(Source: https://threader.app/thread/1465979583384195076)
Christians prob settled on Dec 25 for Xmas b/c they were obsessed with calculating Jesus’ conception, birth, and death based on the vague info in the Gospels. March 25 (the Roman vernal equinox) became popular for his crucifixion, Dec 25 (the winter solstice) for his birth.
Equinox for crucifixion day
Early 3rd c. evidence demonstrates that these chronographers started to settle on March 25 as the crucifixion day. Source: an “Easter calculation calendar” that likely was produced by the priest Hippolytus. Scholar @SarahEBond has some excellent photographs of replicas of this artifact here.
Christian writer Tertullian also floated a March 25th crucifixion-date in the early 3rd c. And this is definitely not a coincidence. This day was when the Romans marked the Vernal Equinox. (Source: Columella “De re rustica” 9.14.1, 9.14.12). Apparently, a lot of Christians were motivated to align Jesus’ death w/ this day to place him in a big cosmic narrative. Source: a Christian text “On the solstice and equinox,” which tries really hard to link dates for Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s life to solstices or equinoxes. For more on this homily, see here
Solstice for birthday
So where does Dec 25 come in? Dec 25 was the day Romans recognized the winter solstice (See Pliny, Natural History 18.220–221). Notice this wasn’t the actual winter solstice in antiquity, just the traditional day (Julian calendar fail).+++(5)+++ Notice also it is 9 months after Mar 25. Many Jews and Christians believed that saints and prophets lived “perfect lives.” That means, they were born and died on the same day.+++(4)+++ Some apparently started believing Jesus was conceived +++(not born)+++ and crucified on the same day (March 25). For an explicit example, see St. Augustine’s quote here from his text “De Trinitate Libri IV, 5(9):
“For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered…But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”
Augustine is late, but the table quoted earlier (as well as Tertullian and Hippolytus’ Commentary on Daniel) implies Christians were already buying into this “perfect life” idea as early as the 3rd c, and placed the 3 life moments (conception, birth, death) on March 25 and Dec 25.
Motivations
Obviously this implicates the Roman Sun God: Sol Invictus, who apparently was also celebrated on Dec 25, probably starting around the late 3rd c. under Emperor Aurelian (but earliest evidence of this from a Christian calendar dating to 354. Not great evidence for this festival). Though, rather than outright “stealing” between Christians and pagans, scholars see this as everyone (pagan, Christian, and otherwise) having a vested interest to link their god to a day already considered cosmologically important for half a millennium: the Winter Solstice.
So in the end, the topic is much more complicated than “Christians stole a pagan holiday.” More like,
“Christians, living in a society that marked the equinox and solstice on Mar 25 and Dec 25, influenced by solar theology and a desire to raise Jesus’ life to a cosmic scale, embarked on chronographic speculations, settling on Mar 25 and Dec 25 for his death and birth.”
References
Scholarly, peer-reviewed sources easily available online:
- Nothaft, “The Origins of the Christmas Date” Church History 81:4 (Dec 2012), 903-911
- Nothaft. ‘Early Christian chronology and the origins of the Christmas date.’ Questions Liturgiques 94: 2013, 247–265
- Hijmans, “Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas,”
- Mouseion, 2003,(see also Hijmans’ huge book on Sol Invictus: “Sol. The sun in the art and religions of Rome," 2009)
- Michele Salzman: “Aurelian and the Cult of the Unconquered Sun," 2017
- For easier to digest sources: I get into this topic a bit in my video on Saturnalia …And “Why Dec 25th?”: here.
- Also, scholar @PeterGainsford has some truly excellent blog posts on this topic: https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2021/10/dates-jesus-3.html …