Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan | Page 5

was its meaning at first. It may be
that it took the place of a heathen rite celebrating the birth of the World
or Æon from the Virgin on January 6.[5] At all events one of its objects
was to commemorate the Baptism, the appearance of the Holy Dove,
and the Voice from heaven, "Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am
well pleased" (or, as other MSS. read, "This day have I begotten thee").
|22| In some circles of early Christianity the Baptism appears to have
been looked upon as the true Birth of Christ, the moment when, filled
by the Spirit, He became Son of God; and the carnal Birth was regarded
as of comparatively little significance. Hence the Baptism festival may
have arisen first, and the celebration of the Birth at Bethlehem may
have been later attached to the same day, partly perhaps because a
passage in St. Luke's Gospel was supposed to imply that Jesus was
baptized on His thirtieth birthday. As however the orthodox belief
became more sharply defined, increasing stress was laid on the
Incarnation of God in Christ in the Virgin's womb, and it may have
been felt that the celebration of the Birth and the Baptism on the same
day encouraged heretical views. Hence very likely the introduction of
Christmas on December 25 as a festival of the Birth alone. In the East
the concelebration of the two events continued for some time after
Rome had instituted the separate feast of Christmas. Gradually,
however, the Roman use spread: at Constantinople it was introduced

about 380 by the great theologian, Gregory Nazianzen; at Antioch it
appeared in 388, at Alexandria in 432. The Church of Jerusalem long
stood out, refusing to adopt the new feast till the seventh century, it
would seem.{18} One important Church, the Armenian, knows nothing
of December 25, and still celebrates the Nativity with the Epiphany on
January 6.{19} Epiphany in the eastern Orthodox Church has lost its
connection with the Nativity and is now chiefly a celebration of the
Baptism of Christ, while in the West, as every one knows, it is
primarily a celebration of the Adoration by the Magi, an event
commemorated by the Greeks on Christmas Day. Epiphany is, however,
as we shall see, a greater festival in the Greek Church than Christmas.
Such in bare outline is the story of the spread of Christmas as an
independent festival. Its establishment fitly followed the triumph of the
Catholic doctrine of the perfect Godhead or Christ at the Council of
Nicea in 325.
II. The French Noël is a name concerning whose origin there has been
considerable dispute; there can, however, be little doubt that it is the
same word as the Provençal Nadau or Nadal, |23| the Italian Natale,
and the Welsh Nadolig, all obviously derived from the Latin natalis,
and meaning "birthday." One naturally takes this as referring to the
Birth of Christ, but it may at any rate remind us of another birthday
celebrated on the same date by the Romans of the Empire, that of the
unconquered Sun, who on December 25, the winter solstice according
to the Julian calendar, began to rise to new vigour after his autumnal
decline.
Why, we may ask, did the Church choose December 25 for the
celebration of her Founder's Birth? No one now imagines that the date
is supported by a reliable tradition; it is only one of various guesses of
early Christian writers. As a learned eighteenth-century Jesuit{20} has
pointed out, there is not a single month in the year to which the
Nativity has not been assigned by some writer or other. The real reason
for the choice of the day most probably was, that upon it fell the pagan
festival just mentioned.
The Dies Natalis Invicti was probably first celebrated in Rome by order

of the Emperor Aurelian (270-5), an ardent worshipper of the Syrian
sun-god Baal.{21} With the Sol Invictus was identified the figure of
Mithra, that strange eastern god whose cult resembled in so many ways
the worship of Jesus, and who was at one time a serious rival of the
Christ in the minds of thoughtful men.[6]{22} It was the sun-god,
poetically and philosophically conceived, whom the Emperor Julian
made the centre of his ill-fated revival of paganism, and there is extant
a fine prayer of his to "King Sun."{23}
What more natural than that the Church should choose this day to
celebrate the rising of her Sun of Righteousness with healing in His
wings, that she should strive thus to draw away to His worship some
adorers of the god whose symbol and representative was the earthly sun!
There is no direct evidence of deliberate substitution, but at all events
ecclesiastical writers soon after the foundation of Christmas made