Origins of Christmas.
The earliest direct written evidence of Christmas being celebrated is 25th December AD 335. This is contained in a list of Christian festivals written by Philocalus soon after Emporer Constantine embraced the Christian faith. It is thought by many that Christmas was first introduced by the Christian church to counter the festival of the 'Invincible Sun, which was created by the Roman emperor, Aurelian in AD 274 to mark the winter solstice on the 25th December.
At the same time the gospel was being presented to Northern European countries. In these areas it was traditional to hold midwinter feasts to entice the gods to make sure that spring came round again. Rather than trying to stop the locals from holding this celebration, the theory goes that they decided to Christianise it. Seeming right to substitute such a celebrations with one that marked the coming of the light of the world, Jesus Christ.
Whilst accepted by many I think there are serious flaws in this argument. The basic Roman midwinter feast was 'Saturnalia'. This had existed hundreds of years before the institution of the festival of the 'Invincible Sun', and was the main pagan festival during the time of the early church. Throughout the intense persecution of Christians by the Roman empire, the Christians would have fought against the influence of Saturnalia. In addition during AD. 303 there were thousands of Christians imprisoned and executed by the Roman authorities. Are we to believe that within a few decades the Christian church was looking to design a new Christian festival using elements of a pagan one? Besides this, several paintings dating from the 2nd and 3rd Century depict the adoration of the Magi showing the theme to be important to the Christian faith long before AD 335. It makes more sense to believe that a nativity festival existed long before 335 and that Constantine and others added the pagan elements to an existing Christian Nativity festival for their own reasons. Possible evidence for earlier celebrations are considered HERE.
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