December 25... for the record
Dear Editor,
Every year at this time questions arise about the December 25 celebrations of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The records of history show that the birth of Christ was being celebrated on December 25 in Alexandria from 200 AD. This is pretty early in the life of the Church, bearing in mind that the Church was illegal, constantly under persecution and had to seek accommodation in private homes, underground caves, and catacombs.
December 25 is a fairly accurate date of the birth of Christ for the following reasons:
1) It is known that the birth of John the Baptist was announced by the angel to the Priest Zechariah on the day of Atonement in September. The angel appeared to Mary and announced the incarnation of Jesus six months later, March, and Jesus was born nine months later December.
2) When the debate arose as to the precise date in December of Jesus’s birth, St Cyril of Jerusalem wrote to Pope Julius I in Rome asking him to assign the correct date as recorded in the archives of Rome. The report sent back to St Cyril by Pope Julius I reads: “For the first coming of our Lord in the flesh in which He has been begotten in Bethlehem took place December 25, the fourth day in the reign of Augustus 42nd year and in the year 5500 from Adam. And He suffered in His 33rd year, 25 March, the parasceve, in the 18th year of Tiberius Caesar, during the Consulate of Rufus and Rubellio.”
The December 25th celebration of the birth of Christ has nothing to do with paganism. Emperor Aurelian introduced the sun god, Sol Ivictus, into Rome AD 274 in opposition to the Christians celebration on December 25. It is only since the 18th century when a plethora of individual churches with no history came into being that these matters are being questioned and various erroneous theories advanced by these ‘disobedients’.
My question to them is: Where does scripture prohibit the celebration of the birth of Christ? The principles of rules and regulations are that they must prohibit one from doing certain things, they do not enumerate what and what one can do.
We must remember that Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will guide His Church into all truths, so the authority on these matters lies with the Church, which the Bible says is the pillar and foundation of truth.
It seems that when an error is repeated over time it becomes accepted as truth. We, as Catholics, must guard against this error by checking our records carefully.