) was celebrated on 25th December, usually associated with the winter solstice, or the sun, or light, or fire… something warming to keep us going through the depths of winter. And then those pesky Christians, trying to stop everyone having fun, hijacked it and turned it into a Church service. After all, why invent your own festivals when you can just nick someone else’s.
It’s all rather irksome, especially when re-iterated by Christian leaders, trying to be edgy and radical.
Like I said, tedious. I do wish Christians would read history… actually, just generally read. And read longer than it takes to learn how to ask (sometimes important) questions. That’s a serious point actually. A lot of Christians have read enough to know there are questions to be asked, and then they stop, as if living with those questions is a virtue. It isn’t. Keep reading and you’ll find that there are generally great answers to those questions… and that actually the questions aren’t particularly new or revolutionary. The same tired questions and attempts at undermining Christianity have been around almost as long as the Gospel itself. They certainly aren’t the result of contemporary scholarship! They aren’t new, radical, or edgy…
Anyway - I’ve drifted a bit. Why do we celebrate Christmas on 25th December. Well it’s all to do with a Libyan genius, a polymath called Sextus Julius Africanus. As far as we can make out he lived c.160-240 AD, was incredibly well travelled, served for a while as a soldier in Rome’s legions, and afterwards seemed to enjoy some political prestige in the Empire, with access to the Imperia Court. He was also incredibly well educated, and studied at the Christian Catechetical School (an early DTP) at Antioch around 215, possibly under the Church Father, Origen.
Julius wrote a book in which he sought to provide a unified history of the whole world. Like I said… educated, though to be fair there was less history 1,800 years ago. And for a variety of reasons to do as much with theology as history, he arrived at the conclusion that the appearance of Gabriel to Mary (and thus her conception) would have happened on 25th March - which was the date of the Spring Equinox in 1 BC. I’m not saying I agree… just that it’s what he thought.
It doesn’t take a polymath to work out that 9 months after 25th March would have been the 25th December. And so he proposed the Church celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Christ then. And after about a century of discussion and debate, some of the Church decided they would. Not all of the Church. The ‘Eastern’ Church that looked more to places like Alexandria and Antioch for leadership, thought 7th January made more sense (which in itself calls into question the whole' ‘we nicked a pagan festival’ narrative). But, I’m not getting into why they did that just now (it was to do with different calenders)… though they still do think we should celebrate Christmas on 7th January.
But the point is, there isn’t a pagan festival in sight. We might not agree with the (theo-)logic of the decisions the Early Church made, but we can at least try to understand why they made them; and not just go along with some nonsense about them rather clumsily and stupidly hijacking a festival that didn’t even belong to them! By and large, the Early Church Fathers had good reasons - and by good I mean Biblical and theological - for structuring the Church’s worship as they did. And some yahoo pastor trying to be edgy 2,000 years later, or some scholar hoping for their five minutes of fame on daytime TV, churning out the same old tired cliches really isn’t something that should bother us overmuch.
