I agree, there is some latitude here on the subject for disagreement. I also agree that like the tree, there is nothing inherently wrong with using that which the culture brings and then incorporate it. In the end, the only thing that is important is that we are celebrating Christ’s birth into the world.
What I’m saying here is this: after reviewing the evidence for WHY the date for the Feast of Christmas was assigned the date of December 25th, I and many others have reached the conclusion that the theory of an origin stemming from a pagan feast (Saturnalia or Sol Invictus) is false. Again, you have the latitude to believe otherwise, but I think the evidence for other reasons on the dating hold much more water.
The speculation from Ms. Arnold’s article you gave where she states, “One reason December 25 may have been deemed suitable is its proximity to the winter solstice”, is certainly one possible answer, but there’s nothing here (or elsewhere that I’ve seen) backing that statement up. This is addressed by Father Dwight Longnecker in his Crisis Magazine article that i linked to in the previous post:
The second objection to such seemingly sensible theories is that the theorists fall into the error of believing that resemblance proves causation. That is to say that if two things are similar, one must influenced the other. Resemblance might suggest causation, but they do not demand it… Just because the Romans had a mid-winter festival honoring Saturn does not demand that the Christians copied it–even if the similarities suggest it.
When trying to solve the mystery of the relationship between Christmas and the Saturnalia we have to consider not only the similarities, but the differences. The Saturnalia was celebrated from December 17 – 23. Okay that’s pretty close to the December 25 date for Christmas–but if they were copying the Saturnalia, why didn’t the early Christians celebrate the Nativity of Christ on December 17? At the Saturnalia they had a feast. Good. Christians had a feast too. The Romans gave each other gifts as part of the celebration. There’s a match. Christians did too. However, the Romans also wore silly hats, got drunk, danced naked in the streets, propped up the statue of Saturn on a couch to observe the revelries, reversed roles between slaves and masters, and put green drapes around their doorways. None of those fun activities are part of Christmas.
And if anyone’s interested, here’s an intriguing article on comparing the dates of Saturnalia (and Sigillaria) and Christmas:
web.archive.org/web/20140428000653/http://chronicon.net/blog/christmas/the-dates-of-saturnalia-and-sigillaria-and-christmas/
As for the Time article on Pope Benedict XVI’s book, your selection is talking about the YEAR that Christ was born, not the specific date of His birth. Jimmy Akin has some interesting articles addressing this, and I found them pretty informative, and it seems like he’s going off of what Pope Benedict suggested:
The Dating of Christmas
Now I haven’t read this particular book by Pope Benedict, so I don’t know if he says anything about the December 25th date of Christmas in addition to the year, but if he does, maybe someone can let us know what he says. But from the selection given in the Time article, what he says has nothing to do with the exact date of the feast, only the year of His birth. Obviously, none of what we’re discussing is dogma, but I think most of what these scholars and theologians have written make much more sense than the polemics written by Jablonski, and also the quick answer given by Ms Arnold.
