Wise Men HeaderOrigins of Christmas.

By Rev. Phil Greetham. © Copyright 2012



Surely Christmas was created in the 4th century to Christianise the Roman, pagan 'invincible sun' celebrations.

There is no direct evidence that Christmas was created in the 4th century. The first we hear of Christmas is in AD 335, just after Christianity is adopted as the official Roman religion. Previous to that we have no documentation. We know that the emporer Aurelian in AD 274 created the 'invincible sun' celebration to mark the winter solstice on the 25th December. However since we don't know what Christians were doing previous to that, it is not possible to know which came first. It is possible that an existing December Christmas celebration was moved to December 25th to replace the 'invincible sun festival' when Christianity became the official Roman religion, but that isn't the same as saying it was created at that time.
Christmas is so full of pagan symbolism, that is should be abandoned by all Christians.

For many Christians, Christmas is a deeply spiritual time. For them the symbols are sanctified by Christian meaning. One might argue that Bible is full of examples of items which were first found in other religions but were adapted by the Judaeochristian faith.
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