Monday, April 16
Christian Calendar
I have always been brought up with a non-conformist view that much of the so called Christian calendar revolves around the Christianisation of pagan festivals. As Christianity expanded and pagans were converted, they needed a substitute for their pagan days, and something to celebrate when their still-pagan friends were having fun and revelry. I thought that the church took the pagan festivals and applied Christian meanings to them. My parents took a quasi- Jehovah’s Witness position that we really shouldn’t do these things at all, but I have moved away from it saying that the Kingdom of God is advancing and taking ground form the Kingdom of darkness, and I’m not going to let the Devil keep any of it, least of all the fun bits. However, this weekend, while reading the Church of England newspaper, my position has changed again. It was an article regarding the dating of Christmas, which pointed out that neither the winter solstice (21 Dec) nor the Roman Saturnalia (17 Dec) fall on December 25th. The article went on to say that the date of Christmas was derived very early, and was based on an idea prevalent at the time that the OT prophets died on their birthdays. Therefore, having evaluated the date of the crucifixion to be 25th of March, Jesus would also have been born on 25th of March. But since Jesus was a special case. It was his incarnation ie conception that was counted, rather than emergence form the womb. Thus, 9 months later, he was born on 25th December. Now I still think that the fundamental premise about the prophets dying on their birthdays is almost certainly flawed, but it is good to know that the date of Christmas was set based on theological thought rather than simply adopting a pagan festival.
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It's not the fixing of the date that requires "theological thought." Christian feasts are theological, full stop. There's no such thing as "simply adopting" a pagan festival, at least when we're talking about the principal celebrations of the Christian year.
ReplyDeleteI have another scenario.
ReplyDeleteThe celecration of the birth of Christ was not a big deal until Arius said he wasn't God. Up till then his birth hadn been celebrated along with his baptism on January 6.
A special celebation opf his birth, with ther emphasis on the incarnation, was a somewhat in your face orthodx response to Arianism.
But when to do it?
I suspect that someone took a look at the gospels, say Luke 1:26, realised that the Jewish new year fell on or about September 25, and said "Aha".
Thaks Steve...good idea. I'm all in favour of refuting Arianism. My source seemed to imply a date earlier than Arius.
ReplyDeletePersonally, since the shepherds were in the feilds and not in the winter corrals, i suspect he was born in summer or spring, but I wouldn't place too much weight on this argument. I don't think the date in itself is important, but i am glad to know that it wasn't a substitute for a pagan festival.
Kyle, I know where you are coming from, and I increasingly see merit in your position which I won't argue against. The Scriptural principal is that advocates of special days and those who think them unimportant should not fall out over it.