Why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th

I picked this article up from one of the blogs I read regularly. I found this to be a very educational article, and I thought this would be a good post to pass on.

This provides a good response to my "evangelical" brothers and sisters who like to insist that Christmas is pagan in origin and like to think that the Church did not exist until the birth of Rick Warren and his ilk.

"Thanks to Dr. Gene Edward Veith for this post. Biblical Archaeology Review has a good scholarly discussion of why Christmas is celebrated on December 25. And it is evidently NOT because it was superimposed on a pagan holiday:

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.5 In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.6 They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly. . . .

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character. . . . In the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E. . . . .

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.8 But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

The article goes on to document other ancient sources that associate the day of Jesus’s conception with the day of His death, going back to rabbinic Jewish texts that make similar connections."

where shopping is a pleasure

I had clocked out from work the other night, it was Tuesday I think, and I had to do some grocery shopping.

I was making my way up the aisle across from the meat department and one of the meat cutters was walking down the aisle towards me. He was holding one of his hands with the other, I didn't think anything of it at the time. He came up to me and said "Hey Joe, who do I call about this?"
He lets go of the hand he was holding - his right index finger was twisted and bloody. A case of frozen turkeys had fallen on his finger - broke it of course. I told him to go back to the department and I would go get the store manager.

I went to tell the store manager and he said he would send the grocery manager back to check on the guy - he couldn't go himself because the district manager was in the store. I went back to the department to tell the meat cutter that the manager would be back in a minute, I got him a chair and the seafood clerk and I stayed with the guy. We were sure the manager would come through the door any second.

The department door did open. But it wasn't a manager standing there, it was a customer. He wanted three steaks cut. So the meat cutter, with a broken finger mind you, cut the three steaks.

Half an hour later the grocery manager made his way back to the department.

Half an hour, can you believe it?

Today's Saint: St. Lucia

Today is the feast day of St. Lucia, Virgin Martyr. My previous post was about men standing up for their faith, here is the story of how a brave woman stood up for hers.

St. Lucia's hagiography, or saint biography, tells us that Lucia, who lived from 283 to 304, was a Christian during the time of the Diocletian persecutions. This was a time in which Roman persecution of Christianity was at its peak. She lived in Syracuse, Sicily, and her mother had betrothed her to a pagan. Not wanting to marry a pagan and give up her virginity Lucia urged her mother to give away her dowry; without a dowry her potential groom would not want to marry her. When her rejected pagan bridegroom discovered that the dowry had been given away, he denounced Lucy as a Christian to the magistrate Paschasius.

Paschasius ordered Lucia to burn a sacrifice to the emperor's image and thus commit idolatry. Rather than commit this sin, Lucia replied that she had given all that she had: "I offer to Him myself, let Him do with His offering as it pleases Him."

She had offered her life to God, and she trusted in God to do with her as he willed.

Paschasius sentenced Lucia to be defiled in a brothel, in faith she asserted to the governor:

No one's body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me.

Her hagiography states that when the guards came to take her away they found her so filled with the Holy Spirit that she was stiff and heavy as a mountain; they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. Even with a dagger through her throat she prophesied against her persecutor. As final torture, her eyes were gouged out with a fork.

Let me say that again.

With a fork.

A.

Fork.

Finally she was killed.

Many of the facts specific to Lucia's martyrdom are unknown, what little that has been passed down to us I have stated above. We do know that she was tortured for her faith and that she gave her life up for the Lord.

There is a tendency in the church to remember Lucia (and all the Virgin Martyrs) for their desire to keep their virginity intact - a focus on the sexual state - but the focus should be on the spiritual state. She did not want to be defiled by the world. Even when her physical self was threatened, she remained focused on being spiritually pure for her Lord.

It is because of her devotion that we remember her.

Where have all the good men (of God) gone?

On December 6th the church catholic commemorated St. Nicholas. Known for his generosity and his love of children, Nicholas is said to have saved a poor family’s daughters from slavery by tossing into their window enough gold for a rich dowry, a present that landed in some shoes or, in some accounts, stockings that were hung up to dry. Thus arose the custom of hanging up stockings for St. Nicholas to fill. But there is more to the story of Nicholas of Myra. He was also a delegate to the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325, which battled the heretics who denied the deity of Christ. He was thus one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. And unlike his later manifestation, Nicholas was particularly zealous in standing up for Christ.

During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.

On December 7th the church catholic commemorated St. Ambrose. St. Ambrose is a towering figure in the history of the Early Church. Famous for his powerful preaching, he was one of the most influential persons in the conversion of St. Augustine. He was a powerful theologian, and a courageous pastor of souls. If ever the phrase, “speaking truth to power” was true, it is epitomized by how Ambrose confronted the Roman Emperor Theodosius with his sin and demanded a public repentance, and refused to give the Emperor the Sacrament for a number of months. But, equally a pastor, he was at the Emperor’s side when he died. He refused to back down even when threatened with arrest and execution. He was, as Augustine would later write, “One of those who speak the truth, and speak it well, judiciously, pointedly, and with beauty and power of expression” (Christian Doctrine IV.21). Augustine went to listen to Ambrose to preach, for the sheer pleasure of hearing powerful rhetoric, but was drawn into the message.

On December 9th the Roman church remembered the 30th anniversary of the passing of the great teacher, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, a man who as far as I am concerned, is a great American saint. He preached the word of God unwaveringly and in a simple yet eloquent way. While preaching Christ to the common man, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, he also preached against the great evils of his time, communism - racism - the Vietnam war. During the 1950's his television show was watched by more people than watched Lucille Ball or Milton Burle, whose shows appeared opposite of his. His voice was the voice for orthodox Christianity in our country.

I can't help but mourn the fact that Bishop Sheen has no successor in our time. Sure, there are men and women preaching Christ, but is the Christ that they are preaching the Christ of scripture? Is there a public figure in America who preaches not only Christ crucified but also that right is right and wrong is wrong? Too often, the "big names" in preaching right now, and I will let you pick your favorite one, preach a Christ that is concerned primarily with you feeling good about yourself and your being financially well off. Sin, why that is a thing of the past. Go pray for some money so you can buy my latest book.

You have a purpose in life, and that is to be happy. And to make me rich.

Really? They must be reading from a different translation than I do.

There is no "me" in Christian. Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, saved us from eternal damnation by his precious blood on the cross. This is his free gift to us. We, as Christians, are called to love and serve God and our fellow human beings. That's it. Christianity in a nutshell.

"Freedom is the right to do what you ought to do." Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979).

A trip to the doctor

It was Tuesday morning and I was getting ready to go to the doctor for an evaluation of my shoulder and I started to get that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Uh oh. The mad cow.
Not totally unexpected, but unwelcome as always.

Of course I was anxious, I told myself, I was going to the doctor, and I hate going to the doctor.
I tried to reassure myself, but the damn cow kept kicking against the sides of its pen.
It wants out!

I made my way down the hallway to the living room where my wife was waiting for me.
"The mad cow's kicking in, but what's the worst that could happen? He could say I have to go back to work tomorrow" I say in the most self-confident tone I could manage.
We both agree that this is the worst that could happen, and that it was very unlikely to happen. I was still in my sling and the only thing that I could do with the right hand was type. I could barely move the arm.

We get to the doctor and he inspects the incisions in my shoulder and then he grabs my wrist with one hand and places his other hand on my shoulder. Unexpectedly, he lifts my wrist so that it is over my head.
"How's that?" he asks.
"Scary as hell but ok." This is the first time that my wrist has been above my head in eight weeks. It didn't hurt, it felt more stiff than any thing else.
The doctor was pleased.
"I'm going to have to release you to do some work" he started "but light finger duty only."
No lifting, pulling, pushing, carrying.
In other words none of the stuff I normally had to do on an everyday basis.
He and I agreed that I probably would not actually be going back to work yet, but he had to say that I could do some very light work, it was just a Workers Comp thing.

"There's nothing I can really do at work" I told my wife as she drove me to the store to drop off my doctor's report. There was no way I'd be going back to work.

What the hell was 'light finger duty' anyway?

Wednesday morning at 6am I was clocking in for work.
They found some light finger work for me to do.
Hell, they invented some light finger work for me to do.