Christmas; Its Origin and Character by S. Mortensen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 9, 1909

Christmas; Its Origin and Character

By S. Mortensen

S. MORTENSEN (Continued)

A Catholic Ordinance

Since there is no evidence for the observance of Christmas in the Bible, the questions arise, What is its origin? and when did its celebration begin? Lector P. Waldenstrom says: “The custom to celebrate the birth of Christ in the last part of December began first in the fourth century. Before that the sixth of January was celebrated.”—Notes to Luke 2:8.

Another author says: “The third one of the great feasts of the church, Christmas, doesn’t seem to be kept during the first three centuries. In contrast to it a

memorial of Christ’s baptism was celebrated in the Orient as a revelation of his Messiahship and glory of his divinity called Epiphania, the sixth of January. This festival was, in Egypt, also given the meaning as a memorial of Christ’s birth, and in that way they had in a certain sense a substitute for Christmas, which had not yet begun.”—Ecclesiastical History, by C. A. Cornelius, part 1, page 139. Further on, the same author says, “It began first to be celebrated in the Roman Church about 360, and from there it spread to the Orient.” After he has mentioned “Saturnalia,” the Roman feast of joy, which began the seventeenth and ended the twenty-fourth of December with the “Sigillaria,” he continues: “At last the so-called ‘Brumalia,’ or the winter solstice, was celebrated the twenty-fifth of December. It was also called ‘deus natalis invicti solis’ (the birth feast of the unconquered sun), because in that season when the short days are gone, the sun again comes forth victorious from the gloomy night to travel on its orbit like an unconquered hero.”—Id., part 2, page 91.

This proves that the twenty-fifth of December was an annual feast celebrated in the honor of the sun. Frederick Neilsen, a Danish bishop, says, “During the first three centuries we find no trace of any feast for the birth of Christ.”—Ecclesiastical History, page 224.

The commentator, Adam Clarke, gives the following information: “The Latin church, supreme in power and infallible in judgment (?), placed it on the twenty-fifth of December, the very day in which the ancient Romans celebrated the feast of their goddess Bruma. . . . Pope Julius I was the person who made this alteration, and it appears to have been done for this reason: the sun now began his return toward the northern tropic, ending the winter, lengthening the days, and introducing the spring.”—Notes to Luke 2:8.

The valuable testimony of J. Murdock, D. D., is in harmony with the above: “It was Julius I (Bishop of Rome, A. D. 337-352) who first ascertained this to be the right day; and though his authority is not the best, yet it is generally admitted that the designation of the twenty-fifth of December for the festival was first made about the middle of the fourth century.”—Ecclesiastical History, by Mosheim, Vol. I, page 279.

From Johnson’s Encyclopedia and other sources we also learn that Julius I, Bishop of Rome, appointed the twenty-fifth of December for the celebration of Christ’s birth. All this proves very plainly, (1) that the birth of Christ was not universally celebrated by the Christians during the first three centuries; (2) that it was the Latin church which first ordained it to be celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December; (3) that it was Julius I, Bishop of Rome, who made the appointment; (4) and this proves that Christmas is a genuine Roman Catholic institution.

When it is now generally known that this church has many ordinances of human origin, then it is indeed high time for the Protestants who wish to follow the Bible only to earnestly consider this subject, because when the festival is appointed on the same date as the heathen sun feast, it may be that idolatrous defilement under a Christian garb is threatening us right here.

(To be continued)