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Resumo
- Christmas is on 25 December because the early church chose that day to keep the birth of Jesus; the Bible gives no date.
- The oldest record is a Roman book of calendars from AD 354, whose list of martyrs’ days opens with “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea” on 25 December, so Rome kept the feast probably by 336 and certainly by 354.
- One explanation is a reckoning: many early Christians believed Christ was conceived and crucified on 25 March, and nine months later is 25 December.
- The other is the Roman feast of the Unconquered on 25 December, though the calendar of 354 is also the earliest record of that feast, so no one can say which came first; the Saturnalia began on 17 December and did not fall on the 25th.
- The East kept 6 January first and took up 25 December slowly, from Constantinople in 379 or 380 to Egypt by 433, which is how the twelve days of Christmas came to run to Epiphany.
- Churches that keep the old Julian calendar celebrate their own 25 December, which falls on our 7 January, and the Armenian Church keeps Christ’s birth on 6 January.
Bibliografia (Clique para mostrar)
- A Bíblia Sagrada, Versão King James (domínio público), via BibleGateway: Malaquias 4:2; Lucas 1:76–79.
- A Cronografia de 354: Parte 6, o calendário de Filócalo; Parte 11, Depositio Episcoporum; Parte 12, Depositio Martyrum; Parte 16, Crónica da Cidade de Roma (latim, ed. Theodor Mommsen; edição online por Roger Pearse), tertullian.org: Calendário, bispos, mártires, Crónica
- Andrew McGowan, “Como o dia 25 de dezembro se tornou o Natal”, Bible Review (dezembro de 2002), Biblical Archaeology Society: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/how-december-25-became-christmas/
- Cyril Charlie Martindale, “Natal”, Enciclopédia Católica vol. 3 (1908), New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm (para o sermão Sobre Solstícios e Equinócios, o tratado de 243, e as datas em Constantinopla, Antioquia, Egito e Jerusalém)
- Tertuliano, Uma Resposta aos Judeus 8, traduzido por S. Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3 (1885), New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0308.htm
- Agostinho, Sobre a Trindade 4.5.9, traduzido por Arthur West Haddan, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, primeira série, vol. 3 (1887), New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm
- Clemente de Alexandria, Stromata 1.21, traduzido por William Wilson, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2 (1885), New Advent: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm
- William Ramsay, “Saturnalia”, em William Smith, Um Dicionário de Antiguidades Gregas e Romanas (Londres, 1875), LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Saturnalia.html
- C. P. E. Nothaft, “The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research”, História Eclesiástica 81:4 (December 2012), pp. 903–911, doi:10.1017/S0009640712001941 (for the two theories, Steven Hijmans’s findings on the festivals of the Sun, the thirty chariot races, and Constantinople in 380): https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640712001941
- Lawrence Farley, “Um Calendário Papal?”, Igreja Ortodoxa na América (2017): https://www.oca.org/reflections/fr.-lawrence-farley/a-papal-calendar
- Diocese da Igreja Arménia da América (Oriental), “Respondendo ao ‘Porquê’ do Natal”: https://armenianchurch.us/answering-the-why-of-christmas-5/
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