Does Catholicism believe Jesus to be born on Dec 25

[Sime]

The earliest known reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome.[71] In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus.

Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381,
although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.

Although Dies Natalis Solis Invicti has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly speculation, the only ancient source for it is a single mention in the Chronography of 354, and Hijmans (modern scholar) argues that there is no evidence that the celebration precedes that of Christmas. W]hile the winter solstice on or around the 25th of December was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution," according to modern Sol scholar Steven Hijmans.

The earliest surviving record of a specific celebration of the Nativity is a sermon by St. Optatus, bishop of Mileve in Africa, from about 383. Evidently, Optatus was the first to put a Feast of the Nativity into his diocese’s calendar. The idea caught on almost immediately, but the feast was celebrated on different days in different places any time from November to March.

 

[Sime]

The earliest known reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome.[71] In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus.

Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381,
although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.

Although Dies Natalis Solis Invicti has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly speculation, the only ancient source for it is a single mention in the Chronography of 354, and Hijmans (modern scholar) argues that there is no evidence that the celebration precedes that of Christmas. W]hile the winter solstice on or around the 25th of December was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution," according to modern Sol scholar Steven Hijmans.

The earliest surviving record of a specific celebration of the Nativity is a sermon by St. Optatus, bishop of Mileve in Africa, from about 383. Evidently, Optatus was the first to put a Feast of the Nativity into his diocese’s calendar. The idea caught on almost immediately, but the feast was celebrated on different days in different places any time from November to March.

 

[Marc]

There are a few false assumptions many people make whenever this discussion comes up. One, Christmas was always a big festive holiday. This was not true until the high middle ages when Christmas celebrations became increasingly publicly sponsored. Before this, 12/25 was a relatively minor holiday compared to the incarnation and the epiphany. It would be during this time that Christmas would begin to clash with, supplant, and absorb Pagan, mostly Germanic, solstice traditions. This did not happen without some friction.

Two, Christmas can’t be astrological. The solstices and equinoxes were celebrated in cultures everywhere, It’s no surprise the incarnation and birth of Christ would be tied to these highly symbolic events. The early Christians could not resist comparing the conception of Christ with spring time and his birth to the return of the sun. These concepts already existed in the underlying Jewish holidays. This is what theologians call the sacramental nature of creation, a concept most modern Christians are unfamiliar with if not suspicious of. In a way, the connection between Christmas and Pagan holidays is both superficial and deeper. Deeper because both Jews and Gentiles recognized the signs God left in the rhythms of his creation.

A duality exists here that should not be a dichotomy. The date is not central to our faith but by no means should it brushed aside as unimportant or arbitrary.

 

[Rich]

That’s a (an?) historical question, not a religious one. And the historical answer is, “We don’t know.”

If you would go to the Bible and see that the angel appeared to Mary in the six month. She went to here cousins home emmidely because she was also pregnant. Mary stayed there three months and Joseph was told she was with child. So if she became pregnant right after the angel visit then she would have had Jesus in the third month of the Jewish calendar. Which is mid June to mid July. Historically speaking.
-]/-]

 

[Arizona_Mike]

If you would go to the Bible and see that the angel appeared to Mary in the six month. She went to here cousins home emmidely because she was also pregnant. Mary stayed there three months and Joseph was told she was with child. So if she became pregnant right after the angel visit then she would have had Jesus in the third month of the Jewish calendar. Which is mid June to mid July. Historically speaking.
-]/-]

At the end of September: Zachary (Zechariah) “executed his priestly function” (Luke 1:8) according to his class(1). His wife, Elizabeth, conceived (the Church traditionally holds St. John’s conception to have taken place on 23 September) just as St. Gabriel said (Luke 1:24) and hid herself away for 5 months.

March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation: In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy (Luke 1:26) - as scripture tells us, it wasn’t the sixth month of the Jewish calendar, but the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy - St. Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her she is to have a child.

June 24, The Feast of St. John the Baptist: Three months after the Annunciation, St. John the Baptist was born, at a time when the days were becoming shorter.

Circa December 25: Nine months after the Annunciation, Jesus was born, at a time when the days were becoming longer

(1) The family of Abijah, of which Zechariah (Zachary) was a descendant, father of St. John the Baptist (Luke 1, 5), was required to officiate twice a year, on the days 8-14 of the third month, and on the days 24-30 of the eighth month. This latter period fell at about the end of September. We know this from the Dead Sea Scrolls, as in 1958, the Israeli scholar Shemaryahu Talmon published an in-depth study on the calendar of the Qumran sect, based, in part, on Parchment Number 321 – 4 Q 321 – of the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, see below], and he reconstructed the order of the sacerdotal rota system for the temple of Jerusalem (1 Paralipomenon/Chronicles 24, 7-18) in New Testament times.



(Adapted from fisheaters.com/customschristmasnotes.html)

 

[DeaconPaulY]

if we truly believe that Jesus leads the Church through his Holy Spirit, then it is reasonable to think that the Holy Spirit inspires the faithful to “make guesses” that are precisely accurate. For example, the fact of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was believed for many centuries by the faithful out of pure inspiration before becoming a dogma of the faith. With all of the usual caveats about Private Revelation, my extensive reading of the mystics draws me to conclude that the most historically accurate, “unofficial”, document on salvation history is the full, four volume set of the Mystical City of God by Blessed Mary of Jesus of Agreda. In that history, she claims that both December 25 for the Incarnation and March 25 for the Annunciation are historically accurate. The message here is that listening attentively for the leading of the Holy Spirit will lead us to make very good guesses and choices. Peace and Blessings, Deacon Paul

 

[Clevelander]

Dom Propsper Guéranger, abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Solesmes from 1837 until his death in 1875, was one of the most knowledgeable people in the history of the Church about feasts and liturgical matters. In his multi-volume masterpiece, The Liturgical Year, he writes the following:

With regard to our Saviour’s Birth on December 25, we have St. John Chrysostom telling us, in his homily for this Feast, that the Western Churches had, from the very commencement of Christianity, kept it on this day. He is not satisfied with merely mentioning the tradition; he undertakes to show that it is well founded, inasmuch as the Church of Rome had every means of knowing the true day of our Saviour’s Birth, since the acts of the Enrolment, taken in Judea by command of Augustus, were kept in the public archives of Rome. The holy Doctor adduces a second argument, which he founds upon the Gospel of St. Luke, and he reasons thus: We know from the sacred Scriptures that it must have been in the fast of the seventh month [Lev. 23:24 and following verses. The seventh month (or Tisri) corresponded to the end of our September and beginning of our October. –*Translator] that the Priest Zachary had the vision in the Temple; after which Elizabeth, his wife, conceived St. John the Baptist: hence it follows that the Blessed Virgin Mary having, as the Evangelist St. Luke relates, received the Angel Gabriel’s visit, and conceived the Saviour of the world in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that is to say, in March, the Birth of Jesus must have taken place in the month of December.

But it was not till the fourth century that the Churches of the East began to keep the Feast of our Saviour’s Birth in the month of December. Up to that period they had kept it at one time on the sixth of January, thus uniting it, under the generic term of Epiphany, with the Manifestation of our Saviour made to the Magi, and in them to the Gentiles; at another time, as Clement of Alexandria tells us, they kept it on the 25th of the month Pachon (May 15), or on the 25th of the month Pharmuth (April 20). St John Chrysostom, in the Homily we have just cited, which he gave in 386, tells us that the Roman custom of celebrating the Birth of our Saviour on December 25 had then only been observed ten years in the Church of Antioch. It is probable that this change had been introduced in obedience to the wishes of the Apostolic See, wishes which received additional weight by the edict of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, which appeared towards the close of the fourth century, and decreed that the Nativity and Epiphany of our Lord should be made two distinct Festivals. The only Church that has maintained the custom of celebrating the two mysteries on January 6 is that of Armenia; owing, no doubt, to the circumstance of that country not being under the authority of the Emperors; as also because it was withdrawn at an early period from the influence of Rome by schism and heresy.

It is frequently suggested (as above in this thread) that the early Christians had no idea when Jesus was born; that no date was handed on to them by Tradition and so they felt a need to pick one for themselves; that any date was as good as any other, and so they uniformly chose December 25 because at least then they could blend with the mainstream pagan culture and perhaps co-opt some of the momentum surrounding one of its festivals, and maybe make some converts in the process. Even a lot of believers have accepted this myth. We have no idea who came up with it; it is so cynical that it seems likely to have been a non-believer. But Guéranger demolishes it.

 

[CEPS]

I find it absolutely mind blowing that the organization that claims to be founded by the Savior of the world, the organization that claims to be infallible in matters of faith and morals, the one whose leader on earth claims to be God’s representative, the one that claims to be the only one with authority to interpret scripture, doesn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt when its main object of worship was born! Really?
To my knowledge the Old Testament was written about the coming Savior (Jn 5:39). It spelled out such facts as his death on a cross on April 14 (I am using the closest proximation to our Gregorian calendar), His birth of a virgin, the fact he would carry his own cross, his name of Immanuel (not Jesus), His resurrection, ascension and return on the Day of Pentecost.
You want to tell me that his birthdate was not given? Again, Really? It was given in the books of Exodus and Genesis and probably other places I’m not aware of and can be properly deduced from Luke. Can’t figure it out? Hmmmmm.
I am unaware of any references to the apostles or other early “Christians” celebrating his birthday and surely they must have known the date of his birth. It makes one wonder! Why and what are you really celebrating?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I find it absolutely mind blowing that the organization that claims to be founded by the Savior of the world, the organization that claims to be infallible in matters of faith and morals, the one whose leader on earth claims to be God’s representative, the one that claims to be the only one with authority to interpret scripture, doesn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt when its main object of worship was born! Really?

Yeah, really. We have been given the knowledge sufficient for our salvation, why is it necessary to know Jesus’ birthday? Although there is sufficient evidence above to show that the Church is correct, the dates of birth for common folk were rarely recorded in ancient times, especially not by the Jews, who didn’t practice astrology as the pagans did. (I can tell you Caesar Augustus’s date of birth, but the child of a poor carpenter?) 1st century Palestinian Jews didn’t celebrate birthday parties (perhaps due to the lack of inflatable bouncers for rent), so what would be the purpose?

To my knowledge the Old Testament was written about the coming Savior (Jn 5:39). It spelled out such facts as his death on a cross on April 14 (I am using the closest proximation to our Gregorian calendar), His birth of a virgin, the fact he would carry his own cross, his name of Immanuel (not Jesus), His resurrection, ascension and return on the Day of Pentecost.
You want to tell me that his birthdate was not given? Again, Really? It was given in the books of Exodus and Genesis and probably other places I’m not aware of and can be properly deduced from Luke. Can’t figure it out? Hmmmmm.
I am unaware of any references to the apostles or other early “Christians” celebrating his birthday and surely they must have known the date of his birth. It makes one wonder! Why and what are you really celebrating?

We Christians celebrate the Feast of the Nativity. We can makes some good guesses at the date from Luke and Matthew, as you say, which would appear to put the date near December 25, but even if that isn’t correct, we can celebrate a birthday any date we wish, just as we would celebrate a birthday for a foundling on a date that seems appropriate. Many feast days are celebrated for which we don’t know the exact date, such as the Transfiguration. The Incarnation is worthy of celebration, ceps, just as is the Passion and the Resurrection. Pagans, atheists, Muslims, Puritans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists and 7th Day Adventists are of course free to disagree and celebrate their own holidays.

 

[patrick457]

For the Savior was born during the forty-second year of the Roman emperor Augustus - in the thirteenth consulship of the same Octavian Augustus and the consulship of Silanus, as the Roman consul lists indicate. For these say as follows: “During their consulships,” I mean Octavian’s thirteenth and the consulship of Silanus, “Christ was born on the eighth before the Ides of January =January 6], thirteen days after the winter solstice and the increase of the light and the day.” Greeks, I mean the idolaters, celebrate this day on the eighth before the Kalends of January =December 25], which Romans call Saturnalia, Egyptians Cronia, and Alexandrians, Cicellia. For this division between signs of the zodiac, which is a solstice, comes on the eighth before the Kalends of January, and the day begins to lengthen because the light is receiving its increase. And it completes a period of thirteen days until the eighth before the Ides of January, the day of Christ’s birth, with a thirtieth of an hour added to each day. The Syrian sage, Ephrem, testified to this calculation in his commentaries when he said, “Thus the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, his birth in the flesh or perfect incarnation which is called the Epiphany, was revealed after a space of thirteen days from the beginning of the increase of the light. For this too must needs be a type of the number of our Lord Jesus Christ and his twelve disciples, since, [added to the disciples], he made up < the > number of the thirteen days of the light’s increase.” …]

I have been obliged to prove this with many examples because of those who do not believe that “The Epiphany” is a good name for the fleshly birth of our Savior, who was born at the eighth hour and manifested, by the angels’ testimony, to the shepherds and the world - but he was manifested to Mary and Joseph as well. And the star was manifested to the magi in the east at that hour, two years before their arrival at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, when Herod asked the magi themselves the precise time of the star’s manifestation, and they told him it was no more than two years before. And this very word gave the Epiphany its name, from Herod’s saying, “the manifestation of the star.” Thus when the magi said, “Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him,” (Matthew 2:2) Herod says that he had not been inquiring about the name of a merely human king.

…] And so, after completing his thirtieth year in which he was baptized, and after completing his thirty-first by preaching for an entire “acceptable year” without opposition, but [then] preaching another year with opposition, to the accompaniment of persecution and hatred: and after completing [part of] another year after it, a full seventy-four days from his birthday, - (the Epiphany, January 5 at the dawn of January 6 and the eleventh of the Egyptian month Tybi) - until the thirteenth before the Kalends of April, as I said, < on that same thirteenth before the Kalends of April, > the twenty-fourth of the Egyptian month Phamenoth, he had attained a full thirty-two years, plus seventy-four days from the Epiphany. And he rose on the twenty-sixth of the Egyptian month Phamenoth - (this was the day of the equinox and was preceded by the night and the equinox) - the day which followed the twenty-fifth of Phamenoth, the eleventh before the Kalends of April, < and appeared to his disciples. > This makes liars of all who are not sons of truth.

• Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion, 51, 22.3-7, 12-14; 27.4-6

Epiphanius is writing these in the context of a sect (the Alogoi) which rejects the gospel of John and Revelation, claiming instead that both were penned by John’s enemy, a certain gnostic named Cerinthus. One of the ‘proofs’ they apparently presented for their accusation was the inconsistency with the Synoptic Gospels on matters such as chronology. Epiphanius is notably very big on the January 6 date, even applying symbolism of the number 13 (counting from December 25 to January 6).

 

[patrick457]

Even in the beginning of the 5th century, Saint John Cassian mentioned that Egyptian monasteries were still celebrating the Nativity and Baptism together on 6th January, in contrast with the West, where both feasts have their own separate dates. (Conference 10.2)

In the country of Egypt this custom is by ancient tradition observed that - when Epiphany is past, which the priests of that province regard as the time, both of our Lord’s baptism and also of His birth in the flesh, and so celebrate the commemoration of either mystery not separately as in the Western provinces but on the single festival of this day, - letters are sent from the Bishop of Alexandria through all the Churches of Egypt, by which the beginning of Lent, and the day of Easter are pointed out not only in all the cities but also in all the monasteries.

 

[patrick457]

To my knowledge the Old Testament was written about the coming Savior (Jn 5:39). It spelled out such facts as his death on a cross on April 14 (I am using the closest proximation to our Gregorian calendar),

No, Nisan 14th or 15th is NOT equivalent to April 14th. The synoptics tell us that it was the 15th of Nisan (the day after Passover), John tells us that it was on the Passover itself, the 14th of Nisan. All agree that the crucifixion happened during the Parasceve (the ‘Preparation’ for Sabbath). So the question is: in what years did Nisan 14th or Nisan 15th fall on a Friday?

This is where we encounter a problem. The Jewish calendar, see, was (and still is) luni-solar, with the year divided into months, and months reckoned strictly according to the phases of the moon. A lunar month begins with the new moon and lasts about 29 1/2 days, so months could be either 29 or 30 days long. Twelve such months produce a lunar year of 354 days, 11 1/4 days too short for a solar (seasonal) year, which is determined by the position of the earth relative to the sun. In a strictly lunar year the months back up. A side effect of this is that every year, each month comes 11 days earlier than the previous year; soon you would run into the problem of springtime festivals falling during winter. To rectify this problem, an extra thirteenth month was inserted every two or three years. Thus while most years were 354 days, some were 383 or 384 days long. Over a nineteen-year cycle, the total number of days comes out about right in terms of the solar calendar. Hence the reason why the Jewish calendar is luni-solar: the months are lunar, but the number of months is adjusted in order to bring the calendar into agreement with the solar year.

Now let’s compare this with the Gregorian calendar. Our calendar is not based on lunar phases, so that while we do have months, they do not start with the new moon, except coincidentally. On average our months are about 30 1/2 days long. Twelve months of this length, divided into six months of 30 days and six months of 31 days, would yield a year that is slightly too long in terms of the seasonal year. As a result, one month (February) only has 28 days. Every four years however we must add one day to February to keep the months in the right season; otherwise Christmas would eventually start arriving in autumn. (Were it not for leap years every 120 years each of our months would come 30 days earlier in the seasonal year.)

 

[PJM]

=Christine85;10130818]I was just curious. Sorry to bother you

No!

And NO BOTHER either

The date was chosen precisely because it took place in a time of the “Winter Solace” a time of pagan worship.

The thinking [intent and prayerful hope] was that many pagans would be diverted to Christianty instead. But it just didn’t work out that way.

Chrsitiine that this deals with “Church practices”; NOT doctrine or Dogma; even though the Birth of Christ Is; the date of God’s Incarnation is not

THANK YOU for asking:thumbsup:

God Bless you,

Merry CHRISTMAS my friend,
pat/PJM

 

[patrick457]

To determine when a day occurred astronomically (decided by the tilt of the earth on its axis and the phases of the moon), we have to know which years were leap years. We can retroject our own calendar into the past, taking account of leap years, and thus give absolute dates (i.e. dates in strict accord with our calendar) to ancient events.

Theoretically, we could also retroject the Jewish calendar and then relate it to our own. In order to do so, and determine when Nisan 14th/15th fell on a Friday we need to know which months were 29 days long, which were 30 days, and which years had the extra month. Today, astronomers can determine it by calculating, but the Jewish calendar was based, not on calculation, but observation. Observers had to look for the first faintly glowing lunar crescent following conjunction with the sun and then work slightly backwards from there (after all, you can’t see a new moon). The thing is that we cannot know anything about local atmospheric conditions 2,000 years ago, and those helped determine the calendar. Jews knew when to start looking: the arrival of the new moon did not surprise anyone, but still, if observers had to see it, they had to see it.

Let’s say, for example, that we are in AD 31. This year Nisan 14th should theoretically be on Tuesday, March 27th. But let’s suppose that Nisan fell a month late, and that observers were delayed from seeing the waxing crescent moon due to overcast or bad weather (you can never count on an absence of clouds, as eclipse observers will know). This would shift the date to, say, Wednesday or Thursday in late April. And this is the problem: when dates are fixed by observation, there is a range of possibilities, some more likely than others.

One must also remember that the date of Passover was determined not only by the visibility of the moon but also the season as determined by temperature and the growth of crops. Passover had to fall in the spring, and the first fruits of barley were offered in the Temple during the following festival of Unleavened Bread. The priests would have intercalated an additional month if temperatures were unseasonably cold and barley could not be presented, delaying the feasts further.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

No!

And NO BOTHER either

The date was chosen precisely because it took place in a time of the “Winter Solace” a time of pagan worship.

The thinking [intent and prayerful hope] was that many pagans would be diverted to Christianty instead. But it just didn’t work out that way.

Chrsitiine that this deals with “Church practices”; NOT doctrine or Dogma; even though the Birth of Christ Is; the date of God’s Incarnation is not

THANK YOU for asking:thumbsup:

God Bless you,

Merry CHRISTMAS my friend,
pat/PJM

Pat, I respectfully believe you’re mistaken. One would think the winter solar solstice would be a major pagan holiday, especially for those worshipping a sun god, but that’s not the case. None of the major solar astronomical events (equinoxes, solstices) were holidays in honor of solar gods, in Rome or any of the other ancient empires. The solstice was not a religious holiday for the Romans, although it was known and used as a marker for agricultural planning.

Many (most) pagans were eventually converted, but it was not because we copied their holidays - it was because we had better answers to the questions people asked, and because they were impressed by Christian charity (particularly during the pandemics that ravaged the Roman Empire, when Christians stayed behind to tend to the sick while pagan doctors fled), and because they were impressed by the greater dignity and rights given to Christian women, slaves, and children.

If Christians plotted to trick pagans into Christian observance by doing a bait-and-switch on their holidays, there should be some evidence in the writings of the fathers of the Church, and there simply isn’t. Instead, there’s an abhorrence of any mixture of pagan worship (and that’s what pagan holidays were - worship ceremonies for pagan idols) with Christian worship.

Nor was Saturnalia copied, which was on an earlier date than Christmas. The early Christian observance of Advent was like Lent, a time of fasting, charity and penitence, not the riotous feasting, drinking, and societal class inversion seen in Saturnalia. Some have claimed the Saturnalia gift giving (which was more like pay-offs to the underclass to avoid civil unrest) was copied in the Christian celebration of Christmas, but Christmas gift-giving didn’t come until centuries later, and the rites of Saturnalia didn’t survive the collapse of the Roman Empire. It’s not like there was a secret Saturnalian church that practiced gift-giving that survived the Holy Roman Empire, the Carolignian Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Industrial Age, before finally and triumphantly re-emerging when Thomas Nast began commercializing Christmas (when he wasn’t bashing Catholics) and they could exchange gifts openly. Saturnalia as a source for Christmas is a non-starter, as is the Feast of Sol Invictus, for reasons cited earlier in the thread.

 

[muzikman]

At the end of September: Zachary (Zechariah) “executed his priestly function” (Luke 1:8) according to his class(1). His wife, Elizabeth, conceived (the Church traditionally holds St. John’s conception to have taken place on 23 September) just as St. Gabriel said (Luke 1:24) and hid herself away for 5 months.

Where do you read that she hid herself away for 5 months?

 

[muzikman]

This gets discussed each year this time.

To summarize:

No serious modern classical scholar still holds the theory that Christmas was created to replace or ride on the back of an existing pagan celebration. There were no other Pagan religious celebrations on December 25, with the possible exception of a Sol Invictus celebration that was a minor one, and which appeared long after the rise of Christianity. The foremost expert on the Sol Invictus cult in the world discounts the idea that Christmas was created to ride on Sol Invictus’ coattails.

Actually, I also heard the Pagan roots predated Christianity and my studies from varied sources also seemed to reveal Pagan practices celebrated on the Winter solstice, prior to the coming of our Lord. The solstice varies from year to year but generally falls the week of Christmas. Below are some sources you can reference:

BBC Winter Solstice
Greek and Roman celebrations (500BC), Buddha (600BC), Druids (3200BC) and many others that predate Christianity

The other thing that was odd to me was why is why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus with a tree, giving of gits to others, Yule, etc. If you look into some of the practices you will find some similarities with other pagan practices. For example:

Saturnalia – gifts were given to other people, like Christians typically do on Christmas. This practice dates back to 500BC and was in mid-December.

Trees were worshipped for their height and especially the evergreen since it didn’t die like the other trees in the harsh winter. Also, I don’t cut trees down on any other birthdays so I don’t think it isn’t a cultural practice so where did it come from? I don’t see any biblical accounts that deal with trees in the OT or NT either.

Does anyone have any insight’s to these practices other than Pagan roots?

I think if the Lord wanted us to know He would have made it clear when it happened. The death and resurrection are clearly given and they fulfilled the prophetic Festivals of the Lord in such a rich way.

Also, who is the “foremost expert on the Sol Invictus cult”? I would like to research his writings.

 

[EnchantedEve]

Any written references to the Saturnalia Feast in Rome are from the A.D., later than the earliest references of “us” celebrating Epiphany (birth, magi, baptism, Cana). It could be just as easy to say that Saturnalia was a response to Christian celebration.

What do scholars give as the reason for disagreeing with late December? The only one I ever hear is that it had to be lambing time for the shepherds to be out in the fields, and that is absurd. those scholars don’t know the sheep business, if the sheep are free range they would be watched spring or winter (predators, rustlers, risk of “piling” in cold weather)

Quite right! The feast of Sol Invictus began the week before, and as was common in the traditional world the feast lasted several days. The day of the unconquered sun overlapped with the 25th, but did not fall on it. In addition, the feast of Sol Invictus was not widely celebrated until about 200 years after Christ’s death, being popularised by Augustus Aurelian. In fact, it has been speculated that Sol Invictus was actually a rip-off of Christmas, and not the reverse. We know that the feast of Sol Invictus dates to no earlier than 274 AD at Rome. This was observed by Roman games every 4 years, evidenced by the surviving Chronology of 354, which lists the games as beginning on the 25th. However, Christmas, from ancient Martyologies, was already celebrated annually on the 25th in 336. In fact there is no reason to believe that Sol Invictus was observed December 25th prior to 354, a full 18 years after the Roman sacramentary records Christmas. In fact, scholars believe that August may have likely been the original month Sol was celebrated. Other works list solar game in October. Tertullian argued for December 25th being Christ’s birth back in 198 AD, 76 years before Sol Invictus was even observed by Aurelian, so clearly none of this was new. As for the other nonsense, such as Saturnalia and the like, Saturnalia occurred in earl December, nowhere near Christmas, and ended before the 25th. Clearly, there is no connection between pagan deities and the Feast of the Nativity. The Holy Father rightly observes that Christ’s birthday is dated 9 months after the Annunciation, when Our Lady conceived Our Lord. No mysteries here.

 

[EnchantedEve]

Actually, I also heard the Pagan roots predated Christianity and my studies from varied sources also seemed to reveal Pagan practices celebrated on the Winter solstice, prior to the coming of our Lord. The solstice varies from year to year but generally falls the week of Christmas. Below are some sources you can reference:

BBC Winter Solstice
Greek and Roman celebrations (500BC), Buddha (600BC), Druids (3200BC) and many others that predate Christianity

The other thing that was odd to me was why is why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus with a tree, giving of gits to others, Yule, etc. If you look into some of the practices you will find some similarities with other pagan practices. For example:

Saturnalia – gifts were given to other people, like Christians typically do on Christmas. This practice dates back to 500BC and was in mid-December.

Trees were worshipped for their height and especially the evergreen since it didn’t die like the other trees in the harsh winter. Also, I don’t cut trees down on any other birthdays so I don’t think it isn’t a cultural practice so where did it come from? I don’t see any biblical accounts that deal with trees in the OT or NT either.

Does anyone have any insight’s to these practices other than Pagan roots?

I think if the Lord wanted us to know He would have made it clear when it happened. The death and resurrection are clearly given and they fulfilled the prophetic Festivals of the Lord in such a rich way.

Also, who is the “foremost expert on the Sol Invictus cult”? I would like to research his writings.

Using evergreens in winter was an ancient Roman custom, bringing in such decor from the Alps to decorate in the winter months when other plants were in remission. All the above customs aside from that are German and Scandinavian customs with no connection to Christmas as a religious observance, just as a cultural winter practice that Christianity rightly maintained alongside Her observances. Making tamales in Mexico, baking Panettone, and wassailing are also not religious in nature, but are no less legitimate in this regard.

As for giving gifts, people gave gifts at many cultural observances, as well as feasting and merrymaking, nothing pagan about any of this, just human culture. To say otherwise is just Calvinist.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Where do you read that she hid herself away for 5 months?

Luke 1:24