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The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of
pre-Christian,
Christian, and
secularthemes and origins.
[18] Popular modern customs of the holiday include
gift giving, completing an
Advent calendar or
Advent wreath,
Christmas music and
caroling, an exchange of
Christmas cards,
church services, a
special meal, and the display of various
Christmas decorations, including
Christmas trees,
Christmas lights,
nativity scenes,
garlands,
wreaths,
mistletoe, and
holly. In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known as
Santa Claus,
Father Christmas,
Saint Nicholas, and
Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of
traditions and lore.
[19] Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.
While the month and date of Jesus' birth are unknown, by the early-to-mid 4th century, the
Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25,
[20] a date later adopted in the East,
[21][22] although some churches celebrate on the December 25 of the older
Julian calendar, which, in the Gregorian calendar, currently corresponds to January 7, the day after the Western Christian Church celebrates the
Epiphany. The date of Christmas may have initially been chosen to correspond with the day exactly nine months after the day on which early Christians believed that
Jesus was conceived,
[23] or with one or more
ancient polytheistic festivals that occurred near
southern solstice (i.e., the
Roman winter solstice);
[24][25] a further
solarconnection has been suggested because of a biblical verse
[a] identifying Jesus as the "Sun of righteousness".
[23][26][27]
History
Many popular customs associated with Christmas developed independently of the commemoration of Jesus' birth, with certain elements having origins in pre-Christian festivals that were celebrated around the winter solstice by pagan populations who were later converted to Christianity. These elements, including the Yule log from Yule and gift giving from Saturnalia,[54] became syncretized into Christmas over the centuries. The prevailing atmosphere of Christmas has also continually evolved since the holiday's inception, ranging from a sometimes raucous, drunken, carnival-like state in the Middle Ages,[55] to a tamer family-oriented and children-centered theme introduced in a 19th-century transformation.[56][57] Additionally, the celebration of Christmas was banned on more than one occasion within certain Protestant groups, such as the Puritans, due to concerns that it was too pagan or unbiblical.[58][59]The
Chronography of 354 AD contains early evidence of the celebration on December 25 of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus. This was in Rome, while in
Eastern Christianity the birth of Jesus was already celebrated in connection with the
Epiphany on January 6.
[46][47] The December 25 celebration was imported into the East later: in Antioch by
John Chrysostom towards the end of the 4th century,
[47] probably in 388, and in Alexandria only in the following century.
[48] Even in the West, the January 6 celebration of the nativity of Jesus seems to have continued until after 380.
[49] In 245,
Origen of Alexandria, writing about Leviticus 12:1–8, commented that Scripture mentions only sinners as
celebrating their birthdays, namely Pharaoh, who then had his chief baker hanged (Genesis 40:20–22), and Herod, who then had John the Baptist beheaded (Mark 6:21–27), and mentions saints as
cursing the day of their birth, namely Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:14–15) and Job (Job 3:1–16).
[50] In 303,
Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, a passage cited as evidence that Arnobius was unaware of any nativity celebration.
[51] Since Christmas does not celebrate Christ's birth "as God" but "as man", this is not evidence against Christmas being a feast at this time.
[8] The fact the
Donatists of North Africa celebrated Christmas may indicate that the feast was established by the time that church was created in 311.
[52][53]
Relation to concurrent celebrations
Prior to and through the
early Christian centuries,
winter festivals—especially those centered on the
winter solstice—were the most popular of the year in many European pagan cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needs to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached.
[61] Many modern Christmas customs have been directly influenced by such festivals, including gift-giving and merrymaking from the Roman
Saturnalia, greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year, and
Yule logs and various foods from
Germanic feasts.
[62]
Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called
Yule, held in the late December to early January period.
[63] The word was in use in
Old English (as
geōl(a)) by 900, to indicate Christmastide.
[64] The
American Heritage Dictionary defines the word as "Christmas or the Christmas season, especially as traditionally celebrated in Northern Europe and North America with customs stemming in part from pagan celebrations of the winter solstice".
[65]
In eastern Europe also, old pagan traditions were incorporated into Christmas celebrations, an example being the
Koleda,
[66] which was incorporated into the
Christmas carol.
Choice of December 25 date
One theory to explain the choice of 25 December for the celebration of the birth of Jesus is that the purpose was to Christianize the pagan festival in Rome of the
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means "the birthday of the Unconquered Sun", a festival inaugurated by the Roman emperor
Aurelian (270–275) to celebrate the sun god and celebrated at the winter solstice, 25 December.
[67][68] According to this theory, during the reign of the emperor Constantine, Christian writers assimilated this feast as the birthday of Jesus, associating him with the 'sun of righteousness' mentioned in
Malachi 4:2 (
Sol Iustitiae).
[67][68]
An explicit expression of this theory appears in an annotation of uncertain date added to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop
Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe who added it wrote: "It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day."
[69] This idea became popular especially in the 18th and 19th centuries.
[70][71][72]
In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, this view has been seriously challenged
[73] by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the
Annunciation was celebrated.
[74] This alternative view is considered academically to be "a thoroughly viable hypothesis", though not certain.
[75] The
Jewish calendar date of 14 Nisan was believed to be that of
creation,
[76] as well as of
the Exodusand so of
Passover, and Christians held that the new creation,
both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his human life, occurred on the same date, which some put at 25 March in the Julian calendar.
[73][77][78][79] It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25 March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.
[80] Sextus Julius Africanus (c.160 – c.240) gave 25 March as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus.
[81] In his work
Adversus Haereses,
Irenaeus (c. 130–202) identified the conception of Jesus as March 25 and linked it to the
crucifixion at the time of the equinox, with the birth of Jesus nine months after on December 25 at the time of the solstice.
[82] An anonymous work known as
De Pascha Computus (243) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox, on 25 March, with the conception or birth (the word
nascor can mean either) of Jesus on 28 March, the day of the creation of the sun in the Genesis account. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, the 28 March, a Wednesday, Christ should be born. For this reason Malachi the prophet, speaking about him to the people, fittingly said, 'Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings.'"
[8][83] The tractate
De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae falsely attributed to
John Chrysostom also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as 25 March.
[74][79] This anonymous tract also states: "But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December ... the eight before the calends of January [25 December] ..., But they call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord ...? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice."
[8] A passage of the
Commentary on the prophet Daniel by
Hippolytus of Rome, written in about 204, has also been appealed to.
[84][85]
With regard to a December religious feast of the sun as a god (Sol), as distinct from a solstice feast of the (re)birth of the astronomical sun, one scholar has commented that, "while the winter solstice on or around December 25 was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas".
[86] "Thomas Talley has shown that, although the Emperor Aurelian's dedication of a temple to the sun god in the Campus Martius (C.E. 274) probably took place on the 'Birthday of the Invincible Sun' on December 25, the cult of the sun in pagan Rome ironically did not celebrate the winter solstice nor any of the other quarter-tense days, as one might expect."
[82] The
Oxford Companion to Christian Thought remarks on the uncertainty about the order of precedence between the religious celebrations of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and of the birthday of Jesus, stating that the hypothesis that 25 December was chosen for celebrating the birth of Jesus on the basis of the belief that his conception occurred on 25 March "potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before Aurelian's decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the Christian feast both opportunity and challenge".
[87]
Middle Ages
