Every December, the same objection returns: "Christmas is only a pagan feast in disguise. Christians stole December 25 from the cult of the Sun." The claim is so widespread that it is often treated as obvious historical fact. It is not. The question of why the Latin Church celebrates the birth of Christ on December 25 has a precise history, datable sources, and two scholarly explanations still debated today - neither of which can be reduced to the cliche of "pagan plagiarism".
December 25 is not revealed by the Gospel: neither Saint Luke nor Saint Matthew gives the day of the Nativity[1]. It results from a theological reasoning and a liturgical practice that took shape between the third and fourth centuries. To understand how this day was chosen is to see that the first Christians were not trying to copy paganism, but to proclaim that the true Sun - Christ - came to enlighten the world in the heart of the longest night.
What the earliest sources actually say
Before assessing the theories, the documents must be read. The date of Christmas does not appear all at once: it can be traced, source after source, from the first chronological speculations of the third century to the first attested liturgical feast in the fourth.
The Chronograph of 354: the earliest liturgical attestation
The decisive document is the Chronograph of 354, also called the Calendar of Filocalus, a richly illustrated Roman almanac compiled for a Christian aristocrat[2]. In its Depositio Martyrum section - the list of liturgical anniversaries of the Church of Rome - the first line reads:
"On the eighth day before the Kalends of January: Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea."
- Chronograph of 354, Depositio Martyrum[3]
"The eighth day before the Kalends of January" means, in Roman reckoning, December 25. This is the first explicit and datable mention of a Christian feast of the Nativity on December 25. Some historians trace the base list back to Roman usage in 336 — the attached episcopal list (Depositio episcoporum) seeming to date originally from that year — which would provide a terminus ad quem for the feast in Rome; but this backdating remains debated and is far from unanimous[4]. Only the attestation of the 354 codex is undisputed. A significant detail: in the Depositio Martyrum, it is the Nativity of Christ that stands at the head of the list[5].
Hippolytus and the first third-century mentions
Earlier, at the beginning of the third century, the Commentary on Daniel attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (around 204) contains a passage in which some manuscripts place the birth of Christ "eight days before the Kalends of January", that is, on December 25[6]. Textual criticism remains cautious: this passage may be a later interpolation, and its text is disputed. It nevertheless shows that reflection on the date of the Nativity was already under way well before the fourth century, and that it did not depend on an imperial feast of the Sun.
Saint John Chrysostom: a "new" feast in the East (386)
In the East, the Nativity was long joined to the Epiphany of January 6. Only near the end of the fourth century was December 25 introduced there. The clearest witness is Saint John Chrysostom, preaching at Antioch on December 25, 386[7]. He explains to his faithful that this feast, "long known among those who dwell in the West", had arrived among them less than ten years earlier, and that the Church of Rome held it to be the authentic date of the Lord's birth[8]. The direction is therefore clear: December 25 moves from Rome and the West toward the East - the exact opposite of what a simple importation of an Eastern solar cult would require.
The popular theory: Christmas replaced the "Unconquered Sun"
The best-known theory is often called the history-of-religions theory. Formulated at the end of the nineteenth century by the German scholar Hermann Usener[9], and relayed in the English-speaking world by the Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer in The Golden Bough[10], it holds that the Church fixed Christmas on December 25 in order to supplant a pagan feast of the Sun and make the conversion of pagans easier.
Aurelian and the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti: 274 for the temple, 354 for the feast
The theory's main support is the emperor Aurelian, who in 274 founded a state cult of Sol Invictus, the "Unconquered Sun", and dedicated a temple to him in Rome[11]. But — and the distinction is decisive — no ancient source attests that Aurelian fixed a feast of Sol on December 25: a Dies Natalis Solis Invicti on that date is known only from the Chronograph of 354 itself, that is, the same year as the first attestation of Christmas — and nothing proves it predates it[12]. Since December 25 corresponds, in the Julian calendar, to the winter solstice - the moment when, after the longest night, the days begin to grow again - the symbolism of the reborn Sun was readily available. Indeed, the Chronograph of 354, in its civil section, notes a "Natalis Invicti" on December 25, with chariot games[13]: it is the only ancient attestation of a natalis of the Unconquered on that date, and it is contemporary with the Christian feast, not earlier.
Saturnalia and the winter solstice
The Saturnalia are also invoked: feasts of Saturn celebrated in Rome from December 17 to 23, marked by banquets, gifts, and a joyful reversal of social order[14]. The closeness of the dates fed the idea of a Christian Christmas built on a Roman festive substrate.
Why this theory is now weakened
Attractive as it is, the borrowing theory runs into serious objections, repeatedly underlined by recent historians.
First, no ancient Christian author explaining the choice of December 25 mentions either the Saturnalia or a plan to recover a feast of the Sun[15]. When the Fathers justify the date, they speak of computation, conception, Passion, equinox, and solstice - never of missionary opportunism.
Second, the historian Steven Hijmans has shown that there is no solid proof of a major feast of Sol fixed on December 25 before Christianity: the only text that calls that day "natalis Invicti" is precisely the Chronograph of 354, already Christian, and nothing proves that this mention is earlier or more important than the feast of the Nativity[16]. The date of the solstice was also fluid in antiquity (sometimes placed on December 25, sometimes elsewhere).
Finally, the chronology of the theory is paradoxical: it supposes that the Romans first created a solar cult in 274, then gave it up to Christians fifty years later, while still defending it against them - an incoherence noted by Hijmans[17]. The borrowing theory, long presented as settled fact, has therefore become a minority and contested hypothesis in current research.
The calculation theory: from March 25 to December 25
The competing explanation, known as the calculation or computation theory, was proposed as early as 1889 by the Catholic historian Louis Duchesne[18], then strongly rehabilitated by the liturgist Thomas Talley in 1986[19]. It does not begin from paganism, but from a specifically Christian conviction about the coherence of salvation history.
The "integral age": conceived and dead on the same day
In ancient Judaism and among several Fathers, an idea circulated: great righteous men died on the anniversary of their conception or birth, their life forming a perfect cycle[20]. Applied to Christ, this intuition of the "integral age" links his death and his conception to the same date. Everything then depends on the date assigned to the Passion.
Tertullian and Julius Africanus: the date of March 25
In the West, the Passion was fixed on March 25. Tertullian, around 198-203, writes that Christ suffered "on the eighth day before the Kalends of April" - that is, March 25 - under the consulship of the two Gemini[21]. For his part, Sextus Julius Africanus, in his Chronography composed around 221, places the conception of Christ on March 25, which he also identifies as the day of the creation of the world and the spring equinox[22]. The reasoning becomes clear: if Christ was conceived on March 25, his birth falls nine months later, on December 25. This is exactly the liturgical interval preserved today between the feast of the Annunciation (March 25) and Christmas (December 25)[23].
In the East, the same calculation operated from a slightly different date for the Passion - April 6 - which led to January 6, the day on which Epiphany long included the Nativity[24]. The two traditions therefore apply the same logic from distinct paschal computations.
| Tradition | Date of Passion / conception | + 9 months | Feast of the Nativity |
|---|---|---|---|
| West (Rome) | March 25 | December 25 | Christmas, December 25 |
| East (Asia, Egypt) | April 6 | January 6 | Epiphany, January 6 |
Saint Augustine: conception, Passion, and birth
The most explicit witness to this logic is Saint Augustine. At the beginning of the fifth century, in his treatise On the Trinity, he writes:
"For he is believed to have been conceived on March 25, on which day also he suffered: thus the Virgin's womb, in which he was conceived and where no mortal was begotten, corresponds to the new tomb in which he was buried and where no one had ever been laid, either before him or after him. But according to tradition he was born on December 25."
- Saint Augustine, On the Trinity, IV, 5[25]
Augustine links the three moments - conception, death, birth - in one theological architecture: the virginity of Mary's womb answers the newness of the tomb, and March 25 governs December 25. Nothing in his explanation points to a solar feast being Christianized.
The treatise De solstitiis: equinoxes and solstices
An anonymous North African treatise from the second half of the fourth century, De solstitiis et aequinoctiis, systematizes the intuition further[26]. Starting from Scripture, it argues that John the Baptist was conceived at the autumn equinox and born at the summer solstice (June 24), while Christ was conceived at the spring equinox (March 25) and born at the winter solstice (December 25). The four hinges of the sun - two equinoxes and two solstices - thus frame the mystery of the Forerunner and that of the Savior. Solar symbolism is indeed present, but it is read from within Scripture, not borrowed from a foreign cult.
The spiritual meaning: Christ, the true "Sun of justice"
Whether the date came from a calculation or also answered to the solstice, what matters most for faith is not the material origin of the number, but its meaning. The Fathers saw in December 25 an admirable fittingness: in the deepest winter, when night is longest and light seems defeated, the One who is the true Light of the world is born.
"He must increase, but I must decrease"
Tradition connects this symbolism to a word of Saint John the Baptist about Christ:
"He must increase, but I must decrease."
- Gospel according to Saint John, 3:30[27]
The Fathers read in this a cosmic fittingness: John, born at the summer solstice, appears when the days begin to decrease; Christ, born at the winter solstice, appears when the light begins to grow again[28]. The forerunner decreases, the Savior increases - even in the rhythm of the sun.
The Sun of justice
This reading is rooted in an Old Testament prophecy that the liturgy applies to the Messiah:
"For you who fear my name, the Sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings."
- Malachi, 3:20 (4:2 in the Vulgate and English Bibles)[29]
Christ is the true "Sun of justice" (Sol iustitiae in the Vulgate), a title already used in the third century by Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen[30]. The Advent liturgy still sings it in the great O Oriens antiphon of December 21, which invokes Christ as "Dayspring, splendor of eternal light and sun of justice"[31]. Far from having borrowed the sun from paganism, the Church proclaimed that every star was only a figure of the one true Sun: the Word made flesh.
Saint Leo the Great: adore the Creator, not the creature
The Fathers themselves were perfectly aware of the risk of confusion. In the fifth century, Saint Leo the Great had to correct Roman faithful who, before entering Saint Peter's Basilica, turned around to salute the rising sun:
"When they have climbed the steps which lead up to the raised platform, they turn around and bow toward the rising sun."
- Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 27, 4[32]
In another Christmas sermon, he rebukes those for whom "this solemnity would derive its honor not so much from the birth of Christ as, according to them, from the rising of the new sun"[33]. The pope is therefore not recovering a solar cult: he is fighting the temptation to confuse Creator and creature, and reminding Christians that the feast honors Christ, not the star. This is the exact opposite of accepted syncretism.
What should we think today?
The two theories weighed by the sources
The current state of research tends, without absolute unanimity, toward the calculation theory or toward a combination of the two logics. The arguments can be summarized as follows:
| Criterion | Borrowing theory (Sol Invictus) | Calculation theory (March 25) |
|---|---|---|
| Author of the theory | Usener (1889), Frazer (1890) | Duchesne (1889), Talley (1986) |
| Ancient Christian sources invoking the motive | None | Tertullian, Africanus, Augustine, De solstitiis |
| Proof of a solar feast on December 25 before Christianity | Very fragile (Hijmans) | Not applicable |
| Coherence with March 25 / Annunciation | None | Perfect (nine-month interval) |
| Current status in research | Minority, contested | Widely favored |
It remains honest to acknowledge that the debate is not settled with 100 percent certainty: some historians think the two factors may have worked together, the calculation providing the date and the solar symbolism strengthening its fittingness[34]. But the evidence in no way permits the claim that "Christmas is only a pagan feast."
Cardinal Ratzinger's judgment: a theological date, not a copy
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — the future Benedict XVI, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — rejects, in The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000 in German, 2001 in French), the older borrowing theory. It is a work of personal theology, not a magisterial act:
"It used to be claimed that December 25 developed in opposition to the myth of Mithras, or as a Christian response to the cult of the Unconquered Sun. (...) But these old theories can no longer be sustained. The decisive factor was the connection between creation and the Cross, between creation and the conception of Christ."
- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), The Spirit of the Liturgy (English original quoted in note)[35]
The Church does not make December 25 a historical dogma about the exact day on which Jesus was born. She sees it as a traditional and theologically meaningful date, one that opens the time of joy after the waiting of Advent and celebrates the central mystery of the Incarnation (CCC 522-526)[36].
Was Jesus really born on December 25?
Honestly: we do not know. The Gospels do not give the date, and the often repeated argument that the shepherds "could not have been keeping their flocks outside in winter" (Lk 2:8) proves nothing - Judean winters are mild, and winter grazing is attested there[37]. December 25 is therefore not an astronomical certainty, but neither is it a lie: it is a date chosen for its spiritual truth, at the meeting point of Christian computation and returning light. As Augustine wrote, what matters is not the star, but the One who made it rise. December 25 says, in its own way, the heart of Christmas: "The light shines in the darkness" (Jn 1:5).
Further reading
- Why does Advent exist? - the waiting season that prepares Christmas.
- How can the Incarnation be explained simply? - the mystery celebrated by the Nativity.
- Why is Mary called Mother of God? - divine motherhood at the heart of Christmas.
- Why does Easter change date? - the other great date of the Christian calendar.
- Epiphany - the feast of January 6, the ancient Nativity of the East.
- The prophecies announcing Jesus - the awaited Messiah, Sun of justice.
Notes and References
The Nativity narratives (Gospel according to Luke 2:1-20 and Matthew 1:18-2:12) mention neither the day nor the month of Jesus' birth. No New Testament writing gives a date. Bible de Jerusalem, Cerf, Paris, 1998.
1Chronograph of 354 (or Calendar of Filocalus), an illustrated almanac compiled in Rome for the Christian Valentinus by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus. Reference edition: Theodor Mommsen, Chronica Minora saec. IV. V. VI. VII., vol. I, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi IX, Berlin, 1892. Online presentation and translation: R. Pearse (ed.), The Chronography of 354, tertullian.org.
2Chronograph of 354, Depositio Martyrum: "VIII Kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae". Mommsen, MGH Chronica Minora I (1892), pp. 71-72. This is the oldest explicit attestation of a feast of the Nativity on December 25.
3 5The dating of the base list to around 336 rests on the attached episcopal list (Depositio episcoporum), whose original version seems to date from 336 before it was updated in 354: that year is therefore often cited as the terminus ad quem of the feast in Rome. See C. P. E. Nothaft, "The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research", Church History (Cambridge University Press); W. Simmons, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58/2 (2015), pp. 299-324 (the Roman attestation of 336 is presented there as the first undisputed evidence of the Nativity on December 25). But the inference remains debated: Hijmans himself stresses that it does not suffice to settle the origin of the date (see Nothaft, art. cit.). Only the explicit mention of the 354 codex ("VIII Kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae", Mommsen, MGH Chronica Minora I, pp. 71-72) is undisputed.
4Hippolytus of Rome, Commentary on Daniel, IV, 23, around 204. Some manuscripts include a mention of Christ's birth "eight days before the Kalends of January" (December 25). The authenticity of this passage is debated: it may be a gloss or interpolation. Ed. M. Lefevre, Sources chretiennes 14, Cerf, Paris, 1947.
6Saint John Chrysostom, Homily on the day of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ (In diem natalem D. N. Iesu Christi, CPG 4334), preached at Antioch on a December 25, generally dated to 386 (J. N. D. Kelly's dating, followed by T. J. Talley) — the precise dating within the years 386-388 remaining debated among specialists. Patrologia Graeca 49, cols. 351-362.
7In this homily, Chrysostom presents the feast of December 25 as long known "among those who dwell in the West" and introduced at Antioch less than ten years earlier, because of arguments establishing that it is the true date of Christ's birth. PG 49, cols. 351-362.
8Hermann Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest (The Feast of Christmas), Bonn, 1889 (2nd ed. 1911). Founder of the so-called history-of-religions theory according to which Christmas replaced a pagan solar feast.
9James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1st ed., London, Macmillan, 1890; passage quoted from the abridged edition (Macmillan, 1922), chap. XXXVII ("Oriental Religions in the West"), p. 359. In it, Frazer argues that the Church fixed the Nativity on December 25 in order to transfer to Christ, the "Sun of justice", the pagan devotion to the Sun, quoting a Syrian author according to whom the Fathers moved the feast from January 6 to December 25 for that reason.
10The emperor Aurelian founded in 274 a state cult of Sol and dedicated a temple to him on the Campus Martius in Rome; on the other hand, no ancient source attests that he instituted a feast of Sol on December 25 — the Natalis Invicti on that date is known only from the Chronograph of 354. On the cult: the Historia Augusta, Life of Aurelian; Gaston H. Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus, Brill, Leiden, 1972. On the absence of proof of a feast on December 25 before 354: S. Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion 47/3 (2003), pp. 377-398; T. J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, Pueblo, New York, 1986.
11Steven Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, series III, vol. 3 (no. 47/3), 2003, pp. 377-398. Hijmans shows that there is no proof of a feast of Sol established on December 25 before Christianity, and that the only attestation of a natalis Invicti on that date comes from the Chronograph of 354 itself.
12 16In its civil section (the calendar proper, distinct from the Depositio Martyrum), the Chronograph of 354 notes on December 25: "N.INVICTI - CM - XXX", that is, Natalis Invicti with thirty chariot races. Mommsen, MGH Chronica Minora I (1892).
13The Saturnalia, feasts of Saturn celebrated in Rome from December 17 to 23, included banquets, exchanges of gifts (sigillaria), and a temporary inversion of social roles. See Macrobius, Saturnalia, I, 7-10; H. H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, London, 1981.
14Andrew McGowan, "How December 25 Became Christmas", Bible Review, December 2002 (republished by Biblical Archaeology Review). McGowan underlines that no ancient Christian author justifying December 25 mentions the Saturnalia or a plan to recover a solar feast, contrary to what the borrowing theory supposes.
15Steven Hijmans, art. cit., Mouseion 47/3 (2003): the borrowing theory incoherently supposes that Rome promoted a new Oriental solar cult in the 270s and then yielded it to Christians about fifty years later, while still defending it against them.
17Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien. Etude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne, Paris, Thorin et fils, 1889 (expanded re-editions until 1925), chap. VIII. Duchesne was the first to propose the calculation theory linking Christ's conception and death to March 25, hence his birth on December 25.
18Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, Pueblo Publishing, New York, 1986 (2nd ed. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1991). Talley rehabilitates and specifies the calculation hypothesis from Western and Eastern paschal computations.
19On the Jewish and patristic idea of the "integral age" (prophets dying on the day of their conception or birth), see T. J. Talley, op. cit., pp. 91-99, and A. McGowan, art. cit. This conviction governs the transfer of the Passion date onto that of the conception.
20Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos (Against the Jews), 8, § 18, around 198-203. He fixes Christ's Passion in the month of March, at the time of the Jewish Passover, under the consulship of the two Gemini (year 29): Latin text (excerpt) "[…] mense Martio temporibus paschae, die octavo Kalendarum Aprilium […]" (= March 25). Ed. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 2; online text with English trans.: bkv.unifr.ch (Bibliothek der Kirchenväter) and R. Pearse, tertullian.org.
21Sextus Julius Africanus, Chronographiae (Chronographies), around 221, preserved fragment. Africanus places Christ's conception on March 25, a day he also identifies with the creation of the world and the spring equinox; the birth follows nine months later. Fragments edited by M. Wallraff, Iulius Africanus Chronographiae, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller N. F. 15, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2007.
22The nine-month interval is preserved in the liturgical calendar between the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord (March 25) and Christmas (December 25). See Catechism of the Catholic Church, 484-486 (the Annunciation and virginal conception).
23In the East, the calculation started from a Passion date fixed on April 6, hence a birth on January 6 (Epiphany), a feast that long included the Nativity in the Eastern Churches. See T. J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, 1986, pp. 91-103.
24Saint Augustine, De Trinitate (On the Trinity), IV, 5, early fifth century. Latin text: "Octavo enim calendas aprilis conceptus creditur, quo et passus : [...] Natus autem traditur octavo calendas januarias." Ed. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 50; French trans. Bibliotheque augustinienne 15, Desclee de Brouwer, Paris. Online Latin text: catholiclibrary.org (Augustine, De Trinitate); English trans.: newadvent.org/fathers/130104.htm.
25De solstitiis et aequinoctiis conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae (CPL 2277), anonymous North African treatise, second half of the fourth century. It argues from Scripture (Luke 1; Exodus 23:16; Zechariah 8:19) that John the Baptist was conceived and born at the hinges of autumn and summer, and Christ at those of spring (March 25) and winter (December 25). Ed. B. Botte, Les Origines de la Noel et de l'Epiphanie, Louvain, 1932, pp. 93-105.
26Gospel according to Saint John, 3:30. Word of John the Baptist about Christ: "Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui." Bible de Jerusalem, Cerf, Paris, 1998.
27The solstitial reading connecting Jn 3:30 to the calendar (John the Baptist born at the summer solstice on June 24, Christ at the winter solstice on December 25) is developed by De solstitiis et aequinoctiis (4th c.) and taken up by Saint Augustine in his sermons for the nativity of John the Baptist. See B. Botte, Les Origines de la Noel et de l'Epiphanie, 1932.
28Malachi, 4:2 (= 3:20 in some numbering). Vulgate text: "orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol iustitiae, et sanitas in pennis eius". Christian tradition reads in it an announcement of Christ, the "Sun of justice". Bible de Jerusalem, Cerf, Paris, 1998.
29The Christological title "Sun of justice" (Sol iustitiae), drawn from Malachi 4:2, is used from the third century by Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, then becomes classic among the Latin Fathers (Ambrose, Augustine). See M. Wallraff, Christus verus Sol. Sonnenverehrung und Christentum in der Spatantike, Aschendorff, Munster, 2001.
30Great "O" antiphon of December 21 in the Advent liturgy: "O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae et sol iustitiae: veni et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis." ("O Dayspring, splendor of eternal light and sun of justice: come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.") Roman Missal and Liturgy of the Hours, Advent season.
31Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 27 (In Nativitate Domini VII), 4, around 450. Leo reproaches Roman Christians for turning, at the top of the steps of Saint Peter's Basilica, to bow before the rising sun. Latin text: "cum (...) gradus quibus ad suggestum areae superioris ascenditur, conscenderint, converso corpore ad nascentem se solem reflectant". Sources chretiennes 22 bis; trans. newadvent.org/fathers/360327.htm.
32Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 22 (In Nativitate Domini II), 6: he condemns those for whom "this solemnity would derive its honor not so much from the birth of Christ as, according to them, from the rising of the new sun". Sources chretiennes 22 bis; trans. newadvent.org/fathers/360322.htm.
33Several historians (for example Susan K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas, Kok Pharos, Kampen, 1995) hold that the calculation theory and solar symbolism may have converged: computation fixed the date, and its coincidence with the solstice strengthened its meaning. A pure and simple borrowing from a pagan feast remains unproven.
34Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Geneva, Ad Solem, 2001 (German original Der Geist der Liturgie, Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder, 2000; English trans. The Spirit of the Liturgy, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2000, pp. 105-107). A work of personal theology by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — not a magisterial act. The passage on Christmas rejects the "old theories" of borrowing (the Mithras myth, the cult of the Unconquered Sun) and retains as the "decisive factor" the connection between creation, the Cross, and the conception of Christ. English verbatim (p. 107): "The claim used to be made that December 25 developed in opposition to the Mithras myth, or as a Christian response to the cult of the unconquered sun promoted by Roman emperors in the third century in their efforts to establish a new imperial religion. ... However, these old theories can no longer be sustained. The decisive factor was the connection of creation and Cross, of creation and Christ's conception." The body quotation reproduces this English verbatim; the French rendering is presented as a translation of it, since the exact text of the Ad Solem translation could not be verified page by page.
35Catechism of the Catholic Church, 522-526 (the mysteries of Jesus' infancy, the Nativity and its meaning for Christian life); 524 on the season of Advent that prepares the celebration of Christmas.
36The objection drawn from Luke 2:8 ("shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night") does not by itself rule out a winter date: night grazing in midwinter is attested at the Shepherds' Field in Bethlehem. The biblical scholar Jack Finegan thus reports the letter of January 16, 1967, from New Testament professor Harry Mulder (then stationed in Beirut), who was on site on Christmas Eve: several flocks were grazing there, lambs included — hence his conclusion that a birth of Jesus in December is nothing impossible. See J. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd ed., no. 569, quoting W. Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Matthew, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1973, vol. 1, p. 182. The argument, often repeated, therefore has no probative value against December 25.
37