The Origin of Christmas in Early Christian Sacred Space

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The Origin of Christmas in Early Christian Sacred Space

Michael Kochenash

The evidence for the origins of Christmas and the several centuries of pondering

that evidence has resulted in an impressive scholarlyflorilegiumof ironies,interspersed with spurious texts, ambiguous evidence, lengthy speculation, trivialdead-ended issues, and a mounting pile of reasonable-sounding good guesses. We

dont know when Christmas started. We dont know who, individually or

collectively, started it. We dont know exactly where or why, or how they got thedate, though our guesses are probably not too far from the mark.

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Written in the middle of the third century, Origen of Alexandrias eighth homily on

Leviticus concerns the first two verses of chapter 12, a statement about the ritually unclean status

of women after giving birth to male children. He writes, Not one from all the saints is found to

have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had

joy on the day of the birth of his son or daughter. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of

birthday. But the saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birth days, but, filled with

the Holy Spirit, they curse that day.2Indeed, early Christians instead celebrated the day of a

saints death, understood as ones birthday into everlasting life.3Within a century of Origens

writing, however, the celebration of Christs birthday had become a mainstay on the liturgical

calendar in both the east and the west.

Despite how clear the evidence for the celebration of Christmas in the fourth century is,

as Susan K. Roll notes in the opening quote above, modern scholars still do not know the who,

where, when, why, or how regarding the remarkable about-face among early Christians on this

issue. Given the great uncertainty surrounding the origins of Christian celebrations of Christmas,

1Susan K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas(Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House, 1995), 223.2Translation by Gary Wayne Barkley: Origen,Homilies on Leviticus 1-16(The Fathers of the Church 83;

Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990). He gives two examples of sinners who

celebrate their own birthdays: Pharaoh (Genesis 40:20) and Herod (Mark 6:21). He gives three examples of saints

who cursed the day of their births: Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:14-16), Job (Job 3:3), and David (Psalm 50:7).3Ann Marie Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and

Community (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 250.


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the purpose of this essay will be accordingly modest: to explore the relation between the advent

of the Christmas festival in the fourth century and the evolution of Christian ritual space and to

tentatively propose a causal connection. In order to establish a context for accomplishing this

task, this paper will review a few preliminary matters concerning scholarly discussions on the

origin of Christmas and then survey the evolution of early Christian ritual space, from house

churches to basilicas. Finally, after reviewing the relevant Christological and theological

controversies roughly contemporary with the origins of Christmas, this paper will propose that

the ritual, liturgical commemoration of an event from the life of Christhis birth, in this case

beginning around the fourth century is comprehensible, and was maybe even inevitable, as a

result of a shift in basic Christian conceptions of sacred space and sacred places.

The Advent of Christmas

From a modern perspective, the ancient lack of interest in the birth of Christ is nearly

inconceivable. Only the Gospels of Matthew and Luke evince interest in the birth of Jesus among

first-century Christian texts. With the passing of time into the second-century, this interest began

to expand. Texts such as theProtevangelion of Jameswritten not long after 150C.E.attest to

this phenomenon. This type of speculation appears to have evolved into speculation about Jesus

childhood, such as is attested in theInfancy Gospel of Thomas.4There is no evidence that this

burgeoning interest translated into liturgical observance until at least the late third or early fourth

century, however. By the third century, some Christian writers weretrying to calculate a date for

Jesus birth, although their discussions do not appear to be driven by a desire to celebrate that

day. By the mid-fourth century, the appearance of Christmas on liturgical calendars testifies to its

wide-spread acceptance as a (literal) holiday.

4Cf. Oscar Cullmann, Infancy Gospels, pages 1:456-69 inNew Testament Apocrypha(2 volumes; ed. W.

Schneemelcher and R. McL. Wilson; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).


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Most scholarly discussions about the advent of the celebration of Christmas revolve

around the selection of December 25, with much debate about the significance of the feast of the

Natalis Solis Invicti.5The decision to celebrate Christs birth in conjunction with the winter

solstice is, no doubt, significant. Even if scholars are able to arrive at an explanation that isfor

the sake of argumentcorrect, they still will not have answered the question: why? To assert

that Christians decided to celebrate Christmas on December 25 in order to appropriate a pagan

holiday does not begin to explain why Christians thought it a good idea to commemorate the

birthday of Christ in the first place. Not every pagan holiday was given a Christian substitute,

so simply observing the association of Malachi 4:2 (sun of righteousness) with Sol Invictus

does not constitute a sufficient explanation. The contribution of this paper is to suggest a

different approach, one that might have more explanatory power.

Nevertheless, it will be helpful to contextualize the contribution of this paper within the

broader scholarly discussion about the selection of December 25 and the relation of the festival

of Christmas to that ofNatalis Solis Invicti. There are two prevailing hypotheses for why the

feast of Christmas began to be celebrated on December 25: the Calculation Hypothesis and the

History of Religions Hypothesis.6These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. Susan Roll

summarizes the Calculation Hypothesis:

To state its outlines briefly, the Calculation hypothesis postulates that the

symbolic number systems which the early church fathers considered so

appropriate to the action of God in the world, [sic] permitted only perfect whole

numbers, not fractions. Great personages could only live a whole number ofyears, implying that the person died on his or her birthday, or in the case of

Christ, the day of his conception because of the salvific significance of the Word-

becoming-flesh in the womb of Mary. If Christ was believed to have suffered and

5Cf. Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year(New York: Pueblo Publishing Company, 1986), 87-112;

Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year: Its History and Its Meaning After the Reform of the Liturgy (trans. M. J.

OConnell;Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 122-25.6For a recent appraisal of both of these views, see C. Philipp E. Nothaft, The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some

Recent Trends in Historical Research.Church History81 (2012): 903-11.


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died on the fourth day following the spring equinox, 25 March, his conception

should then have taken place on the same day some 30 years before; Christs birth

could then be placed a perfect nine months afterward, 25 December.7

As an explanation for the actual birth date of Jesus of Nazareth, this hypothesis is in no way

compelling due to its contrived Weltanschauung. On the other hand, the proposal gains a

measure of plausibility when presented as an explanation for why Christians in the fourth century

assigned Jesus birthday to the twenty-fifth of December. Although aware of the fallacy of

chronological snobbery, I find it easy to believe that Christians at that time may have adhered to

such a contrived worldview. That they did so is at least suggested by patristic sources, including

John Chrysostom and Augustine.

8

The other hypothesis, the History of Religions Hypothesis, regarding the selection of

December 25 notes that this was the date of the Roman celebration ofNatalis Solis Invicti, that

is, the pagan feast of the Unconquered Sun-Godwhich the Roman emperor Aurelian

established throughout the empire in 274 in honor of the Syrian sun-god of Emesa and which he

ordered to be celebrated on December 25, the day of the winter solstice.9Proponents of this

suggestion argue that Christians noted the association of Christ with the sun (Malachi 4:2) and

with their newfound imperial backing in the fourth centuryhijacked Sols birthday in favor of

that of Christ.10

As noted above, this hypothesis is not strictly incompatible with the Calculation

Hypothesis. According to Roll, No liturgical historian, whatever her or his position on the

concrete causes of the development and institution of the Christmas feast, goes so far as to deny

that it has any sort of relation with the sun, the winter solstice and the popularity of solar worship

7Roll, Origins of Christmas, 88 (cf. 88-106). Roll: virtually all of [the proponents of this hypothesis] leave some

allowance for the possible influence, one way or another, of the non-Christian solar god festivities and solstice

festivals current in the surrounding society and culture, particularly in Rome (Origins of Christmas, 106). One

example of the Calculation Hypothesis can be found in the Pseudo-Chrysostomic workDe solstitia et aequinoctia

conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri lesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae .8Cf. Roll, Origins of Christmas, 97-105.9Adam, The Liturgical Year, 122. Cf. Talley,Liturgical Year, 87.10For a thorough investigation of the History of Religions Hypothesis, see Roll, Origins of Christmas, 127-64.


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in the later Roman Empire.11

The proposal that Christians simply overtook a pagan holiday

becomes problematic, however, if scholars are able to date the celebration of Christmas before

313 C.E., at which time began the Churchs enjoyment of the protection of Constantine.12

It is

at this point in the scholarly debate that establishing a start date for the Christmas festival

becomes imperative. Thomas J. Talley summarizes the impasse aptly, There can be no doubt

that in time the association of the nativity of Christ with the day ofsol invictusdid occur, as we

shall see. Whether it was that association that in the first instance suggested December 25 as the

date of the nativity of Christ is another and more controverted question.13

Vastly more important for this paper than explaining why Christians decided to celebrate

Christmas on December 25 is establishing, with as much accuracy as possible, whenChristians

started celebrating this festival. The practice of celebrating Christmas certainly had begun by the

early fourth century; the question is whether or not we can identify the observance as early as the

third century.

Of primary value as evidence in this discussion is the Chronograph of 354. This calendar

is an almanac presenting (inter alia) lists of Roman holidays, consuls, city prefects, and two lists

of burial dates, one of Roman bishops and another of martyrs, with the indication of the

cemeteries in each case.14

The Chronograph is the earliest authentic documentation to place the

birth of Christ on 25 December, with some indications that this date had by then become pivotal

for the Christian community both in the ecclesial and civil calendar.15

This calendar begins with

December 25, natus Christus in Betleem Judeae, to commence the year. There is evidence to

11Roll, Origins of Christmas, 107.12Talley,Liturgical Year, 87.13Talley,Liturgical Year, 91. Cf. Roll: In the absence of solid uncontroverted proof contemporary with the

phenomena themselves, to what degree can we credibly posit that the inception of the Christmas feast drew its

primary impetus from the surrounding non-Christian cultural context? Even a strong inductive argument is not, by

virtue of its relative probability, transformed into a deductive one ( Origins of Christmas, 163).14Talley,Liturgical Year, 85.15Roll, Origins of Christmas, 83.


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suggest that this chronological structureand, more importantly, this celebration of Christmas

dates back as early as 336 C.E. The almanac contains a list of Roman bishops between the years

255-352 C.E. The listing of popes follows the yearly cycle from 25 December through 25

December, up to the last two notations: Marcus, who died in October 336, and Julius, who died

the end [sic] of March 352.16

Thus, it seems likely that the Chronograph of 354 appropriated a

list from 336, marking a terminus ad quemfor the celebration of Christmas at Rome.17

The question then becomes: is there any evidence testifying to an even earlier date? There

are patristic writings that reflect an interest in assigning a date to the birth of Christ in the second

and third centuries, but, unlike the Chronograph, these writings do not suggest that Jesus

birthday was a feast on the liturgical calendar.18

Most patristic assertions about the date of

Christs birth in the second and third centuries are made within the context of debating when to

celebrate the Passover (and, consequently, Christs passion and resurrection).19

In the immediate

context before 336, there are a number of important considerations, foremost of which is the

ascendancy of Constantine as emperor of the western half of the Roman Empire in 305 and the

subsequent Edict of Milan in 313 C.E., effectively legalizing Christianity.

Some scholars have observed this associationthe close proximity of Constantines

ascendancy and legitimation of Christianity with the earliest concrete attestation to the

celebration of Christs birth and drawn the conclusion that the emperor played a pivotal role in

establishing the Christmas festival. The association is made even stronger since the attestation to

the Christian festival in question places it on December 25, the day of the feast ofNatalis Solis

16Roll, Origins of Christmas, 85.17Talley,Liturgical Year, 85; Roll, Origins of Christmas, 86.18Cf. Roll, Origins of Christmas, 77-83.19Cf. C. Philipp E. Nothaft,Dating the Passion: The Life of Jesus and the Emergence of Scientific Chronology (200-

1600)(Time, Astronomy, and Calendars 1; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 40-65. Among the patristic writers (and writings) to

address Jesus birth date are Hippolytus,theDe pascha computus, and (possibly) Julius Africanus.


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Invicti. In 321 C.E., Constantine made Sunday (the day of the sun) a weekly holiday, significant

both for the Christians as the day of resurrection, the first day of the week, and for the variety of

sun-cult adherents.20

There is good reason to doubt Constantines involvement in the origin of

the Christmas festival, however.

The importance of the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) will be discussed below, but one

aspect is relevant here. Settling a controversy between the Arians and orthodox bishops led

by Athanasiusthe Council of Nicaea affirmed the co-eternal nature of the Son with the Father.

Arius and his followers had contended that the Son was a created entity and had a lesser divinity

than the Father. The fact that the Arians, with a dash of hermeneutical creativity, could have

used the Christmas feast to celebrate and promulgate their own doctrinal approach has

implications for the question of dating the origin of Christmas at least in the East and in

Egypt.21

The orthodox nature of the festival of Christmas is not in question. The

Christological environment surrounding the Arian controversy, however, would hardly be

suitable for non-Arian Christians to begin celebrating the birth of Christ, emphasizing his

humanity. It is altogether reasonable, therefore, to promote a pre-Nicaean provenance for the

advent of Christmas.

Two considerations thus caution against the assertion that Constantine was involved in

the advent of the ritual celebration of Christmas. First, once the date for the origination of

Christmas is pushed back into the pre-Nicaean era, Constantines proverbial window of

opportunity to be involved becomes precariously small.22

Second, there is no evidence to

establish the observance of Christmas in ConstantinopleConstantines new Rome before

20Roll, Origins of Christmas, 115.21Roll, Origins of Christmas, 177.22Cf. Roll, Origins of Christmas, 177.


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approximately 380.23

It defies credibility to hold that Constantine played any kind of substantive

role in establishing the Christmas feast in Rome but then decided against doing so in his new

capital. The weight of the evidence thus supports dating the advent of the Christmas celebration

no later than the early fourth centurywhile the possibility of a late-third-century date cannot be

eliminated.

Early Christian Architecture

The approximate dating for the establishment of the festival of Christmas around the turn

of the fourth century also marks a significant era in the development of early Christian

architecture. From its incipient stage until the fourth century, Christian architecture followed a

familiar, well-worn path in cities all across the Roman Empire. This evolution flowed from the

house church to the domus ecclesiaeto the aula ecclesiaeto the basilica. Of course, it is not the

case that every assembly of Christians in every city in the empire advanced to each of these

stages at exactly the same time. Instead, some churches skip over certain stages; others lack a

beginning stage or two. It was around the turn of the fourth century that Christian architecture

began to be dominated by basilicas. First, however, was the house church.

That the earliest Christian assemblies took place in the households of its prominent

members is widely attested in first- and second-century literature.24

Within the New Testament,

the historian can find this phenomenon attested in the letters of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, 1

Peter, and the Johannine epistles.25

The literary evidence suggests that house churches were the

architectural norm for Christians at least until 165 C.E.(and probably for a century after that).

23Cf. Roll, Origins of Christmas, 117 and 174.24Cf. Kim Bowes,Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2008), 49.25E.g. Acts 2:46; 5:42; 12:12; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Romans 16:3-5; Philemon 1-2; Colossians 4:15. Cf. L. Michael

White,Building Gods House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians

(The ASOR Library of Biblical and Near Eastern Archaeology; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,

1990), 103-10.


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The date 165 is established by testimony of the patristic text, theMartyrdom of Justin, and of the

archaeological work done on the Christian building found at Dura-Europos.26

The church at

Dura-Europos is not the only identifiable site believed by scholars to have hosted Christian

household assemblies. At least twoof the so-called Title Churches of Romeexhibit partial

or gradual renovation in the transition from being a house church into being a domus ecclesiae:

titulus Clementisand titulus Byzantis.27

For many of the tituli, subsequent changes and

wholesale destruction have removed what would constitute archaeological proof for either a

house-church or domus ecclesiae.28

The writings of Tertullian attest to the continued practice

at least regionallyof meeting in someones home when he designates the gathering of

Christians as a triclinium.29

The next step in the evolution of Christian architecture is the domus ecclesiae. At this

stage, Christians began to adapt the houses in which they were already meetingor acquiring a

domestic building and adapting itin order to accommodate their larger gatherings. In most

cases, it is archaeologically unclear whether any particular domus ecclesiaewas converted from

a house church or purchased by Christians for the explicit purpose of serving as a permanent

gathering place (and thus never served as a house church).30

There are cases for a domus

ecclesiaebeing constructed out of insulae, thermaehalls, private houses, and factory halls

(horrea).31

26Cf. White,Building Gods House, 110; L. Michael White, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture(2

volumes; HTS 42; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 1:103-10; Allan Doig,Liturgy andArchitecture: From the Early Church to the Middle Ages(Liturgy, Worship, and Society; Burlington, VT: Ashgate

Publishing Company, 2008), 10-17. According to Valeriy Alikin, it was converted into domus ecclesiaesometime

before 256 C.E. (it was built ca. 232 C.E.) (The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and

Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries[VCSup 102; Boston: Brill, 2010], 55).27White, Social Origins, 1:114.28Doig,Liturgy and Architecture, 5.29Alikin,Earliest History, 53. Cf. Tertullian,Apol.39.15.30White, Social Origins, 1:111-14; White,Building Gods House, 118-19; Doig,Liturgy and Architecture, 4.31Doig,Liturgy and Architecture, 7.


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L. Michael White observes that the type of adaptation being described was part of a

natural progression. He writes, In general, it appears that the first steps toward adaptation

occurred in an edifice where the Christians were already accustomed to meeting. Renovation

reflects a natural course of functional usage by designating areas spatially that had become

associated with specific forms of religious actions or assembly.32

Moreover, Christians were not

unique in antiquity for adapting their architectural surroundings in order to fit the needs of their

assembly. Jews as well as Greek and Roman religious groups and associations also completed

partial renovations when necessary. Most likely, these groupsI have in mind Christians in

particularwould have been prompted to renovate their meeting place in order to accommodate

greater numbers. It is easy to imagine a gathering outgrowing the limited space available in a

triclinium. Another motivation, suggested by excavations of the church at Dura-Europos, was the

desire for a baptistery.33

One final consideration was the gradual separation of the eucharistic

from the agapmeal.34

Kim Bowes observes that, due to the improvised nature of the space for

Christian assemblies, Christians focused their architectural energies on ritual articulation and

furnishings, while architectural form was shaped by the preexisting space and assumed an ad-

hoc, rather than a specific symbol or formal character.35

White dates the transition into domus ecclesiaeover a period ranging from the middle of

the third century, especially in larger urban centers, through the end of the fourth century,36

although there is evidence to suggest that Christians were utilizing this form of gathering place in

the first half of the third century (Dura-Europos). In any case, it is attested throughout the period

also marking the transition to the aula ecclesiaeand even still into the era of the basilica.

32White,Building Gods House, 114 (cf. 111-23).33White, Social Origins, 1:111.34White,Building Gods House, 119.35Bowes,Private Worship, 49.36White,Building Gods House, 137.


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The church structure known as the aula ecclesiaeis, as the designation would suggest,

related to the domus ecclesiae. Although some aulae ecclesiaemay have been built from

scratch,37

in most cases these structures appear to have been domus ecclesiaemodified in order

to accommodate a lecture hall. One distinction is that the aulae ecclesiaetended to be larger

and more formal types of church buildings.38

This transition began to occur in the third century,

among both Jews and Christians.39

Thus, well before the advent of the basilicas associated with

Constantine, Christians had begun to move toward larger, more regular halls of assembly.The

term [aula ecclesiae] is intended to connote a direct continuity with the domus ecclesiae, from

which it evolved through a continued, natural course of adaptation. Archaeologically, this

continuity can be seen in two cases from the early fourth century: the villa at Parentiumand the

church at Qirkbize in Coele-Syria.40

These two examples in particular demonstrate the

transitional nature of this type of church building in that they are structured in a way that hints at

their future as basilicas but their plan and configurationdepended upon the liturgical use of

the earlier domus ecclesiae.41

Aulae ecclesiaethus have metaphorical feet in both camps. One

important way in which these assembly halls anticipated the basilica is in its architectural

rectangularity, fit for processional and oratorical assemblies rather than symposia. Moreover,

some of our examples of aulae ecclesiaeeven included prominent public edifices, although

others were intentionally modeled after domestic structures.42

At some point within the fourth century, Christian architecture began to take its final

shape (within the chronological purview of this paper): the basilica. Christian basilicas in the

37Cf. Doig,Liturgy and Architecture, 10. Doig suggests that the Roman tituli, San Crisogono, appears to have been

built de novo as a church building perhaps as early as 310 and may have been an aula ecclesiae.38White, Social Origins, 1:127.39White,Building Gods House, 127.40White,Building Gods House, 128 (cf. 128-29).41White, Social Origins, 1:128.42White, Social Origins, 1:129. The exterior of the aula ecclesiaeat Qirkbize was fashioned after the house next

door, which was owned by the founder and patron of the church (1:129).


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fourth century were characterized by its colonnaded aisles and recessed apse in the front in

imitation of Romes great public basilicas, which served as formal halls in which an emperor or

governor received dignitaries or sat in judgment.By the fourth century the church had become

the throne room of God.43

The Christian basilicas are categorically monumental structures. In

many cases they were built on locations with religious signification, such as over catacombs or

places where important biblical narratives took place. The ritual space was highly contrived in

terms of art and ornamentation. The treatment of ritual space in Christian basilicas is remarkably

different from the way Christians treated the ritual space of their earlier structures. This

difference is significant and will be subject of the discussion below.

Potential Contexts for Understanding the Advent of Christmas

Before addressing the shift in early Christian conceptions of sacred space and the place of

the Christmas festival therein, it is important to first consider the theological climate within

which Christmas was established. Debates about the correct way to understand the Christ

Christologydominate the fourth-century Christian literary landscape. Roll claims that the real

impetus for the institution of this feast [Christmas] lay in disputes over doctrine, not in emerging

historical consciousness: questions of christology [sic] which cut to the heart of what the

Christian faith really represented, and who the Christians were.44

Whether or not Rolls

explanation is sufficient without supplementation, many scholars contend that this context is

probative. There is no question that understanding the prevailing theological controversies

surrounding the origin of Christmas is an advantageous task, even if it provides an incomplete

explanation. Of primary concern is the debate over Arianism, although the Donatist controversy

43Karen Jo Torjesen, When Women Were Priests: Womens Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of

Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity(San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993), 157.44Roll, Origins of Christmas, 32.


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is also relevant. The significance of these controversies will be briefly reviewed. First, however,

we will look at the Edict of Milan.

It is not the case that Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of the

Roman Empire with this so-called edict in 313. One of its consequences, however, was the

conferral of licit status to Christians. As summarized by Roll:

The provisions of the 313 Edict of Milan had abolished sanctions against those

who followed the Christian faith, permitted freedom of choice in religion, and

stipulated that property confiscated from Christians must be restored. The motives

were entirely pragmatic, given the high value placed upon securing the favor ofthe highest divine power, the summa divinitas for the propensity and stability of

the state.45

The date of the Edict of Milanand its proximity within the fifty-year-or-so time period within

which Christmas probably originatedis especially important for advocates of the position that

the institution of the Christmas festival was a Christian attempt to usurp Sols birthday (since

they could not be legally persecuted for doing so after the edict in 313). Indeed, the most

probable explanation for Sol and Christs shared birthday is that Christians felt empowered by

their new legal standing to stake a public claim in a manner previously impossible. It is

significant that there is no evidence for dating Christs birth to December 25 before the Edict of

Milan, although this datum is more probative in the debate about the motives for datingthe

celebration on that date than in the question of why Christians thought it appropriate to celebrate

Christmas in the first place.

Cotemporaneous with the legalization of Christianity was the struggle between Arius and

the bishops, like Athanasius, whom history would call orthodox. This conflict came to a climax

with the Council of Nicaea in 325. Arius, the presbyter of Alexandria, emphasizedto the

consternation many of his powerful contemporariesthe distinction between God the Father and

45Roll, Origins of Christmas, 114.


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Jesus the Son. The Father, on the one hand, is unbegotten and without beginning; the Son, on the

other hand, is clearly stated by the New Testament to have been begotten. As such, they could

not share the same essence. For this and other reasons, Arius concluded that the Son was inferior

to the Father in such a way as render him categorically lesser to the Father, like an emanated

demigod in relation to the Monad. The Council of Nicaea, called by Constantine, sided against

Arius and affirmed the co-eternal and co-equal status of the Son with the Father.46

Adolf Adam hypothesizes that the Arian debate catalyzed the rapid spread of the

Christmas feast throughout the east and west due to its attention to theperson, and not simply

the work, of the God-man andbecause Christmas gave a suitable liturgical expression to the

profession of faith drawn up at Nicaea.47

Of course, as was discussed earlier in the paper, the

promulgation of the Christmas festival would have been comprehensible in the aftermath of the

Council of Nicaea regardless of which side emerged victorious. Regardless of whether Adam is

correctand I believe in a sense he isthis hypothesis explicitly concerns the spread, and not

the origin, of the Christmas festival. As such, it aptly summarizes the importance of Arianism

and the Council of Nicaea in the quest for the origins of Christmas: it is not the context that

explains why Christians began to celebrate the birthday of their savior.

Prior to the Arian controversy by a decade or two, Christians in Northern Africa

underwent a persecution ordered by Emperor Diocletian. Certain Christians in this region were

spared (further) persecution under the condition that they relinquish their scriptures, which were

then burned by the Roman authorities. The Romans intended this action to be symbolic of a

renunciation of their faith. After the persecution ended in 303, Donatus and his followersthe

Donatistsbegan to see themselves as the true church; they had endured persecution and had

46For a more detailed discussion on Arianism as a context for Christmas, see Roll, Origins of Christmas, 171-77.47Adam,Liturgical Year, 124. Roll: In any case, the question is left open whether Christmas functioned in the

agenda of the by-then triumphantNicene movement in the East (Origins of Christmas, 174).


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forsaken neither their scriptures nor, by extension, their faith. They branded those who

compromised as traditores. The Donatists persisted as a splinter group into the fifth century.48

There is no explicitly theological or Christological connection between the Donatists and

the discussion about the origins of Christmas. Donatism is relevant here because of the way that

Donatists behaved in relation to other Christians throughout the rest of the Empire. Susan Roll

explains the most pertinent facet:

Augustine charged in Sermon 202 that the Donatists, probably among their less

heinous crimes, did not celebrate the relatively recently imported feast of theEpiphany together with the mainline church, which a number of scholars believe

implies that they did indeed celebrate the native Western feast of Christmas,

possibly before the earlier Diocletian persecution. This provides a helpful datumin setting realistic parameters for dating the origins of the feast.49

Once again, appealing to the theological context has proven to be helpful in illuminating certain

aspects about the origins of Christmassuch as establishing a terminus ad quemand offering an

explanation for why the feasts popularity spread so quickly. Yet, these questions are not the

concern of this paper; in order to address the question of whyChristians made the transition from

not thinking the birth of Christ worth celebrating to eventually beginning the liturgical calendar

with the feast of his birthday, we must think about the advent of Christmas within a different

context.

The primary contribution of this paper is setting all of the above discussion within the

context of shifting conceptions of sacred spaces and places among early Christians. These

changing conceptions had widespread effects across Christian architecture and ritual space, from

objects and accoutrements adorning rituals to the location of new places of worship. According

to Ann Marie Yasin, Christians seem to have made an about-face around the early fourth

48For a more detailed discussion on Donatism as a context for Christmas, see Roll, Origins of Christmas, 168-71.49Roll, Origins of Christmas169.


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century on the issue of whether the divine can be located within the physical world;50

this

phenomenon is attested in the change in Christian opinions on a number of issues, from the

veneration of relics to places designated as sacred (such as theHolyLand).51

Before this time,

there is evidence to suggest, on the other hand, that early (pre-Constantinian) Christians viewed

certainspacesas sacred in the context of the religious actions performed there.

For Christians living within the first three centuries of the Common Era, there was

nothing inherently sacred about a location. As discussed above, these Christians met in the

houses of other Christians or in domestic structures customized for their gatherings. In the

absence of ritual activity, it is unlikely that a Christian at that time would identify these places as

sacred.52

Indeed, for most of the weekparticularly in the case of house churchesthe space

was completely mundane and prosaic. It was the ritual activity of Christians which transformed

these places into sacred spaces.It was not uncommon for assemblies to mark the transitory

sacredness of their gathering spaces by removing the household ornamentation and replacing it

with ritual items such as candles.53

This attitude can be ascertained from reading early Christian texts. Writing in the middle

of the second century, Justin Martyr attests to the idea that second-century Christian sacred space

was wherever certain ritualsgenerally consisting of prayer, baptism, and/or Eucharistwere

taking place (First Apology61, 65). TheDidache, dated to the early second century, attests to a

similar idea of the sacredness of space due to the ritual of baptism (7.1-4).

50

Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 14.51She continues, On the other hand, a conception of space sacralized through the presence of the community and

their performance of ritual can also be found in early Christian sources. It was further elaborated in the late antique

period as church buildings became increasingly codified spaces of ritual and prayer which also articulated the limits

and hierarchy of the religious community (Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 14).52Cf. Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 36: The lexicographical infrequency among early patristic writers of the

terms locus sanctus/in general, and especially with reference to Christian churches, would seem toindicate that they did not see their places of worship as sites at which God was contained or His divinity made

available for physical contact.53Cf. Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 39-41.


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On the negative side, there is ample evidence of Christian rejection of inherently sacred

physical places in both the New Testament and Patristic writings.54

Within the New Testament,

the Pauline corpus is especially vocal in this regard. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells the Corinthian

Christians that theyare Gods building (3:9) and Gods temple within which dwells Gods

Spirit (3:16). Similarly the addressees of the so-called letter to the Ephesians are identified as the

dwelling-place of God (2:22). Whereas the New Testament writers emphasized believers

status as housing the divinity, patristic writers took this idea to its logical conclusion and

explicitly rejected the idea that God would dwell in physical, human-made structures. For one,

Clement of Alexandria contested that the human bodies of the Christians, themselves the

handiwork of God and not of humans, were alone worthy of God (Clement of Alexandria,

Stromata7.5.29.4).55

Yasin summarizes three other patristic sources:

Whether written in Greek or Latin, in North Africa or Palestine, the passages of

Minucius Felix, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen take a consistent stance onthree central points. First, they share a conceptual definition of templeas a

built structure containing or housing a divinity. Second, the temple defined as

such is seen as antithetical to Christians since their God is not containable in any

physical place or object. Finally, having rejected temple buildings as houses forthe Christian God, the authors agree with each other (and with the Pauline

position) in locating His presence in the non-material realm, be it in the universal

everywhere, or in the hearts and minds of the Christian people. In each case, theevidence from those authors indicates a consistent Christian position that rejects

the sacrality of physical, material temple architecture.56

Even after the transition from house churches to domus ecclesiaeand aulae ecclesiae, when the

ritual space gained a measure of permanence, Christians understood the space to be sacred only

in the context of ritual actions instead of its status as a meeting place. Yasin writes concerning

the place of Christian assembly, its walls and thresholdsmarked off an area that was

54Cf. Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 16-21.55Yasin: these writers emphatically [refute] the possibility of sacred buildings because they envision a Christian

God who cannotbe contained, but rather is Himself the container of all (Saints and Church Spaces, 19).56Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 20.


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definitively Christian: only Christians in good standing were permitted to enter, and upon

crossing the boundary into the church, special rules of behavior applied. The church space was

circumscribed as holy not in the pagan sense of the locusof the divinity, but for the activity that

went on inside it.57

The ritual activities which apparently conferred a sense of sacrality include prayer,

singing hymns, partaking of the Eucharist, baptism, and sharing spiritual gifts such as teaching,

prophesy, and speaking in tongues.58

For instance, Origen relates the belief that the place of

prayer has a certain charm because once the Christians gather there so also do the angels of the

Lord and the spirits of the saints (De oratione31.5). These holy spirits were thought to be

present in the place because of the assembly of Christians, not because of some intrinsic quality

of the site.59

This sentiment is perhaps an echo of Matthew 18:20 and/or Hebrews 12:1.

Justin Martyr presents two accounts of what the Christians did when they came together

for worship. The first describes baptism followed by the sharing of bread and wine and the

second recounts an act of worship with readings, teachings, prayers and the sharing of bread and

wine standing alone without baptism.60Ignatius, in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, reveals several

prominent aspects of Christian worship at the time: Eucharist, which Ignatius believed to be the

flesh of Christ, prayers (both intercessory and communal), and baptism (To the Smyrnaeans7-8).

This account reveals an early Christian emphasis on activities that create sacred space.61

Moreover, Tertullian, in the late second century, writes, We meet together as an assembly and

congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with him in

57Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 34.58Cf. Martin D. Stringer,A Sociological History of Christian Worship(New York: Cambridge University Press,

2005), 30.59Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 36.60Stringer, Sociological History, 44, referring to the final few chapters of Justins apology. 61Stringer, Sociological History, 42.


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our supplications.We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity of the times

makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful (Apology39.2-3). All of these accounts, and

others, attest to the wide-held belief among Christians in the first three centuries that God was

present in the gathered community of His followersbecause it was the space of the church

which contained this community and not because because divinity resided in a cult statue or in

the material structure itself.62

Thus, for the Christian assemblies of the first three centuries,

church buildings were not considered intrinsically sacred, nor were any physical locations or

objects.

Concurrent with the rise in popularity of the basilica was an important change in

Christian conceptions concerning the Holy Land. Constantine rediscovered the sacred sites of

Jerusalem.63

Prominent among these sacred sites were physical locations associated with the life

of Jesus, in particular those concerning his death and resurrection. Constantines workers

claimed to have found the site of Golgotha, the wood of the cross and the tomb in which Jesus

was buried. Other principle sites, such as the upper room, Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives,

were already known and churches were soon built on these sites.64The choice to build churches

on these historic sites suggests that fourth-century Christians viewed these physical locations as

intrinsically sacred. Martin Stringer argues that Christians in Jerusalem were thus able not only

to celebrate the events of Jesus life where they were believed to have happened, they could also

arrange their liturgical calendar to coordinate time and space.65

Christians living outside of the

Holy Land, for obvious reasons of geography, could not incorporate the same element of

physical space utilized by the Jerusalem church; it could, however, appropriate its corresponding

62Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 286.63Stringer, Sociological History, 63. Cf. Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Towards Theory in Ritual(Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1987), 74-95.64Stringer, Sociological History, 63.65Cf. Stringer, Sociological History, 63-64.


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construction of sacred time with the liturgical calendar. By using a calendar designed around

events in the life of Jesus, Christians in Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and elsewhere, were

able to celebrate and participate in the sacredness of certain physical locations such as

Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives (and Bethlehem!).

It is not the case that fourth-century Christians understanding of sacredness being

embodied in physical places was restricted to Israel. The actions of Constantine and the

Jerusalem Christians were symptomatic of a more ubiquitous shift in Christian conceptions of

sacred space. Instead of understanding a space to be sacred solely on the basis of religious

activity taking place therein, Christians started identifying the source of sacredness in the

locations themselves or in physical objects of special significance, usually relics associated with

a holy person from biblical times (Jesus or an apostle) or a martyr.66

Whereas pre-

Constantinian writers reject a concept of sacred place particularly associated with pagans, that

is, one housing a divinity, still one cannot deny that phenomena such as pilgrimage and relic

veneration betray a new sense among fourth-century Christians of the sacred as contained in

material objects and places.67

As a general rule, in the East, it was the authority of the Scriptures that conferred

sacrality to specific sites, whereas in Rome and elsewhere in the West, space was ordered in a

system of focal points of sacred powerthat is, by the saints in their churches, most of whom

were in turn surrounded by hosts of departed Christians awaiting the Last Day in their graves.68

Thus, the places honored by Constantine and the Jerusalem Christians were identified primarily

by reference to the Gospels; basilicas outside of the Holy Land were able to acquire sacredness

66Cf. Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 21-26.67Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 26.68Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 24-25; quoting Sabine MacCormack, Loca Sancta: The Organization of Sacred

Topography in Late Antiquity, pages 19-20 in The Blessings of Pilgrimage(ed. R. Ousterhout; Urbana: University

of Illinois Press, 1990).


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by bringing in an object closely associated with a holy person. Allan Doig describes the process

of translating sacredness from one place to another:

So the identification of these sites (often said to be by direct revelation) was

exceedingly important, as was their architectural articulation. Once authenticatedand framed architecturally and liturgically, the place, as a point of connectionwith the worship of heaven, could paradoxically become highly portable, in

images and ivories, through repeated references to their particular architectural

form, or if a physical connection could be made by means of a relic. Thisphenomenon was to be seen at the Holy Places of Jerusalem, transported to Rome

at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, with its relic of the True Cross. Proximity to the

graves of the martyrs in Rome, particularly at St Peters, allowed others buried

there to share the protection of the martyrs sanctity.By these means, sacredgeography would continue to spread across the Holy Roman Empire through

architectural references to St Peters, the Baptistry of the Lateran, and the Holy

Sepulchre.

69

In addition to the examples cited by Doig, Yasin adds the high-profile translations of relics of

Sts. Timothy, Andrew, and Luke to the Constantinopolitan church of the Holy Apostles in the

second or third quarters of the fourth century, as well as the translations of Saints Gervasius and

Protasius by Bishop Ambrose in 386.70

At the risk of oversimplification, the new conception of sacred space can be summarized

as follows. By the fourth century, a place could be considered inherently sacredor as

containing sacralityby Christians if it meets one of the following criteria: 1) it is where

something significant happened from the Gospel narratives; 2) it is where a sacred person was

buried; 3) it houses a relic that is either associated with a holy person (martyr or biblical

personage) or from a location already established to be inherently sacred. But what does this new

conception of sacred space have to do with the celebration of Christmas?

69Doig,Liturgy and Architecture, 51-52. Cf. Richard Krauthheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and

Politics(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 23.70Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 152. She continues: In the decades and centuries following these famous relic

translations [in the late fourth century], the deposition of saints remains under the altars of churches became

increasingly customary (152).


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As noted above, Christians melded their new understanding of space with their sense of

ritual time. The church in Jerusalem, and subsequently churches elsewhere, structured its new

liturgical calendar around events from the life of Jesus, events associated with particular (now-

venerated) locations around the Holy Land. Within this framework, Christians also found a way

to commemorate the other source of sacredness: the martyrs.71

Assemblies of Christians

fortunate enough to live in close proximity to the burial place of a martyr began to structure their

buildingsgenerally in the basilica stylearound the location of these remains, for instance by

placing an important location within the church (like the pulpit) directly above them. This action

transferred the sacredness of the martyr to the speaker. Liturgical calendars from the fourth

century, including the Chronograph, contain numerous references to the dates of martyrs

deaths.72

In this way, Christians who were geographically distant from the remains and relics of

martyrs could still participate in commemorating their sacrality.

The Church of the Nativity, the basilica built over what was believed to be the site of

Jesus birth, was constructed by the order of Constantine and his mother in 327.It seems

probable that Christians had begun to celebrate the day of Christs birth before this date,

although none of the arguments in defense of an earlier date are indefeasible. (The terminus ad

quemis 336.) The argument of this paper is not that the celebration of Christmas began at a

certain time, however. Instead, it argues that Christians started celebrating Christmas in reaction

to a new sense of sacred space; celebrating the feast of Christmas connected Christians all over

the Roman Empire with the sacrality of Bethlehem. It is not necessary to posit that the

71Yasin: Along with the Churchs institutionalization of a system for the commemoration of its special dead

which, as we have seen, may be traced back at least as early as the martyrdom of Polycarp in the second century, the

systematic recording of death dates of martyrs and bishops attests both to the beginning of a new corporate form of

funerary cult, as well as the formation of a new kind of collectivization of deceased individuals. By the time of our

earliest preserved Christian calendars, in the mid fourth century, the degree of systematization was already

extensive (Saints and Church Spaces, 251).72Cf. Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on

History of Religions 2; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1981), 31; Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces, 250.


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construction of the Church of the Nativity prompted the widespread celebration of Christmas

(although this suggestion is chronologically plausible). It is much safer to suggestand this

suggestion is the contribution of this paperthat the same cultural current that prompted

Constantine and Helena to construct the basilica in Bethlehem is what prompted Christians to

initially consider Christmas worth celebrating.

Conclusions

Whereas most previous treatments focus on contextualizing the advent of Christmas

within the theological climate of the early fourth century or on trying to make sense of the

December 25 connection with Sol Invictus, the present paper has chosen a different context

within which to understand why Christians started to celebrate the feast of Christmas. By

appealing to the evolution of Christian architecture and the corresponding conceptions of

sacrality and space, I have attempted to fill a lacuna in scholarship. Treatments of Christmas

which emphasize the importance of Donatism, the Edict of Milan, and Arianism are only able to

explain why the Christmas festival spread so quickly, why the feast held appeal in the early

fourth century, or roughly when the festival was celebrated. On the other hand, studies that

revolve around the relationship between Christmas andNatalis Solis Invictiare invaluable for

determining why Christians decided to celebrate Christmas on the day of winter solstice; they

fail to explain why Christians changed their minds about this issue in the first place. By situating

the advent of Christmas within the wide-ranging shift in Christian conceptions of the sacredness

of places, this paper fills the void left by these previous types of studies. The origin of Christmas

needs to be contextualized within the change in Christian architecture, with the rise of basilicas

which were believed to house sacrality in a real way, in order for scholars to understand why

Christians decided to try to wrest December 25 away from Sol. By situating the establishment of


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Christmas within the context of the simultaneous popularization of pilgrimages to the Holy Land,

of the translation of relics, and of the incorporation of the deaths of martyrs within the liturgical

year, the transition from the Christian view characterized by Origens vehement opposition to

pagan celebrations of birthdays to Christmas ascent to a place of privilege on the liturgical

calendar finally makes sense.


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Documents

The Origin of Christmas in Early Christian Sacred Space