Fact Check: No, We Didn't Copy the Pagans - How Dec. 25 Became Christmas
A widespread theory goes that Roman Emperor Constantine chose Dec. 25 as the date for Christmas in the fourth century A.D. in order to subvert a pagan holiday, but strong evidence indicates otherwise.
Constantine was emperor of Rome from A.D. 306-337 and following his conversion in 312 did much to promote Christianity within the empire. This much is true.
His zeal was fueled by a dream or vision he saw in 312 the day prior to a pivotal battle for the control of Rome. In it, the Latin script “In Hoc Signo Vinces” (“In this sign, conquer”) reputedly appeared along with the cross of Christ.
The emperor is associated with Dec. 25 as the date for Christmas, because the church in Rome officially adopted it as the holiday in 336, during his reign.
The Bible has little solid information about what time of year Christ was born. By contrast, we know that Jesus was crucified around the Passover holiday, which is in the spring in March or April.
Writer Jonathan Noyes explained in a December 2021 article for the Christian website Stand to Reason that the earliest known celebration of Christmas on Dec. 25 was actually in the second half of the third century AD, so it was decades before Constantine’s conversion.
Noyes cited Yale Divinity School professor Andrew McGowan, who wrote in a 2002 piece, republished earlier this month by the Biblical Archaeology Society, that the “December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion.”
What is the source of the December 25 date?
“The Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus dated Jesus’ conception to March 25 (the same date upon which he held that the world was created), which, after nine months in his mother’s womb, would result in a December 25 birth,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Sextus Julius Africanus lived from around 180 to 250.
St. Augustine in his book “On the Trinity,” believed to have been published around 417, affirmed this date for Jesus birth.
The early church father connected the date of Jesus’ conception and death to his birth.
“For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th,” Augustine wrote.
Peter Bramble, a journalist for the weekly Baltimore Times, pointed out in 2021 that while the Bible is silent on when Jesus was born, Luke wrote in his Gospel account: “In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin’s name was Mary.”
Gabriel goes on to tell Mary that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and bring forth the son of God.
Bramble noted that the “sixth month” in the Jewish lunar calendar would include at least part of March on the Gregorian calendar, which is used by most of the world today. So assuming Mary conceived shortly after Gabriel’s visit, nine months later would be around December.
Why do people think Constantine was trying to supplant a pagan holiday with the December 25th date?
McGowan discounted the theory that the early church or Constantine chose Dec. 25 because of the Roman Sol Invictus (“the Unconquered Sun”) celebration is on that date.
“Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world,” he wrote.
“Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth,” McGowan added, but “they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.”
The winter solstice falls around Dec. 21st.
“It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts,” the professor recounted.
McGowan provided further evidence Dec. 25 was not chosen to supplant pagan holidays.
“Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.”
Christmas has been celebrated on Dec. 25 for a long time.
That said, at least scripturally, we don’t know exactly when Christ was born, but the date the early church recognized stands independently of pagan festivals.
Author’s note: I’ve had readers reach out to me to say the “sixth month” in the Luke 1 passage referred to the point in Elizabeth’s pregnancy that Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, not the time on the Jewish lunar calendar. That is a fair reading of the passage. A December birth of Jesus is still is possible based on what we do know. But as I wrote, the Bible does not give us a date.
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