TO CORRESPONDENTS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 20, 1877

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Is there any evidence that Christ was born on the 25th of December? If not, can it be known upon what month and day he was born? When and by whom did Christmas begin to be celebrated? J. F. B.

There is no definite evidence that Christ was born on the 25th of December; nor can any part of the year be certainly fixed as the time of his birth. Andrews, in his “Life of our Lord,” p. 18, says: “Lightfoot makes it to have been in September, Newcome in October, Paulus in March, Wieseler in February, Lichtenstein in June, Greswell in April, Clinton in spring, Lardner and Robinson in autumn, Strong in August.” Amid such a disagreement of doctors, the question will probably have to remain unsettled.

Says the same author, “It is generally granted that the day of the nativity was not observed as a feast in any part of the church, east or west, till sometime in the fourth century.” “The observance of the 25th of December is ascribed to Julius, Bishop [pope] of Rome, A. D. 337-352. In the Eastern church, till this time, the 7th of January had been observed as the day of his [Christ’s] baptism, and regarded as the day of his birth.”

What is the meaning of Isaiah 11:11, the first part of the verse, in regard to recovering the remnant of the people? J. W. S.

Ans. From that verse on to the end of the chapter, it seems very much like a prophecy respecting the gathering of the people in the last days, preparatory to the coming of Christ.

A. S. H.: In the edition of Greenfield’s Greek Testament in our possession we find under the word end (telos) the following definition: “End, scope, object, principal point, the sum of anything. Rom. 10:4,” and no reference to Rom. 10:7 at all.

Does Paul in I Tim. 1:9, 10 speak of the ten commandment law, or the ceremonial law? C. A. W.

Ans. The ten commandment, or moral, law. Dr. Clarke has a note on this passage, which, we think, gives the true idea. He says: “He [the apostle] does not say that the law was not made for a righteous man, but, ou keitai, it does not lie against a righteous man; because he does not transgress it; but it lies against the wicked; for such as the apostle mentions have broken it, and grievously too, and are condemned by it. The word keitai, lies, refers to the custom of writing laws on boards, and hanging them up in public places within reach of every man, that they might be read by all; thus all would see against whom they lay.”

ANSWERED BY LETTER: A. M. Mann, Nettie Sharp, R. F. Cottrell, W. H. Littlejohn.