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Tom Poelker (not verified)

3 years ago

Your article about the yule log repeats a debunked theory about the date of Christmas. The Roman feast of Sol Invictus. December 25 was nine months after March 25, the date of the vernal equinox and a date linked to the conception of Jesus (celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation). Of course, selecting March 25 for the conception was also rather arbitrary, it being calculated [?] as the date of the death of Jesus and having conception and death on the same date signified a divine cycle. he Philocalian calendar of AD 354, part VI, gives a festival of NATALIS INVICTI on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this festival was celebrated before the mid-4th century.
The Philocalian calendar of AD 354 gives a festival of "Natalis Invicti" on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this festival was celebrated before the mid-4th century.[37][38]
The idea that Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December because this was the date of an already existing festival of the Sol Invictus was expressed in an annotation to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi.
In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, this view has been seriously challenged[43] by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the Annunciation was celebrated.[44] The Jewish calendar date of 14 Nisan was believed to be that of the beginning of creation, as well as of the Exodus and so of Passover, and Christians held that the new creation, both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his human life, occurred on the same date, which some put at 25 March in the Julian calendar.[43][45][46] It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25 March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.[47] Sextus Julius Africanus (c.160 – c.240) gave 25 March as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus.[48] The tractate De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae falsely attributed to John Chrysostom also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as 25 March.[44][46] A passage of the Commentary on the prophet Daniel by Hippolytus of Rome, written in about 204, has also been appealed to.[49]
Among those who have put forward this view are Louis Duchesne,[50] Thomas J. Talley,[51] David J. Rothenberg,[52] J. Neil Alexander, [53] and Hugh Wybrew.[54]

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