The whole point of what I wrote in §2 is that, prior to Clement, people avoided calculating Jesus’ dates. Like I said, it’s creative adjustments all the way down. Modern editions and translations of Tertullian, even critical editions, frequently ‘correct’ his figures and details because they’re so flagrantly wrong.Īnd they do all of this in support of a date that was originally reached thanks to a chronological marker they all knew was wrong - the eclipse of 29 CE. Africanus has to make up the idea that intercalary periods count as extra years, as well as glossing over several bits of Daniel, not least what he says about when the 490 year period begins. Just look at how selective Clement and Tertullian have to be with their treatment of regnal periods to make them line up with Daniel’s ‘70 weeks’ prophecy. You did read §2–§5, didn’t you? The acrobatics are in plain sight. If it means concocting, then yes.ĭoes that mean I think early Christians engage in ‘breathtaking mental acrobatics’, as Förster puts it? Well, yes, of course. HRT hasn’t a shred of credibility and it never should have been taken seriously.ĭoes that mean I support CT, then? Well, no, not if the C stands for calculation. That is, Christmas and Easter are the archetypes for solstice and equinox festivals, not copies of pagan ones.

There’s very little evidence of Mediterranean solstice or equinox festivals before the Christian ones came along.

The notion that Christmas was originally on 6 January and later transferred to 25 December is based entirely on a 12th century scribal gloss (see Roll 1995: 150–152, 2000: 279–280).

Mithraism and Saturnalia are irrelevant, and Yule is mediaeval.The idea that Aurelian instituted the Invictus festival on 25 December 279 CE is a modern inference, and not well supported by ancient evidence (Hijmans 2009: 588–591).

Aurelian didn’t make the sun god the chief god of the Roman pantheon: that was Elagabalus and the god Elagabal, and it only lasted four years.Epiphanius’ Aion festival and the 354 Chronography’s Invictus festival are local, late, and poorly attested.To put it briefly: the evidence that Christmas and Easter draw on pagan festivals is all either late, misrepresented, or fabricated. I’ve done some write-ups here on Christmas and Easter that push hard against HRT too, sometimes relying on Hijmans’ work. Hijmans is agnostic about CT, and Förster opposes CT: Förster actually puts it that CT requires ancient Christians to have performed ‘breathtaking mental acrobatics’. Nothaft himself supports CT (Nothaft 2013). Philipp Nothaft (2012) outlines some important developments since then: new research by Steven Hijmans and Hans Förster has blasted HRT to the eternal oblivion that it deserves. Susan Roll (2000) gives a good outline of the 20th century debate, which usually favoured HRT. If you’ve heard that Christmas was the result of Christians stealing Saturnalia, or Mithras’ birthday, or Sol Invictus. CT, the Calculation Theory (or Berechnungshypothese): early Christians used chronographical reckoning to put Christmas at the winter solstice, and Easter at the spring equinox, traditionally reckoned as falling on 25 December and 25 March in the Julian calendar.HRT, the History of Religions Theory (or religionsgeschichtliche Hypothese): early Christians took pagan solstice and equinox festivals and made them the basis for their own festivals.There are two modern theories about how Christmas came to be celebrated on 25 December: The vague early datings of Jesus that we talked about in §2 don’t usually come up in connection with the origins of Christmas and Easter. Also, a digression on the traditional dates of the equinoxes and solstices in the Julian calendar.Īndrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci, The baptism of Christ (ca. A look at two modern theories on the origins of the traditional dates of Christmas and Easter. Concocting precise dates involved an eclipse, and trying to make 500 years of regnal periods line up with a prophecy in Daniel. Around 200 CE Christians wanted more precise dates than they could get from the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Lo saturnalia translation