CHRISTMAS (i.e., the Mass of Christ), in the Christian Church, the festival of the nativity of Jesus Christ. The history of this feast coheres so closely with that of Epiphany (q.v.), that what follows must be read in connection with the article under that heading.
Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church, and before the 5th century there was no general consensus of opinion as to when it should come in the calendar, whether on Jan. 6, March 25, or Dec. 25. The earliest identification of Dec. 25 with the birthday of Christ is in a passage, otherwise un known and probably spurious, of Theophilus of Antioch (c. 180), preserved in Latin by the Magdeburg centuriators (i. 3, I18), to the effect that the Gauls contended that as they celebrated the birth of the Lord on Dec. 25, so they ought to celebrate the resurrection on March 25. A passage, almost certainly inter polated, in Hippolytus's (c. 202) commentary on Daniel iv. 23, says that Jesus was born at Bethlehem on Wednesday, December 25, in the 42nd year of Augustus, but he mentions no feast, and such a feast, indeed, would conflict with the then orthodox ideas. As late as 245 Origen (horn. viii. on Leviticus) repudiated the idea of keeping the birthday of Christ, "as if he were a king Pharaoh." The first certain mention of Dec. 25 is in the Calendar of Philocalus (354), which was first published entire by Mommsen in Abhandlungen d. sacks. Akad. d. IVissensch. (185o), and is dealt with in Strzygowski's Kalenderbilder des Chron. vom Jahre 354 (1888) . This states that in "Year 1 after Christ the Lord Jesus Christ was born on Dec. 25, a Friday, and 15th day of the new moon"—though, in fact, Dec. 25 A.D. I, was a Sunday. Here again no festal celebration of the day is attested.
Clement of Alexandria (c. 20o) mentions several speculations on the date of Christ's birth, and condemns them as superstitious. Some chronologists, he says, alleged the birth to have occurred in the 28th year of Augustus, on 25 Pachon (an Egyptian month), i.e., May 20. Others assign it to 24 or 25 Pharmuthi (April 19 or 20). Clement himself sets it on Nov. 17, 3 B.C. ; and the anony mous author of a Latin tract, De Pascha computes (written in Africa, 243), sets it, "by private revelation," on Wednesday, March 28, the supposed anniversary of the creation of the sun, which typifies the Sun of Righteousness. Similar symbolical reasoning led Polycarp (in a fragment preserved by an Armenian writer, Ananias of Shirak, dated before 16o) to set His birth on Sunday, when the world's creation began, but His baptism on Wednesday, as the analogue of the sun's creation. On such grounds certain Latins as early as 354 may have transferred the birthday from Jan. 6 to Dec. 25, which was then a Mithraic feast, the natalis invicti solis or birthday of the unconquered Sun of Philocalus. The Syrians and Armenians, who clung to Jan. 6, accused the Romans of sun-worship and idolatry, contending that the feast of Dec. 25 had been invented by disciples of Cerinthus and its lections by Artemon to commemorate the natural birth of Jesus. Ambrose (On Virgins, iii. ch. 1) seems to imply that as late as the papacy of Liberius (352-356) the Birth was feasted together with the Marriage at Cana and the Feeding of the Four Thou sand, which were never feasted on any other day but Jan. 6.
Chrysostom, in a sermon preached at Antioch on Dec. 20, 386 or 388, says that the feast of Dec. 25 was known in the West, from Thrace as far as Cadiz, from the beginning. It cer tainly originated in the West, but spread quickly eastwards. In it was observed at the court of Constantius; Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) adopted it; Honorius, emperor (395-423) in the West, told his mother and brother Arcadius (395-408) in Byzantium how the new feast was kept in Rome, separate from Jan. 6 with its own troparia and sticharia; and they adopted it. The patriarchs Theophilus of Alexandria, John of Jerusalem, and Flavian of Antioch, were won over to it under Pope Anastasius, 398-401. John or Wahan of Nice (Combefis Historia monothe litarum) affords the above details. The new feast was communi cated by Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, to Sahak, Catho licos of Armenia, about 440; and the Armenians within the By zantine pale adopted it for about 3o years, but finally abandoned it, together with the decrees of Chalcedon, early in the 8th cen tury. Many writers of the period e.g., Epiphanius, Cassian, Asterius, Basil, Chrysostom and Jerome, contrast the new feast with that of the Baptism as that of the birth after the flesh, implying that the latter was generally regarded as a birth according to the Spirit. Usener notes that in 387 the new feast was reckoned according to the Julian calendar by writers of the province of Asia, who in referring to other feasts use the reckoning of their local calendars. As early as 400 in Rome an imperial rescript includes Christmas (with Easter and Epiphany) among the three feasts on which theatres must be closed. Epiphany and Christmas were not made judicial non dies until 534.
For some years in the West (as late as 353 in Rome) the birth feast was appended to the baptismal feast on Jan. 6, and was altogether supplanted by it in Jerusalem from about 36o to 44o, when Bishop Juvenal introduced the feast of Dec. 25, which about the same time was finally established in Alexandria. The quadragesima of Epiphany (i.e., the presentation in the Temple) continued to be celebrated in Jerusalem on Feb. 24 until the reign of Justinian. In most other places it had long before been put back to Feb. 2 to suit the new Christmas. But in Jerusalem, as Armenian historians record, the transference occasioned riots.
In Britain, Dec. 25 was a festival long before the conversion to Christianity, for Bede (De temp. rat. ch. 13) relates that "the ancient peoples of the Angli began the year on Dec. 25 when we now celebrate the birthday of the Lord; and the very night which is now so holy to us, they called in their tongue modranecht (modra niht), that is, the mothers' night, by reason we suspect of the ceremonies which in that night-long vigil they performed." In England the observance of Christmas was forbidden by act of Parliament :n 1644; Charles II. revived the feast, but the Scots adhered to the Puritan view.
Outside Teutonic countries Christmas presents are unknown. Their place is taken in Latin countries by the strenae, French etrennes, given on New Year's Day. The setting up in Latin churches of a Christmas creche is said to have been originated by St. Francis.
A. H. Kellner, Heortologie (Freiburg im Br., 2906), with bibl. ; Hospinianus, De f estis Christianorum (Genevae, 1574) ; Edw. Martene, De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, iii. 31 (Bassani, 1788) ; J. C. W. Augusti, Christi. Archaologie, vols. i. and v. (Leipzig, 1817-31) ; A. J. Binterim, Denkwiirdigkeiten, v. pt. i. p. 528 (Mainz, 1825, etc.) ; Ernst Friedrich Wernsdorf, De originibus Solemnium Natalis Christi (Wittenberg, 1757, and in J. E. Volbeding, Thesaurus Commentationum, Lipsiae, 1847) ; Anton. Bynaeus, De Natali Jesu Christi (Amsterdam, 1689) ; Hermann Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (Bonn, 1889) ; Nik. Nilles, S.J., Kalendarium Manuale (Innsbruck, 1896) ; L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien (3e ed., Paris, 1889) ; C. A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition (1912) ; C. C. Polhill, The Origin of Christmas (1925) .
(Photinia arbutifolia or Heterome les arbutifolia), a handsome American shrub or small tree of the rose family (Rosaceae), called also California holly and toyon, native chiefly to the chaparral (q.v.) belt of the Sierra Nevada and Coast ranges. It grows from 5 to 15 ft. high and bears oblong, pointed, evergreen leaves and numerous small, white flowers in large, terminal clusters, followed in late autumn by bright red. holly-like fruits. It is very popular for Christmas decoration, being sold on the streets of Pacific-coast cities in the same manner as holly in the eastern United States.