Is Christmas Pagan?
The only reason Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth on December 25 was because the Romans had a pagan celebration on that day and Christians took it over. Right?
Wrong. There’s no evidence for it. We have nothing in writing from the early church fathers or ancient historians that indicate Christmas was a takeover of a Roman holiday. It’s just something that historians assumed centuries later and passed on, though there’s nothing to it. Instead, we actually have evidence to the contrary.
Christians started celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25 in the 3rd century (200s AD). It is true that starting in the mid 4th century, church leaders would “christianize” Roman practices and festivals, but that was unheard of in the 3rd century. Instead, early Christians believed in distancing themselves from pagan holidays and practices. They wanted pagans to see them as altogether different, and refused to participate in their holidays. One early church leader defended the date of December 25 for Jesus’ birth, claiming it was only a coincidence that it fell near Saturnalia (mid-December).
We’ve also heard, “Shepherds would not have been in the field in the middle of the winter.” Also not true. Beduin shepherds are in the fields twelve months of the year in parts of Israel, even today. In the first century, a special kind of shepherd watched sheep in the winter in the hills of Bethlehem outside of Jerusalem. They watched flocks of unblemished sheep, kept specifically for Temple sacrifices. It makes sense that the angel would appear to these shepherds saying, “These sheep will not be needed much longer because the true Lamb of God has been born!”
Why December 25th? Western Christian scholars of the 3rd century were convinced that Gabriel’s visit with Zechariah in the Temple was the Day of Atonement. Since Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, was six months pregnant when Mary conceived, they estimated Jesus’ conception to be the same date that their colleagues in North Africa had arrived at (using another tradition of the time). Both calculated Jesus’ birth to be on December 25. Christians in the East used a similar calculation (based on the lunar calendar) and arrived at January 6.
Everywhere in church literature, all the way into medieval times, December 25 was put forth as the date with this reasoning. Winter Solstice and Saturnalia (mid-December) were never part of their reasoning. And those who came up with the December 25 date would have adamantly rejected those claims.
We still don’t know for certain Jesus’ birthdate. But December 25 is a logical date for Christmas with long-standing Christian tradition. Celebrating Christmas on December 25 began as a Christian celebration, not a pagan one.
Christmas is the commemoration of something wonderful, the incarnation, and has been passed on through the centuries from our Christian forefathers. It’s a healthy tradition to reclaim, redeem, and embrace. Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Jesus!