It Was Not the Oldest Feast, but It Soon Became Popular in the Churches.
Christmas was not among the earliest feasts anciently celebrated by the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their list of feasts; Origen, mindful perhaps of the dishonorable imperial Natalitia, states (Hom. VIII on Leviticus, in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, XII, 495) that, in Sacred Scripture, only sinners, never the saints, celebrated the day of their birth; Arnobius (VII, 32, in Patrologia Latina, V, 1264) even ridicules the “birthdays” of the gods.
The earliest evidence for this feast we find in Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria (Strom., I, XXI, in P.G., VIII, 888) says that certain Egyptian theologians “in a rather curious manner” assign not only the year but also the day of Christ’s birth, placing it on the 25th of Pachon (20 May), in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Augustus. Ideler (Chron., II, 397, N.) thinks they did so believing that the ninth month in which Christ was born was the ninth month of their own calendar. Others declare the date to have been the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi (19 or 20 April). Clement, in his work “De paschæ computus,” written in 243 and falsely attributed to Cyprian (P.L., IV, 963 ff.), gives 28 March as the date of Christ’s birth, the day on which the material sun was created. But Lupi has shown (Zaccaria, Dissertazioni ecc. del p. A. M. Lupi, Faenza, 1785, p. 219) that there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned the date of Christ’s birth. Clement, however, also tells us that the Basilidians celebrated the Epiphany, and, probably together with that feast, the Nativity of Christ, on the 15th or 11th of Tybi (10 or 6 January).
This twofold commemoration became popular partly because the appearing to the shepherds was regarded as a manifestation of the glory of Christ, commemorated among the most important solemnities and kept on 6 January; and partly because, in the manifestation given at the Baptism, many codices (for example the Codex Bezæ) erroneously read that the divine words were: “Thou art my beloved Son, this day have I begotten thee” instead of “in whom I am well pleased,” read in Luke 3:22. Abraham Ecchellensis (Labbe, II, 402) cites, in the Constitutions of the Church of Alexandria from the time of Nicaea, the phrase: dies Nativitatis et Epiphaniæ; Epiphanius (Hær., li, ed. Dindorf, 1860, II, 483) records a striking semi-Gnostic ceremony at Alexandria in which, on the night of 5–6 January, a strange cross bearing the image of Kore stamped upon it was carried in procession around a crypt, while the chant was sung: “Today, at this hour, Kore has given birth to the Eternal”; John Cassian, in his “Conferences” (X, 2, in P.L., XLIX, 820), written between the years 418 and 427, says that the Egyptian monasteries still observe the “ancient custom”; but Paul of Emesa preached on the 29th of Choiak (25 December) and on 1 January 433 before Cyril of Alexandria, and his sermons (see Mansi, IV, 293; appendix to the book of the Acts, Conc. Eph.) show that the December celebration was firmly established in that place, and the calendars demonstrate its permanence. For this reason the tradition of keeping this feast in December reached Egypt around the years 427 and 433.
In Cyprus, at the end of the fourth century, Epiphanius declares, against the Alogi (Hær., li, 16, 24, in P.G., XLI, 919, 931), that Christ was born on 6 January and baptized on 8 November. Ephraem of Syria (whose hymns are for the Epiphany and not for Christmas) shows that Mesopotamia still kept the feast of Christ’s birth thirteen days after the winter solstice; that is, on 6 January; likewise, Armenia ignored, and still ignores, the December celebration. (Cf. Euthymius, “Pan. Dogm.,” 23, in P.G., CXXX, 1175; Nicephorus, “Hist. Eccl.,” XVIII, 53, in P.G., CXLVII, 440, etc.) In Cappadocia, the sermons of Gregory of Nyssa on St. Basil (who died before 1 January 379) and his two following sermons, preached on the feast of St. Stephen (P.G., XLVI, 788; cf. 701, 721), show that in the year 380 the 25th of December was already kept there, unless, following the over-ingenious arguments of Usener (Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Bonn, 1889, 247–250), we are to place those sermons in the year 383. Asterius of Amasea (fifth century) and Amphilochius of Iconium (a contemporary of Basil and Gregory) also kept in their dioceses both feasts—Epiphany and Nativity—separately (P.G., XL, 337; XXXIX, 36).
As for the Holy Land, in the year 385 Egeria was deeply impressed by the splendid feasts of the infancy of the Lord Jesus celebrated at Jerusalem. They kept the “Nativity”; the Bishop went by night to Bethlehem, returning to Jerusalem for the celebrations of the day. The feast of the Presentation was kept forty days later. But this reckoning began from 6 January, and the feast lasted until the octave of that date (Peregr. Silv., ed. Geyer, pp. 75 ff.). Again (on p. 101) she mentions Easter and the Epiphany as most important feasts. As we can see, in 385 the 25th of December was not observed at Jerusalem. This datum confirms the citations given by John of Nikiû (c. 900), taken from the letters between Cyril of Jerusalem (348–386) and Pope Julius I (337–352), whose purpose was to have Christmas celebrated in Armenia on 25 December (see P.L., VIII, 964 ff.). Cyril declares that his clergy cannot, on the one and the same date of the feast of the Nativity and Baptism, carry out a procession to Bethlehem and to the Jordan. (This latter practice is an anachronism.) He asks Julius to assign to Christmas its true date, “taking it from the census documents brought by Titus to Rome”; Julius assigns 25 December as the date. Another document (Cotelier, Patr. Apost., I, 316, ed. 1724) says that Julius wrote to Juvenal of Jerusalem (c. 425–458), informing him that Gregory Nazianzen, at Constantinople, was being criticized for “dividing the feast in two.” Julius died in the year 352, and by 385 Cyril had introduced no change; indeed, Jerome, writing around 411, reproaches Palestine for celebrating the birth of Jesus (when He was hidden) on the day of the feast of the Manifestation. Cosmas Indicopleustes suggests (P.G., LXXXVIII, 197) that, even in the middle of the sixth century, Jerusalem was distinguished by combining the two commemorations, arguing that in Luke 3:23 the day of Christ’s baptism took place on the day of His birth. Nevertheless, the commemoration at Jerusalem of David and of the Apostle James was kept on 25 December, a fact which shows that this feast was not celebrated on that day. Usener, drawing arguments from the “Laudatio S. Stephani” of Basil of Seleucia (c. 430—P.G., LXXXV, 469), thinks that Juvenal tried to introduce this feast, but that the fame of Cyril’s name kept the date unchanged.
At Rome, the earliest evidence we have is in the Calendar of Philocalus (P.L., XIII, 675; it may be seen in full in J. Strzygowski, Kalenderbilder des Chron. von Jahre 354, Berlin, 1888), compiled in 354, which contains three important pieces of information. In the civil calendar, 25 December appears as “Natalis Invicti.” In the “Depositio Martyrum,” an ancient list of Roman and universally venerated martyrs, the 25th of December reads: “VIII kal. ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeæ.” It also mentions, on the “VIII kal. mart.” (22 February), the Chair of St. Peter. In the list of consuls we find four curious ecclesiastical entries: the days on which Christ was born and died; the arrival at Rome and the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul. This significant entry states that, during the consulate of (Augustus) Caesar and Paulus, Our Lord Jesus Christ was born on the eighth day before the Kalends of January (25 December), on a Friday, the fourteenth day of the moon. The details agree with tradition and with the probabilities. But tradition is constant in placing Christ’s birth on a Wednesday. Moreover, according to the date given for Christ’s death (A.D. 29), Christ died at twenty-eight years of age. Furthermore, the fact that these data appear in a list of consuls makes it clear that they are an interpolation. But are not these two data also in the “Depositio Martyrum”? Here we find only the day of Christ’s birth in the flesh, so that it may head the year of the spiritual birthdays of the martyrs; but 22 February is completely out of place. Here, as in the consular fasti, certain popular feasts were inserted for convenience. The civil calendar itself was not exclusively modified, for it ceased to be useful after the abandonment of the pagan feasts. Therefore, even though the “Depositio Martyrum” is, as is probable, of the year 336, it is not clear whether the calendar contains evidence earlier than Philocalus himself, that is, than 354, except in so far as the pre-existence of this popular celebration in fact represents the possibility of its official recognition. If the Chalki manuscript of Hippolytus be genuine, we should have evidence of this December feast from about the year 205. The relevant passage [which exists in the Chigi manuscript, without the words in brackets, and which has always been cited thus before George Syncellus (c. 1000)] reads as follows:
“The first coming of Our Lord in the flesh [in which He was begotten], at Bethlehem, took place [on 25 December, the fourth day] during the reign of Augustus [the forty-second year, and] in the year 5500 [from Adam]. He suffered in His thirty-third year [on 25 March, in the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, during the consulate of Rufus and Rubellius].”
The interpolation is clear, and it is a fact admitted by Funk, Bonwetsch, etc. The names of the consuls [which should have been Fufius and Rubellius] are wrong; Christ lives thirty-three years; in the genuine Hippolytus, thirty-one; these minute details have nothing in common with those of the millenarian Severian; moreover, it is scarcely credible that Hippolytus knew these particulars, when his contemporaries (Clement, Tertullian, etc.), in treating this subject, ignore it or keep silent; or that, after having published it, he continued without such annotations (Kellner, op. cit., p. 104, has an excursus on this passage).
St. Ambrose (de virg., III, 1, in P.L., XVI, 219) has preserved a sermon preached by Pope Liberius I at St. Peter’s, when, on the day of Natalis Christi, Marcellina, the sister of Ambrose, took the veil. The pontificate of this Pope lasted from May 352 to 366, except for the years 355–357, during which he was in exile. If Marcellina became a nun after the canonical age—twenty-five—and if Ambrose was born in the year 340, it is most probable that this event occurred after 357. Although the sermon abounds in references appropriate to the Epiphany (the wedding at Cana, the multiplication of the loaves, etc.), this is apparently due to (Kellner, op. cit., p. 109) an order in his train of thought, and not to its having been delivered on 6 January, a feast which was known at Rome only considerably later. Nevertheless, Usener maintains (p. 272) the theory that Liberius preached it on that date, in 353, instituting the feast of the Nativity in December of that same year; but Philocalus justifies our supposition that this feast preceded his pontificate by some time, although Duchesne relegates it to 243 (Bull. crit., 1890, 3, pp. 41 ff.), which is not much to be commended.
In the West, the Council of Saragossa (380) still ignores the feast of 25 December (see can. XXI, 2). Pope Siricius, writing in the year 385 (P.L., XII, 1134) to Himerius in Spain, distinguishes the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany; but it is not clear whether he is referring to the Roman or the Spanish custom. Ammianus Marcellinus (XXI, ii) and Zonaras (Ann., XIII, 11) date a visit that Julian the Apostate made to a church at Vienne, in Gaul, during the Epiphany and the Nativity, respectively. Unless there were two visits, Vienne in the year A.D. 361 combined these feasts, although the exact date is doubtful. In the time of Jerome and Augustine, the December feast was established, although the latter (Epp., II, liv, 12, in P.L., XXXIII, 200) omits it from a list of feasts of the first importance. From the fourth century onward, the Western calendars assign this feast to 25 December. In conclusion, at Rome Christmas was celebrated on 25 December from before 354; in the East, at Constantinople, not before 379, unless we follow Erbes and reject Gregory, in which case we should say it was from 330. Therefore it is almost universally accepted that the date reached the East from Rome, by way of the Bosphorus, during the anti-Arian revival, and thanks to the defenders of orthodoxy. De Santi (L’Orig. delle Fest. Nat., in Civiltà Cattolica, 1907), following Erbes, holds that Rome took the feast of the Epiphany from the East, with a clear Christmas sense, and, together with a growing number of Eastern Churches, kept it on 25 December; afterward, East and West divided their feasts, leaving the Epiphany on 6 January and Christmas on 25 December. The first hypothesis remains the more acceptable.
Author: Cyril Martindale
