warrant, as he said himself, as if Christ “were a king Pharaoh.”20 (Pharaoh and Herod being the only examples in the Bible where birthdays are recorded, both days characterized by murder: Gen 40:20; Matt 14:6.)
As we noted in the preceding chapter, in 313 Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity (he claimed to have been converted but his policies and lifestyle merely display a recognition of Christianity’s importance in the politics of his empire, not of any saving change in his heart). Paganism was not banished but all religions tolerated. This legalization made it easier to establish universal dates of feasts and organize their celebration; indeed, some historians credit Constantine with replacing the pagan events on December 25 with what would later become known as Christmas or the Nativity.
The Arch of Constantine I, Rome, built in 315 AD.
Constantine established the capital of the eastern part of the empire in Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honor. With the exception of Julian, who in 362 sought to displace Christianity and restore the empire’s former power by embracing polytheism (including Mithraism), the subsequent emperors after Constantine all observed Christianity.
In the East, the concelebration of the two events of Christ’s birth and baptism continued for some time after Rome had instituted the separate feast of Christmas. Gradually, however, as the church in Rome grew in its power and influence, the Roman use spread: at Constantinople, December 25 was introduced in about 380 by the theologian Gregory Nazianzen; at Antioch it appeared in 388; and at Alexandria in 432 (the church of Jerusalem refusing to adopt the new feast until the seventh century).
Moreover, the Arian controversy raging at this time over Christ’s Divinity (debated in several convened councils, from Nicaea, just south of Constantinople in 325, to Constantinople in 381) may well have lead some believers to place an overemphasis on Christ’s birth and the events surrounding it, as they sought to prove that he was truly man, truly God, and truly one. The Alexandrian school argued that Christ was the Divine Word made flesh (see John 1:14), while the Antioch school held that he was born human and infused with the Holy Spirit at the time of his baptism (see Mark 1:9–11). A feast celebrating Christ’s birth gave the church an opportunity to promote the intermediate view that Christ was Divine from at least the time of his incarnation.
There are no extant records (minutes) of the Council of Nicaea and Constantine appears to have been the decision-maker. He decreed that Jesus was divine and coequal with God the Father. While his decision is theologically correct, one wonders if he made it in part because it suited him to merge Jesus with his sun-god!
We quote Schaff, whose source is Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275–339):
The moment the approach of the emperor was announced by a given signal, they all rose from their seats, and the emperor appeared like a heavenly messenger of God, covered with gold and gems, a glorious presence, very tall and slender, full of beauty, strength, and majesty. With this external adornment he united the spiritual ornament of the fear of God, modesty, and humility, which could be seen in his downcast eyes, his blushing face, the motion of his body, and his walk. When he reached the golden throne prepared for him, he stopped, and sat not down till the bishops gave him the sign. And after him they all resumed their seats. . . .
There are supposed numerous accounts of the events of Nicea (the twenty Canones, the doctrinal Symbol, and a Decree of the Council of Nicaea, and several Letters of bishop Alexander of Alexandria and the emperor Constantine (all collected in Greek and Latin in Mansi: Collect. sacrorum Conciliorum, tom. ii. fol. 635–704). Official minutes of the transactions themselves were not at that time made; only the decrees as adopted were set down in writing and subscribed by all (comp. Euseb. Vita Const. iii. 14). All later accounts of voluminous acts of the council are sheer fabrications.21
The first reference to December 25 as a Christian feast day in ancient documents is in The Chronography of 354 (also known as the Calendar of 354), which was an illustrated manuscript produced in 354 for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus. The work refers to the year 336 when it was recognized by some that the birth of Christ took place in Bethlehem, Judea, on December 25.22 Vatican records reveal that Christmas was instituted in Rome by Pope Liberius at some time during his period in office (352–366). Ambrose (340–397) records in a letter to his sister that when she was consecrated as a nun by Liberius on December 25, 360, he addressed her as follows: “Thou seest what multitudes are come to the birth-festival of thy bridegroom,” which appears to imply the existence of the Christmas feast day.23
A few decades later it had become established in the eastern part of the church also. Writing in 400, John Chrysostom, from Antioch, who had become the chief or “arch” bishop of Constantinople, was aware of the date being associated with pagan gods but clearly saw no problem in adopting the date as a celebration of Jesus’ supposed birthday, commenting:
But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December . . . the eight before the Kalends of January [December 25]. . . . But they call it the “Birthday of the Unconquered.” Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . . ? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice.24
Earlier in 386, he delivered the Christmas homily in his home town of Antioch on December 25 and called the festival, “the fundamental feast, or the root, from which all other Christian festivals grow forth.”
Rome fell to the Barbarians in the fifth century and the Roman Empire in the west effectively came to an end (although continuing in the east for another millennium until falling to Sunni Muslim Turks in 1453). Its end began with the sacking of Rome by the Goths in 410. Into this vacuum, the papacy provided continuity with the past and continued to establish both religious and secular influence.
Pope Innocent I was followed by Pope Leo (“the Great”), who is credited with saving Rome from physical destruction by his diplomacy with Attila the Hun in 452 (the Huns being Eurasian nomads who had migrated west into Europe around 370 AD) and the Vandals (from North Africa) in 455. Pope Gelasius I was the first to take to himself the title, “Vicar of Christ,” in 494 and he also invented St. Valentine’s Day on February 14, in an attempt to combat the persistent legacy of the Roman festivals of Lupercalia and Juno Februata, the most sexually promiscuous of all the Roman festivals. Of great significance is the fact that the victorious Barbarians adopted Christianity (i.e., either Roman Catholicism or Arianism) as their own religion. The first to do so was Clovas I, king of the Franks who became a Roman Catholic in 492.
In 567, Pope John III called the Council of Tours, France, at which the celebration of Christmas in the West on December 25 was formally combined with the celebration of the Epiphany in the East on January 6, to form the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”
At the Council of Mâcon (581) it enjoined that from Martinmas (November 11), the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week should be fasting days. At the close of the sixth century, Rome, under Pope Gregory (“the Great”), adopted the rule of the four Sundays in Advent.
Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with Augustine of Hippo, N. Africa, 354–430), had been a Benedictine monk in Rome, when in 595 he was chosen by Pope Gregory I to Christianize England. Whether or not the Celtic Church further north had already introduced Christmas, Augustine certainly did. On Christmas Day 598, he is said to have witnessed the baptism
