Christmas being a popular holiday, thrills many. Expectation runs high as the day gradually approaches. However, JWs, like few other Christians are opposed to the celebration. Their major reason being that the celebration has a pagan religious origin and still retains that religious significance. But does Christmas have a pagan origin?

The short answer is, no one knows for sure, what we do know is that neither Jesus nor his early disciples celebrated Christmas. That celebration had not developed back then like having church buildings, operating a multi billion dollar corporation, attending christian conventions have not developed among christians that time. On the aspect of the pagan origin, the story that is popular is that Emperor Constantine established December 25 to be a new day to commemorate the birth of Christ to christianize the pagan's sacred day, and thus entice pagans. The Encyclopedia Britannica puts it this way:

“One widespread explanation of the origin of this date is that December 25 was the Christianizing of the dies solis invicti nati (“day of the birth of the unconquered sun”), a popular holiday in the Roman Empire that celebrated the winter solstice as a symbol of the resurgence of the sun, the casting away of winter and the heralding of the rebirth of spring and summer.”

This theory, though popular, doesn't have any support from the early christians themselves. None of the Apostolic Fathers says that they did shift the date to coincide with pagan holiday. How then did this idea start to be popular?

An article in the biblical archaeology helps us with the answer:

“... It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.”

The idea is further encouraged by the Christmas traditions that many link to pagan root. So since it appears that christians borrow Christmas tradition from pagan root, one can understand why the theory sailed for years.

However, there seem to be challenges to this idea as recent studies are beginning to show. One of the challenges is mentioned by encyclopedia Britannica. It says:

“One of the difficulties with this view is that it suggests a nonchalant willingness on the part of the Christian church to appropriate a pagan festival when the early church was so intent on distinguishing itself categorically from pagan beliefs and practices.”

In other words, as at the time this December 25 is recognized to have been a celebration of Christ's birth in Rome, around 336 C.E, the church Fathers are rather distinguishing themselves from pagan practices. This would have been a point pagan would use to show that christians were rather becoming like them had this theory been the case. A second weakness of this view is that this December 25 celebration was not done in Constantinople until 380. That would have been strange had this theory been true. How could Constantine not introduce such a feast to his own city till that time? This would be around 50 years after the establishment of Constantinople.

In fact the work of Steven Hijmans in the iconography of the Sun in Roman Religion is currently the major attack on the whole theory. Although time is needed for more debate on the findings of Steven Hijmans among scholars, but till his findings gets defeated and the above mentioned challenges gets knocked down, this theory of a pagan root for Christmas needs to rest. The theory is as a matter of fact known as History of Religions theory (HRT).

There is a second theory gaining attention, however. A theory heralded by Thomas Talley. It is called the Calculation Theory. The encyclopedia Britannica says of it:

“A second view suggests that December 25 became the date of Jesus’ birth by a priori reasoning that identified the spring equinox as the date of the creation of the world and the fourth day of creation, when the light was created, as the day of Jesus’ conception (i.e., March 25). December 25, nine months later, then became the date of Jesus’ birth. For a long time the celebration of Jesus’ birth was observed in conjunction with his baptism, celebrated January 6.”

So light was created in March 25, according to this calculation. This, as the thought goes, means that Jesus the light was conceived by Mary in March 25. Nine months later, December 25th, Jesus was born. Does that sound unreasonable to you? Yes it is, but that's the method used in ancient times by some christians. Not all however arrived at the same date, as we shall see later.

The earliest mention of December 25 as the date Jesus was born is in 221 CE by Sextus Africanus. In a biblical archaeology article TC Schmidt is said to believe that Hippolytus associated Jesus birth to be around December 25. And Hippolytus incription used to support this is dated around 222 CE.

Commenting further on the different dates available in ancient times, the biblical archaeology article on TC Schmidt continues:

“... The early church fathers’ calendrical calculations of Jesus’s conception resulted in the date.


The early church fathers believed that Jesus was conceived on Passover and born nine months later. However, they differed in their dates for Passover, which is calculated on the lunar calendar. This resulted in a variety of dates for Christ of dates for Christmas, one of which was December 25.”

So the Calculation Theory posits that the December 25 didn't first issue from pagans. This view seem to gain support since the pagan celebration of December 25 began in 274 CE, when Emperor Aurelian established that feast for the birth of Sol Invictus. However, we see the date already being arrived at prior to that date using a method they knew back then.

It should also be noted that the History of Religion's Theory agrees that the celebration of Christ's birth had already been part of the feast of Epiphany before it was separated from that feast to a different date, December 25. That shows that there had been a celebration of the birth of Christ even before the claimed shift to December 25. That alone helps us see the weakness of pagan origin for the celebration of Jesus birth. The only point the HRT can argue is the December 25 date, not the celebration. Even the December 25 too has a major opposing argument against it. Not to forget that while churches in the west is seen to have moved the date to December 25, the churches in the East kept their Christmas celebration on January 6, while some on 19th. So if the HRT is true, how come we have those who celebrate Christmas on January 6 and 19th as far back as fourth century?

Another important destructive point to consider is the one made by Talley himself. His findings showed that Constantine was not based in Rome during the period following the council of Nicea. And this period was essential to the syncretism argued by the HRT.

Professor Susan K. Roll, who is a major proponent of HRT puts it this way:

“The major contribution made by Talley to the question of Constantine's influence on the institution of the Christmas feast in Rome is simply the recognition that Constantine was not based in Rome in the years following the council of Nicea, the decisive period for the establishment of Christmas according to the “solar syncretism” theory.”
Towards The Origins of Christmas (footnote)

So we can see that although many Christmas customs issue from pagans, they are hardly the originators of this feast.

There is no reason therefore to judge others who may chose to celebrate this occasion. You might chose not to celebrate it, that's your decision. In as much as the focus is on Christ and not engaging in worldly behaviors, one with strong faith can celebrate. Finally, let's heed the bible advise at ROM 14:

1Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand."