History of Advent: Why We Celebrate Christmas on December 25
Advent candles. Image: Christianity.com
THE HISTORY OF ADVENT: WHY WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS ON DECEMBER 25
Here begins our series of articles on the History of Christmas.
The traditional season of Advent, leading up to Christmas, this year starts on Sunday, November 30. It is celebrated in the church calendar as one of the most festive seasons of the year.
What does Advent mean, what day was the Nativity, and what is its relation to the Saturnalia?
Meaning of Advent
The word “Advent” from the Latin adventus means the “coming” or “arrival” of the Christ Child, which is marked by the four Sundays preceding Christmas, commemorated in churches and homes by lighting four Advent candles.
The Greek word in the New Testament for Jesus’ arrival is parousia (παρουσία), a term commonly used at the time to anticipate the arrival of a king, emperor, or high official.
In the same way that in the 4th century, the period of Lent and the remembrance of Christ’s Passion during Holy Week were added to the church calendar before Easter, similarly in the 5th century, some Christians observed a Lenten-like preparation before Christmas, which eventually developed into Advent as we know it today.
In the Western Church, beginning of the 12th century, Advent was set as a 4-Sunday preparation for Christmas, on or near the feast of St. Andrew’s Day on November 30, during which time those who were going to be baptized at Christmas (or Epiphany) might prepare.
As we shall see in this series, many of the traditions, customs, and stories of the Advent Season have Christian roots, while others have non-Christian sources. Some are legendary, and others are firmly rooted in history.
Advent Wreath
Advent Wreath. Image: Wikipedia
The wreath, or Advent Crown, is an evergreen wreath with four candles representing the Sundays in Advent, sometimes with a fifth candle in the center. Starting with the first Sunday of Advent, the lighting of a candle is often accompanied by a family reading a Bible passage, followed by a time of prayer. The practice began with German Lutherans in the 16th century. In the 19th century, they had 24 candles, for the weekdays from December 1 to 24. Advent wreaths spread to North America in the 1930s.
The four candles sometimes symbolically represent hope, peace, joy, and love. Other Christians refer to the first candle as the Messiah or the Prophesy candle, the second as the Bethlehem candle, the third as the Shepherds candle, and the fourth as the Angel candle. Additionally, they may have different colors: three purple and one pink, with a central white candle lit on Christmas Eve.
Advent Calendars
Early printed German Advent calendar. Image: The British Candy Connoisseur
Advent calendars featuring a door or window to open each day originated among German Christians. The first commercial Advent calendars were printed in the 1920s by Gerhard Lang, who was inspired by his enterprising mother, who attached 24 cookies to a cardboard square for young Gerhard in the days leading up to Christmas. Soldiers returning from Germany after World War II brought back the German folk tradition.
Cadbury Advent Calendar. Image: Amazon
In the 1950s, chocolate was included in Advent calendars. But it wasn’t until Cadbury Chocolates of England introduced the first Advent calendar in 1971 with product samples concealed behind the doors, that it began to catch on.
By the twenty-first century, numerous companies, devoid of discernible Christian influence, began advertising with Advent calendars. Advent calendars now offer a diverse range of products, including coffee, tea, whiskey, Walker’s shortbread cookies, Harry Potter figurines, and even Bluey mini figures.
Many Advent Calendars commence on December 1st, even when it is not the first Sunday of Advent.
Date of Christmas
Ironically, the date for the Nativity – upon which our Western dating system is based – is not known with certainty. In ancient times, it was quite unusual to mark a person’s birth date as a remembrance, except among the Roman nobility.
Instead, if anything, the date of a person’s death was noted. Even among the feast days of saints, it is usually celebrated in remembrance of their death.
The Feast of Christmas was not an early festival for the Church, unlike Resurrection Sunday (Easter). The progression of its adoption and widespread practice is as follows:
- 202-211: Between these dates, Hippolytus of Rome, the 3rd-century theologian, referred to the birth of Jesus on December 25, in 3 or 4 BC.
- 221: Sextus Julius Africanus, a 3rd-century historian, mentioned December 25 as the birth of Jesus.
Chronography of 354. Image: Wikipedia
Chronography of 354 is the first to mention Christmas as an annual feast or holiday. The document was a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced for Valentinus, a wealthy Roman Christian, by the illustrator Furius Dionysis Filocalus. It reads in part:
natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae – Eighth day before the kalends of January [December 25] Birth of Christ in Bethlehem Judea.
- 386: John Chrysostom referred to Christ’s Nativity as a feast that:
“has now been brought to us, not many years ago” and “has developed so quickly and borne such fruit.”
- Early 400s: It was not until the early 5th century that the Western Church universally adopted the date of December 25 under Pope Leo I.
History of December 25
Some scholars, especially in the Eastern Church, suggested that the date of Christmas was derived from nine months after the Feast of the Annunciation, the March 25 celebration of Mary’s being told by the angel Gabriel that she would bear Jesus. This would place the birth of Christ on December 25.
The conjecture that the date of Christmas was chosen from the date of the Roman Saturnalia became popular in the 18th century among several scholars, including Isaac Newton. He argued that this date was chosen to supplant the pagan holiday Saturnalia, which the ancient Romans celebrated, and that many customs survive today: evergreen, holly, mistletoe, feasting, and gift exchanges.
Two other scholars proposed the same, but for different reasons.
- During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a German Protestant, Paul Ernst Jablonski, sought to show that the celebration on December 25th was one of many “paganizations” that the 4th-century Church had adopted… as a means of denouncing Catholicism.
- Around the same time, a Catholic Benedictine monk, Dom Jean Hardouin, tried to show that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes without paganizing the gospel.
However, there is a more likely reason to disambiguate Christmas from the Saturnalia.
Emperor Aurelian and the Saturnalia
Emperor Aurelian, Santa Giulia Museum, Brescia, Italy. Image: Wikimedia
More recent historians observe that we didn’t know about many of Saturnalia’s customs until Christian times, casting uncertainty on which traditions were “pagan.”
Saturnalia, honoring the Roman god Saturn, was itself an adaptation of the Ancient Greek festival known as Kronia (named after the Greek equivalent of Saturn, Kronos).
The Saturnalia that we know of today was popularized during the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian. He instituted the cult of Sol Invictus, the Birth of the “Unconquerable Sun,” on December 25, 274 AD… long after the Church had already been celebrating Christmas on that date, as we have documented by Africanus.
Aurelian’s hostility toward Christianity was well known. He organized persecutions against Christians. He demanded to be officially hailed as dominus et deus (master and god), and some of his coins read deus et dominus natus (god and born ruler).
He likely promoted the Saturnalia with the dedication of a new Temple of the Sun in the Campus Agrippae near the Circus Maximus in Rome. He also dedicated it on December 25 as an attempt to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the Unconquerable Sun.
Why did he do it then?
Roman Saturnalia and the Solstice
December 17 of the Julian calendar, later expanded through December 23, was the ancient date for the Winter Solstice. Aside from its astronomical significance, it was celebrated as the birthday of the “unconquerable sun” or natalis invicti solis. This marked when the sun’s transit was at the lowest point on the horizon with the shortest “day” of the year, and then, with longer days coming, began its transit northward.
The Saturnalia was celebrated in the Roman Empire until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and later in some places, especially the Germanic Yule, which we’ll examine later. In the Christian calendar, the 25th became known as the birth of the unconquerable Son.
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
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