and well into the eighteenth century, most New England congregations used the so-called Bay Psalm Book, a rhymed version of the Old Testament Psalms, with additional hymns taken from various biblical sources (this was the first book published in New England). None of these hymns dealt with the Christmas story. By the 1750s, however, the Bay Psalm Book had largely been replaced in New England churches by a pair of new verse translations of the Psalms, both of which contained Christmas hymns. Between 1760 and 1799, at least thirty different Christmas songs were published in New England. Yet Christmas was still not that popular in colonial America in comparison to parts of Europe, especially Germany and Bohemia/Moravia (modern Czech Republic). This was illustrated during the American Revolution of 1765–1783. The British had hired thirty thousand troops from the Hesse region of Germany to increase their military might. On December 26, 1776, George Washington launched a major offensive against Hessian troops in New Jersey. Central to the choice of the date to attack was the belief that the German troops would be intoxicated and drowsy after their zealous celebrations of the previous day!
17. Cheyne, Encyclopædia Biblica, 3:351, n. 1.
18. Tertullian, On Idolatry, ch. 14.
19. Origen, Against Celsus, vol. 4, 8:32.
20. Origen, “Homily Eight,” 156.
21. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3, sec. 120.
22. “Part 12: Commemorations of the Martyrs,” The Chronography of 354 AD, www.tertullian.org.
23. Ambrose, De Virginibus.
24. Chrysostom, del Solst. Et Æquin, II, 118.
25. Armitage, History of Baptists, 308.
26. Finucane, “Waldensians,” 316.
27. Pastor, History of the Popes, 4:16, 20.
28. Kertzer, Popes Against the Jews, 74.
29. Luther, “Open Letter to the Christian Nobility,” 127.
30. www.reformedonline.com/uploads/1/5/0/3/15030584/chapter_1_christmas.pdf.
31. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company, 125.
32. Ibid.
33. Hughes, Register of the Company of Pastors, 66.
34. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company, 125.
35. Nichols, Corporate Worship, 100.
36. Calvin, Selected Works, 5:299–300 (no known relation to Bern’s Reformer Bernhold Heller referred to earlier).
37. Ibid., vol. 6, part 3, 162–69.
38. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company, 301.
39. Old, Worship, 75.
40. Knox, Works, 6:547. See “Excursus on Geneva and Zurich” in the penultimate chapter “Twelve Reasons Justifying the Endorsement of Christmas.”
41. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company, 127.
42. Voetius, De Sabbatho et Festis, app. 2.
New Year
Different cultures and societies have always adopted different calendars, as they do today, and so the commencement of the New Year has always varied (from spring, to autumn, to winter). The ancient pagans believed that the world operated within an eternal framework of oscillating and recurring cycles. Some early cultures such as the Sumerian, Indian, and Chinese, universally held to the notion of never-ending, repeating, cyclic time. The Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks all held to 36,000 year cycles while the Hindus believed that the cycles were as long as 4.3 million years. The Mayans (Central America) taught that the world had been created, destroyed, and recreated at least four times, with the last recreation occurring on February 5, 3112 BC. The pagans understood time as a circle rather than an arrow. The earliest recorded New Year celebration is in Mesopotamia in Abraham’s day, when the vernal equinox (equal day and night) of mid-March was used. The Israelites’ New Year commenced in late September/early October, as did the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians. Later, the Greeks recognized it at the winter solstice (December 21/22).
There is, of course, no biblical warrant for a religious commemoration of the New Year. Some of the same principled reasons that find fault with Christians endorsing Christmas in a religious sense could equally be applied to an overtly religious endorsement of New Year.
The Romans gave each other New Year gifts of branches from sacred trees. In later years, they gave gold-covered nuts or coins imprinted with pictures of Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings. January was named after Janus, who had two faces—one looking forward and the other looking backward. By the Roman Republican calendar, the year began on March 1; after 153 BC the official date was January 1 and this was confirmed by the Julian calendar in 46 BC, named after Julius Caesar. It was at the Council of Tours in 567 that the Roman Catholic Church abolished January 1 in favor of different days during the subsequent centuries (March 1st; March 25; December 25, and Easter). For most of the following millennium, March 25 was used and also called Lady Day in honor of Mary and the annunciation (we noted in the preceding chapter, the link between March 25 and December 25). The Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII, was introduced in 1582 as it was more accurate (only one day out every 3,236 years, while the Julian calendar was one day out every 128 years). It was immediately adopted by Roman Catholic nations. Countries with less Roman Catholic influence gradually followed suit: Scotland in 1660; Germany and Denmark about 1700; England in 1752; Sweden in 1753; and Russia in 1918. This new calendar changed the commencement of the New Year back to January 1.
Kalends, the Roman New Year festival, began on January 1 and lasted until January 5. The Romans celebrated Kalends in much the same way they did Saturnalia. Early Christian writers condemned
