ERICKSON: Why December Twenty-Fifth?

With the return of the Christmas season, I like to remind people that so much of what we learn about the holiday may not actually be so. You probably learned that Christians placed Christmas on December 25 to co-opt Saturnalia, the Roman Empire’s mid-winter festival, or possibly the Festival of the Unconquered Sun — Sol Invictus. The theory went that Christians could get the heathen to convert by co-opting the pagan holidays.

There is one problem — it sounds more convincing than it is. These theories only became popular once comparative religion became trendy after the 18th century. Going back to the earliest Christian church finds evidence that Christmas, though not initially celebrated, had been commemorated well before the Feast of the Unconquered Sun’s creation for entirely Christian reasons. In fact, it is possible Emperor Aurelian instituted Sol Invictus on December 25 to combat Christianity’s belief that Jesus was born that day.