Category: Liturgical Year

“Three Days and Three Nights”?

In Matthew 12:40, Jesus says:

Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

This has widely—and correctly—been understood as a reference to the period he spent in the tomb, between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

However, it raises a question about the timing of these events. Many people ask, if Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, how could he rise on Easter Sunday? That’s not “three days and three nights” later—at least by our reckoning.

To solve this dilemma, some propose that Jesus was actually crucified earlier—on a Wednesday. That way he could lie in the tomb all of Thursday, all of Friday, and all of Saturday, only to be raised early on Sunday.

Every year at this time—and periodically throughout the year—I get email from people telling me that I, and the vast majority of scholars (Catholic and Protestant alike), don’t know what we’re talking about when placing the Crucifixion on a Friday.

Some are positively insulting about it, presenting Matthew 12:40 as conclusive proof that we—apparently—have never thought about before.

But we have.

So, let’s talk about it and the other evidence we have from the New Testament about the day of Jesus’ Crucifixion.

 

Not a Matter of Faith

Let’s start by noting that, although the Church commemorates Jesus’ death on Good Friday, the traditional chronology of Holy Week is not a dogma of the Faith, and scholars can explore other options.

For example, in his Jesus of Nazareth series, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the view of the French scholar Annie Jaubert, who proposed that the Last Supper actually took place on Holy Tuesday rather than Holy Thursday.

That view is commonly shared by advocates of a Wednesday Crucifixion (though Jaubert still places the latter event on Good Friday).

After exploring the arguments proposed by Jaubert, he observes that the theory is “fascinating at first sight,” but that it “is rejected by the majority of exegetes” (2:111).

He then offers his own conclusion, stating:

So while I would not reject this theory outright, it cannot simply be accepted at face value, in view of the various problems that remain unresolved (Jesus of Nazareth 2:112).

For the pope to publish a book in which he says that he doesn’t “reject this theory outright,” even though he ultimately isn’t persuaded by it, is a clear indicator that alternative chronologies are possible.

But it’s a question of what the evidence supports. So what evidence is there?

 

The Day of the Resurrection

All of the Gospels indicate that Jesus’ tomb was found empty on Sunday morning.

  • Matthew says this happened “after the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning” (Matt. 28:1).
  • Mark says it was “when the sabbath was over” (Mark 16:1).
  • Luke says it was “at daybreak on the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1).
  • And John says it was “on the first day of the week” (John 20:1)

This gives us a solidly fixed day of the week, which is unmistakably Sunday—the day after the Jewish sabbath and the first day of the week on everyone’s reckoning.

Since no human eye witnessed the Resurrection itself, one could propose that Jesus actually rose some time Saturday (or any point after the burial), but this was not the understanding of the early Christians.

They universally understood Sunday as the day of the Resurrection, which is why they began gathering every first day of the week (1 Cor. 16:2) and why this day came to be known as “the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10; cf. Ignatius of Antioch, Magnesians 9:1).

We thus begin with the premise that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, at least as it was reckoned at the time (remembering that Jews began the day at sundown, so for them Sunday began on what we would call Saturday night).

 

“The Sabbath”

You’ll note that Matthew and Mark both say that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty after “the sabbath.”

In ordinary Jewish speech, “the sabbath” was overwhelmingly used to refer to the day of the week known to us as Saturday.

There are a few exceptions to this, where certain other holy days could be referred to as sabbaths:

  • The day of atonement (Lev. 16:31, 23:32)
  • The feast of trumpets (Lev. 23:24)
  • The first and eighth days of the feast of booths (Lev. 23:39)

However, these usages were rare, and the fact that Matthew says this sabbath preceded “the first day of the week,” which Luke and John confirm, indicates that it is the weekly sabbath we are talking about, which is what we’d expect from the unmodified use of “the sabbath.”

What else do we know about this particular sabbath?

Luke records that as soon as Jesus was buried, the women “returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 24:56).

If we back up a few verses, Luke records that the burial was done in haste, for “it was the day of preparation, and the sabbath was about to begin” (Luke 24:54).

Bear in mind that this is the same weekly sabbath that the Gospels report as the day before the Resurrection, so the chronology Luke gives is:

  • “the day of preparation”: Jesus buried
  • “the sabbath”: the women rest
  • “the first day of the week”: the women find Jesus’ tomb empty

 

“The Day of Preparation”

Modern people aren’t typically familiar with the phrase “the day of preparation,” but it was a way of referring to the day before the sabbath.

It was called that because devout Jews had to make preparations to rest on the sabbath. For example, they needed to prepare all the food that they would eat on Saturday. Thus, Moses declared:

“This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay by to be kept till the morning’” (Exod. 16:23).

Friday thus became known as the day of preparation. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes:

“The idea of preparation is expressed by the Greek name paraskeuê, given by Josephus (Ant. 16:6:2) to that day (compare Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; Matt. 27:62; John 19:42). In Yer. Pesaḥim 4:1 the day is called ‘Yoma da-’Arubta’ (Day of Preparation)” (s.v. Calendar).

What Luke is saying thus is that Jesus was crucified on Friday, the women rested on Saturday, and they found his tomb empty on Sunday.

The same is indicated by the other Gospels. Speaking of the same day that the women rested, Matthew records:

The next day [after Jesus was buried], the one following the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that this impostor while still alive said, ‘After three days I will be raised up.’ Give orders, then, that the grave be secured until the third day” (Matt. 27:62-64).

Matthew thus indicates that Jesus was buried on the day of preparation (Friday), and the next day—Saturday—the priests requested a guard be posted until the third day (Sunday).

Mark says that Jesus was buried, “the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath” (Mark 15:42). This is particularly significant because he then says the women found the tomb empty “when the sabbath was over” (Mark 16:1). Mark’s chronology thus has Jesus being buried on a Friday and raised on a Sunday, with the weekly sabbath intervening.

Finally, John says that Jesus was crucified “the day of preparation of the Passover” (John 19:14, LEB)—that is, the Friday in Passover week.

He then says that the Jewish leaders asked for the legs of the crucified to be broken “since it was the day of preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day)” (John 19:31)—and a sabbath falling in Passover did have extra solemnity.

Finally, John indicates that Jesus was buried hurriedly, in a nearby tomb: “So because of the Jewish day of preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (John 19:42).

He thus indicates that Jesus was crucified and buried on the day of preparation (Friday), which preceded the sabbath (Saturday), and he was discovered alive again “on the first day of the week” (John 20:1).”

All four Gospels thus point to the same Friday-Saturday-Sunday chronology, with each saying specifically that Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation (cf. Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:14, 31, 42).

 

“On the Third Day”
You’ll note that in Matthew the Jewish authorities asked that the tomb be secured until “the third day” (Matt. 27:64).

This is the standard way that Jesus referred to the time he would rise. There are at least eight cases in the Gospels indicating that he rose on “the third day” (Matt. 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:31, 46).

Mark also records three instances of him saying he will rise “after three days” (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34), and John has him saying it will happen “in three days” (John 2:20).

However, the standard way of referring to the timing of the event was “on the third day”—a usage also found outside the Gospels (Acts 10:40, 1 Cor. 15:4).

To understand which day was the third, one must understand a couple things about how biblical authors counted:

  • The first unit of time after something happens begins immediately after the event. We still use this convention today. It’s why a president’s “first” year in office is the one that begins immediately upon his inauguration. His first year isn’t complete until he reaches his twelve-month anniversary.
  • Where the ancients differed from us is that they would often count parts for wholes. For example, they would often consider an emperor’s first year to be the time from when he took office to the beginning of the next calendar year. His “second” year would begin with New Year’s Day, meaning that his “first” year wasn’t twelve months long. Yet though it was only part of a twelve-month period, it was counted as a year.

The same thing applied to other units of time, such as months, weeks, days, and hours, and this has implications for the Crucifixion:

  • Jesus died at around 3 p.m. (cf. Luke 23:44-46), which means the first day of his death was the remainder of the day of preparation, between 3 p.m. and sunset.
  • The second day then began at sunset and lasted through the entire sabbath (i.e., it was Friday night and Saturday daytime).
  • The third day then began at sundown on the sabbath and lasted until sunset on the first day of the week (i.e., it was Saturday night and Sunday daytime).

This is why, on the road to Emmaus, the disciples can tell Jesus that “it is now the third day” since the Crucifixion (Luke 24:21).

We thus have abundant evidence pointing to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday chronology, with Jesus being raised “on the third day.”

 

“Three Days and Three Nights”?

How, then, do we explain the single verse in which Jesus says he will be in the belly of the earth for “three days and three nights”?

If we took that literally to mean three full days—no more and no less—then it would mean Jesus would be dead for exactly seventy-two hours, which would place the Resurrection at 3 p.m.—something nobody proposes.

We must therefore recognize that this expression is not to be taken fully literally. It involves a figurative expression.

To understand that expression, we can’t impose our own culture’s ideas. We need to look at how ancient Jewish authors used language, and here scholars are clear.

As conservative Protestant Bible scholar R. T. France notes: “Three days and three nights was a Jewish idiom to a period covering only two nights” (Matthew, 213).

Similarly, D. A. Carson, another conservative Protestant Bible scholar, explains: “In rabbinical thought a day and a night make an onah, and a part of an onah is as the whole. . . . Thus according to Jewish tradition, ‘three days and three nights’ need mean no more than ‘three days’ or the combination of any part of three separate days” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 8:296).

“Three days and three nights” is just an especially demonstrative way of saying “three days.” It doesn’t literally mean seventy-two hours.

And because of the ancients’ tendency to count parts for wholes—that is, to round numbers up—the three days of Jesus’ death were the final part of Friday, all of Saturday, and the first part of Sunday.

Of course, the phrase “three days and three nights”—with no further context—could mean seventy-two hours, but we have context for Matthew’s use of this phrase.

Ultimately, one cannot use a single verse that can be understood in more than one way to overturn all other the evidence we have from the New Testament—and from later in the Gospel of Matthew itself.

Scholars thus are on safe ground when they maintain the historic position that Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

Was Jesus Born December 25th?

Every year as Christmas approaches, it’s common to hear claims like these:

  • Jesus wasn’t born on December 25.
  • He couldn’t have been, because the shepherds wouldn’t have had their flocks in the field (Luke 2:8).
  • Christians got December 25 from a pagan holiday.

On the other hand, one sometimes encounters these claims:

  • Jesus was definitely born on December 25.
  • The Catholic Church claims that he was.
  • The denial of this is an attack on Christianity.
  • The early Christians would have been intensely interested in the day of Jesus’ birth and would have recorded it based on Mary’s memory of the day.

Let’s look at both sets of claims, though first let’s look at the year he was born.

 

The Year Jesus Was Born

A common—though incorrect—view is that he was born around 6-7 B.C. This is based on the idea Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. and Jesus must have been born around two years earlier, since Herod “killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under” (Matt. 2:16).

However, better studies indicate Herod died in 1 B.C. This agrees with the data from the Gospels, which indicate John the Baptist began his ministry “in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar” (Luke 3:1)—i.e., A.D. 29—that Jesus was baptized shortly thereafter (3:21), and that he began his ministry when “about thirty years of age” (3:23).

If you subtract thirty years from A.D. 29 then—since there is no “Year Zero”—you land in 2 B.C.

This agrees with the date given by the Church Fathers, who overwhelmingly place the birth of Jesus in the forty-second year of Augustus Caesar or 3/2 B.C. (i.e., the last part of 3 B.C. and the first part of 2 B.C.).

For more information on Jesus birth, see Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd ed., and Andrew Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul.

Now, on to the claims regarding the day of Jesus’ birth. . . .

 

“Keeping Watch Over their Flock”

Luke says shepherds were out at night with their flock, but this doesn’t eliminate December 25—or any other winter date.

Ancient Jews didn’t have large indoor spaces for housing sheep. Flocks were kept outdoors during winter in Judaea, as they are elsewhere in the world today, including in places where snow is common.

Search the internet for “winter sheep care” and you’ll find pages by modern sheep owners explaining it’s perfectly fine to keep flocks outside in winter. Sheep are adapted to life outdoors. That’s why they have wool, which keeps body heat in and moisture out.

Sheep are kept outdoors in Israel during winter even today:

William Hendricksen quotes a letter dated Jan. 16, 1967, received from the New Testament scholar Harry Mulder, then teaching in Beirut, in which the latter tells of being in Shepherd Field at Bethlehem on the just-passed Christmas Eve, and says: “Right near us a few flocks of sheep were nestled. Even the lambs were not lacking. . . . It is therefore definitely not impossible that the Lord Jesus was born in December” (Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd ed., §569).

 

The Pagan Holiday Claim

Might Christians have decided to celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25 to create an alternative to a popular pagan celebration?

Some Christians do this sort of thing today. Because of the macabre overtones Halloween has in our culture, some Protestant churches hold “Harvest Festival” or “Reformation Day” celebrations on October 31 to give young people an alternative, so it’s not impossible early Christians might have done the same thing.

But there is a poor track record for claims Christian holidays have pagan origins. For example, the claim Easter has a pagan origin is based on a sketchy etymology for the English word Easter, which is allegedly based on the name of a Germanic goddess we otherwise have no record of.

Further, Easter didn’t start in England. It’s celebrated all over the Christian world, and in most languages its name derives from Pesakh—the Hebrew word for Passover—because Jesus was crucified at Passover. Thus, whatever it’s called in individual countries, has Jewish origins.

To sustain the claim Christmas is based on a pagan holiday, one would need to do two things: (1) Identify the pagan holiday it supplanted, and (2) show this was the intent of the Christians who introduced Christmas on December 25.

Some have claimed Christmas is based on the Roman holiday Saturnalia—a festival of the god Saturn. However, this holiday was celebrated on December 17, and though it was later expanded to include the days leading up to December 23, it was over before December 25. A Christian celebration on the latter day would not supplant Saturnalia.

A better candidate is Sol Invictus (Latin, “the Unconquerable Sun”), which was celebrated on December 25. However, the earliest record we have that may point to it being celebrated on that day is late and ambiguous.

The Christian Chronography of A.D. 354 records the “Birthday of the Unconquerable” was celebrated on that date in 354, but the identity of “the Unconquerable” is unclear. Since it’s a Christian document that elsewhere lists Jesus’ birthday as December 25, it could be the Unconquerable Christ—not the sun—whose birth was celebrated.

Even if Christmas and Sol Invictus were both on December 25, Christmas might have been the basis of Sol Invictus, or the reverse, or it might just be a coincidence. If you want to claim the date of Sol Invictus is the basis for Christmas, you need evidence.

That is hard to come by. Even if the Chronography of A.D. 354 refers to Sol Invictus being celebrated on December 25, this is the first reference to the fact, and—as we will see below—some Christians had held Jesus was born on that date for a long time.

If Christians were subverting Sol Invictus, we should find the Church Fathers saying, “Let’s provide an alternative celebration.” But we don’t. The Fathers who celebrated December 25 sincerely thought that’s when Jesus was born.

And even if Christmas was timed to subvert a pagan holiday, so what? Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and celebrating the birth of Christ is a good thing. So is subverting paganism. If the early Christians were doing both, big deal!

Ultimately, though, the evidence doesn’t support the claim. Benedict XVI got it right when he said:

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 Spirit of the Liturgy, 107-108).

 

Not a Matter of Doctrine

What about the assertion that the Catholic Church claims Jesus was born on December 25?

This isn’t the case. The Church celebrates Jesus’ birth on December 25, but this doesn’t amount to a claim he was born on that day.

The liturgical commemoration of an event doesn’t mean the Church holds it happened on that day. For example, the day a saint is commemorated is frequently the day of his death, but not always. Thus St. Ambrose’s memorial is on December 7, though he died on April 4.

One will find Church documents referring to the liturgical celebration of Jesus’ birth on December 25, but one won’t find any magisterial documents establishing it as a Church teaching that this is when he was born.

Though his birth has profound significance for our faith, the particular day it occurred is a matter of history rather than doctrine, and Christians needn’t be disturbed by the idea he was born another day.

 

An Attack on the Christianity—and Christ?

Is the claim Jesus was born another day an attack on Christianity?

It’s true that some who make this claim want to disparage or undermine Christianity, but not all have this motive. There are sincere Christians who argue Jesus was born another day. Some have even been taken in by the pagan holiday claim and are seeking to protect Christianity from being tainted by pagan associations.

We might be irked when an atheist says, in a superior manner, “You know, Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25,” but his motives are ultimately irrelevant. The claim he’s making is either true or false, and speculating about what’s going on in his heart will generate more heat than light.

What’s important is the evidence and where it leads us.

 

How Could They Not?

Sometimes defenders of December 25 argue the early Christians would have been intensely interested in the day of Jesus’ birth, and so—based on Mary’s memory of the day—they would have recorded it. How could they not have done so?

There are major problems with this argument. Christians have been curious about many things concerning Jesus that we have no reliable record of.

The Gospels are our most reliable records, but the fantastic expense of book production at the time meant the Evangelists could only record the details they considered most important.

Thus the Gospels don’t tell us the day or even the year of his birth. With the exception of the Finding at the Temple (Luke 2:41-51), they don’t tell us what happened during his childhood, and they tell us nothing at all about his appearance.

Later Christians were curious about all of these, but the fact the Evangelists don’t record them reveal that they didn’t consider it essential for us to know about them.

One reason they might not have considered Jesus’ birthday important is because the celebration of birthdays isn’t a human universal. Many cultures have very different attitudes toward time, and in the twentieth century western scholars working with poorer Middle Easterners could be surprised at how they didn’t have a clear idea of how old they were.

Historically, Jewish culture has been ambivalent toward birthdays, with some rabbis arguing they shouldn’t be celebrated at all, stating that doing so is a gentile or even idolatrous custom.

Some pointed to the fact that, in the Hebrew scriptures, the only birthday celebrated was that of the wicked figure Pharaoh (Gen. 40:20).

Other oppressive rulers also celebrated birthdays—sometimes on a monthly basis—and expected their subjects to do so as well. Thus in the time of the Maccabees, “On the monthly celebration of the king’s birthday, the Jews were taken, under bitter constraint, to partake of the sacrifices” (2 Macc. 6:7).

Roman emperors also had public celebrations of their birthdays, which involved idolatry and fueled Jewish antipathy to the custom.

The only birthday celebration in the New Testament was of the Roman puppet Herod Antipas, and that led to the martyrdom of John the Baptist (Matt. 14:1-12).

It’s thus no surprise to find early Christian writers like Origen, around A.D. 241, disparaging birthdays:

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. For indeed we find in the Old Testament Pharaoh, king of Egypt, celebrating the day of his birth with a festival, and in the New Testament, Herod. However, both of them stained the festival of his birth by shedding human blood. For the Pharaoh killed “the chief baker,” Herod, the holy prophet John “in prison.” But the saints not only do not celebrate a festival on their birth days, but, filled with the Holy Spirit, they curse that day (Homilies on Leviticus 8:2).

Origen wasn’t alone in the early Church, and he illustrates how other cultures could have very different attitudes toward birthdays. The “how could they not preserve Jesus’ birthday?” argument thus does not succeed.

This isn’t to say early Christian sources didn’t preserve Jesus’ birthday, just that it’s not guaranteed they did. We thus need to look at the evidence.

 

A Biblical Argument?

Some argue that, though the New Testament doesn’t tell us what Jesus’ birthday was, it contains enough information for us to deduce it.

The argument goes like this: John the Baptist’s father—Zechariah—belonged to the priestly course of Abijah (Luke 1:5), one of twenty-four priestly courses that served in a regular rotation at the temple.

After his vision announcing the conception of John the Baptist, he returned home, and his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant (1:23-25). Then “in the sixth month” of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced the conception of Jesus (1:26-31).

Therefore, Jesus’ birth would have occurred fifteen months after Zechariah’s service ended, and if we can determine the date that happened then we can determine the date of Jesus’ birth.

While intriguing, this argument doesn’t allow us to determine the day of Jesus’ birth.

First, the priestly courses served at the temple twice a year, and we’d have to guess which of the two Zechariah was performing when he got the vision. That creates an uncertainty of six months.

Second, scholars aren’t sure when each priestly course was on duty. There are different proposals, and the matter is complicated by the fact some Jewish years had an extra month (much like our Leap Year) to keep the calendar in synch with the seasons.

Third, the argument assumes that John the Baptist was conceived immediately upon Zechariah’s return, but Luke doesn’t say that. He says Elizabeth became pregnant “after these days” (1:24).

Fourth, the argument assumes Gabriel appeared to Mary exactly six months after John’s conception, but that also isn’t what Luke says. He states the angel appeared “in the sixth month” (1:26, 36)—i.e., when Elizabeth was between five and six months pregnant. This creates a thirty-day ambiguity.

Fifth, the argument assumes Mary conceived the moment Gabriel spoke to her, but Luke doesn’t indicate that. Gabriel says “you will conceive” (Greek, sullêmpsê)—in the future tense—indicating Jesus will be conceived in the future, but not precisely when.

Sixth, the argument assumes Jesus was in the womb exactly nine months, but the average human gestation period is around 40 weeks from last ovulation. Given four-week months, that would be around ten months. Thus the book of Wisdom states: “in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, within the period of ten months” (Wis. 7:1-2). Further, the average human pregnancy varies by as much as five weeks in length, creating an uncertainty of thirty-five days.

In view of these uncertainties, this argument won’t allow us to determine the exact day of Jesus’ birth.

However, it may get us part of the way there. Based on a guess of which of the two priestly services Zechariah was performing, Jack Finegan calculates that the argument would point to a birthday somewhere between December and February, lending plausibility—based on biblical evidence—to Jesus being born in the winter (Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd ed., §473), though it should be pointed out that making the opposite guess about Zechariah’s service would point to a birth in the summer.

 

The Church Fathers Weigh In

While the New Testament doesn’t name a specific day as the date of Jesus’ birth, some of the Church Fathers do.

Around A.D. 194, Clement of Alexandria stated that “from the Lord’s birth to the death of [the emperor] Commodus comprises 194 years one month and thirteen days” (Miscellanies[Stromateis] 1:21:145:5). Calculating backwards from the assassination of Commodus on December 31, 192, that would put the birth of Christ on November 18, 3 B.C.

Clement also reports there were some who held it occurred on the twenty-fifth of the Egyptian month of Pachon, which would correspond to May 20 of that year (1:21:145:6).

He further reports that some followers of the Gnostic Basilides said that it was on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of the Egyptian month Pharmouthi, which would point to April 19 or 20 (1:21:146:4).

We thus see that, at the end of the second century, a number of different dates for Jesus’ birth were being proposed.

Around 204, St. Hippolytus of Rome wrote that “the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was eight days before the Kalends of January, the fourth day [i.e., Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year [i.e., 3/2 B.C.]” (Commentary on Daniel 4:23:3). The Kalends was the first day of the month, and eight days before January 1 is December 25.

This is the earliest record we have of Jesus’ birth being December 25. It precedes by seventy years the time the Emperor Aurelian made Sol Invictus a Roman cult, and it precedes by a hundred and fifty years the earliest claimed reference to Sol Invictus being celebrated on December 25—that claim being based on the Chronography of A.D. 354.

Part 6 of the Chronography lists the following for the eighth day before the Kalends of January: “Birthday of the Unconquerable, games ordered, thirty [horse races].” This may well be a reference to a pagan holiday, but since the calendar was composed after the conversion of Constantine, this isn’t entirely certain.

Part 12 of the Chronolography, which is a calendar of the commemoration of martyrs, lists the following: “Eight days before the Kalends of January: Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.”

In 386, St. John Chrysostom preached a homily on December 20—the memorial of St. Philogonius—in which he noted that “the day of Christ’s birth in the flesh” is about to arrive in “a period of five days,” or on December 25 (On the Incomprehensible Nature of God 6:23, 30).

Finally, around 408, St. Augustine writes that “according to tradition he [Jesus] was born on December 25” (The Trinity 4:5).

Although the December 25 tradition was becoming well established, it was not the only one in circulation.

Around 375, St. Epiphanius of Salamis offered an extremely precise reckoning of the birth of Christ, stating: “Christ was born in the month of January, that is, on the eighth before the Ides of January—in the Roman calendar this is the evening of January fifth, at the beginning of January sixth” (Panarion 51:24:1). He also noted that a sect known as the Alogoi held the same date (51:29:2-5).

Ultimately, both December 25 and January 6 found places in the Church’s calendar, with the latter being used to commemorate the visit of the Magi and the baptism of Jesus.

 

Conclusion

Where does all this leave us? On the one hand, the arguments against Jesus being born on December 25 don’t work, and the claim the date was chosen to supplant a pagan celebration is unsupportable. Not only do we find Christians supporting December 25 well before the pagan holiday in question, we also don’t find them saying anything like, “Let’s provide an alternative celebration.” The ones who support December 25 sincerely believe that’s when Jesus was born.

On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t give us enough information to determine Jesus’ birthday, and the tradition in the Church Fathers is mixed, with different dates being proposed.

It has been noted that in the ancient world two of the dates—December 25 and January 6—were sometimes reckoned as the date of the winter solstice, the time when days begin to get longer. Further, the Church Fathers discussed Christ’s birth in terms of light coming into the world, based on Malachi’s prophecy: “For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings” (4:2).

Therefore, it’s possible that the belief Christ was born on a solstice date was based on this prophecy. Alternately, there may have been a memory that Christ was born in the winter, and the specific date was determined based on the prophecy. Or it may be that Christ simply was born on one of these dates, and its conjunction with ancient reckonings of the solstice was a matter of divine providence.

Whatever the case, Christ was born. The sun of righteousness did rise, and “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned” (Matt. 4:16; Isa. 9:2).

Let’s Talk about RCIA – Let’s Talk

As the season for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) begins, Fr. Cory Sticha, Steve Nelson, and Jimmy Akin discuss their own experiences leading others through the process or being a part of it themselves, as well as how it has improved in recent years.

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What’s the Point of All Saints Day?

saintsEvery December, the secular, cultural celebration of Christmas overshadows the religious holiday on which it is based.

Essentially the same thing happens at the end of October, when the way American culture celebrates Halloween overshadows All Saints Day.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with costumes and candy, but in the minds of most people Halloween has become so detached from its religious roots that they have no idea where it comes from.

The old-fashioned word Halloween contributes to this. People may have an inkling that it’s short for “All Hallows Eve,” but that doesn’t help much—because they don’t know what a hallow is or what it means to celebrate the eve of something.

English has an unusual double vocabulary, with many words based on Latin roots but others based on German roots. That’s why we have two words for so many things. One example is cat (derived from a German root) and feline (derived from a Latin root). The word hallow belongs to one of these German/Latin pairs. But it’s much less familiar to us than the parallel word from Latin: saint.

Hallow comes from the same root as holy, and a person who is hallowed is a saint—someone who has been sanctified or made holy. Thus in the Lord’s Prayer we say “Hallowed be thy name.” If we said that in using words derived from Latin, it would be something like, “Let your name be sanctified”—i.e., may people treat God’s name as something holy and thus honor the holiness of God himself.

The –een part of Halloween is similarly old-fashioned. “E’en” is a contraction of the word even, an older way of saying “evening.” Halloween is thus “All hallows e’en” or “the evening of All Saints Day,” and it came to be celebrated as an early anticipation of the day that followed, the same way people celebrate Christmas Eve in anticipation of Christmas Day.

But why celebrate All Saints Day in the first place? Some of our Protestant friends object to the Catholic custom of celebrating certain saints and giving them special attention. Aware that there are liturgical days commemorating individual saints, they want to know why there aren’t celebrations for all the other people in heaven.

After all, in Revelation John describes the population of heaven this way:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9-10).

Don’t all those other people deserve recognition, too?

The answer is that they do, and this is why we have All Saints Day. Since there are only 365 days in the year, not every person in heaven can have his own liturgical commemoration, but they all should be recognized for the way they cooperated with God’s grace. Thus All Saints Day was created to commemorate every last individual in heaven, even those who salvation is known to God alone.

So if your departed grandmother is in heaven, even though she’s never been canonized, on All Saints Day the Catholic Church commemorates her and the work God did in her life. She, too, has a place in the liturgical calendar, alongside the more famous saints.

Precisely when that day occurs will depend which liturgical calendar you are using.

In many Eastern Catholic Churches, the commemoration of all the saints is held on the Sunday after Pentecost, which has a certain logic since Pentecost was the event that led to the evangelization of the world and the salvation of so many souls.

In the West, November 1 became the date on which all the saints are commemorated. Sometimes people will try to tarnish this with pagan associations, claiming that it was based on the Gaelic holiday Samhain, as celebrated in the British Isles.

But All Saints Day didn’t originate in the British Isles. The reason November 1 was picked is that Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to all the saints and fixed its anniversary as November 1.

Later, Pope Gregory IV (827-844) extended this celebration to the whole of the Western Church. This led to the commemoration of the evening before as All Hallows Eve, and it led to the following day—November 2—being celebrated as All Souls Day, when we pray for all the souls who are still being purified on their way to heaven.

Though we disagree about various matters, both Catholics and Protestants say the Apostles’ Creed, and when we do so we profess belief in “the communion of saints.” The celebration of All Saints Day is one of the ways Catholics live out this profession.

All Saints Day came to be a very important liturgical day, and today it is a holy day of obligation, meaning that Catholics must observe it by going to Mass, as they do on Sundays.

This makes All Saints different than the commemorations of individual saints. None of the saints living after biblical times are commemorated with holy days of obligation. However famous saints like Augustine, Aquinas, and Thérèse of Lisieux may be, they don’t have such an important day on the liturgical calendar.

But the whole body of the saints in heaven—sainted grandmothers included—do. The Catholic Church thus not only remembers individual saints; it takes seriously it’s profession of the entire communion of saints.

Pluck Out Your Eye?

 

Discern_vol4_no3_fb_if-your-right-eye-causes-you-to-sinSunday, September 30, is the Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Mass Readings: Numbers 11:25-29, Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14, James 5:1-6, Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

* * *

This Sunday’s readings have two prominent themes. The first is that God can work outside of expected, formal situations.

We see this in the reading from Numbers, where God takes some of the spirit he gave to Moses and endows seventy elders with it. Two of the elders—Eldad and Medad—weren’t present for the ceremony, yet God gave them the spirit as well, and they prophesied. Upon learning this, Joshua asked Moses to stop them—perhaps implying that they were delinquent in not coming to the ceremony and therefore had no right to prophecy. But Moses took a more generous attitude and said he could wish all of God’s people were prophets.

Something similar happens in the Gospel, where the disciples report to Jesus that they told an exorcist to stop driving out demons in Jesus’ name because “he does not follow us.” Jesus, too, took a more generous attitude, telling them, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

This shows us that, out of his love, God can bestow his grace and work miracles, even outside of the situations you’d expect. It also shows us that, when he does so, we should take a generous attitude toward it—an important lesson for us and the ecumenical situation we face today.

The second theme deals with sin. St. James warns his readers—particularly rich ones who have exploited the poor—that their comeuppance will arrive. They have indeed, “stored up treasure for the last days,” but not in the way they thought! “Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud.” Exploitative landowners have actually accumulated a “wealth” of judgment.

To keep such judgment from happening to us, Jesus tells us we must deal decisively with sin. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off”; “and if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off”; “and if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” This is a classic example of hyperbole, or exaggeration to make a point. Jesus doesn’t intend us to literally make ourselves blind, lame, or handless. Doing those things wouldn’t actually deal with the problem, since—as he elsewhere says—sin actually proceeds from our hearts, our inner selves. Instead, his point is that we must do whatever it takes to deal effectively with sin.

Part of that effort is prayer. We need God’s help to overcome our innate, sinful tendencies. His grace is what allows us to conquer them. We will make mistakes, even unintentionally, without being aware of it. Thus the Psalmist praises God’s commandments and says, “though your servant is careful of them, very diligent in keeping them, yet who can detect failings? Cleanse me from my unknown faults!”

At the same time, God can empower us so that we avoid mortal sin. Thus the Psalmist also prays, “From wanton sin especially, restrain your servant; let it not rule over me. Then shall I be blameless and innocent of serious sin.” This should ever be our prayer, so we lay up real treasure for the last days.

“Let’s Take Him Down a Peg”

 

Sunday, September 23, is the Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Mass Readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20, Psalm 54:3-6, 8, James 3:16-4:3, Mark 9:30-37

a-jesus-in-trial-before-the-roman-empire_0* * *

By God’s design, human beings are social rather than solitary creatures. We need to live in society with other humans, and that means we need to pay attention to our status and reputation, to make sure we have a safe and stable place in society.

Under the influence of sin, this natural need becomes distorted. It leads to envy, blind ambition, and conflict. Thus St. James warns us: “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice”; “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions?”

When we sense that someone is getting ahead of us, there can be a sinful desire to “take him down a peg,” to reduce his status as a way of elevating our own, so that we can feel better about ourselves. The author of Wisdom shows us this thought process playing out in the minds of the wicked as they consider the righteous: “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law.” That impulse can even lead the wicked to have murderous designs against the just one: “Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”

This contains a Messianic prophecy, for precisely such envy would lead the authorities to plot Jesus’ death. Thus in this week’s Gospel, we find him again predicting: “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”

Jesus’ disciples were perplexed and too afraid to ask him to explain this. What they didn’t realize is that they were falling into the same trap as the authorities. As they walked along the road, they argued about which among them was the greatest. Jesus had offered them secure, even honored places in God’s new society—but they weren’t content with these and petty place seeking began among the Twelve.

Jesus confronted them with their selfish ambition and taught them that “if anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Rather than being built on ambition and narcissism, God’s new society would be built on humility, service, and love.

At points in our lives, all of us have been victims of people who want to humiliate us. All of us have been able to say, with the Psalmist, “O God, hear my prayer; hearken to the words of my mouth. For the haughty men have risen up against me.”

God knows our need to have a safe and stable place in society. He knows we need to be concerned about our reputations. But we must keep our sinful tendencies in check and not give in to pride. We must seek to serve others, and—above all—we must not seek to humiliate them just so we can think better of ourselves.

What Would Jesus Do?—Are You Sure?

 

wwjdSunday, September 16, is the Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Mass Readings: Isaiah 50:5-9, Psalm 116:1-6, 8-9, James 2:14-18, Mark 8:27-35

* * *

We’ve all seen those bracelets that say, “What would Jesus do?” This question can be a helpful reminder of our need to use Jesus as a reference point and to follow the example of our Lord. That’s the theme of Thomas a Kempis’s spiritual classic The Imitation of Christ.

It’s also a welcome point of agreement with our separated brethren. In fact, “What would Jesus do?” has been particularly popular in the Protestant community, initially being popularized by the nineteenth century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon and the Congregationalist author Charles Sheldon and his novel In His Steps.

Though the subject of faith and works has long been contentious between Catholics and Protestants, both recognize—with St. James—the need to put our faith into practice: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works;” “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

While “What would Jesus do?” is an important question to ask, it comes with a huge caveat. There’s a well-known saying in biblical studies: “By their Lives of Christ ye shall know them.” What this means is that scholars tend to write biographies of Jesus that essentially remake him in the image that the author prefers. Marxist scholars envision a Marxist Jesus; politically conservative scholars see a politically conservative Jesus; etc.

There’s an example of just that phenomenon in this Sundays’ Gospel reading. When Jesus declares that he will be rejected by the authorities, killed, and rise on the third day, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” The prince of the apostles couldn’t imagine such things happening to Jesus—who Peter had just, correctly, identified as God’s long awaited Messiah. The Life of Christ that Peter was envisioning would have had an entirely different ending!

Peter must have been shocked when Jesus, in full view of the other disciples, rebuked him in turn, saying, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Indeed, Jesus was determined to perform a different mission than Peter and others had in mind for him. Rather than being a political deliverer who would expel the hated Romans from Israel, he would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah: “I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.”

And yet Jesus would also emerge from the grave, fulfilling the prophecy of the Psalms: “For he has freed my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”

None of this was imaginable to Peter or his fellow disciples, and it reveals to us that—when we ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”—we need to ask follow-up questions: “How sure am I that I really understand what Jesus would do? Am I recasting him in my own image, just rationalizing what I want to do? Am I thinking like men rather than God?”

 

God’s Compassion for the Disadvantaged

 

compassionSunday, September 9, is the Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Mass Readings: Isaiah 35:4-7, Psalm 146:6-10, James 2:1-5, Mark 7:31-37

* * *

In this Sunday’s Gospel, we read the story of a deaf man. Because he couldn’t hear properly, he also couldn’t properly calibrate the way he spoke, and so he had a speech impediment and was hard to understand. Anyone in his situation would find the two conditions painfully frustrating and embarrassing, and though most of us are blessed with good hearing and speech, we’ve all faced the awkwardness and frustration of not understanding others and of not being understood.

Fortunately, Jesus had compassion on the man and healed both his hearing and his speech impediment. This was one of the signs of the Christ, for Isaiah had prophesied that in the Messiah’s day, the deaf would hear and the mute would speak. Not only that, the blind would see and the lame would regain their ability to walk—miracles that Jesus also performed.

The fact Jesus did these miracles reveals his identity as the Messiah, the Savior that God had promised centuries beforehand. The miracles also reveal something else: God’s compassion for the disadvantaged. God knows the pain and frustration of all who are disadvantaged—whether they are blind, deaf, mute, lame, or anything else. This is why the Psalms say that God “secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets captives free.”

God’s compassion extends to everyone, no matter what disadvantages they face. Thus he “raises up those who were bowed down” and “protects strangers”—those travelling in foreign lands, who face hostility and have no support network to sustain them. In the ancient world, many men died young, leaving their children and wives alone, but “the fatherless and the widow the Lord sustains.”

Few things are certain in life, and we must not presume that we will always have the advantages that we do now. Because we won’t. One day we all will face hardship—whether it’s due to the death of a loved one, an illness, an accident, or a financial reversal. One day all of us will be disadvantaged in some way.

We must share God’s compassion for the disadvantaged, for one day all of us will need it ourselves. Among other things, this means that we must not show favoritism. St. James warns us against giving preferential treatment to the rich and well-advantaged. In the first century church, that might mean telling a rich, finely dressed man, “Sit here, please,” while telling a poor, shabbily dressed man, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet.”

By doing these things, we would set ourselves up as judges who look only at temporary, outward appearances—at fortunate or unfortunate circumstances that frequently are beyond the control of the person who experiences them. But God has compassion on everyone, regardless of their circumstances, and we need to show a corresponding, universal compassion on everyone.

After all, difficult days are coming our way. All of us will face hardship in the future. All of us will need to be shown compassion by others. And all of us will be grateful when we receive it. Let us show it to others today.

Religion, Relationship, and Ritual

religion-relationshipSunday, September 2, is the Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B). Mass Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8, Psalms 15:2-5, James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

* * *

Sometimes we hear people running down the concept of religion. “Jesus didn’t come to bring us a religion,” they say, “but he wants to have a relationship with us.” Other times we hear people say they are “spiritual” but not “religious.” Both of these are based on an impoverished understanding of what religion is—as if it simply consisted of unimportant rituals or arbitrary doctrines.

But real religion involves neither of these. It doesn’t contain arbitrary doctrines but truths that have been revealed by God. It also involves genuine relationships with God, with Christ, and with our fellow human beings.

Thus St. James tells us that “religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Having a real relationship with God means not only loving him but loving our neighbors as well—especially our less fortunate neighbors.

Yet it is possible to become too focused on external rituals. This happened with Jesus’ critics, who faulted his disciples for not washing their hands before they ate, in violation of the custom of their day. But this custom was not based on God’s teaching. It isn’t found in the Mosaic Law. Jesus thus rebuked his critics for “teaching as doctrines human precepts.”

Like the prophets before him, Jesus made it clear that moral values take precedence over mere ritual observances: “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

This is not to say that rituals are unimportant. Ritual appears in every culture, showing that it’s built into human nature. Thus God gave Israel rituals alongside moral commandments in the Old Testament Law. This Law was a model of wisdom for the people of the ancient near east, and by observing it the Israelites would show “wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’”

God has ordained different rituals for us today, but ritual—together with the moral imperatives that flow from the ethic of love—is an important part of how we relate to God.

Rather than talking down religion, we should recognize and embrace the concept, for it is a biblical one. In doing so, we should embrace the impulse for ritual that God built into human nature, but we should also recognize the transcendent importance of love. This is taught in both the Old and the New Testaments. When Jesus identified the first and second great commandments as love of God and love of neighbor, he was quoting from the Law of Moses.

We thus should “be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.” And we always should strive to be one who “walks blamelessly and does justice; who thinks the truth in his heart,” for “whoever does these things shall never be disturbed.”

Understanding the Ascension of Jesus

Ascension of Christ. 1510-1520. Oil on panel. Image licenced to Amy Jordan CNN PRODUCTIONS by Amy Jordan Usage : - 3000 X 3000 pixels (Letter Size, A4) © Scala / Art Resource

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (May 25, 2017, 1st hour), Jimmy answers the following questions:

1:29 Why is Ascension Thursday a holy day of obligation in some places and not others?

5:30 How do we know the Ascension happened on a Thursday?

7:20 When will we get our glorified bodies?

8:10 How does Jesus’ glorified body work?

9:25 Why didn’t the disciples always recognize Jesus immediately?

17:35 Why does the Gospel of Mark end the way it does? Why do Matthew and Luke end differently?

23:45 Where did the Ascension take place?

24:10 Did the disciples go to Galilee (as Matthew and Mark say) to encounter Jesus or did they see him in Jerusalem (as Luke says)?

27:20 Does only Luke mention the Ascension?

28:25 Why does Jesus tell Mary Magdalene not to touch him in relation to the Ascension?

30:30 How are Jesus’ appearances in the 40 days different than his appearances to saints? What about his appearance to St. Paul?

33:05 Why did Jesus ascend? What was the purpose of the Ascension?

36:30 Why did Jesus go *up*? Is heaven *up*? Why is God depicted as being in the sky?

44:35 How do we know Luke didn’t make up the Ascension?

48:38 Who were Luke’s sources? Did they include Peter and Paul themselves?

51:15 When did Christians start proclaiming the Ascension?

51:55 What happened with the two “men in white” at the Ascension? Who were they, and what was their message?