{"id":22,"date":"2024-12-05T12:10:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T12:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/?p=22"},"modified":"2025-01-08T19:05:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T19:05:21","slug":"history-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/2024\/12\/05\/history-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The early Christian\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/community\">community<\/a>\u00a0distinguished between the identification of the date of Jesus\u2019 birth and the liturgical celebration of that event. The actual observance of the day of Jesus\u2019 birth was long in coming. In particular, during the first two centuries of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Christianity\">Christianity<\/a>\u00a0there was strong opposition to recognizing birthdays of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/martyrs\">martyrs<\/a>\u00a0or, for that matter, of Jesus. Numerous Church Fathers offered sarcastic comments about the pagan custom of celebrating birthdays when, in fact, saints and martyrs should be honoured on the days of their martyrdom\u2014their true \u201cbirthdays,\u201d from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/church-architecture\">church\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0perspective.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The precise origin of assigning December 25 as the birth date of Jesus is unclear. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/New-Testament\">New Testament<\/a>\u00a0provides no clues in this regard. December 25 was first identified as the date of Jesus\u2019 birth by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Sextus-Julius-Africanus\">Sextus Julius Africanus<\/a>\u00a0in 221 and later became the universally accepted date. One\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/dictionary\/widespread\">widespread<\/a>\u00a0explanation of the origin of this date is that December 25 was the Christianizing of the\u00a0<em>dies solis invicti nati<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cday of the birth of the unconquered sun\u201d), a popular holiday in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/place\/Roman-Empire\">Roman Empire<\/a>\u00a0that celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of the resurgence of the sun, the casting away of winter and the heralding of the rebirth of spring and summer. Indeed, after December 25 had become widely accepted as the date of Jesus\u2019 birth, Christian writers frequently made the connection between the rebirth of the sun and the birth of the Son. One of the difficulties with this view is that it suggests a nonchalant willingness on the part of the Christian church to appropriate a pagan festival when the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/history-of-early-Christianity\">early church<\/a>\u00a0was so intent on distinguishing itself categorically from pagan beliefs and practices.<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A second view suggests that December 25 became the date of Jesus\u2019 birth by a priori reasoning that identified the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/science\/vernal-equinox\">spring equinox<\/a>\u00a0as the date of the creation of the world and the fourth day of creation, when the light was created, as the day of Jesus\u2019\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/conception\">conception<\/a>\u00a0(i.e., March 25). December 25, nine months later, then became the date of Jesus\u2019 birth. For a long time the celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth was observed in conjunction with his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/baptism\">baptism<\/a>, celebrated January 6.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The early Christian\u00a0community\u00a0distinguished between the identification of the date of Jesus\u2019 birth and the liturgical celebration of that event. The actual observance of the day of Jesus\u2019 birth was long in coming. In particular, during the first two centuries of\u00a0Christianity\u00a0there was strong opposition to recognizing birthdays of\u00a0martyrs\u00a0or, for that matter, of Jesus. Numerous Church Fathers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.svarc.school\/via\/urbanova\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}