Christmas Day: Difference between revisions

In the early 18th century, some scholars proposed alternative explanations. Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas, celebrating the birth of him whom Christians consider to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied in {{bibleverse||Malachi|4:2|31}},was selected to correspond with the southern solstice, which the Romans called ''bruma'', celebrated on December 25.<ref name="SolsticeDate">"[http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/SF/WinSol.html Bruma]", ''Seasonal Festivals of the Greeks and Romans''<br />Pliny the Elder, Natural History, [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137&query=head%3D%231117 18:59]</ref> In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday ''Dies Natalis Solis Invicti'' and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church. It has been argued that, on the contrary, the Emperor Aurelian, who in 274 instituted the holiday of the ''Dies Natalis Solis Invicti'', did so partly as an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already important for Christians in Rome. In 1889, Louis Duchesne proposed that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation, the traditional date of the conception of Jesus.<ref name="Roll87">Roll, pp. 88–90.<br />Duchesne, Louis, ''Les Origines du Culte Chrétien,'' Paris, 1902, 262 ff.</ref>

==External links==