This question has been a lingering annoyance for years. No one I’ve talked to know the answer and the research I have done has been fruitless. If we number our years since the birth of Christ, and Christmas is the birth of Christ, why aren’t Christmas and New Years the same day? When our ancestors were compiling our modern calendar, why did they space them one week apart?
On a related note, Christmas was arbitrarily assigned to usurp the pagan Yule/winter solstice celebrations. Since the winter solstice is the 21st of December our calendar, why didn’t they “shift” the calendar up 11 days to make the new year/Christ’s birth coincide with the solstice. In other words, why is what we see on the calendar as Dec 21 not the first of January? I know this may be confusing, but I not coming up with the right words tonight (I’m tired).
The assignment of December 25 to represent the birthday of Jesus was not solidified for many years, with the earliest recorded attempts occurring in the late fourth century. Other dates that had been proposed included January 6, May 20, April 19 or 20, March 28, and several less well known dates. Researching these various dates, we find that the May 20 date was described in the literature as 25th of Pachon while April 19/20 was identified as Pharmuthi 24/25 (all in the Egyptian calendar). In other words, the dates assigned were determined within existing calendars. The December 25 date happens to be based on the Roman Julian calendar adopted by the Western Church and later updated as the Gregorian calendar. The Julian and Gregorian calendars into which the Nativity was inserted were established calendars that already had their own New Year. Thus, choosing December 25 for the birth day did not affect January 1 as the New Year. (We won’t even get into the various modifications that had March (either 21 or 28) assuming the role of New Year in different countries at different times).
Suffice it to say that the Nativity was assigned a date on an existing calendar and Wesern Europe has tended to leave it on that date for the past 1500 years or so.
Oh, and it is also worth noting that the assignment of our calendar to a date associated (incorrectly) with the birth of Jesus did not occur until calculated (erroneously) by Dionysius Exiguus in the early sixth century. (Dionysius actually calculated the birth of Jesus on March 25.)
I guess what I’m asking is this: If December 25 was an arbitrary assignment for the birth of Jesus, why not assign January 1 so the birth of Christ would be “in sync” with our reckoning of years?
Because that was not as important to the people who were assigning dates.
They had an existing calendar. Some of them had a desire to set a date for the birth of Jesus. (There were also people who felt that the Nativity should not be recognized.) They looked around and tried to figure a “good” date for the Nativity, coming up with several alternatives, with December 25 winning in the West
When Dionysius tried to reckon the year in which Jesus was born, he was not attempting to set a start date for the existing calendar. To the extent that anyone wanted a universal calendar, they already had the founding of Rome. (At that time, years were more likely to be reckoned, locally, by the date of the emperor’s or local king’s ascension to the throne. ) It was only long after the dates for Christmas and the presumed year of the birth of Jesus had been set that people began using that calculated year as a universal reckoning point. By then, all the dates (and years) were already established.
When people began using the tag Anno Domini (Year of the Lord) on dates, Christmas was firmly established on December 25 and New Year’s had been the beginning of the year for several hundred years before that (except where someone chose to use a March date to change the “year” notation–while leaving the “New Year” feast on January 1).
Was it “our reckoning of years” at the time the date was chosen?
I understand, reading this thread, that the date was picked during the late roman empire. In which case, I assume years wouldn’t have been calculated since the birth of Jesus but still “Ab Urbe Condita” : since the foundation of Rome.
That makes sense. I was looking at it from a rational/logical point-of-view, and hadn’t really considered “just because.” I know that the calendar has been revised and tweeked umpteen times in the last 2000 years for leap days and what-not. I just wondered why during one of the more massive revisions, no one thought to “tidy-up” a bit regarding those dates. My heartfelt thanks to all for helping me to put my mind at ease.
The idea the year should start on January 1 was apparently started by Julius Casear with his calendar(about 45BC as we would now call it.) From that point the start date changed in various ways but that seems to be where we first got it.
When Dionysius came into the picture 500 or so years later, the idea of Christmas being December 25 apparently was already out there. For some reason, based upon what he was doing, he wanted to count from Jesus’s birth but made the count retaining December 25 and January 1 exactly one week later being “1”. He probably made a 4-7 year mistake in the year count, based upon some known events relative to the accounts of Jesus. Jesus was more likely born 4-7BC our calendar than one week before year 1.
We seem to have a lot of dates floating round here (and a stray fig ;))
New Year’s Day in England was officially March 25 until 1752 when it was altered to January 1.
You are correct. I was looking at a different site that had made a(n erroneous) claim that Dionysius had not favored a December 25 Nativity and posted the Incarnation as Nativity in error.
Indeed, the year originally began in March for the Romans. That’s why SEPTember, OCTober, NOVember and DECember are named as they are - they were originally the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months. The beginning of the year was moved officially to the beginning of January in Julius Caesar’s time because consuls took office in January, and years were named for the consul currently serving, so January was already the de-facto start of the year in government circles. Many of the outlying provinces did not adopt the change, and continued to start the year in March, changing at various points in history. England changed to starting the year on Jan 1 at the same time they adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which has lead to some people thinking that the Jan 1 change is somehow part of the Gregorian reform - it is not.
