Christmas

Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a holiday in the Christian calendar, usually observed on December 25, which celebrates the birth of Jesus. According to the Christian gospels, Jesus was born to Mary in Bethlehem, where she and her husband Joseph had traveled to register in the Roman census. Christ's birth, or nativity, was said by his followers to fulfill the prophecies of Judaism that a messiah would come, from the house of David, to redeem the world from sin. Early Christians celebrated more the subsequent Epiphany, when the baby Jesus was visited by the Magi (and this is still a primary time for celebration in Spain). Efforts to assign a date for his birth began some centuries later. The precise chronology of Jesus' birth and death as well as the historicity of Jesus are still debated.

Notes

1.{{note|Note1}} David van Biema, "Behind the First Noel", Time magazine, Dec.13, 2004, pp.49-61.

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2.{{note|Note2}} The 8th-century English historian Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastic History of the English People") contains a letter from Pope Gregory I to Saint Mellitus, who was then on his way to England to conduct missionary work among the heathen Anglo-Saxons. The Pope suggests that converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards the one true God instead of to their pagan gods (whom the Pope refers to as "devils"), "to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God". http://www.englishheathenism.homestead.com/popesletter.html The Pope sanctions such conversion tactics as Biblically acceptable, pointing out that God did much the same thing with the ancient Israelites and their pagan sacrifices.

Related Topics:
8th-century - English - Bede - Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum - Pope - Gregory I - Saint Mellitus - Heathen - Anglo-Saxon - Israelite

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3.{{note|Note3}} After Oliver Cromwell's Puritans took over England in 1645, the observance of Christmas was prohibited in 1652 as part of a Puritan effort to rid the country of decadence. This proved unpopular, and when Charles II was restored to the throne, he restored the celebration. The Pilgrims, a group of Puritanical English separatists who came to North America in 1620, also disapproved of Christmas, and as a result it was not a holiday in New England. The celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed from 1659 to 1681 in Boston, a prohibition enforced with a fine of five shillings. The English of the Jamestown settlement and the Dutch of New Amsterdam, on the other hand, celebrated the occasion freely. Christmas fell out of favor again after the American Revolution, as it was considered an "English custom." Interest was revived by Washington Irving's Christmas stories, German immigrants, and the homecomings of the Civil War years. December 25 was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870.

Related Topics:
Oliver Cromwell - 1645 - Charles II - Pilgrims - 1620 - New England - 1659 - 1681 - Jamestown - New Amsterdam - American Revolution - Washington Irving - Civil War - June 26 - 1870

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4.{{note|Note4}} In Stromateis, I, xxi in P.G., VIII, 888.

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