Jesus birthday not �pagan�

by Letters Editor · March 11, 2010

From Malcolm Bagley, Cape Town:

When Christians observe Lent or Advent, there seems to be an outcry from the media (and periphery evangelicals) that Catholics have commandeered these seasons from pagans, for our own use.

The questions never answered by this group are: Why would this type of action be beneficial to Catholic Christians, and why would pagans be affected if Catholics chose to celebrate the birth of Christ on the same day?

In the minds of Jews and pagans in the first, second, third and fourth centuries, Christians were a politically powerless and despised lot, worthy only of persecution. And persecuted they were, in the most brutal way.

There is evidence East and West �in the second and third centuries that before being celebrated liturgically, Christians in Rome judged December 25 to be the birthday of Christ. This date is essentially the by-product of attempts to calculate when to celebrate his death and resurrection.

There was no fixed date for the pagan celebration of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun until the reign of Roman emperor Aurelian (270-275), who fixed this date at December 25.