The Origins of the Celebration of Christmas

Here is a simple question: when did the observance of Christmas begin and why?  The answer to that, however, is not nearly as straightforward as the question.  Most Christians probably think observance of Christmas—or more properly, the Feast of the Nativity—goes back to the Apostolic age or at least to the second century AD, but there is literally no evidence to support that view.  Evidence for a third century AD is pretty weak as well.  In fact, evidence for any observance of the Feast of the Nativity does not become more solid until late in the fourth century AD, and even then its observance seems pretty sporadic until well into the fifth century AD.  That is, Christmas was not a holiday for Christians for nearly 350 years after Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father—and that gap raises the question as why there even came to be a Feast of the Nativity at all.  It is hard to argue that Christmas was something Christians always observed.  Clearly, the Church had not done that.  But why had holiday come about?  Was it a pagan holiday that was Christianized?  Or was it something driven by logic internal to Christian faith and practice?  There, indeed, is a mystery to be explored.

Most books purporting to examine the origins of Christmas focus either on various traditions like Christmas trees, Yule logs, gift-giving and so forth, or on the biblical nativity narratives in the Gospels.  Curiously absent, however, is much historical discussion of why it took Christians more than 350 years before they started commemorating Christ’s birth, and even then, only in a gradual, piecemeal process that lasted generations and was uneven across the Roman Empire.

I began looking into these questions years ago after I attended a self-consciously Old School Presbyterian Church that did not observe any religious holy days apart from the weekly Lord’s Day.  Not having grown up in the Presbyterian Church or the Reformed tradition, the idea of not celebrating Christmas, Easter, or any other religious holiday was completely alien to me.  Old School Presbyterian—and really, the earlier Puritan—opposition to observing religious holidays largely revolved around three key objections: (1) the lack of any positive command in Scripture for their observance (i.e., the Regulative Principle of Worship); (2) the propensity for such holidays to be observed in ways that were often undignified and even immoral; and
(3) the likely pagan roots of such holidays, especially that of Christmas.  It would have been easy for me to simply dismiss such notions as rigid and legalistic, but this church blessed me in so many ways and had been a great influence in shaping my understanding of what church was to be so that I could not in good conscience dismiss these claims outright.

For the Puritans, Christmas was a particular sticking point, even more so than other holy days.  The conventional thinking among the English Puritans, Scottish Presbyterians, and New England Congregationalists was that these feasts were merely pagan holidays which the Church co-opted, and that was an important reason why decided to ban the holiday in the seventeenth century.  Surprisingly, even many people who embrace Christmas concede this point, and, moreover, it has received some scholarly support over the past century from liturgical historians who are outside of the Presbyterian and Reformed community and have little interest in making common cause with the Puritans.  That said, the Puritan objection still has some punch: if these feasts are just baptized versions of originally pagan holidays, then the question persists for Christians as to whether they should in good conscience observe them at all, especially in the absence of any positive Scriptural command.

On the other hand, the connection of these feasts with pagan holidays is weaker than many realize.  There is a surprising degree of ambiguity surrounding the origins of the Feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany.  In fact, the emergence of the Feasts of the Nativity and Epiphany late in the fourth century ad strikingly coincides with the triumph of Nicene orthodoxy against the greatest theological challenge to the Christian faith to that point in time, the Arian heresy.  Although causation cannot be conclusively proven, the connection is probably more than mere coincidence.  And if the Arian crisis was key to the creation of Christmas, then that suggests a notable irony: a holiday that today is smothered by schmaltzy sentimentality with little connection to Christ may have had its real origin in the weightiest theological debate in Christian history about the Person of Christ Jesus.  My purpose in this essay is to explore these origins and the implications they have for us today.