It is ancient and fascinating history that places the December 25th on Christmas day. It is not in fact taken for granted as we feel it and there is not only the Christian tradition, but also the pagan one. No Gospel indicates this date which has been chosen as that of the birth of Jesus. As for almost all the feasts ordered, even behind Christmas there is an ancient rite or belief starting from the pagan celebrations for the sun that returns to triumph after the darkness of the winter solstice.
To remove some other certainty, know that Santa Claus it has not always existed and even on fir and holly there are different versions from nation to nation.
Christmas
The literal meaning of the word Christmas is birth. Obviously for the Christian tradition it is the day of the birth of Jesus Christ, but it was there before the rebirth of the Sun in the period of the year when, after the winter solstice, the days were getting longer. Furthermore, the date does not coincide with that of Jesus’ birth, which no one knows exactly and is not mentioned in the Gospels.
Christmas Day Invicti
Latin Christmas Day Invicti it is the day of the birth of the sun not defeated. This is the pagan feast that coincides, as a date, with Christmas. Between 24 and 25 December the sun is reborn after the darkest days of the year around the winter solstice, between 21 and 22 December. In the same period the Romans celebrated the Saturnalia. The god Mithras was celebrated, in the third century after Christ, on the day of December 25, brought by the emperor Heliogabalus and the tradition of the East. It was the emperor Aureliano, in 274 AD, who consecrated the temple of Sol Invictus instead. In the same years in the eastern part of the Empire the birth of Jesus was celebrated on January 6.
336 D.C.
The 354 Chronograph, a document written about the Roman Empire, says that in 336, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on December 25th. Only in 380 with the edict of Thessalonica Christianity became the only religion of the empire and the cult of Sol Invictus disappeared.
Christian tradition
According to the Gospels, Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem from Mary who had gone to Joseph’s hometown for a census that historians identify with that of 6 AD ordered by the Roman governor Publius Sulpicius Quirinius in the provinces of Syria and Judea. There is talk of Herod who died in 4 AD. All given around what we consider the year zero, which is a historical convention.
Creche
The tradition of the nativity scene (linked to Saint Francis then to 1200) reconstructs what was told by the evangelists with the child placed in a manger, the shepherds in adoration, who would know more of spring than of winter even if we are in the Middle East, called by the angels. Luke’s Gospel tells it in chapter 2, like that of Matthew. The apocryphal gospels, excluded from the Bible, instead report the details of ox and donkey to warm it, like the names of the Magi.
Not just December 25th
For Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox who follow the Gregorian calendar this is the date of Christmas, but the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates it on January 6 and it goes to January 7 for the Orthodox with the Julian calendar. Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth century erased it from the Anglican tradition. The Pope celebrates mass on the night between 24 and 25 December. It is at midnight that the Savior is born (however, this year masses are brought forward due to curfew for Covid). At noon the Urbi et Orbi blessing, to the city and to the world, by Pope Francis.
Christmas trees
There has always been the tradition of evergreen trees as capable of keeping evil spirits and witches away and of trees adorned sacred to the gods. The idea of decorating the tree would come from Germany. Martin Luther is said to have been the first to put candles on trees. Tradition would therefore be associated with Protestantism. Since the 19th century it has been common in Germany and in 1900 it arrived in the rest of the world.
Another tradition reports the birth of the modern use of the Christmas tree a Tallinn, Estonia in 1441.A large fir tree was erected in the Town Hall Square. Around these young bachelors, men and women. A chronicle of Bremen from 1570 tells of a tree decorated with apples, walnuts, dates and paper flowers.
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