It would not be impossible, and certainly would not be surprising, if Gregory’s expulsion also imperilled his new institution, and that the festival of Christ’s Nativity would have to be re-introduced. At any rate, a late and not very reliable writer, though one not to be passed over in this connection, speaks of the emperor Honorius as having been the means of introducing the feast of Christmas at Constantinople. On the occasion of a visit to Constantinople he persuaded his mother and his brother Arcadius to celebrate the feast of Christmas, and in the Roman manner.[296] This must have taken place after the year 395.
In Cappadocia the separation of the two feasts, Epiphany and Christmas, had been effected in 380, at least as far as Nyssa was concerned. For Gregory of Nyssa, in his funeral oration on Basil, speaks of the festival of Christ’s birth as well established.[297] He says the same in his two sermons for the feast of St Stephen.
With regard to the circumstances connected with the introduction of the festival at Antioch, we are fully informed by St Chrysostom in a sermon he preached there on the 20th December 386.[298]
The festival had been known in Antioch for about ten years already, and a certain party there among the faithful were in the habit of celebrating it publicly, but its official introduction was first effected by Bishop Flavian, who was seconded in this by St John Chrysostom, recently ordained priest in the February of the same year. Chrysostom began his priestly activity with a course of sermons against the thorough-going Arians—the Anomæans. These discourses treat of the nature of God, His incomprehensibility, and triune personality, but the preacher had to interrupt the course from time to time in order to deal with other matters affecting the faithful themselves, such as their superstitious respect for, and imitation of, the Jews and their customs. Some went so far as to regard oaths taken in the synagogue as more sacred and binding than those taken in the church. Many Christians observed the Jewish festivals as well as their own. On this account Chrysostom departed from his first subject and directed his first four sermons against the Jews. Then his eloquence was directed to the task of winning over the faithful of Antioch to the observance of Christmas.
It was on the festival of the Antiochene martyr Philogonius that he announced to his hearers that on the following 25th December Christmas would be celebrated for the first time in the Church of Antioch. The day had been observed in the West from the beginning (ἄνωθεν), but only during the last ten years had the knowledge of it penetrated to Antioch. For his own part, he had for a long time made his prayer in secret that the festival should be kept also in Antioch. He had found many, especially of the lower orders, in favour of it, but many, on the other hand, were opposed, and so the introduction of the festival had been delayed.
The efforts of the great preacher were crowned with success. A very large number of the faithful were present in the church when the new festival was celebrated. The sermon which Chrysostom delivered on the occasion has happily come down to us.[299] In the introduction he says he wished to speak to them himself concerning the festival over which there had been so much controversy in Antioch. Some considered it a mere innovation, but others knew that it was observed in the West from Thrace to Cadiz. This last assertion was an exaggeration, as the next words of Chrysostom themselves show. He says he proposes to commend the feast to the devotion of his hearers on three grounds: first, because the feast has spread with remarkable rapidity, and has met with so much favour in all directions;[300] secondly, because the time of the census taken in the year of Christ’s birth can be determined by ancient documents preserved in Rome; thirdly, the year of our Lord’s birth can be computed from the time of the angel’s appearance to Zachary in the Temple. Zachary, as High Priest, had entered into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. The Jewish Day of Atonement fell in September. Six months afterwards the angel came to Mary, and nine months later Christ was born, i.e. in December. Chrysostom concludes with an attack upon those who do not believe in the incarnation of the Son of God.
All this, however, as far as the determination of the date is concerned, rests upon an insecure foundation. Since Zachary was only an ordinary priest, and not the High Priest, his entry into the Holy of Holies cannot therefore be identified with that of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. But this is of little importance, if on independent grounds these calculations could still point to the month of December, though the 25th need not on this account have been the precise day on which our Lord was born.
When we consider the facts, we see that it was no mere accident that Christmas began to be celebrated in the East just at this particular period, and that its introduction was due to the influence of the great men whom we have named.
It was the moment when Catholics began successfully to repel Arianism; it was just those who attacked Arianism with most vigour and success who promoted the spread of the new festival in the East. We must add to this the evidence afforded by secular enactments. Neither the laws of Valentinian II., nor the revisers of the Codex Theodosianus in 438, nor the Breviarium Alaricianum of 506, regard the 25th December as a festival established by law. It was made to appear for the first time as such by Tribonianus in the Codex Justinianus.[301] From these additional facts, we gather that Christmas was of later introduction in the Church than Easter or Whitsunday. In such matters secular law generally follows the lead of ecclesiastical law. If Christmas had been celebrated in the Church from the beginning, one can see no reason why it should not have enjoyed equal privileges with Easter and Whitsunday. Still there was a law of the Emperor Arcadius as early as 400 which included Christmas among the days on which at least the games of the circus were forbidden.[302]