I was taught that Christians for the most part came to understand the true identity of Jesus as a result of the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost events. Working backwards through this lens, they saw clearly, with 20/20 hindsight the significance of spectacular events in the life of Christ that pointed to His true identity even if they didn't completely comprehend it at the time these spectacular events actually happened.
So working backwards from Pentecost and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit given to the followers of Christ and His Church, they looked at His passion and death and then continue backwards to his miracles and sermons. They understood the Transfiguration in a new way also and began to recognize these events and miracles as great signs of Jesus' divinity, that He is God or one Divine Being with two natures, human and divine.
They continued to work backwards all the way to the beginning of Jesus' ministry with His baptism by St. John the Baptist and then onto the Nativity, for Matthew and Luke. Ultimately Saint John's Gospel realizes that Jesus was and is for all eternity, "In the beginning...."
So this article in the Telegraph's editorial section this morning by Erik Erickson is plausible:
ERICKSON: Why December 25 is the day
Many of us learned (that) Christians set the date of Christmas to co-opt pagan holidays. Both the Roman Saturnalia festival and Sol Invictus, the Feast of the Unconquered Son, fell around Dec. 25. Christians could claim Christ was the unconquered son and draw people into their religion.
In fact, this theory really did not develop until the 12th century and only took off after the 18th century. The earliest records of the still developing church show two things: First, the early church did not celebrate Christ’s birth, but his death and resurrection. Second, when the church did start celebrating Christ’s birth, the church had its own reasoning completely unrelated to pagan holidays.
To understand why the church celebrates Christ’s birth on Dec. 25, you must first understand that to the early church it was Christ’s death and resurrection that were of gravest importance. His birth was ancillary to his death. According to Andrew McGowan of the Biblical Archaeology Society, “Around 200 A.D., Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan in the year Jesus died was the equivalent to March 25 in the Roman calendar.”
Christians in the early church held as fact, just as Jews of the era did, that a prophet died on the same date of his conception. In other words, if Christ died on March 25, he would have been conceived on March 25, too. Go nine months out and you would land on Dec. 25 as his date of birth.
Concurrent to that theory was another one. Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father, was in the priestly division of Abijah. Knowing the division of priest in the temple in Jerusalem when it fell to the Romans in 70 A.D., and assuming an unbroken chain, early church historians counted backwards and concluded Zacharias would have been in the temple in October. The Bible tells us that after Zacharias left the temple, his wife conceived John. Luke 1:25-26 notes that six months later Mary conceived Jesus.
That would put Mary conceiving Jesus around March 25, which other early church leaders had already established as his date of death. The two separate calculations confirmed each other to early church leaders who could then set Christ’s birthday as Dec. 25.
The earliest known records of setting Christ’s birthday come in 200 A.D., 1,000 years before any documented suggestions that Christians set his birthday to correspond to pagan holidays. By 300 A.D., Christians throughout the world were celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25th because it fell nine months after the date they had set for his crucifixion. Within 100 years it had become a formal church celebration.
Most scholars reject the idea that Zacharias was in the temple in October the year Gabriel appeared to him. Further, modern scholarship suggests Christ may have been born in the spring. One is able to conclude the early church got it wrong. But it is also important to note that they thought they had it right and they set the date of Christmas for reasons entirely related to Christianity.
The more significant point is not when Christ’s birthday actually is, but that Christ himself exists.
Many atheists wish to write Christ’s existence entirely out of history. To do so requires an
extraordinary number of other people to be written out of history, too. For me, about the only thing fraudulent this Christmas season will be the words of “Silent Night.” Between a new born baby and the heavenly host singing, there was nothing silent about that first Christmas.
Erick Erickson is a Fox News contributor and radio talk show host in Atlanta.
5 comments:
Actually, the timing of Zacharias's duty in the Temple would have been Shavuot (Pentecost) so that John would have been born around Passover, Jesus conceived around Chanukah and born around Sukkot (Tabernacles). In other words, about three months earlier than in our observance.
The idea that the Feast of the Nativity was instituted to follow exactly 9 months after the Feast of the Annunciation was proposed in the 19th century by the famous liturgical historian Louis Duchesne. More recently, Thomas Talley (1986) wrote a book, "The Origins of the Liturgical Year" in which he continued Duchesne's original research. There were actually two calendars being used in antiquity, and to make a long story short, the West went with March 25, while the East with April 7.
The reason why the Feast of the Annunciation was observed on these days was because these were the days that were calculated (using their respective calendars) as the days when Christ was crucified. By divine fiat, there was thought to be a symmetry on this day: the day that Christ died was also the day he became incarnate.
Properly speaking the Feast of the Annunciation should be called the Feast of the Incarnation, and is perhaps more important than one of the feasts for the manifestation of Christ to the world, such as Christmas or Epiphany.
So glad that the genuflecting in the Credo is maintained for those two days. (Christmas and Annunciation)
I have a rather simple thing, what mother forgets her sons birthday? None that I know. Mary was around afterwards, she knew, and Christmas was instituted before any pagan festivals, ergo, Jesus was born on the 25th. (or Jan 7th according to the Julian Calendar)
I read, I think it was on Catholic Answers, that this notion that Jews of the time believed that a prophet died on the same date as his conception simply isn't true...some kinda recent urban legend.
I'm just glad he got born.
Sheila
If Erikson says the sun is shining, I'll get an umbrella.
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