Joyful carols, special liturgies, brightly wrapped gifts, festive foodsβthese all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical. The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus c.
Origen of Alexandria c. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed.
This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morningβstill, the 15th.
Download now. Christian writers. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the eventβalthough neither specifies a date. In the second century C. Finally, in about C. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21]. The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem.
The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in C. In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole. So, almost years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6? There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles though far more ancient.
