Kapyong

Gday,

Pardon?

The canons of the council of Nicea exist to this day (essentially the minutes of the meeting) :

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm

There is no mention there of the birthdate of Jesus (nor I might add - the canon, nor whether Jesus was man or God.)


Kapyong

Roger Pearse

No ancient evidence to support this exists, and it seems to be a modern idea.

My feeling (after seeing a lot of distorted memories presented as facts online, usually with utter certainty) is that some person neither educated nor careful nor scrupulous, who vaguely remembered something about Nicaea setting a date for a festival -- Easter --, made this up.

Not sure that this is evidenced, however often it gets said online.

And ... do we know that Christmas was a state holiday in the 4th century?

We always need to distinguish very clearly between data and deduction. This idea is not data, nor is it a deduction from it. It's a falsehood, really.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Cege

Hence my statement that there are no records of the council to review regarding the theory of establishing Dec 25 as the holiday celebrating Jesus' birth.

Cege

The best I could determine was "probably" as I stated. Distinguishing between data and deduction is not often easy, but I agree it's essential to try.

Roger Pearse

If you are determined to believe nonsense, of course, you certainly may. Don't state it as fact, tho, unless you are eager to acquire an unflattering epithet.

Cege

And just what nonsense is it, based on what I wrote, that I am "determined to believe" and "stated as fact"?

Toto

Cege: you claimed But it is not a theory. The records fron Nicaea exist, and that was not a topic for that council. There is a lot of speculation on the choice of December 25, but if church leaders adopted that date to coincide with a pagan festival, it was not done at Nicaea.

There are some previous threads on this issue, or you can google it.

Cege

Thank you for your comment. My comment was obviously poorly written as it's been misunderstood. I was referring to my previous understanding based on church education. I've been taught that Nicaea council records reveal the choice of December 25 as the holiday date. I realize now that is not true. There are records, but not ones as had been described to me.

The absolute reason for December 25 having been chosen as the date is just not known. There are various theories (or perhaps you would call them something else), even among Christians, as to how December 25 was chosen. And of course it wasn't even chosen by all Christian sects, as January 6-7 is the date celebrated by some.

Toto

This entire thread is a mess.

See the previous thread here.

You can read the history of the relation of December 25 to the birth of Sol Invictus here.

Roger Pearse

I would regard that material as quite misleading, myself, selected to suggest a narrative rather than to marshall the data.

In particular the last part, attributed to Ramsay MacMullen, is wrong -- the statement is found in the 13th century scholiast to Dionysius bar Salibi, not in the author.

Returning to the Christmas theme, I do have something new to add, which I learned from (of all places) Acharya S, in "Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus connection". I'm sure we're all familiar with how dismal these books are; this one is considerably better, tho.

There is a Google books preview, and on p.89 I found mention of a second witness to the idea of the pagan celebration on December 25. The reference is to the "Calendar of Antiochus of Athens".

During December I tracked this down and translated it. It doesn't really back up the claim made, but it is still interesting. Antiochus was an astrologer, and his calendar is an example of "parapegma" or peg-calendars. It is dedicated to the risings and settings of stars (for obvious reasons). It also lists the date of the Nile flood. After translating it, I came across a real translation by Daryn Lehoux (details here) which is also online in preview. My own translation of December, with text, is here.

Here's an excerpt:


κβʹ. τροπὴ χειμερινή. 22. Winter solstice.
κγʹ. Προκύων ἑῷος δύνει. 23. Procyon sets in the east.
κεʹ. Ἡλίου γενέθλιον · αὔξει φῶς. 25. Birth of the sun : the light grows.


The solstices are mentioned, of course; but it is interesting what he says about Dec. 25.

None of this backs up Acharya S.' claim of a festival on 25 Dec. (no surprise), which remains attested only in the Chronography of 354; but it is interesting supplementary material.

Censorinus and Prudentius attest that VIII Kal. Ian (i.e. 25 Dec.) is the solstice, so I think we can take it that ordinary people marked it as if it was, while educated people like Antiochus or Julian the Apostate knew it wasn't quite.

All the best,

Roger Pearse