Jesus’ birthdate wasn’t chosen to compete with paganism
The claim
Snopes has a well earned reputation for rigorous fact checking, and has become the go-to debunking resource for thousands of people. Occasionally, however, they mess up.
The Snopes article “Birthday of Jesus. Was Jesus born on December 25?” contains a number of serious inaccuracies. It starts off well, making the point that the Bible never actually gives a date for Jesus’ birth.
“The biblical narrative of Jesus’ birth gives no date for the event, though it more likely occurred in spring than in winter.”
It continues by explaining that early Christians showed virtually no interest in Jesus’ birthdate.
“It is important to note that for two centuries after Christ’s birth, no one knew, and few people cared, exactly when he was born.”
However, it then makes the claim that Christians chose December 25 in order to combat a religious rival.
“The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century CE, a clever move on the part of Church fathers who wished to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which threatened the existence of Christianity.”
This false statement is addressed in detail in one of my earlier posts. However, the Snopes article also goes on to make further errors. It claims December 25 was celebrate by the Romans as the date of the winter solstice, and the birthdate of the god Mithras.
“On December 25 (the date of the winter solstice) pagan Romans, still in the majority, celebrated Natalis Solis Invincti,“Birthday of the Invincible Sun God,” Mithras.”
This is not true. During the very time that December 25 was adopted widely by the Church as the date of Jesus’ birth, the key dates for festive activities in celebration of Sol were in October and August, not December.[1]
In fact, the only evidence for pagan festivals being held on December 25, is only found in the historical record after December 25 had already been adopted by Christians.[2] This suggests that pagans were attempting to claim the date as a reaction to Christian religion, rather than the other way around.[3]
Snopes makes the claim that the Christian motivation was ecumenical, attempt to establish a festival which would appeal to both Christians and pagans.
“They needed a celebration in which all participants — Mithraists, Christians, and those in between — could take part with pride.”
However, they provide no source for this claim. In reality there is no evidence at all for such a motivation, and no evidence for Mithraists and other non-Christians participating in celebrations on December 25 at the same time as Christians.
Uncharacteristically, Snopes provides only one source as evidence for the historical claim in their article, quoting the words of an unnamed theologian supposedly writing in the early fourth century.
“As one theologian wrote around 320 CE:
We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.”
It is curious that Snopes provides no citation for this quotation. This specific sentence can be found in many commentaries on the date of Christmas, typically with wording almost identical to that used by Snopes. Many online sources start with the phrase “As one theologian wrote”, and then go on to give a date of “320 CE”, “in the 320s”, or “around 320 CE”. The earliest source closest to the Snopes wording appears to be from a book published in 2003, four years before the Snopes article.
“As one theologian wrote in the 320s:
We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.” [4]
It seems likely that the author of the Snopes article has used this book as as source without attribution, changing the wording very slightly. A charge of plagiarism would not be inappropriate in this case.
A further problem for the Snopes article is that the quotation from this theologian is unreferenced. No name is given for the theologian, and no source is provided for the quotation. The quotation does not appear in standard English translations of the writings of early Christians.[5]
Although this quotation is found in several books, most of them do not even identify the name of the theologian who wrote it, and none of them provide a verifiable source. A few books attribute the quotation to the fourth century Christian Augustine of Hippo.
“Several church fathers condemned the assimilation as potentially dangerous and reiterated Augustine of Hippo’s fourth-century warning: “We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him who made it.”” [6]
There are two problems with this attribution. One is that there is no evidence that Augustine ever wrote this. This statement is not found in any of the standard English translations of Augustine’s works, or in the professional commentaries on Augustine.
The other problem is that the attribution of this statement to Augustine clashes with its alleged date of 320 CE; Augustine was not born until 354 CE, over 30 years later.
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[1] ‘This means that in the early fourth century, when Christmas was established by the church on December 25, anyone surveying the calendar of festivities in honour of Sol would identify the period from October 19 to October 22 as far more important than December 25, and the festival of August 28 as far older. If the aim was to “neutralize” the cult of Sol by “taking over” its major festival, December 25th seems the least likely choice.’, Steven E Hijmans, Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome (S.l.; Groningen: s.n.; University Library Groningen 2009), 591.
[2] ‘In short, we have no firm evidence for a festival for Sol on December 25th until Julian wrote his hymn to Helios in December of 362. The entry in the calendar of 354 is probably for Sol, although only the epithet invictus is used (above, n. 4), and probably dates to 354, although it was possibly added later. Circumstantial evidence suggests that a festival of Sol on the winter solstice was not yet included in such calendars in the late 320s. As the Christian celebration of Christmas on December 25th can be attested in Rome by AD 336, at which point it may already have been well-established,34 and the celebration of Sol on that day cannot be attested before AD 354/362 and had not yet entered the calendar in the late 320s, it is impossible to postulate that Christmas arose in reaction to some solar festival. There is quite simply not one iota of explicit evidence for a major festival of Sol on December 25th prior to the establishment of Christmas, nor is there any circumstantial evidence that there was likely to have been one.’, Steven E Hijmans, “Usener’s Christmas: A Contribution to the Modern Construct of Late Antique Solar Syncretism”, in M. Espagne & P. Rabault-Feuerhahn (eds.), Hermann Usener und die Metamorphosen der Philologie. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz no. 7 (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz: 2011).
[3] ‘On the evidence currently available we cannot exclude the possibility that, for instance, the 30 chariot races held in honor of Sol on December 25 were instituted in reaction to the Christian claim of December 25 as the birthday of Christ. In general, the extent to which late pagan festivals copied, incorporated, or responded to Christian practices, elements, and dates deserves far more attention than it has received; cf. Bowersock 1990, 26–7, 44–53.’, Steven E Hijmans, Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome (S.l.; Groningen: s.n.; University Library Groningen 2009), 588.
[4] Melody Drake and Richard Drake, God’s Holidays (2003), 144.
[5] Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (eds.), Thomas Smith (trans.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1886); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds), S. D. F. Salmond (trans.), A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company), 1899.
[6] Jane M. Hatch, The American Book of Days (Wilson, 1978), 1146.