Most people will concede that, at its core, Christmas is a Christian holiday. At least historically, right? On the other hand, it has also been massively secularized, to the point where it can be celebrated faithfully even by the non-religious. The disparity between these two characteristics of the same holiday can throw people off, particularly on the polar ends (please do not take that as a pun). On the heavily religious end, you wind up with accusations of wars on Christmas and anti-Christian sentiment, which is completely ludicrous. As if “Jingle Bell Rock”, presents, and Rudolph are Christian or anti-Christian traditions. On the secular end, there’s a common reaction to this silliness on the extreme-religious side. “Christmas trees, aren’t Christian, but I don’t see you complaining!” A lot of the reactions are fair. But there’s a tendency for the pendulum to swing too far to the other end. Much like with Easter and Halloween, inevitably you get someone saying something to the effect that “Christmas is actually just a pagan holiday copied by the early Christians!”
So how did the weird, secular cultural phenomenon known as modern Christmas come to be? Which side is Right? Place your bets now! The Biblical Archaeological society has a great article on how Christmas got its start that I’ll be relying on heavily.
Those of you who paid attention in Church, even if you were just one of those Chreasters, may have noticed that the date of Jesus’ birth is never mentioned in the Bible. Actually, his birth isn’t even mentioned in the earliest Biblical sources (the Epistles of Paul), or the earliest Gospel (that attributed to Mark), nor is it mentioned in the Gospel attributed to John. And the accounts in Matthew and Luke are… I’m getting off topic, sorry. Anyway, the DOB for the Christ-child isn’t provided anywhere. Even pious Christians will doubt the December 25th birthday. “I don’t think the shepherds would have been outside watching their flocks in late December.” But at some point, December 25th got picked as the birthday of Jesus. So when was it, and why?
There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer. Probably sometime in the 3rd century (200’s) AD, and probably towards the end of the century. The earliest Christians didn’t seem too concerned with it. Obviously, his resurrection day is much more important than his birthday, from a theological standpoint. Quoting from the Biblical Archaeology article, “There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as ‘pagan’ practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.” Around 200 AD, a Christian teacher named Clement of Alexandria mentions a couple different dates that he had seen proposed for Jesus’ birthday, none of them being remotely near December 25. The Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote a book that mentions Hippolytus of Rome having established the December 25th birthday in his Commentary on Daniel, written around 204 AD, but I cannot corroborate this. Looking through the work cited, I can’t find any mention of it, and Benedict doesn’t specify anywhere specifically to aid in the fact-checking. I’m content with assuming the pope is giving a biased report, but on the other hand, I feel like he might also be the guy to know this kind of thing, so I’m throwing it out there.
“In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.” So it seems probable that the December 25th birthday was established by Christians sometime in the 3rd century AD.
In 274 AD, the Roman Emperor Aurelian (not to be confused with the emperor Marcus Aurelius) established a holiday for the birth of a deity referred to as Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) on December 25. This is the likely origin of the accusation that Christians copied the date from the pagans. This actually isn’t a super recent accusation either. The oldest recorded instance goes back to Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi, who stated that the date of Christmas was moved in antiquity from January 6th (Epiphany in most denominations) to December 25th to fit the pagan holiday. The December 25th versus January 6th thing is an internal Christian issue based on the fact that calendars were not universally coordinated back then. The Hebrews used a different calendar than the Greeks and Romans, and the Greek portion of the Roman Empire tended to use slightly different dates than the western portion. It was a huge matter of contention between people for the longest time, but it is just a super boring topic. Easter is based on when Passover is, which is a Jewish festival using the Jewish calendar. Depending on how you want to translate those dates to your calendar, you wind up with discrepancies.
As far as December 25th being stolen whole-cloth from the pagans, the timing seems to fit prima facie. Interestingly, some Christian historians have made the claim that Aurelian copied from the Christians. But the connection is probably just a coincidence. The timing is nearly simultaneous. The odds that within 1 or 2 generations that either side intentionally stole from the other makes little sense. In the 3rd century, Christianity was still treated harshly by the pagan Roman authorities. It was a time of legitimate persecution. The religion was considered at best a cult of fools, and at worst traitorous to the Empire that had traditionally demanded at least some homage to the state gods, and then later to emperors themselves. The Roman veneration of Sol Invictus was actually a fairly new practice, itself dating to early in the 3rd century, being popularized by the emperor Elagabalus. It was fairly easy to legitimize, given how rapidly paganism of the era adopted new deities into the pantheon (often through a process called syncretism), but this was still a new religion being introduced itself, and it would have been unimaginably daft to try and piggy-back off of a religion with a reputation as being treasonous that was also still not terribly popular (estimates vary, but figures I’ve seen tend to put it in the ~10% ballpark). It’d be like trying to legitimize a new protestant Christian denomination today by tagging along with something Scientology is doing. Sure, sometimes people are daft, but it seems unlikely. Christianity is in a similar boat, just facing the opposite direction. In days where there were nearly honest to God schisms because of what day you celebrated a holiday, it seems incredibly unlikely that anyone would gain any traction with getting a new holiday going by copying from the pagan religion of the state that’s been intermittently killing its followers.
What seems the most likely is that Jesus’ birthday was determined by taking the Jewish tradition that prophets die the same calendar day they are conceived. Jesus’ death ended up established as 25 March (Passover of the year of his death), putting is date of conception on the same date, making his birthday December 25th. It eventually worked its way into one of the religion’s feast days. In the next century, particularly after Emperor Constantine converted in 312, Christianity would make substantial progress into being accepted into mainstream Roman culture. It would continue to grow in popularity and became more enmeshed with secular Roman culture. In this secular culture was the pagan holiday of Saturnalia, which was held annually from December 17th to the 23rd. Saturnalia is credited as being the spiritual forebearer to Christmas, being a holiday of mirth and merriment around the same time. And that perception seems fair, but even still, it may be overblown. As time went by, and Christianity became more popular and integrated into Roman culture, Roman culture would have its own influence on Christianity’s practitioners. Over time, the Christian feast day of Christmas probably started bleeding into the old pagan Saturnalia. As paganism started vanishing as Europe transitioned into the Middle Ages, Christmas started subsuming the old pagan winter festival.
As the Middle Ages went on, Christianity became the religion of Europe, and so European culture and Christian culture did a lot of mixing. Over the centuries, Christmas grew into a more significant holiday, and absorbed local winter holiday traditions with it, even if Saturnalia wasn’t one of the contributing factors. By the 1500’s, the Germans had Christmas trees, for example. Interestingly, the puritan wing of the Reformation tended to oppose the celebration of Christmas, on the grounds that happiness was a sin (I am being facetious with this clause–no, that’s not supposed to be a pun either). It was even illegal in puritan Boston in the late 1600’s, for example.
By the 1800’s, the Brits got big into Christmas, with popular art and culture beginning to celebrate and add significantly to the cultural ethos and mythos of the holiday. Considering the closeness of the British and American cultures, the Americans started getting into the spirit like their chums across the pond. From there, the evolution of the holiday gets tied-up in the cultural gravity of Anglo-America. Gift-giving became present wrapping (and arguably run-away consumerism, depending on your feeling son that). The patron Saint Nicholas got morphed into Santa Claus over a series of centuries (no, Coke didn’t invent the modern image of Santa). Rudolph was from a coloring book designed by a department store. Seasonal church hymns led into the creation of the worst songs mankind has ever created, only to be repeated incessantly for an unreasonable amount of time every year. Any of the specifics can be hunted down on Wikipedia. Suffice to say, at the heart of Christmas lies the Christian holiday and a smattering of pagan and secular traditions, and a heaping dose of pop-culture and consumerism. An unholy amalgam, perhaps, but not a simple swindling of a pre-existing pagan holiday.
