From: jww@evolving.com (John W. Woolley)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christmas on the 25th.  Why?
Date: 20 Dec 92 23:13:53 GMT

Early on, the only feast-days kept in the Church were Easter and
Pentecost, and of course Sunday (a kind of weekly Easter).  After a
few generations, we began to keep the anniversaries of martyr's
deaths, and by the early fourth century (or so) were expanding the
calendar to include commemorations of other events in the life of
Christ and the Church.

The celebration of Christ's birth was set for December 25 in the
Western Church largely because of a piece of early tradition that
the Incarnation had happened on the first day of Spring (which seems
symbolically appropriate, if historically doubtful); so the Feast of
the Annunciation is March 25 (why the four-day discrepancy between
that and March 21, the equinox, I don't guess), and the Feast of
the Nativity nine months later on December 25.  Then, because the
Gospel can be read as implying that St. John Baptist was born just
six months before our Lord, the feast of his nativity was set on
June 24.  (By the way, this same kind of nine-month spacing can be
seen in the feasts of our Lady's conception on December 8 and
nativity on September 8.)

Meanwhile, the Eastern Church had apparently begun celebrating the
Nativity on January 6.  (Why?  I don't know.)  During the fourth
century there was a lot of discussion of the point, and when the
smoke cleared, both ends of the Church were celebrating Nativity on
December 25 (the Western date, presumably encouraged by Saturnalia)
and Epiphany on January 6.  The related feast of the Lord's baptism
settled on the first Sunday after Epiphany, between January 7 and
January 13, and is still celebrated then.  (Check the Propers for
that Sunday; you'll see.)

None of this has anything to do with the change from the Julian to
the Gregorian calendar.  The 13-day gap between the calendars means
that December 25 on the Gregorian calendar is December 12 on the
Julian; and December 25 on the Julian calendar is January 7 on the
Gregorian.  Users of both calendars celebrate Christmas on what they
consider December 25 -- they just disagree on which day is December
25.
----
Fr. John Woolley (jww@evolving.com); vastly enthusiastic about Augustine,
Austen, babies, Bach, backgammon, baseball, beer, the Bible, Botticelli, Burke,
Chesterton, Dante, Dixieland, hardboiled, Hitchcock, Dr Johnson, Latin, Mozart,
Shakespeare/de Vere, St Teresa, Tolkien, Trollope, Fats Waller, and Washington

[I'd be interested in the evidence here.  So far I've seen a number of
speculations, but no actual citations from around the time when Dec 25
was first celebrated.  The most scholarly source I have (the Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church) reports that there was discussion
of Jesus' birth date, but the earliest citation of Dec 25 is in a
calendar, which presumably doesn't include justification.  The
Dictionary writers don't seem to have anything better than guesses
about why the date was chosen.  Now it may be that there is evidence
that the Dictionary doesn't cite, but I'm frankly sceptical,
particularly seeing the variety of explanations -- all of which are
described as fact without evidence.  Also, I think Jan 7 was
originally a celebration of Jesus' baptism, not his birth.  --clh]