The Origins of Christmas

by Joseph F. Kelly

It does leave one question. Could the names of Mary’s parents, so widely accepted in Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, be authentic? It is possible, but very unlikely. The Protoevangelium has turned Mary into the daughter of a wealthy family, has turned Joseph into general contractor, brought a midwife into the account of Jesus’ birth, given Joseph sons, and added many other elements that no one today would take seriously. Why, then, should the names of Mary’s parents be taken as authentic?

Pseudo-Matthew also tells a story that metamorphosed over time and became a staple of Christmas music in England, although less so in North America.

Serious objections existed to celebrating Christ’s birth. The leading biblical scholar of the period, the Alexandrian Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), pointed out that in the Bible only pagans like Pharaoh or sinful Jews like the Roman puppet king Herod Antipas celebrated their birthdays, and that Herod’s celebration had cost John the Baptist his head. Thus Christians should not celebrate the birthday of Christ or of any other biblical figure.

In the same passage in which he describes the Gnostic Christians’ search for a date, Clement discusses the views of a prominent Egyptian Gnostic group called the Basilideans, saying that they “hold the day of his [Jesus’] baptism as a festival, spending the night before as a festival,” and that some do this on the eleventh day of the Egyptian month Tubi. In the modern calendar, this date is January 6, the date of Epiphany for most contemporary Christians and the date of Christmas for some. More important, it would become the date of Christmas for many ancient Christians in the eastern Mediterranean regions.

Supporting this is the evidence of a fifth-century Balkan Christian named John Cassian, who said that the Egyptians of his day observed the tradition that Jesus had been both born and baptized on that day. So, if the Basilideans also celebrated Jesus’ birth on January 6, that date could have become acceptable in Egypt—this is probable, but far from proven.

The establishment of a Christmas season based on December 25 affected several other feasts. It was simple arithmetic to figure out that Jesus’ conception had occurred nine months earlier on March 25—again the exact date theory—and that became the date of the Annunciation (the third-century reckoning of the date of Christmas from the date of the Annunciation had long been forgotten). The feast of the Annunciation was observed rather early in Byzantium, but it did not become a feast in the Latin churches until the seventh century. The Old Testament book of Leviticus said that a woman who gave birth to a boy was considered to be unclean for forty days. Since Luke’s gospel said that Joseph and Mary went to the Jerusalem Temple for purification, by the fifth century early Christians assumed that this occurred forty days after Jesus’ birth. Thus the feast of the Presentation in the Temple fell forty days after December 25, that is, on February 2. The feast was often known as the Purification of Mary and dates to the fourth century. It was originally observed forty days after Epiphany, but when Christmas was firmly established on December 25, it moved to February 2. Since the medieval celebration of the feast involved the carrying of candles in procession, the feast became known in England as Candlemas, that is, the “candle Mass.” (In the modern United States, it has been overwhelmed by Groundhog Day.) Marian devotion grew in the fourth and fifth centuries, and with it grew feast...

is May 31. Luke linked Mary’s visit to Elizabeth’s pregnancy with John the Baptist, the last prophet before Christ. By the fourth century, John had his own feast. Since he was born six months before Jesus, one would expect it to be on June 25, but it is on June 24. Why? Because Jesus was born on the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year, and the days after his birth were longer and brighter. Instead of using calendar dates for John’s birthday, church leaders used meteorological ones, that is, John was born on the summer solstice after which the light—the great symbol—decreased. In a Christmas sermon the great African bishop and theologian Augustine of Hippo said this was appropriate because in the Gospel of John (3:30) the Baptist said of himself and Jesus, “he must increase, and I must decrease.”

In his epistles, the apostle Paul treats Jesus as fully human, one who redeemed the human race from sin by the death and resurrection of his body. The gospel Infancy Narratives clearly assume that Jesus was born a human being, although conceived in a special way. No New Testament writer doubted his full humanity, although the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:15) made the vital point that he never sinned. That did not make him less human because ancient Jews and Christians believed sin was a defect in our humanity and not an essential ingredient of it.

Future theologians may rethink or rework the Chalcedonian formulation, but the full humanity of Christ was from then on a matter of faith. Christmas had been a major liturgical event for a century before Chalcedon, but after that council, the doctrinal appropriateness of a feast celebrating Christ’s birth could no longer be questioned. He had been born a fully human person.

Regrettably, in their efforts to honor Jesus’ mother, the early Christians usually left the Scriptural Mary behind or outright ignored her. In Luke’s Annunciation account, Mary refers to herself as a “handmaiden” or “slave girl” in Greek, that is, she identifies with women on literally the lowest rung of society, pieces of property who were routinely abused. By the second century, some Christians, spurning the Bible, began to raise Mary’s social status—recall the passage in the

The veneration of the Savior by good magi heralded the destruction of the entire corrupt world of which the evil magi were a part.

Origen provided commentary on an obscure text about Isaac in the book of Genesis. In chapter 26, Isaac met three pagan men who previously hated him but who now recognized that the Lord was with him.

The Magi were often shown approaching Jesus and Mary, who is frequently shown seated on a throne, as ambassadors bearing gifts to royalty. They are always three in number, and they wear the traditional clothing of either Asia Minor or Persia, such as conical caps.

With the infallibility of hindsight, we can say that it was inevitable that someone would have to give them names.

“Spiritually interpreted, the three magi signify the three parts of the world, Asia, Africa, and Europe, that is, the entire human race, which took its origins from the three sons of Noah.” Bede had gotten this idea from the African theologian Augustine, who claimed that the Magi represented the entire Gentile world.

Although this mosaic set the pattern for the ethnic portrayals of the Magi, it had one big drawback. It did not show them as kings. As the royalist interpretation caught on in the Middle Ages, this Ravenna mosaic played a less influential role, although it still had some effect. When the Spaniards began to explore America and met people with red skin, whom they thought to be Indians, some Spaniards concluded that Caspar had come to Bethlehem from America, a notion supported by the real possibility that Caspar’s name had derived from that of an Indian king mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas.

Legends about saints grew quickly in the early Middle Ages.

In 1087 a group of enterprising Norman sailors from the city of Bari in southern Italy kidnapped the saint’s body from Myra and brought it to Bari, where the locals built a great cathedral to house it. To this day the body of St. Nicholas resides there.

Sundblom for a Coca-Cola advertisement of 1931. It is unlikely that the historical St. Nicholas would be able to recognize himself today. CHAPTER FIVE The Popular Acceptance of Christmas By the fifth century Christmas had become a major feast in most of the ancient churches.

On the sarcophagi, images of the Magi may have reminded people that the redeemer also had to die.

Like Ephraem, Prudentius emphasized the cosmic significance of the birth of Christ with references to the sky, earth, and sun. The first line speaks of how the sky will shine more brightly, a reminder that Christmas fell on the winter solstice and daylight increased every day after that.

When the Maker of Time, the Word of the Father, was made flesh, he gave us his birthday in time; and he without whose divine bidding no day runs its course, in his Incarnation reserved one day for himself. He himself with the Father precedes all spans of time, but, on this day, issuing forth from his mother, he stepped into the tide of the years. Man’s Maker was made man, that he, ruler of the stars, might nurse at his mother’s breasts; the Bread might be hungry, the Fountain be thirsty, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey.

In one of his poems, the Fourth Eclogue, the great Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) had spoken of the return of the virgo (virgin), the dawning of a new age, and a newborn son sent down from the heavens. In the late fourth century, a Christian writer named Jerome claimed that this passage referred to the birth of Christ, even though Virgil was a pagan. The African theologian Augustine accepted this assertion, and in the Middle Ages it was largely taken for granted. This notion was not unusual; recall that the

Arabic Infancy Gospel alleged that the Persian religious founder Zoroaster had done likewise. This tradition continued for a long time. Around the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted four sybils, pagan wise women from the classical era who were all believed to have forecast Christ’s coming.

Miles summed it up succinctly: “The pagan Romans became Christian, but Saturnalia remained.”

To be sure, the temptation to overdo the celebrating would always be there, and naturally, church leaders warned about excesses. But unlike the Puritans, most Christians saw—and still see—nothing wrong with having fun.

As Miles asked, “Who can wonder that Christmas contains incongruous elements, for old things, loved by the people, cannot easily be uprooted?” These early celebrations kept growing throughout the Middle Ages and have continued until today. In fact, this phenomenon disproves a very common misconception about Christmas, that it was a quiet religious holiday with no secular overtones until nineteenth-century capitalists turned it into a secular holiday in order to make money. Christmas has always had a secular element, which can flourish alongside the religious element and add to the season.

Christmas flourished in the Middle Ages but often had rough overtones, such as excessive eating, drinking, and gambling, all leftovers from Saturnalia.

In the seventeenth century in both England and New England, the Puritans rejected Christmas as unbiblical, loathed it for its “papist” name, that is, “Christ’s Mass,” and actually outlawed Christmas where and when they dominated the government. But in both England and America the views of larger bodies of Christians prevailed, and in the eighteenth century Christmas continued to be observed, although primarily as an adult holiday, replete with much food and alcohol.

The modern era has also called attention to those who suffer at Christmas, such as the poor, the lonely, and those who feel left out because they do not celebrate the holiday. And, of course, believing Christians still celebrate Christmas as the birthday of their Lord, just as they did all those centuries ago.