And if any shall think the winter wind was not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the gospel, 'Pray that your flight be not in the winter.' If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to lie in the fields in, and women and children to travel in." Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties * that the day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined, ** and that within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. * Archdeacon WOOD, in Christian Annotator, LORIMER's Manual of Presbytery. Lorimer quotes Sir Peter King, who, in his Enquiry into the Worship of the Primitive Church, &c., infers that no such festival was observed in that Church, and adds--"It seems improbably that they should celebrate Christ's nativity when they disagreed about the month and the day when Christ was born." See also Rev. J. RYLE, in his Commentary on Luke, who admits that the time of Christ's birth is uncertain, although he opposes the idea that the flocks could not have been in the open fields in December, by an appeal to Jacob's complaint to Laban, "By day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night." Now the whole force of Jacob's complaint against his churlish kinsman lay in this, that Laban made him do what no other man would have done, and, therefore, if he refers to the cold nights of winter (which, however, is not the common understanding of the expression), it proves just the opposite of what it is brought by Mr. Ryle to prove--viz., that it was not the custom for shepherds to tend their flocks in the fields by night in winter. ** GIESELER, CHRYSOSTOM (Monitum in Hom. de Natal. Christi), writing in Antioch about AD 380, says: "It is not yet ten years since this day was made known to us". "What follows," adds Gieseler, "furnishes a remarkable illustration of the ease with which customs of recent date could assume the character of apostolic institutions." Thus proceeds Chrysostom: "Among those inhabiting the west, it was known before from ancient and primitive times, and to the dwellers from Thrace to Gadeira [Cadiz] it was previously familiar and well-known," that is, the birth-day of our Lord, which was unknown at Antioch in the east, on the very borders of the Holy Land, where He was born, was perfectly well-known in all the European region of the west, from Thrace even to Spain!
How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ.