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Answer for yourself: Would you think it strange if you found out that the time of the birth of many of the incarnated Gods and Saviors of antiquity was fixed at the same period, and this period known as the 25th of December, was celebrated all over Christendom as the birthday of Jesus Christ?
This is all the more strange when you discover that this period formerly dated the birth of a new year -- the birth of King Sol. And when we find that the ancient pagans were in the habit of celebrating this venerated the twenty-fifth of December as the birthday of their Gods in the same manner Christians now celebrate it as the birthday of Christ, we are driven to admit that something more than mere fortuitous accident must be adduced to account for the coincidence?
According to Dr. Lightfoot, the temple of Jerusalem was employed in celebrating the birthday of a pagan God (Adonis) on the very night Christians assign for the birth of Christ.
The Reverend Robert Taylor (Diegesis) informs us that nearly all the nations of the East were once in the habit of rising at midnight to celebrate the birthday of their Gods, on the twenty-fifth of December. And to this statement Mr. Higgins adds that, "At the first moment after midnight of the twenty-fourth of December, the ancient nations celebrated the accouchement of the queen of heaven and celestial virgin, and the birth of the God Sol, the Infant Savior, and the God of Day" (Graves, The Sixteen Crucified Saviors, chapter 8)."
Bacchus of Egypt, Bacchus of Greece, Adonis of Greece, Chrishna of India, Chang-ti of China, Chris of Chaldea, Mithra of Persia, Sakia of India, Jao Wapaul (a crucified Savior of ancient Britain), were all born on the twenty-fifth of December, according to their respective histories. Chrishna is represented to have been born at midnight on the twenty-fifth of the month Savarana, which answers to our December, and millions of his disciples celebrated his birthday by decorating their houses with garlands and gilt paper, and the bestowment of presents to friends. The Rev. Mr. Barret tells us, "It was once common for the women in Rome to perambulate the streets on the twenty-fifth of December, singing in a loud voice, "Unto us a child is born this day."
And why his birth was fixed at that date is not hard to account for. According to the celebrated Christian writer Mr. Goodrich, the Christian world had no chronology and recorded no dates for several centuries after the commencement of the Christian era (Goodrich, History of all Nations, p. 23.) No event of their history was marked by dates for nearly four hundred years. Hence, the time of Christ's birth is altogether a matter of conjecture, as is also every other event noticed in the Christian bible. This is proved by the fact that the ablest Christian writers and chronologists differ to the extent of thirty-five hundred years in fixing the time of every event in the bible. A Mr. Kennedy presents us with three hundred different chronological systems, by different Christian writers, all founded on the bible, and proving that the date of its various events are inextricably involved in a labyrinth of doubt, darkness and uncertainty.
Relative to the time of Christ's birth, the "Encyclopedia Britannica" says: "Christians count one hundred and thirty-three contrary opinions of different authors concerning the year the Messiah appeared on earth -- many of them celebrated writers." (Art. Chron.) Mark the declaration -- one hundred and thirty-three different opinions as to the year Christ was born in; one hundred and thirty-three different years fixed on by different Christian chronologists as the time of the birth of the most extraordinary and most noted being, as Christians would have us believe, that ever appeared on earth. Think of an omnipotent God descending from heaven, performing astounding miracles, and presenting other proofs of being a God, and yet not one of the three hundred writers of that era take any notice of him, or make any note of his birth or any event of his life. This circumstance is of itself sufficient to banish and dissipate all faith in his divinity.
As you well know, Christmas, December 25th, is a day which has been set apart by the Christian church on which to celebrate the birth of their Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, and is considered by the majority of persons to be really the day on which he was born. This is altogether erroneous, as you are now beginning to see upon examination of the subject.
There was no uniformity in the period of observing the Nativity among the early Christian churches; some held the festival in the month of May or April, others in January (see Bible for Learners, vol. iii, p. 66; Chamber’s Encyclopedia, Art, “Christmas”).
The year in which he was born is also as uncertain as the month or day. " The year in which it happened," says Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, "has not hitherto been fixed with certainty, notwithstanding the deep and laborious researches of the learned” (Ecc. Hist., vol. i. p. 53. Quoted in Taylor’s Diegesis, p. 104).
According to Irenaeus (a famous Church Father...A.D. 190), on the authority of "The Gospel," and "all the elders who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord," Christ Jesus lived to be nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age. If this celebrated Christian father is correct, and who can say he is not, Jesus was born some twenty years before the time which has been assigned as that of his birth.
The Rev. Dr. Giles says:
"Concerning the time of Christ's birth there are even greater doubts than about the place; for, though the four Evangelists have noticed several contemporary facts, which would seem to settle the point, yet on comparing these dates with the general history of the period, we meet with serious discrepancies, which involve the subject in the greatest uncertainty” (Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 189)
Again he says:
"Not only do we date our time from the exact year in which Christ is said to have been born, but our ecclesiastical calendar has determined with scrupulous minuteness the day and almost the hour at which every particular of Christ's wonderful life is stated to have happened. All this is implicitly believed by millions; yet all these things are among the most uncertain and shadowy that history has recorded. We have no clue to either the day or the time of year, or even the year itself, in which Christ was born" (Hebrew and Christian Records, p. 194).
It is evident, from the facts just presented, that all systems of Christian chronology are founded on mere conjecture, and hence should be rejected as worthless.
Answer for yourself: What event of Christ's life, then, can be accepted as certain, when no record was made of it till the time was forgotten, and none for at least half a century after the dawn of the Christian era, according to Dr. Lardner, when nearly all who witnessed it must have been dead?
We think the most reasonable conclusion in the case is, that Christ, instead of performing those Munchausen prodigies attributed to him -- such as casting out devils, raising the dead, controlling the elements of nature, etc. -- led such an ordinary, obscure life -- excelling only in healing the sick and other noble deeds of charity and philanthropy -- that he attracted but little notice by the higher classes, or by anybody but those of a similar turn of mind, till he was deified by Constantine, in the year 325 A.D. Hence, the time of his birth was not recorded, and was forgotten. Consequently, the twenty-fifth of December was selected as his birthday, because it was the birthday of other Gods, and because it was regarded by the heathen, from time immemorial, as the birthday of Sol, the glorious luminary of heaven, it being the period he is born again into a new year, and "commences again his journey and his life;" and because, also, this epoch was, as Sharon Turner informs us, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, the commencement of a new year up to the tenth century.
These events signalized the twenty-fifth of December, and made it a period of sufficient importance to lead the early Christians to suppose it must have been the birthday of their Messiah. Mosheim, however, confesses that the day or the year in which it happened "has not been fixed with certainty, notwithstanding the profound researches of the learned." So that it is still an open question as to when Christ was born. What day of the month, what year, or what century it took place in, is still unknown. This circumstance is, as before suggested, sufficient of itself to utterly prostrate all faith in the divine claims for Jesus Christ. What would be thought of a witness who should testify in court to the truth of an occurrence of which he did not know the year, or even the century, in which it took place, or who could come no nearer than one hundred and thirty-three years in fixing or guessing at the time. Would the court accept such testimony?
Some Christian writers fix the year 4 B.C., as the time when he was born, others the year 5 B.C., and again others place his time of birth at about 15 B.C. The Rev. Dr. Geikie, speaking of this, in his Life of Christ, says: "The whole subject is very uncertain. Ewald appears to fix the date of the birth at five years earlier than our era. Petavius and Usher fix it on the 25th of December, five years before our era. Bengel on the 25th of December, four years before our era; Anger and Winer, four years before our era, in the Spring; Scaliger, three years before our era, in October; St. Jerome, three years before our era, on December 25th; Eusebius, two years before our era, on January 6th; and Idler, seven years before our era, in December" (Geikie, Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 559).
Albert Barnes writes in a manner which implies that he knew all about the year (although he does not give any authorities), but knew nothing about the month. He says:
"The birth of Christ took place four years before the common era. That era began to be used about A.D. 526, being first employed by Dionysius, and is supposed to have been placed about four years too late. Some make the difference two, others three, four, five, and even eight years. He was born at the commencement of the last year of the reign of Herod, or at the close of the year preceding" (Barnes’ Notes, vol. ii. p. 402).
"The Jews sent out their flocks into the mountainous and desert regions during the summer months, and took them up in the latter part of October or the first of November, when the cold weather commenced. . . . It is clear from this that our Savior was born before the 25th of December, or before what we call Christmas. At that time it is cold, and especially in the high and mountainous regions about Bethlehem. God has concealed the time of his birth. There is no way to ascertain it. By different learned men it has been fixed at each month in the year" (Barnes’ Notes, vol. ii. p. 25).
Canon Farrar writes with a little more caution, as follows:
"Although the date of Christ's birth cannot be fixed with absolute certainty, there is at least a large amount of evidence to render it probable that he was born four years before our present era. It is universally admitted that our received chronology, which is not older than Dionysius Exignus, in the sixth century, is wrong. But all attempts to discover the month and the day are useless. No data whatever exists to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy” (Farrar, Life of Christ, App., pp. 673-674).
Bunsen attempts to show (on the authority of Irenaeus, above quoted), that Jesus was born some fifteen years before the time assigned, and that he lived to be nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age (Bible Chronology, pp. 73-74).
According to Basnage (Hist. De Juif) the Jews placed his birth near a century sooner than the generally assumed epoch. Others have placed it even in the third century B.C. This belief is founded on a passage in the "Book of Wisdom," written about 250 B.C., which is supposed to refer to Christ Jesus, and none other. In speaking of some individual who lived at that time, it says:
"He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold; for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counterfeits; he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness; he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his Father . Let us see if his words be true; and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. For if the just man be the son of God, he (God) will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death; for by his own saying he shall be respected."
This is a very important passage. Of course, the church claims it to be a prophecy of what Christ Jesus was to do and suffer, but this does not explain it.
If the writer of the "Gospel according to Luke" is correct, Jesus was not born until about A. D. 10, for he explicitly tells us that this event did not happen until Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Now it is well known that Cyrenius was not appointed to this office until long after the death of Herod (during whose reign the Matthew narrator informs us Jesus was born), and that the taxing spoken of by the Luke narrator as leaving taken place at this time, did not take place until about ten years after the time at which, according to the Matthew narrator, Jesus was born (Josephius, Aniq. xviii.ch.i.sec.l.).
Eusebius was Bishop of Cesarea from A.D. 315 to 340, in which he died, in the 70th year of his age, thus playing his great part in life chiefly under the reigns of Constantine the Great and his son Constantius. Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian, places Jesus’ birth at the time Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and therefore at about A. D. 10. His words are as follows:
"It was the two and fortieth year after the reign of Augustus the Emperor and the eight and twentieth year after the subduing of Egypt, and the death of Antonius and Cleopatra, when last of all the Ptolemies in Egypt ceased to bear rule, when our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, at the time of the first taxing— Cyrenius, then President of Syria—was born in Bethlehem, a city Judea, according unto the prophecies in that behalf promised" (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. Lib. 1. ch.vi.).
Had the Luke narrator known anything about Jewish history, he never would have made so gross a blunder as to place the taxing of Cyrenius in the days of Herod, and would have saved the immense amount of labor that it has taken in endeavoring to explain away the effects of his ignorance. One explanation of this mistake is, that there were two assessments, one about tile time Jesus was born, and the other ten years after; but this has entirely failed. Dr. Hooykaas, speaking of this, says:
"The Evangelist (Luke) falls into the most extraordinary mistakes through out. In the first place, history is silent as to a census of the whole (Roman) world ever having been made at all. In the next place, though Quirinius certainly did make such a register in Judea and Samaria, it did not extend to Galilee; so that Joseph's household was not affected by it. Besides, it did not take place until ten years after the death of Herod, when his son Archelaus was deposed by the emperor, and the districts of Judea and Samaria were thrown into a Roman province. Under the reign of Herod, nothing of the kind took place, nor was there any occasion for it. Finally, at the time of the birth of Jesus, the Governor of Syria was not Quirinius, but Quietus Sentius Saturninus.” (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. P. 56).
The institution of the festival of the Nativity of Christ Jesus being held on the 25th of December, among the Christians, is attributed to Telesphorrus, who flourished during the reign of Antonius Pius (A. D. 138-161), but the first certain traces of it are found about the time of the Emperor Commodus (A. D. 180-192) (Chamber’s Encyclo., art. “Christmas”).
"The pre-Christian Europeans practiced a variety of paganistic rituals that culminated each year, at the dawning of the winter type weather, on Dec. 25th. They celebrated this day as the day of the Birth or Resurrection of the Sun God. Not as a symbol. They actually looked upon Dec. 25 as the day when the Sun was Born anew-Resurrected into new life. This ritual worship of the resurrection (birth) of the Sun-God on Dec. 25th goes back thousands of years into pre-history" (Jabbar, The Astrological Foundation of the Christ Myth, p. 10).
For a long time the Christians had been trying to discover upon what particular day Jesus had possibly or probably come into the world; and conjectures and traditions that rested upon absolutely no foundation, led one to the 20th of May, another to the 19th or 20th of April, and a third to the 5th of January. At last the opinion of the community at Rome gained the upper hand, and the 25th of December was fixed upon (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 66). It was not until the fifth century, however, that this day had been generally agreed upon. By the firth century, however, whether from the influence of some tradition, or from the desire to supplant Heathen Festivals of that period of the year, such as the Saturnalia, the 25th of December had been generally agreed upon (Encyclopedia Brit., art. “Christmas”). How it happened, that this day finally became fixed as the birthday of Christ Jesus, may be inferred from what we shall now see as look to the pagan sanctification of the day long before Jesus’ birth. This was a “pagan holy day that commemorated the birth of the Sun” as we have shown.
In India this is a period of rejoicing everywhere (Monier Williams, Hinduism, p. 181). You need to remember that these Indo-Europeans would only hand-down their Sun-Myths to the Aryans at a later time; therefore it is here we find the earliest record of such belief. It is a great religious festival, and the people decorate their houses with garlands, and make presents to friends and relatives. This custom is of very great antiquity (Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 126).
In China, religious solemnities are celebrated at the time of the winter solstice, the last week in December, when all shops are shut up, and the courts are closed (Ibid. 216).
Buddha, the son of the Virgin Maya, on whom, according to Chinese tradition, “the Holy Ghost” had descended, was said to have been born on Christmas day, December 25th (Bunsen, The Angel-Messiah, pp. x-25, and 110, and Lillie, Buddha and Buddhism, p. 73).
Among the ancient Persians their most splendid ceremonials were in honor of their Lord and Savior Mithra; they kept his birthday, with many rejoicings, on the 25th of December.
The author of the Celtic Druids says:
“It was the custom of the heathen, long before the birth of Christ, to celebrate the birthday of their gods," and that, "the 25th of December was a great festival with the Persians, who, in very early times, celebrated the birth of their god Mithras” (Celtic Druids, p. 163; Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 272; Monumental Christianity, p. 167; Bible for Learners, vol. iii, pp. 66-67).
The Reverend Joseph B. Gross, in his Heathen Religion, also tells us that:
"The ancient Persians celebrated a festival in honor of Mithras on the first day succeeding the Winter Solstice, the object of which was to commemorate the birthday of Mithras” (The Heathen Religions, p. 287)
Among the ancient Egyptians, for centuries before the time of Christ Jesus, the 25th of December was set aside as the birthday of their gods. M. Le Clerk De Septehenes speaks of it as follows:
"The ancient Egyptians fixed the pregnancy of Isis (the Queen of Heaven and the Virgin Mother of the Savior Horus), on the last days of March, and towards the end of December they placed the commemoration of her delivery” (Relig. Of the Anct. Greeks, p. 214).
Mr. Bonwick, in speaking of Horus, says:
“He is the great God-loved of Heaven. His birth was one of the greatest mysteries of the Egyptian religion. Pictures representing it appeared on the walls and temples. One passed through the holy Adytum (the interior or sacred part of a heathen temple) to the still more sacred quarter of the temple known as the birth-place of Horus. He was presumably the child of Deity. At Christmas time, or that answering to our festival, his image was brought out of that sanctuary with peculiar ceremonies, as the image of the infant Bambino is still brought out and exhibited in Rome” (Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 157).
Rigford observes that the Egyptians not only worshipped a Virgin Mother “prior to the birth of our Savior, but exhibited the effigy of her son lying in a manger, in the manner the infant Jesus was afterwards laid in the cave at Bethlehem” (quoted in Anacalypsis, p. 102, vol. ii).
The Chronicles of Alexandria, and ancient Christian work, says:
“Watch how Egypt has constructed the childbirth of a Virgin, and the birth of her son, who was exposed in a crib to the adoration of the people” (Bonwick, Egyptian Belief, p. 143).
Osiris, son of the “Holy Virgin,” as they called Cerea, or Neith, his mother, was born on the 25th of December (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 99).
This was also the time celebrated by the ancient Greeks as being the birthday of Hercules. The author of The Religion of the Ancient Greeks says:
"The night of the Winter Solstice, which the Greeks named the triple night, was that which they thought gave birth to Hercules” (Relig. Anct. Greece, p. 215).
He further says:
"It has become an epoch of singular importance in the eyes of the Christian, who has destined it to celebrate the birth of the Savior, the true Sun of Justice, who alone came to dissipate the darkness of ignorance" (Ibid.).
Bacchus, also, was born at early dawn on the 25th of December. Sir. Higgins says of him:
"The birth-place of Bacchus, called Sabizius or Sabaoth, was claimed by several places in Greece; but on Mount Zelmissus, in Thrace, his worship seems to have been chiefly celebrated. He was born of a virgin on the 25th of December, and was always called the Savior. In his Mysteries, he was shown to the people, as an infant is by the Christians at this day, on Christmas-day morning, in Rome" (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 102; Dupuis, p. 237, and Baring Gould, Orig. Relig. Belief, vol. i. p. 322).
The birthday of Adonis was celebrated on the 25th of December. This celebration is spoken of by Tertullian, Jerome, and other Fathers of the Church (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 99), who inform us that the ceremonies took place in a cave, and that the cave in which they celebrated his mysteries in Bethlehem, was that in which Christ Jesus was born.
This was also a great holy day in ancient Rome. The Rev. Mr. Gross says:
“In Rome, before the time of Christ, a festival was observed on the 25th of December, under the name of 'Natalis Solis Invicti' (Birthday of Sol the Invincible). It was a day of universal rejoicings, illustrated by illuminations and public games (The Heathen Religion, p. 287). “All public business was suspended, declarations of war and criminal executions were postponed, friends made presents to one another, and the slaves were indulged with great liberties”.
A few weeks before the winter solstice, the Calabrian shepherds came into Rome to play on the pipes. This practice is kept up to the present day.
The ancient Germans, for centuries before "the true Sun of Justice" was ever heard of, celebrated annually, at the time of the Winter solstice, what they called their Yule-feast. At this feast agreements were renewed, the gods were consulted as to the future, sacrifices were made to them, and the time was spent in jovial hospitality. Many features of this festival, such as burning the yule-log on Christmas-eve, still survive among us (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 67).
Yule was the old name for Christmas. In French it is called Noel, which is the Hebrew or Chaldee word Nule (Chambers’s, art. “Yule,” and Celtic Druids, p. 163).
The greatest festival of the year celebrated among the ancient Scandinavians, was at the Winter solstice. They called the night upon which it was observed, the "Mother-night.” This feast was namedJul—hence is derived the word Yule—and was celebrated in honor of Freyr (son of the Supreme God Odin, and the goddess Frigga), who was born on that day. Feasting, nocturnal assemblies, and all the demonstrations of a most dissolute joy, were then authorized by the general usage. At this festival the principal received presents—generally horses, swords, battle-axes, and gold rings—at their departure” (Mallet, Northern Antiquities, pp. 110 and 355).
The festival of the 25th of December was celebrated by the ancient Druids, in Great Britain and Ireland, with great fires lighted on the tops of hills (Dupuis, 160; Celtic Druids, and Monumental Christianity, p. 167).
Godfrey Higgins says:
This was also a time of rejoicing in Ancient Mexico. Acosta says:
The evergreens, and particularly the mistletoe, which are used all over the Christian world at Christmas time, betray its heathen origin. Tertullian, a Father of the Church, who flourished about A. D. 200, writing to his brethren, affirms it to be...
St. Chrysostom, (A. D. 390), referring to this Pagan festival, says:
Add to this the fact that St. Gregory, a Christian Father of the third century, was instrumental in, and commended by other Fathers for, changing Pagan festivals into Christian holidays, for the purpose, as they said, of drawing the heathen to the religion of Christ.
Answer for yourself: What have evergreens, and garlands, and Christmas trees, to do with Christianity? Or with a Jewish Rabbi who preached repentance?
It is the old Yule feast which was held by all the northern nations, from time immemorial, handed down to, and observed at the present day. In the greenery with which Christians deck their houses and temples of worship, and in the Christmas-trees laden with gifts, we unquestionably see a relic of the symbols by which our heathen forefathers signified their faith in the powers of the returning sun to clothe the earth again with green, and hang new fruit on the trees. Foliage, such as the laurel, myrtle, ivy, or oak, and in general, all evergreens, were Dionysiac plants, that is, symbols of the generative power, signifying perpetuity of youth and vigor (Knight, Anct. Art and Mythol, p. 32).
On this account the Christians adopted it as the time of the birth of their God. Mr. Gibbon, speaking of this in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 383, says:
And Mr. King, in his Gnostics and their Remains, says:
"The ancient festival held on the 25th of December in honor of the ‘Birthday of the Invincible One,' and celebrated by the great games at the circus, was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the birth of Christ, the precise day of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown” (King’s Gnostics, p. 49).
As Dr. Hooykaas remarks:
Answer for yourself: What event of Christ's life, then, can be accepted as certain, when no record was made of it till the time was forgotten, and none for at least half a century after the dawn of the Christian era, according to Dr. Lardner, when nearly all who witnessed it must have been dead?
Although I cannot agree with the entirety of the next quote as to the obscurity of Jesus (Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons), yet it is yet worth reading especially in light of the reference to Sun Worship:
"We think the most reasonable conclusion in the case is, that Christ, instead of performing those Munchausen prodigies attributed to him -- such as casting out devils, raising the dead, controlling the elements of nature, etc. -- led such an ordinary, obscure life -- excelling only in healing the sick and other noble deeds of charity and philanthropy -- that he attracted but little notice by the higher classes, or by anybody but those of a similar turn of mind, till he was deified by Constantine, in the year 325 A.D. Hence, the time of his birth was not recorded, and was forgotten......
(Sharon Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons).
These events signalized the twenty-fifth of December, and made it a period of sufficient importance to lead the early Christians to suppose it must have been the birthday of their Messiah. Mosheim, however, confesses that the day or the year in which it happened "has not been fixed with certainty, notwithstanding the profound researches of the learned." So that it is still an open question as to when Christ was born. What day of the month, what year, or what century it took place in, is still unknown. This circumstance is, as before suggested, sufficient of itself to utterly prostrate all faith in the divine claims for Jesus Christ.
Answer for yourself: What would be thought of a witness who should testify in court to the truth of an occurrence of which he did not know the year, or even the century, in which it took place, or who could come no nearer than one hundred and thirty-three years in fixing or guessing at the time.
Answer for yourself: Would the court accept such testimony? Should you?