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Christmas

The feast of Jesus’ birth, kept on December 25 in Rome by 336. Why that date was chosen is one of the oldest debates in Christian history.

Should Christians keep Christmas?

Scripture gives no feast of Jesus’ birth. The apostles preached his death and resurrection, Paul mentions the birth only in passing (Galatians 4:4), and for three centuries the church kept no feast of the nativity[source 2]. The first evidence of a feast on December 25 comes from Rome in 336, in a collection whose calendar marks the same day as the birthday of the Unconquered Sun[source 3][source 4].

God told Israel not to worship him the way the nations worshiped their gods: “enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise” (Deuteronomy 12:30). “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto” (Deuteronomy 12:32). Jesus warned against “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7).

Christians have reached this conclusion before. Puritan reformers objected that the feast had no warrant in Scripture; England’s Parliament abolished it in 1647[source 9], and Massachusetts fined anyone caught keeping it from 1659 to 1681[source 6].

So we don’t keep Christmas. We remember Christ’s coming every day, and keep the feast Scripture does give: “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:7–8). Paul also tells believers not to judge one another over days (Romans 14:5–6), so we offer this as a conviction to weigh, not a test of anyone’s faith.

Historical origin

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ birth but give no date or season. Early Christian writers who tried to work one out disagreed: around 200, Clement of Alexandria reported calculations placing it in the spring, including on the 25th of the Egyptian month Pachon (May 20)[source 5].

The earliest evidence for a celebration on December 25 is a Roman list of feast days, the Depositio Martyrum, which begins: “December 25: Christ born in Bethlehem of Judea.” It survives in a collection known as the Chronography of 354 and is generally dated to 336[source 3]. The same collection’s civil calendar marks December 25 as “N(atalis) Invicti,” the birthday of the Unconquered (Sun), with thirty chariot races[source 4].

From Rome the date spread east. In a sermon of 386, John Chrysostom told his congregation in Antioch that the feast had been kept there for less than ten years; many Eastern churches had celebrated Jesus’ birth and baptism together on January 6, as the Armenian church still does[source 2]. Orthodox churches that follow the Julian calendar keep December 25 on what is now January 7 in the civil calendar.

Later Christians disputed the feast as well. Puritan reformers objected that it had no warrant in Scripture; England’s Parliament abolished its observance in 1647[source 9], and Massachusetts fined anyone caught keeping it from 1659 to 1681[source 6]. In the United States, Christmas became a federal holiday in 1870[source 10].

Timeline

  1. c. 200Clement of Alexandria records conflicting calculations of the date of Jesus’ birth.
  2. 274Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple to the Unconquered Sun in Rome.
  3. 336A Roman list of feasts records December 25 as the birth of Christ.
  4. 354The Chronography of 354 preserves that list beside a civil calendar marking December 25 as the Sun’s birthday.
  5. 386John Chrysostom preaches that Antioch adopted the December 25 feast within the past decade.
  6. 16th c.Decorated trees for Christmas are first clearly recorded in German-speaking towns.
  7. 1647England’s Parliament abolishes the observance of Christmas.
  8. 1870Christmas becomes a federal holiday in the United States.

In scripture

  • Luke 2:1–20

    The birth in Bethlehem during a census, with shepherds “abiding in the field” at night. No date is given.

  • Matthew 2:1–12

    Wise men from the east follow a star to the child.

  • Jeremiah 10:1–5

    A tree is cut from the forest, shaped by a craftsman and decked with silver and gold to make an idol.

  • Galatians 4:4

    Paul’s direct reference to the birth: God sent forth his Son, “made of a woman.”

The early church, AD 30–100

There is no record of Christians celebrating Jesus’ birth before AD 100. The New Testament centers on his death and resurrection, and Paul’s letters mention the birth only in passing (Galatians 4:4)[source 2]. The earliest Christian observances known are the weekly gathering on the first day of the week and the yearly Pascha, the feast of the resurrection[source 2].

Popular claims

Each claim is rated against the evidence. About the ratings

  • “Jesus was born on December 25.”

    Unverified

    No source before about 200 gives a date, and those from around 200 disagree: Clement of Alexandria reports several[source 5], and a passage in Hippolytus’s Commentary on Daniel that gives December 25 is of disputed authenticity[source 2]. December 25 is first attested as the feast day in Rome in 336[source 3].

  • “December 25 was chosen to replace the Roman festival of the Unconquered Sun.”

    Debated

    Rome did celebrate the Unconquered Sun on December 25 by the mid-fourth century[source 4], and some later Christian writers drew the connection themselves[source 1]. Others argue the date came from a calculation: if Jesus was conceived on March 25, the date some early Christians assigned to his death, he was born nine months later[source 1][source 2]. The solar festival on that date is attested no earlier than the Christian one, which has led some scholars to question which came first[source 7].

  • “Jeremiah 10 describes and condemns Christmas trees.”

    Contradicted

    Jeremiah 10:3–5 describes a tree cut from the forest, carved by a craftsman and decked with silver and gold to make an idol that cannot speak or walk. The passage is about idol-making around the sixth century BC; decorated Christmas trees are first clearly recorded in German-speaking lands in the sixteenth century, after a few ambiguous fifteenth-century mentions[source 8]. Some readers apply verse 2, “Learn not the way of the heathen,” as a principle against adopting pagan customs; that is an application of the passage, not what it describes.

  • “Christians did not celebrate Jesus’ birth for the first three centuries.”

    Supported

    No celebration of the Nativity is recorded before the fourth century, apart from Clement of Alexandria’s report that one Egyptian group kept a festival of Jesus’ baptism[source 5]. Silence in the sources is not proof, but it is consistent across them[source 2].

Sources

  1. McGowan, Andrew. “How December 25 Became Christmas.” Bible Review 18, no. 6 (2002); Biblical Archaeology Society. Link to this source
  2. Talley, Thomas J. The Origins of the Liturgical Year. 2nd ed. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991. Link to this source
  3. The Chronography of 354, part 12: Depositio Martyrum. Transcribed by Roger Pearse, tertullian.org. Link to this source
  4. The Chronography of 354, part 6: the calendar of Philocalus. Transcribed by Roger Pearse, tertullian.org. Link to this source
  5. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 1.21. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, via New Advent. Link to this source
  6. Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
  7. Hijmans, Steven E. “Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome.” PhD diss., University of Groningen, 2009. Link to this source
  8. Brunner, Bernd. Inventing the Christmas Tree. Translated by Benjamin A. Smith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
  9. Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Link to this source
  10. An Act making the first Day of January, the twenty-fifth Day of December, the fourth Day of July, and Thanksgiving Day, Holidays within the District of Columbia. Act of June 28, 1870, 16 Stat. 168.

Last reviewed October 25, 2026.