The first Christmas

[jake-the-peg]

No not all that tommy rot about the ox and the ass and the wise men.

The real first Christmas - the first time that December 25th was used to celebrate Jesus' birth.

When was it? who decided to do it and who was there?

Anybody know? I see some reference to 440AD surely it's not that late!

[naomi24]

According to this from Wiki, it was just a little ealier - but not much.

The earliest reference to the celebration of the nativity on December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome.

And here's more about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronography_of_3 54

[jno]

remember Christianity was suppressed for centuries; where it was celebrated, people would have been wise not to talk about it. Given the randomness of surviving records on most topics from those days, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't buy that jno

Constantine made Christianity the official Roman Religion in 313

And there's plenty of history of the early church and history of Easter in the second century

[brionon]

jno-You mean, christians suppressed all other religions,don't you ?

[ruby27]

According to what I can find on the internet

"the 6th century monk Dionysius Exiguus created the B.C./A.D. system of dating based on the birthdate of Christ. His calculations were not very good. Dionysius had Christ born on December 25, 1 B.C"

That makes it even later