Posted on 12/14/2020 10:42:33 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
There are two major theories as to why Christmas falls on December 25, Barber said, though the long and short of it is that Christians do not know for certain the exact birthday of Jesus.
The first theory dates back to 1905, when German scholar Hermann Usener posited that December 25 was adapted by Christians as the date for Christmas because it had been the birthday of the sun god, Sol Invictus.
According to Barber, Usener claimed that Emperor Aurelian established Sol Invictus “as the official god of the Roman empire in 274 and established his feast day as December 25. Christians took elements from this religion and reinterpreted them, applying them to Jesus.”
Usener also claimed that Constantine changed December 25 from a celebration of this pagan god to the celebration of Christmas in order to Christianize the empire.
But there are reasons to doubt this account...
“The earliest reference to the birth of Christ on December 25 of which I am aware comes from St. Hippolytus (d. 235), whose writings predate by half a century the first celebration of the pagan feast in honor of the sun god,” he said.
St. Hippolytus wrote in a piece that is historically “accepted as genuine that Jesus was born nine months after the creation of the world, a date which the early fathers identified as March 25. Thus we have a clear reference to Jesus’ birth on December 25 before there ever was established the cultic celebration of the sun god in Rome,” Zia said.
Barber added that there are other reasons to believe that it was in fact the pagans who were copying the Christians, in this and other ways.
“Justin Martyr (in First Apology 66) accuses the followers of Mithras of imitating the eucharistic practice of the Church..."
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicworldreport.com ...
Christmas is so old school.
President Harris gonna rock Diwali next year.
Yes, Jeremiah 10 etc. Old Babylonia rituals but it’s really nice to hear Jesus birth and all the prophecies even if we don’t know the day He was born. Praise Jesus, not the rituals.
Bttt
No, it is not pagan. It is probably more closely aligned to Hannukah.
An explanation I read years ago said that tradition held that martyrs were killed on their conception date. Christ being crucified during Passover in March would put his birth date 9 months later in December.
nope
Are there a lot of pine trees in the Middle East?
Aaaaanndd JUST LIKE CLOCKWORK...
...here we are — yet again — with the annual “Christmas bears the taint of paganism” garbage.
How about you just leap under the bus, and save us the trouble!
How about a Christmas vanquished pagan ritual thread?
How about you maybe figure out Jesus is King of All Kings, Lots of All Lords, Creator, Savior, God Almighty, and He nor His celebrations and feasts bear no taint of anything; His Holiness incinerated it all, consuming even the very elements.
Christmas hasn’t the faintest whiff of pagan tradition; if the date was chosen to coincide, Christ and Christmas has annihilated, and wholly subsumed whatever it replaced, bringing the redemption of many former pagan adherents in the process. In the Resurrection, those redeemed will stand and denounce such retrospective handwringing as this article promotes, and the authors thereof.
The cedars of Lebanon are quite famous, even appearing on the country’s flag.
I like how America celebrates Christmas. It’s not perfect for everyone and the left pretends to hate it (I give zero cares to what they think and feel) but it is a treasure nevertheless.
Germany goes pretty large over Christmas as well.
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