Matthew (2:1-16) and Luke (2:1-20), the Biblical nativity narrators, do not specify the date of Jesus' birth. Still, as Northrop Frye remarks in The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, “The Gospels are not biography.” John (21:25) had already concluded, “And there are many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
The early church did not always take much interest. Origen (c.185-251), indeed, in his commentary on Matthew, deprecated birthday celebrations as pagan and immoral, fit only for the likes of Herod. Eusebius (Church History) was concerned to establish the correct nativity year, but ignored the question of the day. Happily, not all contemporary Christian scholars agreed. Clement of Alexandria came up with May 10. Other spring suggestions included April 2 or 19, and May 20. The anonymous treatise De Pascha Computus (AD 243, once falsely credited to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage) argued for March 28, a bold synthesis of the vernal equinox, the Creation, and Malachai's prophecy (4:2) of the Sun of Righteousness.
The first advocate of December 25 was Sextus Julius Africanus in his Chronicle entry for the year 221. This was both a compliment and a challenge to the Roman Saturnalia festival of that season. Africanus, born in Jerusalem, was an expert in comparative chronologies and world history. We know from the Calendar of Philocalus (a list of bishops, compiled around 354) that this date was established in Rome by 336, about the time Constantine, the first Christian emperor, built the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem. In 354, Pope Liberius ordered that December 25 be celebrated. Gregory Nazianzenus imported this to Constantinople in 379, thus harmonizing the New Rome with the old. Likewise, in his Nativity sermon of 386, John Chrysostom introduced it into Antioch, while elsewhere Gregory of Nyssa was promoting it in his Nativity sermon preached on the very same day. Egypt fell into line in 431, Jerusalem in 549. Its strongest rival, January 6 (conflating Nativity with Epiphany) was slow to yield in Syria, and still holds good in the Armenian Church.
Modern sceptics, both academic and amateur Internet bloggers, decry Luke's account of the watching shepherds. They would not be out in the winter cold, it was not lambing time, the sheep would be in their cotes. A better question is: where did Luke (Matthew does not have it) get this story? It is artistically well crafted. His Greek for “watching shepherds” (poimenes agraulountes — this verb only here in the New Testament) reflects knowledge of poimenes agrauloi in Homer (Iliad) and (more to the point) Hesiod, Birth of the Gods, where the Muses appear to the poet. But, Luke does not mention lambs. The shepherds were simply “guarding their flocks,” conceivably against wild animals or rustlers, two common menaces. Also, lambing is not confined to the spring. Sheep give birth in any season — I well remember this from my Northern English upbringing. Various Internet sites quote professional ovine scientists for the nutritional advantages of keeping grazing animals outside, which releases the shepherds from the unpleasant and time-consuming task of cleaning out the cotes.
Hence, this lam(b)entable modernism is no bar to a winter birthday for the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
Modern skeptics also debunk the very different nativities of Matthew (2:1-16) and Luke (2:1-20). No cause for alarm. Both represent their very personal impressions of Jesus. It is notable that it should be Matthew, if his really was the first Gospel, and Luke, the first Christian to write in terms of classical historiography, witnessed by his preface and similar opening to Acts. Between them, Matthew's Oriental slant and Luke's Roman one create complementary, not rival, traditions, similar to the Aeneas-Trojan/Romulus-Italian dichotomy for Rome's foundation. The physician Luke was naturally drawn to a pregnant woman in difficulties and an extraordinary birth. But why no fiscal details in Matthew, a former tax-collector? Perhaps to forget when he was one of the “publicans and sinners.”
Mary and Joseph naturally wished Christ to be born in Bethlehem, as prophesied by Micah (5:2) and emphasized by Eusebius (1:8). Matthew says only that it was the place of birth, quite compatible with Luke. Modern preferences for Nazareth over Bethlehem rest on misunderstandings of Mark 1:9 and John 7:41, texts representing contemporary debates over the Messiah Christ's Galilaean versus Davidian credentials.
The Magi were seers. Their regal Christmas carol status comes via Tertullian's dubbing them “almost kings” (fere reges). They had traditional genealogical expertise and influence over Eastern monarchs. If Matthew (in one tradition) died in Persia, he would have local interest and knowledge. It makes sense that Herod would use them as spies: en route to Bethlehem, they would be less feared there than his own men. Their failure to return showed their news would not be to his liking, hence the Massacre of the Innocents.
Herod the Great (d. 4 BC) might be chronologically awkward. But there is son and successor Herod Antipas available — nothing to choose between them in villainy.
A guiding star suited the prophetic Numbers 24:17. Heavenly bodies are frequent in ancient history, secular and religious. A comet, perhaps Halley's, attended the murder and funeral of Julius Caesar. Byzantine chronicler John Malalas reported the 20-day stay of a Western one. Over the last few years (see the computer program Skyglobe), astronomers have suggested convergences of Jupiter and Mars/ Jupiter and Venus/ Jupiter and Saturn, causing Northern Lights intensification, as the source of the Nativity Star. And the DO aquilae star reported by Chinese observers as newly shining for 70 days in 5 BC gives reason for another candidate for the Nativity year. Bethlehem was five miles south of Jerusalem, any distance was long in ancient travel, the Magi needed guidance in a strange land, and Matthew's Greek text need only mean it illuminated the right town, not the right building.
“There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.” This King James' translation misleads: the Greek apographesthai strictly means to be registered as eligible for taxation and other things. Augustus' official autobiography mentions three censuses (28 BC, 8 BC, AD 14). Others are possible, to fit a particular circumstance such as the annexation of Judaea in AD 6. His scantily documented reign means no modern can be sure who was doing what, where, when.
“This taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.” Northrop Frye (“Such historical pointers are more embarrassing than helpful”) and others solve the detail by disregarding it. Luke is notably punctilious with his Roman administrative details (witness his intricate next chapter on John the Baptist) and, if as widely thought, he came from Syria, he would have been especially interested in this matter.
Cyrenius is generally identified with Publius Sulpicius Qurinius, known from Josephus' Jewish Antiquities and an inscription to have been in charge of Judaea's annexation in AD 6. Thanks to military victories in Cyrene, he was eligible in characteristic Roman style to add Cyrenius to his three regular names.
Malalas — as is generally ignored — mentions a consul of 2 BC called Cyrenius, adding that the “irascible” Augustus's census caused great fear; Josephus says it provoked a major anti-Roman uprising led by Judas of Galilee, not formally part of the new Judaea but still answerable to Rome. The census itself might have introduced new rules for this enumeration of the newly-annexed and (viewed from Rome) refractory population. Making the inhabitants do the travelling, whatever the season, would be administratively convenient and Romanly symbolic. As Disraeli remarked of a similar British imperial moment, “In my day these people came to me.”
