CHRISTMAS DAY. The precise dare on which the founder of the Christian religion was born is doubtful. The festival known as Christmas was a pagan festival adopted by the Christians and adapted to Christian use. As Arno Newmann says, it is not the day that matters, but the idea associated with it: and the birth of Jesus remains the most important event in the whole of history. " The celebration of the birthday of Jesus is not met with at all until after the beginning of the third century. Down to that time it was the day of His death that was observed, as being the birthday of the higher life. Even then the celebration is first found among heretical sects, and its adoption by the Church does not come until a later date, when its power had grown. The day was originally fixed as the 6th (at first also by accommoda tion the 10th) of January, now the feast of the Epiphany. Day of birth and day of baptism were regarded as identical, because in the baptism the Son of God ' seemed to be born. We find this usage prevailing down to the end of the fourth century, particularly in the Eastern Church. Soon, however, religious
policy, having the heathen in view, dictated the separa tion of the Birth from the Baptism. The 25th of Decem ber is first found as a real feast-day in Rome in 354 A.D. at the earliest. . . Under Bishop Liberius she [Rome] took the date as a substitute for the heathen solstice festival, calculating it from the spring equinox of the old calendar (25th of March). regarded as the date of the Annunciation. In place of the birthday of the invincible Sun-god (Helios=S01=1Uthra), site put that of Jesus Christ, the sun in men's hearts (cp. Malachi lit. 20). An official command was then sent to all places to observe the new festival. So, gradually, by the year 450 A.D. the 25th of December came to be observed throughout the Church except in Armenia " (Arno Neumann). See J. M. Wheeler. Footsteps of the Past, 1595; Oscar Floltz mann, The Life of Jesus. 1904; Arno Neumann, Jesus, 1906; J. G. Frazer, G.B., Pt. iv., 2nd ed. 1907.