Why do Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25?
Most believers have heard the traditions, but very few know the real story. In this teaching, we journey through calendars and ancient festivals to uncover how December 25 became known as the birthday of Christ—and whether that claim stands on Scripture, history, or something far older.

If you’ve ever wondered about the true origins of Christmas, the history of December 25, this lesson will give you the clarity you’ve been searching for. We walk through the timeline step by step, cutting through myth and custom to lay bare what the historical record actually reveals.

Too long have half-truths and traditions stood in the place of understanding. Here you’ll find more than a history lesson—you’ll find a call to discernment, a return to Scripture, and the God Honest Truth about how December 25 rose to prominence in the Christian world.

#Christmas #ChristmasHistory #December25th #HistoryOfChristmas #ChristmasOrigins #OriginsOfChristmas #GodHonestTruth

AI Research Papers

Notes for This Episode

General Notes on Christmas

Transcript

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Teaching Introduction

Okay, stop the music. We need to talk about the date of December 25th. For centuries, people have regarded this date as sacred, but yet no one can explain exactly where it came from. Everyone celebrates December 25th, but almost no one knows why.

If you’re ready to challenge tradition, if you’re ready to confront the history that most believers never hear, then stay with us because once you see how the date of December 25th was chosen, you’ll never see Christmas in the same light again.

We’re going back to the foundational decisions of Christianity to show you where the date of December 25th as the date of Christmas actually came from. We’re ripping up the historical calendar to expose the shocking origins of this famous date and learn the God-honest truth about December 25th.

Video Start

So this teaching is going to be all about December 25th—where it came from, why we celebrate it as Christmas or the birth of Messiah, all the stuff that went into it, the people who went into making that particular decision and where it came from, all that good stuff. So make sure to definitely stay tuned for this particular teaching.

Now, before we get to that, I just want to remind everyone that if you would like the notes that we took for this particular episode, you can go find those on our website on the article post that we did for this episode. And there you’ll be able to find the on-demand video. You’ll find the draw slides that you see here on your screen, as well as the notes that we took for this particular episode, the notes for Christmas in general, plus five academic research papers that were put together by five different AIs, which is rather interesting.

And we’ll also have the transcript that goes along with this particular video once it gets published, if that is so helpful for you. But it’s right there on the website at www.godhonesttruth.com, or you can go down below and click on the convenient link that we placed for you down there in the description, and that should be down there for you. Whether you are listening on an audio podcasting site or watching through a video site such as Rumble or YouTube, it should be down there all the same.

And the thing is, all the information we’re presenting here—it’s just a drop in the bucket to the information that we have put on the notes. So go check that out on our website or through the link. There’s a whole bunch more that goes into it, and we don’t want to put all that in this one video as one teaching because we didn’t want to be here all day long.

Go check out the other notes if you’d like some more information, if you’re a student and want to be further educated.

Igniting Insight

So, let’s start out with igniting some of your insight and some of the things to start thinking about as we go through this particular teaching.

Number one: Christmas is celebrated on December 25th of every single year. It doesn’t move on the date. It’s not like the American Thanksgiving, where it’s the fourth Thursday of every November. It’s not like the last Monday that Memorial Day is on. It doesn’t move. It’s always on December 25th.

But start thinking to yourself: why is it on December 25th? Why was that one single day out of the whole year chosen to be regarded as the birthday of Christ?

There’s no exact dating in Scripture. We have zero references in Scripture or a verse that says that Messiah was born on this particular day of this particular month. Nothing like that. There’s no exact dating in Scripture for the birth of Yeshua.

Scripture and the Hebrews, as we learned in our birthday episode, generally did not celebrate birthdays at all—not for prominent figures, not for the everyday person. Now, probably some might have, as we saw in that episode with Job and his sons. There possibly could have been certain birthday celebrations described there. So, it might have happened, it just wasn’t prominent, and it certainly wasn’t something that the Bible wanted to illustrate and put out there for everyone to remember. It was rather unimportant overall, as the picture that Scripture puts it.

So we don’t see anything in Scripture directly, anyway, where people were celebrating their birthday—or at least not the righteous. We have the example of Pharaoh, an Egyptian pagan king. We have the example of Herod in the New Testament. But we don’t have any of the righteous. We don’t have an example of the righteous in Scripture celebrating birthdays.

Also, what does that tell us about the importance that the Bible places on the birthday of Christ? Does not mentioning it mean that the Bible places a great amount of importance on it? Well, no. Not really.

So, keep that in mind. Start thinking about that.

And in that regard, if the Bible wants you to remember something, it tells you the dates. It tells you how to calculate it, how to get about it, when it comes about on the calendar. The mo’ed—the appointed feasts of Yahweh—as we find in Scripture, those are given exacting dates for when they are to be celebrated and how to celebrate them.

And here, if you look on your screen or even in the notes if you go to our website, here are all the dates for the mo’edim of Yahweh—from Passover to Unleavened Bread to Shavuot to the Feast of Trumpets to Shabbat to Sukkot, etc., etc. It gives the day when it is to be celebrated on the calendar. There’s no ambiguity there.

There’s a difference in interpretation as to when Shavuot should be kept, but either way it’s still 50 days after Pesach or 50 days after the Shabbat after Pesach. That’s the one we typically hold to. But the exacting dates are given in Scripture by Yahweh so we know when and how to celebrate these particular mo’edim.

Even the added feasts in Scripture after the time of the Torah—these added feasts, these deuterocanonical feasts—are given the exacting dates as well.

For example, the Feast of Purim we find in the book of Esther 9:20–22: “And Mordecai wrote these matters and sent letters to all the Yehudim who were in the provinces of Sovereign Ahashwerosh, both near and far, to establish them to perform the 14th and 15th days of the new moon of Adar yearly.”

So even Purim is given exacting days.

And the feast for Hanukkah is also—in the book of Maccabees. It’s not Scripture, but in the book of Maccabees it is given the exacting date for Hanukkah, from 1 Maccabees 4:59: “Moreover, Judas and his brethren with the whole congregation of Israel ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month, with mirth and gladness.”

So the feast days of Yahweh are given exacting dates on the calendar—when to keep them, how to keep them, how long to keep them, etc., etc. Because they want you to know this. It’s important to Scripture that you know these things. That’s why they give you all the details.

Even the deuterocanonical feasts like Purim and Hanukkah—they’re given the exacting dates on the calendar of when to keep them, how long to keep them, etc., etc. They’re so important that these feasts that Yahweh wanted you to remember them that even Pesach—you get a second chance, a second Passover if you happen to miss the first one. And there are exacting dates and observances for that second Passover as well.

So when Scripture determines something to be important—important enough for you to remember and to celebrate—it gives you the details about it.

However, when it comes to birthdays in general, and especially the birthday of Yeshua, there are zero dates given for the birthday of Yeshua. There is zero date or details given about how to celebrate the birthday of Yeshua. It’s not even a deuterocanonical or added feast from Scripture like Purim or Hanukkah.

We don’t see the apostles or the first-century believers within Scripture celebrating the birth of Messiah. They don’t give any details about a celebration they had themselves for celebrating the birth of Messiah. None of that. Because Scripture and the first believers did not—they simply did not hold the birthday of Yeshua as something important or something to be regularly and on a regular basis celebrated like we do today.

Yeah, that’s all a bunch of stuff to think about. So, keep all that in mind as we go throughout this particular study, this particular teaching.

Comprehending Calendars

Now, in order to get a better, more holistic understanding of this whole December 25th subject and issue, we need to start understanding and try to comprehend a little bit about calendars. Because the calendar we have nowadays—especially here in America and pretty much all over the world nowadays… There are a few places that are exceptions—but the calendar we have now is called the Gregorian calendar.

But did you know that we haven’t always used the Gregorian calendar? In fact, before we were on the Gregorian calendar, we had the Julian calendar.

And coming from Britannica.com: “Julian calendar, dating system established by Julius Caesar. The year was divided into 12 months, all of which had either 30 or 31 days except February, which contained 28 days in common years and 29 in every fourth year. Leap years repeated February 23rd. Some Eastern Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian calendar for determining fixed liturgical dates.” End quote.

And from Wikipedia.org: “The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year, with an additional leap day every fourth year without exception. The Julian calendar was proposed in 46 BC by, and takes its name from, Julius Caesar as a reform of the earlier Roman calendar, which was largely a lunar luni-solar one. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC by his edict.” End quote.

And here is a list of the months—the names of the months for the Julian calendar. And they’re a little different than what we have nowadays on our Gregorian calendar, but a lot of the information, a lot of the details about these two particular calendars are the same. There’s nuanced differences that make the Gregorian calendar a lot more accurate than the Julian calendar.

But one thing I thought was rather interesting is that what we know of now as July and August was originally named Quintilis and Sextilis. And there’s information that goes behind that, but they were eventually renamed to Julius—or July—for Julius Caesar. And Sextilis was renamed to Augustus—or August—for Augustus Caesar.

And the reason that July was named for Julius Caesar is because there was a common belief that Julius Caesar was born in July—again, going back to the whole birthday thing. And August was named for Augustus Caesar because, well, the information I got was that a lot of his accomplishments and victories and stuff like that were determined to be within the month of August. So that was named in honor of Augustus Caesar.

However, this Julian calendar was off. And it wasn’t immediately apparent to them, I don’t think. But eventually, dates started to drift away from the seasons. Because this Julian calendar tried to keep up with the seasons.

The pagans—Julius Caesar was a pagan; the Romans were pagans, etc., etc.—the pagans put a lot of emphasis and importance on the changing of the seasons, especially the winter solstice, the summer solstice, the spring and autumn equinoxes, etc., etc. And the Julian calendar, because it was off, these times drifted and it offset the dates on their calendar from when they had their particular celebrations of various feasts and events.

But eventually a change was needed, and in comes the Gregorian calendar.

Quote from Wikipedia.org: “In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the Gregorian calendar. Reform was required as the Julian calendar, with an average length of 365 and 1/4 days, was longer than the natural tropical year. On average, the astronomical solstices and the equinoxes advanced by 10.88 minutes per year against the Julian calendar year. As a result, 21 March, which is the base date for calculating the date of Easter, gradually moved out of alignment with the March equinox.” End quote.

And this comes from Britannica.com: “Gregorian calendar, proclaimed in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a reform of the Julian calendar. A slight inaccuracy in the measurement of the Julian calendar caused the calendar dates of the seasons to regress almost one day per century.” End quote.

Now, this was a big deal. The Julian calendar lasted, like we read earlier, from about 45 BCE until 1582 CE or AD. So it lasted for pretty much about 1,600 years. That’s a pretty good run actually. But it was still off and still needed to be adjusted and corrected. And that’s what the Gregorian calendar did.

But the main motivation was not necessarily because it was off just in general. The main motivation for the Gregorian calendar change was due to the calculation of Easter. And Easter is calculated within Catholicism by the spring equinox.

But we’ll get into all that and more information on the Gregorian calendar and the change later on.

But right now, here is a picture of when that change went into effect. It was in October of 1582. And here’s a calendar of how that change went about. In October 1582, the people went to bed on Thursday, October 4th, and woke up the next morning on Friday, October 15th. They skipped 10 days going from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in order to get everything corrected and lined up the way they wanted to.

Like I said, more about that coming up later on about the Gregorian calendar and the change and etc., etc.

So now you know that back during the time of Yeshua and the apostles and the first councils and the first believers and the fourth century, fifth century, etc., etc.—when all these foundational things were first being laid down that led to the traditions that we have today—they were using the Julian calendar. And the dates on the Julian calendar are a little bit different than the dates on our Gregorian calendar.

So keep that in mind. Understand that.

Designated Dates

And on the Julian calendar, they actually had various designated dates for certain pagan festivals. And it’s something they penciled in on the calendar and they had it just about every single year. Certain specific festivals that they celebrated were things like Saturnalia. This comes from britannica.com.

Quote, “Saturnalia, the most popular of Roman festivals dedicated to the Roman god Saturn. The festival’s influence continues to be felt throughout the Western world. Originally celebrated on December 17th, Saturnalia was extended first to three and eventually to seven days. It was the liveliest festival of the year. The streets were infected with a Mardi Gras madness and the seasonal greeting to Saturnalia was heard everywhere.” End quote.

Now, a lot of times certain people will say that Christmas is just a copy or a co-opt of Saturnalia, and that’s not entirely true because Saturnalia was celebrated from December 17th through December 23rd on the Julian calendar. So that doesn’t come up to December 25th, but there’s a lot of the elements of Saturnalia that were co-opted into the celebration of Christmas that we know of nowadays.

You see a couple things here. It was ex- seven days, but not everyone celebrates Christmas for seven days technically. I mean, usually some people start in July decorating and leave their lights up until March, but that doesn’t count. Some people have 12 days of Christmas, but that’s another thing that’s separate from this. But a lot of things were incorporated from Saturnalia, such as decorating with evergreen decorations, the the Mardi Gras madness that it talks about here in this article, and also the seasonal greeting for Saturnalia that was heard everywhere. And you hear a seasonal greeting for Christmas all the time nowadays.

Now, the seasonal greeting for Saturnalia that I was able to look up and try to find would went something like Io Saturnalia. And I know I’m probably mispronouncing that, but it’s in Greek or Latin. And Io Saturnalia roughly translates to something like joyous Saturnalia or happy Saturnalia. Sound familiar? Well, it should because again, a lot of these elements of Saturnalia were incorporated into the celebration of Christmas, but not the date.

So, we’re talking about December 25th. We’re talking about the exacting date this time. So, let’s move on. Let’s find out where that date actually comes from.

Another designated date on the pagan calendar on the Julian calendar that the pagans celebrated was a festival called Brumalia. This comes from Merriam-Webster of all places.

Quote, “Brumalia, a pagan festival held at the winter solstice from which some features of the celebration of Christmas seem to have originated.” End quote.

From imperium romanum.pl, Brumalia was a month-long festival in honor of Bakus or Saturn, the Greek god Kronos. This feast was celebrated on November 24th. The name of the holiday comes from the word Bruma, meaning the shortest day. End quote.

And finally, from Wikipedia.org, quote, “A Brumalia were a winter solstice festival celebrated in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. In Rome, there had been the minor holiday of Bruma on November 24th, which turned into large-scale end of the year festivities. The festival included nighttime feasting, drinking, and merriment. The name of Brumalia comes from Bruma, meaning winter solstice, winter cold, a shortening of brevissima.” End quote.

So that’s an evolution of a little bit of the evolution of this Brumalia. Originally they celebrated on November 24th, but it got extended and for a whole month. Says a one month celebration of these pagan gods. The Greek god Kronos. It says there in that one article, Kronos being the head god. Anyways, I think he was a Titan. I’m not really sure, but anyways, the celebration of these pagan gods and started on November 24th, lasted for an entire month, ending up on the winter solstice of the Julian calendar, which was December 25th.

Again, we’re talking about the Julian calendar here, not the Gregorian. So hold all that for just a little bit later. We’ll get into all that and the calculations etc etc. But Brumalia and the winter solstice were on December 25th of the Julian calendar back in ancient Rome.

Again with Brumalia according to history and archaeology online. Quote, “Before the advent of Christianity, the 25th of December was a special day of celebration for many ancient cultures, for the day marked the ancient turning point of the year when the sun was finally reborn after standing still at the winter solstice. The Romans marked the winter solstice and the days that followed with a number of solstice celebrations. The Brumalia marked the shortest day while later eastern influence cults such as Mithras and Sol Invictus celebrated December 25th as the birth dates of their cult deities. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar reorganized the Roman calendar. This reshuffling of dates shifted the date of the winter solstice to December 25th, the equivalent date on the modern calendar of December 21st or 22nd. And so the 25th December became the date of the Brumalia, the festival celebrated by the Romans as the mark of mid-winter and the end of Saturnalia.” End quote.

So some things to keep around or keep in mind is that the ancients, especially the especially the ancient Romans we’re talking about here and the pagans, they celebrated December 25th as the winter solstice. They celebrate it as the birthday of their particular gods. Whether it was the Brumalia that was celebrating Kronos and etc etc whether it was Saturnalia that was celebrating the pagan gods of Saturn and whatnot.

And there was other sun cults or sun pagan religions that did pretty much the same thing all the way even up into the Kelts that we discussed earlier in a previous episode. So this Brumalia was a closeout ceremony also for the feast of Saturnalia. And this Brumalia meant pretty much winter solstice. And it was actually ended up being celebrated the last day anyways on December 25th which was considered the winter solstice on the Julian calendar.

Keep all that in mind. There’s a lot of information we’ve already covered but there’s a bunch coming in. We’re not even halfway through yet. So, keep all that in mind. This whole thing about celebrating various gods and when the winter solstice was, and it was every year they considered the 25th of December on the Julian calendar to be the winter solstice.

Now, so far when he first introduced it, it wasn’t too too much about one particular god or even one particular form of the sun god, but that kind of changed as time went on. Went on looking at britannica.com. During the later periods of Roman history, sun worship gained in importance and ultimately led to what has been called a solar monotheism. Nearly all the gods of the period were possessed of solar qualities. The feast of Sol Invictus, meaning the unconquered sun, on December 25th was celebrated with great joy. End quote.

This comes from britannica.com as well. Quote, “Mithras in ancient Indo-Iranian mythology, the god of light whose cult spread from India in the east to as far west as Spain, Great Britain, and Germany. His worship spread to Persia and after the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great throughout the Hellenic world. In the 3rd and fourth centuries AD, the cult of Mithras, carried and supported by the soldiers of the Roman Empire was the chief rival to the newly developing religion of Christianity. As god of light, Mithras was associated with the Greek sun god Helios and the Roman Sol Invictus. He is often paired with Anahita, goddess of the fertilizing waters.” End quote.

So another thing to bring up is that sometimes people who are overzealous and against Christmas will sometimes like they did with Saturnalia also make something along the an argument along the effects of well Christmas is just a co-opting or taking over of Mithras or Mithras Mithraism things like that but that’s not entirely true either. We actually don’t really know the birth date of Mithras. Not definitive, definitively anyways, or I have not been able to find any definitive proof of the birthday of Mithras if it was on the winter solstice or whatnot.

However, everything else seems to line up that was probably was since every other pagan sun god worshiping cults around the world celebrated the winter solstice and that was generally the birth date or the resurrection time of their particular sun god. So, we don’t have any archaeological evidence to prove that was when the birth date of Mithras was, but more than likely it is. However, I wouldn’t really go with that argument to say that Christmas is just a co-opting of Mithraism because it’s not entirely correct, at least not from being able to be backed up from an evidentiary standpoint.

However, Mithras is a pagan sun god. And as we know, pagan gods are nothing more than demons that go around and they take other names as well. We’ve got Ishtar in the Bible who was known by other names like Aphrodite and Easter and Diana etc etc. It’s no different with these other pagan gods like Mithras who was also known and associated with other various pagan gods such as the Greek sun god Helios. Keep that in mind. We’re going to get to that later bit later on. That name is going to come up in an unexpected way. So remember that word Helios and that the name of a Greek god. Mithras is also associated and pretty much the same thing as Sol Invictus. And as you might have guessed, we going to get to that in just a moment as well. So there’s a definitely a Mithras connection there. But all the same, you can’t say it comes directly from Mithras. Not directly due to the evidence because we don’t actually have the evidence. Everything lines up, yes, but we don’t directly have the evidence going on.

Let’s look at this Sol Invictus real quick and see how that comes into play from contemporary American religion. Quote, “Since time immemorial, European cultures have pursued a great many different activities connected with the winter solstice. Pre-Christian festivals in the Mediterranean world included many variations on Saturnalia. Other celebrations stemmed from Syria and the Mithras cult and were associated specifically with the sun. By 274 of the common era, the Roman emperor Aurelian designated December 25th as Natalis Solis Invicti, birthday of the unconquerable son.” End quote, or birthday of the invincible son.

But keep all that in mind. It was the emperor Aurelian in 274. These dates are going to be important if you want to line everything up and get a better understanding.

But remember, it’s still on the Julian calendar. And December 25th is held as the winter solstice on the Julian calendar by the ancient Roman pagans. And now the emperor Aurelian in 274 designates December 25th, the winter solstice on the Julian calendar. He designates December 25th as the birthday of the unconquerable son.

Also from wikipedia.org, quote, “Aurelian also built a new temple for Sol which was dedicated on 25th of December 274.” End quote.

Now remember what we covered in our episode that we did in this series on the subject of birthdays. Let’s go over that real quick just as a refresher from Brill’s New Pauly. Quote, “Birthday celebrations of temples, cities, and associations. Owing to the lack of clear genealogies of the gods in the Roman religion, there were also no birthday celebrations for gods in the Greek sense. That is why people remember the dedication days of the temples, the natalis templi meaning birthdays of the temples with festivity or with festive processions involving sacrifices partially lectisternia public meals games etc etc”. End quote.

And this comes from Sir Reginald Holliday, The Pagan Background of Early Christianity, quote, “The 25th of December, the winter solstice was celebrated as the birthday of the unconquered son.” End quote.

So remember, we looked at Aurelian and he dedicated a temple to Sol Invictus. Now, these pagans, they didn’t have the good genealogies of their pagan gods, so they didn’t know exactly when their birthday was on the calendar, which makes no sense. It was all fairy tales made up anyway, so why not just make up a date? Anyways, he dedicated this temple on December 25th in the year 274 to the sun god Sol Invictus, thereby establishing the birthday of Sol Invictus on December 25th.

So now we’ve got the establishment of a sun god with the winter solstice and the birthday of the sun god on December 25th. That’s a little bit about the background of the calendars. And remember during this time they were still on the Julian calendar and according to the Julian calendar and Roman pagan belief December 25th was the winter solstice every single year without doubt. And December 25th at least starting in 274 was the birthday of the unconquerable son the one of the various pagan sun gods. So that’s on that.

Calculation of Christ’s Coming

But you’re thinking, okay, that’s all Roman paganism, but we’re biblically based. We worship Yahweh. We follow and learn from the teachings of Yeshua, and we’re talking about the birth date of Yeshua. We’re supposed to. So, let’s get into that and look at the calculation or the ancient calculations of Christ coming, his birthday, the first coming.

Anyways, so starting out from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Quote, “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the church and before the fifth century, there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on January 6th, March 25th, or December 25th. A passage almost certainly interpolated in Hippolytus’ commentary on Daniel 4:23 says that Jesus was born at Bethlehem on Wednesday, December 25th in the 42nd year of Augustus, but he mentions no feast. As late as 245, Origen repudiated the idea of keeping the birthday of Christ as if he were a king Pharaoh.” End quote.

So here according to the encyclopedia of Britannica the first three centuries definitely there was no celebration of Christmas. There’s no celebration of the birth of Christ. No one had a certain day or whatnot. There was all kinds of speculations that were going around, but there was really no solidified date as to when people thought that Messiah had been born. And they actually really didn’t care for the most part. There probably one or two here and there, but on the whole, yeah, the people just really didn’t care because it’s not spelled out in the Bible. The Bible does not put an importance on the birth date of Messiah, etc., etc.

You can see here from this one particular quote that there was various dates going around. People certain people thought that the birth date was on January 6th. Other people thought it was on March 5th. Other people still thought it was on December 25th. And they kind they had their various reasonings for coming up with these particular dates that we’ll get into some of those. But even still nowadays we have people especially the Armenian church they celebrate their Christmas on January 6th which is actually January 7th if you put the Julian with the Gregorian nowadays according to the drift and it’s mindboggling but anyways there are still people who celebrate Christmas on dates other than December 25th but we’re talking about December 25th also keep that date March 25th death in mind because that’s going to come into play later on as we go throughout this particular teaching.

But like I said, there were speculated dates all over the place. We look at Clement of Alexandria who lived from 153 through 217. And in the Stromata, he says, quote, “And there are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day.” And they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus and in the 25th day of Pashon. And the followers of Basilides hold the day of his baptism as a festival spending the night before in readings. And they say it was the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, the 15th day of the month Tybi. And some that it was the 11th of the same month and treating of his passion with very great accuracy. Some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius on the 25th of Phamenoth and others the 25th of Pharmouthi. And others say that on the 19th of Pharmouthi, the savior suffered. Further, others say that he was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmouthi.” End quote.

Now, these the names of these months are odd and they should be odd because they’re not from the Julian calendar and they’re not from the Gregorian calendar. Obviously, they actually come from the Egyptian calendar. But anyways, the dates you’re talking about that he’s talking about here are nowhere in December. This whole Pashon and Pharmouthi that corresponds in our Gregorian calendar and pretty much the Julian calendar to the dates or the months of April and May. Everything he listed here has nothing to do with December 25th. So during this time here at probably the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria down there in Alexandria, Egypt is not quoting anything close to a December 25th date. At least not in this particular section. You have some other evidence that where he puts forth a December 25th date. Hey, by all means, send it to us, but we don’t have anything like that here at the end of the 2nd century from Clement of Alexandria.

The first mention that we do get of December 25th comes from Hippolytus of Rome. And according to the New Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, quote, “Hippolytus seems to have been the first to fix upon December 25th. This coming from Hippolytus of Rome in his commentary on Daniel.” Quote, “For the first coming of our Lord, the coming in the flesh whereby he was born in Bethlehem took place on the 8th day before the calendars of January.” End quote.

This corresponds to the 25th of December. The calendar of January is the beginning of January. The Ides of January is the middle of January. About the 13th or so. That’s going to come into play later. But Hippolytus is referring to the 8th day before the calendar of January. And this is the first mention that we have of a date for December 25th as a speculation as to when Messiah was born.

Now, Hippolytus of Rome, he’s writing this particular passage in about the year 204 CE. So about the beginning of the 3rd century. However, as we saw, Clement of Alexander was writing just before him and there was dates all over the place. Hippolytus actually speculated on early other dates as well earlier than this particular writing. But in this one, it’s the first mention we have December 25th.

However, one other thing to also mention and to take note of and to understand is that even though this is the first date that we have mentioned of December 25th, earliest in history, it’s still not a feast day. It’s still not a holiday. It’s still not a celebration. It’s still not something that is engraved in stone on the liturgical calendar. This is simply just a speculation about when he was born. No feast, no celebration, just simple speculation as to the birth date. And that’s it. At the beginning of the third century, keep that in mind, too. There’s still no feast date, still no celebration of the birth of Christ.

According to the New Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, quote, “There is no historical evidence that our Lord’s birthday was celebrated during the apostolic or early post-apostolic times. The uncertainty that existed at the beginning of the 3rd century in the minds of Hippolytus and others. Hippolytus earlier favored January 2nd Clement of Alexandria the 25th day of Pashon while others according to Clement fixed upon April 18th or 19th and March 28th proves that no Christmas festival had been established much before the middle of the century.” End quote.

And taking all the evidence that I’ve been able to go through and gather and stuff like that. There was really no Christmas festival before the 4th century actually. But we’ll continue on. You’ll be able to see some of that for yourself as well. In fact, the dates, like I said, there’s this is the third century we’re still in right now talking about. There was no fixed date and speculations were all over the place.

A writer by the name of Lupi, this is according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, quote, “But Lupi has shown that there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Christ birth.” End quote.

Now, again, Lupi is writing in the 18th century. So, it’s very far removed from all these events that we’re talking about in the 3rd century, but still it he accurately describes this. There was a bunch of dates just being thrown around. And there’s no settled date in the 3rd century for the birth of Christ.

According to the again, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, quote, “Ephraim Syrus proves that Mesopotamia still put the birth feast 13 days after the winter solstice. In other words, 6th of January. Armenia likewise ignored and still ignores the December festival.” End quote.

So there you have it. There was dates all over the place back then and even today there are certain groups around the world that celebrate Christmas at a different time and not on the 25th of December.

So that goes to show you a couple things. Number one, that scripture places zero importance on the celebration and regular remembrance of the birth of Christ. Number two, the believers did not celebrate it or have a fixed date for the first three centuries. There was various dates all around the place, all over the calendar. As we saw from the evidence, it was in March, it was in May, it was in January, it was in December, etc., etc.

If we have all these speculations about when Messiah was born way back when, we got all these different dates on the calendar. Why was it that it came to be decided on this one particular date, this one particular day in December? How did we finally settle on that one date to the exclusion of all others?

Well, there’s a couple of different hypothesis as to how this came about. The well one hypothesis is that it was due to calculations by the early believers, the early writers here in the 3rd and early 4th century that they went through the evidence and the historical accounts and stuff like that and that they calculated it to come out to be December 25th according to various methods. We’ll get into some of those here in just a moment. And they call that the well I forget the exact name of it but due to calculations they came up with whether right or wrong these calculations led to December 25th.

Another date or another should I say it uh probably tradition, a Jewish tradition is that people of great stature or great prophets and stuff like that were said to die on the day that they were born or conceived. And the people back then speculated that Messiah died on March 25th. And then they back calculated that to mean that Christ was conceived on March 25th and therefore born on December 25th. This very very shaky evidence and calculations there. But that’s one way that it was it’s thought of that they might have calculated that.

Another way and we’ve got a little bit of evidence we’ll look at here in just a minute. But another way they try to calculate it is through a misunderstanding of the passage in scripture about Zecharias, the father of John the Baptist. And when he was serving in the temple, they say or they thought that Zecharias was the high priest. And when it mentions him in the temple that he was actually performing the service as the high priest on the day of atonement. So they calculated six months from there due to the information provided in scripture that John the Baptist was gestating for six months before Messiah was conceived and 6 months from the day of atonement would put him about March 25th and again that would make the birth of Messiah on December 25th.

But this is all for not let’s look at this real quick. The Catholic Encyclopedia quote “besides Zachary who as high priest entered the temple on the day of atonement received therefore announcement of John’s conception in September 6 months later Christ was conceived i.e in March and born accordingly in December.” End quote.

Now I’ve got those relevant passages for you up there on the screen right now. But if you want to look at it for yourself, you can find that in Luke chapter 1 about the information about Zecharias, the father of John the Baptist. But to suffice it to say is that number one, Zecharias was not the high priest. Number two, he was burning incense on the altar of incense. But keep in mind that the altar of incense is not in the holy of holies. The day of atonement is the only day in the year when the high priest goes into the holy of holies. So they got their information mixed up because they didn’t know the entire Bible. They thought the Old Testament was done away with that Jesus came and done away with all that stuff. So they don’t so they didn’t understand it and they got their calculations incorrect.

In fact, if you look in your scripture, you can find out for yourself that the altar of incense is not in the holy of holies. So, Zecharias doing his duty on the altar of incense has nothing to do with him being high priest or going into the holy of holies. You look in Exodus 30, specifically verses 1-10, it tells you about this altar of incense, and it says, “And you shall make a slaughter place to burn incense on, and you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the witness. and Aaron shall burn on it sweet incense morning by morning, a continual incense before Yahweh.”

So scripture tells us the altar of incense is to be burning incense every single day going into the holy of holies was done once a year and only by the high priest. Anyone could do the altar of incense. It didn’t have to be just the high priest. And number two, we can also see in this description from Exodus chapter 30 that the altar of incense sits outside the veil of the holy of holies. So it’s outside of the holy of holies. So Zecharias burning incense on the holy of on the altar of incense does not make him high priest. That does not mean he was going into the holy of holies and does not indicate that he was performing a sacred duty on the day of atonement.

So this is all miscalculations at this point. And also he was not high priest. He was of the division of Abijah, the eighth division. And if you do the calculations, look it up yourself. The division of Abijah, whichever service they go to, their first service of the year or the second service of the year is not during the time of Yom Kippurim, the day of atonement. So even the order that he was on would not have been during the day of atonement. Now, it could have been one of the pilgrimage festivals, but it doesn’t say anything about that or indicate anything of the sort in the book of Luke.

Now, once again, I said the high priest did not include Zecharias. He was a priest, but not the high priest. Here, you can see on your screen here, if you’re watching on video, a listing of the high priest from 22 B.C.E. all the way through 15 of the common era. And none of those list anything close to Zecharias or Zachary or anything of the like. And this is from three different sources coming from wikipedia.org, biblehistory.org, and taylormarshall.com. This is Taylor Marshall is a Catholic apologist for the observance of Christmas. We’ll get a little bit about him a little bit later on, but he had a listing of the high priest there showing that Zecharias was not a high priest. And we can see that from scripture as well. So calculating the date according to Zecharias being the high priest that’s faulty and it just certainly does not work.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, quote, “Unfortunately, there is no contemporary evidence for the celebration in the 4th century of Christ’s conception on March 25th.” End quote.

And then according to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, quote, “Zecharias was not the high priest and the altar of incense was not in the holy of holies. It is scarcely less clear that the whole explanation is posterior to the institution of the feast and was invented to prove from the gospels a date which had already been chosen for other reasons.” End quote.

And that’s what it really seems like to me as well. It seems like this whole idea of calculating the date was something that came about after the institution of Christmas or the feast of nativity came about after that to try and justify the date for reasons other than the real reason why December 25th was actually chosen. So it comes way after that. That’s you have evidence to prove otherwise that’s that’s fine. Bring it up. But so, you know, people were they were trying to figure it out before this, but they couldn’t. And they were all over the place because A scripture does not give an exacting date. B people didn’t care because scripture doesn’t care.

But more likely this whole subject of December 25th being selected as the date for Christmas or the feast of nativity. It was most likely due to the concept known as syncretism or interpretatio Romana better known as interpretatio Christiana. Now we’re going to have a whole episode all about that coming up a little bit later on in this series. In other words, it was most likely due to co-opting a pagan festival to bring converts in. And the church thought they had the authority to do that, even though they didn’t, amongst other things besides Christmas, too. But we’ll get into that a little bit later on in another episode.

But anyways, we go on and look at the Catholic Encyclopedia. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Catholic. Now, keep this in mind. Quote, “The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Solis Invicti, birthday invincible sun, celebrated on 25th December has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date.” End quote. Not calculations. It was because of a pagan festival. This is coming from a Catholic source, and the Catholics are the ones who invented all this. They’re they’re admitting as much as to why the 25th of December was actually chosen.

We look in the Encyclopedia Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. Quote, “At the same time, the heathen winter holidays, meaning Saturnalia, Juvenalia, and Brumalia, were undoubtedly transformed and so to speak, sanctified by the establishment of the Christmas cycle of holidays and the heathen customs, so far as they were harmless were brought over into Christian use.” End quote.

Now, we’re starting to see a little bit as to why the date for December 25th was eventually chosen. So, we’ve got before the 4th century, we’ve got all these dates all over the calendar as to people speculating when Messiah was actually born. But we had zero feast day for the feast of nativity for a Christmas holiday or anything like that.

However, eventually as you know probably have guessed by now eventually there came to be a date and a festivity or a feast for the feast of nativity what we know of as Christmas. And the earliest record we have of a nativity feast comes from the Chronography of 354. Quote, or I’m sorry, from the New Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Quote, “The earliest record of the recognition of December 25th as a church festival is in the Philokalian calendar.” End quote.

And just for reference, the Philokalian calendar is also known as the uh Chronography of 354, which is also known as Philokalian calendar, etc. Anyways, this comes from wikipedia.org and tertullian.org. Quote, “8th of I’m sorry, the 8th before the calendar of January, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea. That is end quote.” And that comes the actual inscription from the Chronography of 354.

But continuing in that particular section, quote, “The Chronography of 354 part 12 Depositio Martyrum. The inscription is a simple declarative statement of the date showing that by 354 of the common era, December 25th was established in the Roman liturgical calendar.” End quote.

So December 25th as a celebration or a feast of the nativity. The earliest record we have of that is in 354 and in Rome far away from Jerusalem and pretty much the Middle East, but it started in Rome. Yep. I’m get off on that tangent, but that was the middle of the 4th century. That’s the first evidence we have of a Christmas celebration, a feast of nativity celebration 350 years after the death uh after the birth of Messiah. It took that long for a celebration of the birth of Messiah to come about.

Then near the end of the 4th century, a guy named or I’m sorry, a guy by the name of John Chrysostom in his homily on Christmas writes something very interesting. We’ll get into the exact quotes of what he said here coming up on this next slide. But according to the New Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, quote, “Chrysostom states that the celebration of the birth of Christ according to the flesh was not inaugurated at Antioch until 10 years before that date. He intimates that this festival approved by himself was opposed by many.” End quote.

Chrysostom of Antioch in his address that we’ll read here in just a moment is stating that in Antioch this whole Christmas thing was not even 10 years old yet and that it came from Rome, not from Jerusalem, from Rome. So from the horse’s mouth, let’s go ahead and read that particular speech from John Chrysostom. It has been cut down for the sake of brevity, but you can go look up for yourself if you’d like to. You can find the link in the notes. And this is from John Chrysostom’s homily for Christmas.

Quote, “Think how great it would be to see the sun, s-u-n, coming down from the heavens. Consider and contemplate now how great it is to see the Son of Righteousness, s-u-n. Although it is not yet the 10th year since this day became clear and familiar to us, one would not be far wrong in saying that it is both new and old. New because it has only recently been made known to you. Old and venerable because it has been swiftly become similar in stature to days long recognized and it feels as though it is of similar age to them. This day was known from the beginning to those in the west i.e. Rome. Now it has been brought to us. I well know that many are still debating with each other about it. Some arguing against, some for. Some saying accusingly that the day is a new innovation which has only recently been introduced while others contend that it is ancient and venerable.” End quote.

A whole bunch of disturbing stuff here and then educational stuff here as well. Number one, we can see like we said before that Chrysostom is referencing that this whole celebration of Christmas in Antioch is less than 10 years old. So by 386, the end of the 4th century, the Christmas celebration was still less than 10 years old there. I mean, if it’s so important and stuff that people had been doing it since the beginning, why is it only 10 years old in Antioch, 400 years after the birth of Messiah? It’s it’s nuts.

He also says that it originated and came from the west, not from the south, because Antioch is north of Jerusalem. Messiah was born in Israel. So why didn’t it not why is Chrysostom not saying that it originated in the south instead of the west and which he means by that Rome. He’s also indicating here in the speech that it’s new and that there’s a lot of people opposed to it because it is new.

They’re treating it as an innovation, something that is not that has not been taught since the beginning, but something new that’s being brought into it. And they’re opposing this. And this whole thing, this whole homily that John Chrysostom gives is pretty much a PR campaign by John Chrysostom to try and convince and to get his people to accept this new thing that’s being brought in and for them to take it in and celebrate it every single year and trying to justify the reasons that they should do so. So John Chrysostom is acting like a PR guy here for the Catholic Church and for this new feast of the nativity.

Also take note. I don’t really know whether to be disturbed by this or to just you know not think anything about it but he doesn’t say s-o-n meaning son like son of god or son of abraham or son that doesn’t mean that s-o-n that would be the Greek word huios he doesn’t use huios here he uses the word for the star at the center of our solar system he uses the word s-u-n in English but in Greek the word he used here is hēlion. Hēlion. Does that sound familiar?

And I’ve put up the Greek text here on the uh screen if you’d like to look at that. This is the text from Chrysostom’s speech here. He gave his homily on Christmas Day. And you can see for yourselves in the Greek, I’ve highlighted it even to make it easier for you. This hēlion meaning in general the star at the center of our solar system the sun s-u-n but it’s also the word for the Greek god Helios remember that from earlier told you remember that along with Sol Invictus is all coming into play here so the date we as far as we know and from the evidence we can see is that oh oh yeah to date, as far as we know, as far as we can see from the evidence, comes from the co-opting or probably the taking over and trying to eradicate pagan solar holidays and high days on the calendar.

And now he’s using names and stuff like that like Helios and hēlion for the son of God, for the Messiah. Now, normally that would cause irritability and shock and stuff like that, but something I also want to bring to your attention as well in the book of Malachi chapter 4, there is a reference and is generally understood to be a reference to Messiah and actually has in the Hebrew scriptures son s-u-n of righteousness and that’s in the book of Malachi. John Chrysostom could be referencing the book of Malachi here and using that same wording. Or he could be using it in order to try and merge sun worship with this new invention of Christmas. I don’t really know. That’s why I said in the beginning, I don’t really sure whether to be shock and disgusted or just to truck it off and not think anything about it. Those are the reasons.

And remember this, he’s writing this in about 386 or 388 AD or of the common era near the end of the 4th century. And he’s writing this from Antioch saying that it’s not even 10 years old in Antioch. And if you look on your screen right here, I’ve got a map of the Roman Empire going from 44 B.C.E. all the way up through 117 of the common era. And here you can see I’ve designated where Rome is. And way across the map, you can see right there, I pointed out where Antioch is as well, where John Chrysostom was writing from. And Antioch is much much much closer to Israel and Jerusalem than it is to Rome.

So again, this is something that’s been celebrated since the beginning and something old and traditional. Why did it take all this time to get to Antioch when you know in theory it should have come from Jerusalem where Messiah and the apostles and everything originated from. That’s where their base of operations was at where he where Messiah was crucified and etc etc. Now it was new. It hadn’t been celebrated before that time and not celebrated at all until the middle of the 4th century. And John Chrysostom is writing at near the end of the 4th century.

However, even after we see the first mention of it and it started spreading around starting in Rome, a lot of people did not take to it. One of those people who did not take to it is a guy named Epiphanius of Salamis if I’m pronouncing that right. Anyways, he writes in his book against heresies or Adversus Haereses, quote, “for the savior was born during the 42nd year of the Roman Emperor Augustus in the 13th consul ship of the same Octavian Augustus and the consulship of Senus as the Roman consul list indicate. For these say as follows. During their consulships, I mean Octavius 13th and the consulship of Senus, Christ was born on the 8th before the Ides of January, 13 days after the winter solstice and the increase of the light and the day. Greeks, I mean the idolaters celebrate the day on the 8th before the calendar of January, which Romans call Saturnalia, Egyptians Cronia, and Alexandrians Sicilia.” End quote.

And this is this is very informative. Epiphanius is writing this particular book or tract whatever it is about you know about 374 about 10 years before John Chrysostom wrote his. So they’re very very close in time. I’ll show you a map of where Salamis is, but he’s writing this in about 374. And he knows that people are celebrating this feast, but he calls them idolaters. And he gives in this particular quote two different dates for the people who are celebrating the birth of Messiah.

The first one he alludes to is that is the 8th before the Ides of January, 13 days after the winter solstice and the increase of the light and the date. What this date corresponds to on our calendar is January 6th or 7th. The Ides of January being the middle of January about January 13th. So 8 days before that would have been what about the 6th or 7th of January. So there was still not complete certainty even in 374 about when Messiah was born.

He then goes on to mention the Greeks and he says that the Greeks were celebrating this day the day of Messiah’s birth on the 8th before the calendars of January. We’ve heard that before. We heard that from Hippolytus who is writing at the beginning of the 3rd century. So 150 years or more before Epiphanius he made that same exact quote the 8th before the calendars of January. So and when was that when we did when we uh what did we say that date was or corresponds to our date now that corresponds to December 25th.

So Epiphanius is saying that the Greeks are celebrating the birth of Messiah on December 25th and he calls them idolaters for doing so. Also take note that when he was speaking earlier about those who celebrated on the 6th of January, he didn’t say anything about them being idolaters or wrong or anything like that. He doesn’t call them right either. He just happens to mention them. But the Greeks, when he says they’re celebrating it on the 25th of December, he calls them idolaters.

So not everyone took to this. Even when they had a feast of the nativity on the 25th of December on the Julian calendar, remember it’s still Julian calendar, December 25th, winter solstice, Sol Invictus, all that. They’re celebrating the birth date of Messiah now. They’ve made the decision or at least some people have made the decision to consider the birth of Messiah on December 25th at this point. But not everyone’s taken to it. Not everyone accepts it. Not everyone agrees with it or is happy about it. Epiphanius is one of those. As well as we mentioned earlier, the Armenian church who still does not celebrate Christmas on December 25th. They do it on January 6th or January 7th.

And just for your reference, here is a map of the Roman world at the time. There is Rome over there on your left and way to the right is Antioch that we looked at earlier. And then just barely below that. Just off the coast of Syria, just off the coast of Antioch, where Antioch’s at, you have Salamis, Cyprus or Salamis. I’m not really sure exactly how to do that. I’m horrible with names. Really am. But that’s where Epiphanius was from. Epiphanius of Salamis and where he is writing from in 374. So 374 he knew about the celebrations. But in 386, John Chrysostom in Antioch says that the celebration is less than 10 years old. So those are your dates and yeah, very very interesting stuff. You can see some of the history that went into all this and the controversy that it ensued even at the very beginning and nowadays that it continues and all that stuff.

Timetable Tuned

But nowadays there are people who like you look at teachings like this or you do your own readings, you do your own research and you might mention to someone, “Well the original Christmas date was selected due to the winter solstice, a co-opting or a trying to get rid of, etc. etc., of the winter solstice.” Then someone else who wants to celebrate Christmas, who are pro-Christmas, they’ll say, “Well, that doesn’t make sense because look at the calendar. 21st of December is the winter solstice, not the 25th.”

That’s one of the reasons why we went over the whole Julian calendar thing first, so you know how the things have changed and that yeah, it actually used to be because of the winter solstice and pretty much it still is, but things changed over time. Like we said earlier, the Julian calendar was not perfect. It was off and eventually it needed a tune-up. It needed to be revised and corrected.

So, enter the Gregorian calendar from britannica.com. Quote, “Gregorian calendar was proclaimed in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a reform of the Julian calendar. Pope Gregory’s based his reform on restoration of the vernal equinox then following on March 11th to March 21st. The date it occurred in 325 of the common era which was the time of the first council of Nicaea and not the date of the equinox at the time of the birth of Christ when it fell on March 25th. The change was affected by advancing the calendar 10 days after October 4th, 1582, the day following being reckoned as October 15th. The Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian only in that no century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400. A further proposed refinement, the designation of years evenly divisible by 4,000 as common and not leap years would keep the Gregorian calendar accurate to within 1 day and 20,000 years.” End quote.

So this Julian calendar lasted all the way up until 1582 which is a pretty good run I think. I mean last 1600 years even though it was off as much as it was and it was amazing that lasted that long but can’t speak eventually there was a correction needed and that’s why we have the Gregorian calendar and why the Gregorian calendar was implemented but the main impetus, the main motivation behind Pope Gregory doing the Gregorian calendar was to fix the date of Easter, which is based by proclamation of the Catholic Church to be based off the spring equinox.

And I say by the proclamation of the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church, which I hold wholeheartedly, began in 325 at the council of Nicaea. At that very council, they decided when Easter was to be determined and calculated and they were using the Julian calendar at that time, remember. But anyways, they set the date for Easter at the council of Nicaea and it got off because the Julian calendar was off and that’s why the uh Pope Gregory wanted to do a calendar correction and why we have the Gregorian calendar nowadays.

But once again, here’s your calendar for the month of October in 1582. Again, the people went to bed on Thursday, October 4th, and woke up the next morning on Friday, October 15th. They skipped 10 days, and it’s been like that ever since. And that’s why it’s not the winter solstice nowadays, or at least Christmas is not on the date of winter solstice nowadays, because they switched the calendars. They corrected the calendars and so that moved it.

And like I said, this is all done for the sake of Easter. And here’s some relevant parts from the bull that was put forth by Pope Gregory in 1582. The various I’m sorry, quote, “the various calendar reform projects did not maintain intact the ancient rites of the church. It is necessary to rule on three points to restore the celebration of Easter. First, the precise date of the vernal equinox. When then the exact date of the 14th day of the moon. Finally, the first Sunday which follows this same 14th day of the moon. So thus that the vernal equinox which was fixed by the fathers of the council of Nicaea is replaced on this date we prescribe in order that there is removed from October 10 days which go from the 3 before Nones meaning the fifth to the day before the Ides meaning the fourth inclusively.” End quote.

That’s how they determined pretty much how the the jump in the date would occur. And this is all craziness anyways. Yeah, the calendar need to be corrected because the Julian was out of whack. It was off. I I get that. I understand that. I even agree with it. But this whole Easter thing is just absolutely craziness because if you wanted to calculate the date for the death of Messiah, the crucifixion, the the passion, if you will, we have plenty of evidence in Scripture to determine when that is. Scripture gives us all that information.

So if you wanted to do that according to the knowledge you have about Scripture and the death of Messiah, when would you celebrate it? Would you look at the equinox that the pagans used to determine their pagan holidays? No. You look at Scripture and Scripture gives the time that Messiah was crucified and that was around the time of Passover. In fact, he was crucified on Passover, that 14th day of the first moon, the first month. And then three days later he arose. And yeah, in Scripture when he died, he arose or he was first seen anyways on the first day of the week, which would have been Sunday. But it wasn’t the day of the week that was important. It was the three days after Passover. That’s the important part because he was our Passover lamb. And he wasn’t crucified on Friday, by the way. So that’s how you calculate it in a biblical manner.

But not the Catholics. Catholics said, “No, we’re going to make our own date and this is when this is we’re going to dictate this.” And it caused all this controversy and all this conflict and all this confusion for over, you know, two millennia now. And they had to correct the main impetus anyways, the main motivation for them correcting the calendar was due to Easter because the Julian calendar had the dates drift off for the equinox, even though we shouldn’t be using the equinox for calculation of biblical feast. Uh but anyways, I’m getting off on a tangent.

Yeah, Easter was their motivation for going to the Gregorian and correcting the Julian, but it doesn’t mention anything about Christmas. So, even though they dictate in the Gregorian calendar bull here from Pope Gregory about Easter, it says nothing about Christmas. So, why didn’t Christmas change from December 25th to another date?

Well, basically, it was a fixed date and not a calculated date every year. It was a fixed date, meaning it was on the 25th of December every single year. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it come. Easter was a little bit different. Easter, according to Catholic decree, always had to happen on a Sunday. And that’s wrong for so many reasons, including some of the ones we’ve already mentioned. But Christmas was on a fixed date. And it rem after the Gregorian calendar reform, it remained on a fixed date just due to tradition. So that’s why December 20 or the date of Christmas didn’t change with the Gregorian calendar reform.

And if you calculate that out and had it switched, it would have Christmas would have been on January 4th in 1582 at the time of the switch over from Julian to the Gregorian calendar. And if you draw that out into today’s date, Christmas would be on January 7th nowadays, which is I thought rather interesting.

But even in 1582 when the Gregorian calendar was first implemented and switched over to, not everyone switched over to the Gregorian calendar. Some people retained their own particular calendar or retained the Julian calendar. And one of the places that did that was England of all places. And England is a very interesting study when we’re talking about dates and calendars and Christmas and all that. Check this out.

According to wikipedia.org, or quote, “in Anglo-Saxon England the year most commonly began on 25th of December which as approximately the winter solstice had marked the start of the year in pagan times though 25th of March the equinox is occasionally documented in the 11th century.” End quote.

So way back when when England was, you know, occupied and settled, inhabited by pagans. The beginning of their year was on the 25th of December, the winter solstice. Now, if you don’t already have a calendar and you wanted to come up with a calendar and beginning of year, stuff like that, and you had no Bible, that just in my in my mind that would make sense. That was be the beginning of when the sun starts getting longer. So, that would just make sense that the winter solstice would be the beginning of the year. However, it’s not accurate as we know from Scripture and other calendars, etc. etc.

England held on to this 25th of December as the beginning of their year for a long time and then eventually at some point they went and held to the 25th of March as the beginning of their year and probably due to Catholic influence and the calculations that tried to make out Christ being conceived on March 25th, which again it’s all based on faulty information to begin with. But eventually England came into the Gregorian calendar. And this didn’t happen until 1750, almost 200 years after the Gregorian calendar had first been implemented.

But this is from the Calendar Act of 1750 when the United Kingdom switched over to the Gregorian. And this says, quote, “And that from and after the said second day of September, all and every the fixed feast days, holy days, and fast days shall be kept and observed on the respective days marked for the celebration of the same in the said new calendar.” That is to say, on the same respective nominal days on which the same are now kept and observed. End quote.

Difficult to read in your head, much less read aloud. All that legal jargon they had back then. But anyways, what they’re saying here, this is I thought this was rather interesting. A because it took them so long to switch over to the Gregorian calendar. But B, when they did, they actually indicated that fixed days such as the 25th of December being the date for Christmas, the fixed days would still keep the same days that they were already on. So when they switched over to the new calendar in England to the new Gregorian calendar, 25th of December as Christmas, still was the 25th of December as Christmas on the new calendar. So still out of tradition, they maintained that December 25th date even though the winter solstice, which it was originally based on, had moved on the calendar.

And just for your reference, here is an interesting calendar from when England switched over to the Gregorian. They actually skipped 11 days here. And you can see they did it in September instead of October. In England, when they switched over in 1752, the people went to bed on Wednesday, September 2nd, and woke up on Thursday, September 14th. So that is very very very very interesting or at least in my mind. Hopefully you found that interesting as well.

Apologists

So now let’s look at some apologists for Christmas real quick and actually just one in particular. As you go throughout your discussions with family and friends and society, you’ll have people that come up and they want to defend Christmas for a number of reasons. Actually, the first group you have is the people who say that the celebration of Christmas is pure and holy and sacred and there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s no pagan influence. It’s been done ever since the beginning. They say there’s nothing wrong with it and there’s never been anything wrong with it. And they try to defend that unsuccessfully once people like you and us get into the actual evidence of it. They know that kind of thinking falls apart really quickly.

The second group of of people who try to defend the celebration and of Christmas and nativity and things like that, the birth date of Christ, they’ll say, “Well, yeah, Christmas is pagan. It comes from pagan sources, but so what? It doesn’t matter. It’s okay to do pagan stuff.” And that’s I’m paraphrasing their sentiment here, but that’s the gist of their argument.

Now, a little bit later on, we’re going to have a episode dedicated to one particular person in that second group who says, “Yeah, it’s pagan. So, what we address some of the things he said in there, and he’s actually a very well-known, very well educated man.” So, we’re it’d be honor and a very special episode in my opinion anyways, but that’s later.

The first group who says that Christmas has been done ever since the beginning. There’s nothing wrong with it, stuff like that, and they try to prove all this. That’s what we’re going to address here right now. And earlier I mentioned a guy by the name of Taylor Marshall. And he’s actually Dr. Taylor Marshall. I I forget what his doctorate is actually in, but he is degreed. I forget where, but anyways, he’s a Catholic apologist. So keep that in mind. He’s both trying to defend the sanctity and the sacredness of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and also the institution of Christmas in December 25th.

And he wrote a book called God’s Birthday in 2013. And this is a quote from one of the pages in his book God’s Birthday. Quote, “Further testimony reveals that the church fathers claimed December 25th as the birthday of Christ prior to the conversion of Constantine and the Roman Empire. The earliest record of this is that Pope St. Telesphorus who reigned from A.D. 126 to 137 instituted the tradition of midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Although the Liber Pontificalis does not give us the date of Christmas, it assumes that the pope was already celebrating Christmas and that a mass at midnight was added during this time. We also read the following words of Theophilus, Catholic bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. We ought to celebrate the birthday of our Lord on what days soever the 25th of December shall happen.” End quote.

Now, if you paid attention throughout this entire teaching, or if you’ve done your own research and looked at the evidence for yourself, you can see there’s a couple things wrong with just this small passage from the entire book. This small passage has several things wrong with it. And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up and show you guys. But number one, the early church fathers did not claim December 25th. We saw that as as the evidence for ourselves. If they had, it would have been everywhere. You could have found evidence more than you just one speculation by Hippolytus. It would have been everywhere and people would have been bringing this up as evidence in support of Christmas for many, many years all over the place. We don’t see that. It’s just simply not true.

Yes, there was one speculation prior to the conversion of Chris uh Constantine for the date being on December 25th. We saw that with Hippolytus. But remember, we also saw that it was not settled and that was just one man’s speculation at one point in history. There were lots of other people who had speculated various other dates around the calendar for the birth of Christ. And even Hippolytus earlier like we saw earlier in his life and his writings favored January 2nd. So it wasn’t a settled thing. It was just speculation and even then it wasn’t a feast. It was just trying to brainstorm from certain people about when the birth of Christ actually was.

Another error in this quote is he refers to Pope St. Telesphorus who reigned from A.D. 126 to A.D. 137. This is a an attempt at defending the institution of the Holy Roman Catholic Church because there was no pope at that time. Not in the second century, not in the first century, not in the 3rd century, and probably mid to late 4th century when we really got the pope as we know it now, the bishop of Rome as he was initially called before they took on the name pope. But there was no one person over the believers at that time in the second century. I mean Messiah, he was the head of the church. Still is the head of the church. Let me clarify. He still is the head of the church, not some pope.

And in fact, when Yeshua died and was resurrected and ascended into heaven, there was no one person over everyone. Some people, i.e. Catholics, like to point back to Peter as the first pope, but he wasn’t over everyone. In fact, this whole Catholic myth that the pope is infallible. Even that doesn’t play up with Peter because Paul comes in and rebukes Peter for doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. So that right there proves that Peter was not infallible. He was not a pope and the whole pope thing wasn’t even in in operation at that time. It wasn’t until the 4th century probably before the whole pope thing got going. So he’s wrong and incorrect about the pope in the second century.

Anyways, but then he goes on to reference the words of Theophilus, who he references here as living between 115 and 181, so the second century. And he quotes from the words of Theophilus, “we ought to celebrate the birthday of our Lord on what days soever the 25th of December shall happen.” End quote. So here he’s trying to reference and say that there was both a settled date for the birth of Messiah, which we already know is incorrect. And he’s also trying to say and prove or defend that there was a celebration of the birthday of Messiah, which we also know is incorrect. That didn’t happen until at least the middle of the 4th century. That’s the earliest evidence we have anyways. And he’s also trying to defend the specific date of the 25th of December. And as we saw earlier, there were dates all over the place. There was 25th of December, the 6th of January, 25th of March, etc., etc., during this particular time.

And I’m going to say this, that last quote right there, he’s not making up. He actually gets that from the epistle of Theophilus. However, there’s a problem with that that we’ll get to in just a moment. Think about this. This Dr. Taylor Marshall is a Catholic apologist trying to defend the institution of Christmas on December 25th. And just this one passage, he fails on multiple points. That goes to show you that just because someone has letters before their name, it does it doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about and it doesn’t mean that they’re right when they do say something. So, don’t get be taken in by this whole implicit appeal to authority thinking that just because someone has the pulpit or someone has a degree that they’re automatically right and they know what you’re talking about. That’s not true. We’ve just shown that from here from all the evidence we looked at from the original evidence, the early writers, and then compared it to the evidence we see here from a Catholic apologist, a doctor, a degreed person of all things. We know that just because someone has a degree and letters in front of their name, that does not mean they know what they’re talking about and that does not make them right when they say something. You still have to verify it and look it up and research for yourself. Don’t just take someone’s word for it.

And it also goes to show that just because someone is in the same camp as you, that doesn’t make them right either. It doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. If you are a Catholic, that this is what I’m talking about. If you’re a Catholic, that doesn’t mean that every other Catholic is right because they’re in the same camp of Catholicism as you. Just because you’re someone who likes and wants to celebrate Christmas, it doesn’t make other people who want to celebrate Christmas correct, like this Dr. Marshall here, because he’s not. He’s got several things wrong that we’ve already seen.

But what about this whole epistle of Theophilus that he’s quoting from here? This is a major error from what he’s trying to do in this book that he wrote. This comes from a guy named Kurt Simmons and his book he wrote on December 25th in the epistle of Theophilus. Now, just as a reminder, you can go to his website here and he is actually a defender of Christmas on December 25th. So he he’s actually supports Christmas on December 25th, all that stuff too.

But he has this to say about the epistle of Theophilus. Quote, “The Epistle of Theophilus exists in no less than 36 manuscripts in four recensions, and if authentic, bears witness to the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th prior to A.D. 196, making it arguably the earliest witness we possess. The document in all of its versions is widely regarded as an Irish forgery. Written in about A.D. 600 in defense of Irish customs regarding the proper limits for observing Easter. Recension A refers to Ussher and therefore cannot at least in that part be earlier than the 4th century or purport to be from the hand of Theophilus. Recension B does not include a reference to Ussher or the Christmas date. It is also the more widely attested.” End quote.

So there’s major problems with this epistle of Theophilus that Dr. Taylor Marshall was referencing earlier and it’s widely believed and accepted among scholars that it’s actually a forgery to begin with. So once again, if and it doesn’t matter which side of the issue you’re on. If you are in support of Christmas and December 25th or if you’re opposed to Christmas and December 25th, either way, when someone says something, whether it’s on the opposite side from you or whether it’s on the same camp as you, you need to check out their sources where they’re getting their evidence from, back it up for yourself. Because once again, just because they’re in the same camp as you, that doesn’t make them right. It doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. Verify for yourself.

Summary

So, let’s wrap this up. And in summary:

Nowadays, Christmas is celebrated on the date of December 25th every single year. We already know that, right? But why? However, there is no exact dating in Scripture for the birth of Yeshua. But the Moadeim are given dates in Scripture because they’re important to Yahweh and he wants you to know when to celebrate them. And even the deuteronomy feast such as Purim and Maccabees or I’m sorry Purim and Hanukkah are given exacting dates on the calendar as to when to celebrate them, why to celebrate them, how to celebrate them, etc., etc. You get no such information whatsoever, not even in the smallest part about the birth of Messiah.

The Julian calendar was instituted in 45 B.C.E. by Julius Caesar which contained December 25th as the winter solstice.

Roman pagans celebrated many winter festivals including Saturnalia and Brumalia which is another term for the winter solstice.

On December 25th of 274, the emperor Aurelian dedicated a temple to Sol Invictus, thus initiating the cult of Sol Invictus and December 25th as the birthday of Sol Invictus.

The date of Messiah’s birth was unknown and still is for the most part during the course of the first three centuries. During the first three centuries, they did not know when Messiah was born. Had speculations which is all over the place but they did not know for certain and even today we still don’t not know exactly and for certain but we got some guesses which will be coming up in another episode.

The first recorded evidence we have for some speculating that December 25th is the date comes from Hippolytus of Rome in the 3rd century. But again that’s just a speculation on when he was born. Nothing about a feast or a holiday or a celebration or anything like that.

The first evidence we have for a feast or a celebration of Messiah’s birth is in 354 the middle of the 4th century about 350 years after the birth of Messiah.

John Chrysostom remarks in 386 that the feast of the nativity was still less than 10 years old in Antioch.

Epiphanius writes in 374 that the Greeks are idolaters for celebrating the birth of Messiah on the winter solstice. He says their idolaters for celebrating the birth of Messiah on December 25th.

And Pope Gregory instituted the Gregorian calendar in 1582 for the purpose of adjusting for Easter, but fixed dates like December 25th for Christmas retained the same number on the calendar simply out of tradition.

And all of that, plus much more, is why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. And that is just the God Honest Truth.

So, thank you for joining us for this special teaching on December 25th, how we got to it and all that. Once again, if you would like even more information than what was presented here in this particular presentation, go check out the notes that we took and provided for you on our website at GodHonestTruth.com. Simply click on the post for this particular episode and there you’ll find the on demand video. You’ll find the draw slides that were on the video you see here. You’ll also find the academic papers that research papers that were written by five different AIs. You’ll find the notes that we took for this specific episode, the notes we have in general for Christmas, and also the transcript if that so happens to be of any use to you. You can also find a convenient link for that down below in the description, whether you’re watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform.

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