By Fr. Thom Hennen
Question Box
Q: I have heard that Jesus may have been born at a different time of year and that Dec. 25 was a pagan holiday celebrating the sun god. Can you shed some light on this?
A: I have been saving this question for almost a year! Was Jesus really born on Dec. 25 or was that just a convenient date to try to supplant a pagan holiday celebrated on the same day? Let’s face it; Christians do have a history of “baptizing” dates, feasts and symbols for our purposes.
To put it more positively, we have always looked for natural or cultural “footholds” in our work of evangelization. Even St. Paul did this at the Areopagus in Athens, pointing out the altar to an unknown god and saying, “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-24). We have never been afraid of tapping into human beings’ natural religiosity, their yearning for the divine and trying to share the Gospel using concepts and images that are familiar and easily translatable.
There was, in fact, a festival of “the Unconquerable Sun” (Sol Invictus) celebrated by the Romans on Dec. 25. The timing of this corresponds with the winter solstice, when the days begin to grow longer. The image of the coming of the dawn or of growing light lends itself nicely to speaking about Christ as the “Light of the world.” Interestingly, the earliest accounts of the celebration of Sol Invictus on Dec. 25 aren’t until much later, in 274 A.D. when the emperor Aurelian restored the feast. Could it be the other way around, that the emperor did this to try to squash Christmas? Maybe.
Another candidate might be the feast of Saturnalia, celebrating the god Saturn, but it is clear that this feast was celebrated earlier, from Dec. 17-23. The Romans did decorate their temples with evergreens. Perhaps these are the earliest roots of the Christmas tree, along with similar traditions that come out of pre-Christian northern Europe, which we have now thoroughly adopted as a Christian symbol.
The earliest account linking the birth of Christ with Dec. 25 comes to us from St. Hippolytus around the year 204 A.D. He writes, “the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was eight days before the Kalends (the 1st) of January.” Also, some would argue that the early Christians were careful about keeping track of these precise dates, just as they were about the sites where Jesus lived, walked, was crucified, buried, raised and ascended.
So, maybe we did borrow this date and maybe not. But if we did, then when was Jesus really born? Some scholars take the references to shepherds watching their flocks in Luke’s Gospel as evidence that it must have been springtime, as that would have been a more typical time to lead sheep to pasture. Others point out that this would still not rule out winter, as shepherds might be out with their flocks year round in a Mediterranean climate.
This side of heaven we may never know for sure Jesus’ actual birthday; it is not dogma that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. What matters is that his birth happened and we celebrate that every year at Christmas. If I get to heaven and find out that Jesus was actually born in November or May, that will not shatter my faith. I will still wish him a happy birthday! My family is pretty used to belated (or very early) birthday greetings, so Merry Christmas!
(Father Thom Hennen serves as the pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport and vicar general for the Diocese of Davenport. Send questions to messenger@davenportdiocese.org)
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