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The long-held association of December 25 as the birthday of Mithra (often said to be a virgin birth in the presence of shepherds) has now been contradicted by recent research that claims that there is no evidence that the date in question had any Mithraic significance and was certainly not celebrated as the god's birthday.
Gerry Bowler
Christmas in the Crosshairs, 71K
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the association of a Christian festival as important as that of the Nativity with paganism would have been completely antithetical to the mindset of believers at the time. Countless sermons and books by preachers and leaders of the young Church stressed the need to avoid any association with the world of idols and state cults. Their desire to abstain from attendance at the games and the sacrifices that were so much a part of Roman life was noted by their fellow citizens and gained the new religion an unsavory reputation for atheism.Christmas in the Crosshairs, 7
A feast is approaching which is the most solemn and awe-inspiring of all feasts.... What is it? The birth of Christ according to the flesh. In this feast namely Epiphany, holy Easter, Ascension and Pentecost have their beginning and purpose. For if Christ hadn't been born according to the flesh, he wouldn't have been baptised, which is Epiphany. He wouldn't have been crucified, which is Easter. He wouldn't have sent the Spirit, which is Pentecost. So from this event, as from some spring, different rivers flow-these feasts of ours are born.Concerning Blessed Philogonius, in Mayer and Adam John Chrysostom, London:2000, p.191
Take, for example, the notion current in the ancient world that great men invariably lived lives of complete years: that they were born and died on the same date. Since Jesus was deemed to have been crucified in late March, he might have been expected to have been born at that time... perhaps it was more appropriate to consider his conception rather than his birth as the starting point in calculations: therefore, his earthly birth would have been in late December.Christmas in the Crosshairs, 8
You well know what joy and what a gathering there is when the birthday of the emperor of this world is to be celebrated; how his generals and princes and soldiers, arrayed in silk garments and girt with precious belts worked with shining gold, seek to enter the king's presence in more brilliant fashion than usual.... If, therefore, brethren, those of this world celebrate the birthday of an earthly king with such an outlay for the sake of the glory of the present honor, with what solicitude ought we to celebrate the birthday of our eternal king Jesus Christ.
In 243 an anonymous document produced in North Africa, known as De pascha computus, linked the birthday of Jesus to an analogous date in the creation of the world. As God was thought to have begun Creation on March 25 (the first day of spring), the birth of Jesus corresponded to the appearance of the sun and moon on the fourth day, thus making the Nativity March 28.Christmas in the Crosshairs (4)
By the year 200, Christian writers had begun to speculate about when the birth of Jesus had taken place. Clement of Alexandria noted that some in his city had calculated that Jesus had been born in the twenty-eighty year of the reign of Caesar Agustus, 3 B.C. by our calculation.Christmas in the Crosshairs (4)
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