Putting the X back in Xmas

Steve wrote:
On 15 Nov 2006 12:46:57 -0800, "
wrote:

You might want to do a little research first:


30 years before Aurelian co-opted December 25th in 274 AD, Hippolytus
wrote that Jesus' birth "took place eight days before the kalends of
January," that is, Dec. 25.

St. John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, wrote that
Christians had marked Dec. 25 from the early days of the church.
Chrysostom also noted that Luke 1 says Zechariah was performing
priestly duty in the Temple when an angel told his wife Elizabeth she
would bear John the Baptist. During the sixth month of Elizabeth's
pregnancy, Mary learned about her conception of Jesus and visited
Elizabeth.
The significance of that has been explained by William Tighe in a Time
magazine article; "The 24 classes of Jewish priests served one week in
the Temple, and Zechariah was in the eighth class. Rabbinical
tradition fixed the class on duty when the Temple was destroyed in
A.D. 70 and, calculating backward from that, Zechariah's class would
have been serving Oct. 2-9 in 5 B.C. So Mary's conception visit six
months later might have occurred the following March and Jesus' birth
nine months afterward."

Sextus Julius Africanus' Chronografiai placed Christ's conception on
March 25th. No one knows when he wrote Chronografiai, but it covers
"history" up until 221, and he was dead by 250 AD.

Judaism teachs that Israel's great prophets died the same day as their
conception. Given the Christian belief that Gabriel announced during
Passover to Mary that she would give birth, and adding 9 months, well,
there we are.

Your theory that Saturnalia was co-opted by a religious group who
recognized December 25th as a significant date somewhere between 30
and 269 years before Saturnalia existed is hard to follow.

Is it hard to follow if Saturnalia was being practiced several
centuries before anyone was a christian?

"Horace in his Satire II.7 (published circa 30 BC) uses a setting of
the saturnalia for a frank exchange between a slave and his master in
which the slave criticises his master for being himself enslaved to his
passions."

" In the Roman calendar, the Saturnalia was designated a holy day, or
holiday, on which religious rites were performed. After sacrifice at
the temple, there was a public banquet, which Livy says was introduced
in 217 BC."

" In Cicero's time, the Saturnalia lasted seven days, from December
17-23. Augustus attempted to limit the holiday to three days, so the
civil courts would not have to be closed any longer than necessary, and
Caligula extended it to five. "

Cicero - 106-43 BC
Catullus - 84-54 BC
Horus - 65 - 8 BC
Augustus - 64 BC - 14 AD
Livy - 59 BC - 17 AD

Things that make you go....hmmmmmm?
- Ken