December 3rd, 2025
Travel back in time with me to the first Christmas – no, not a stable in Bethlehem in 4 B.C. (the likely date of Jesus’ birth), but 336 A.D., in the home of a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus. At this time, the Roman Emperor was not conducting a census of the entire known world (see Luke 2:1); rather, he was presiding over the first authorized gathering of Christian theologians, later known as the Council of Nicaea.
The Chronograph of 354, partly dated to 336 AD, was essentially a picture-book with calendars and other texts, and it records the first known celebration of Christmas. While there are slight indications that Jesus’ birth was celebrated before that time, the majority of evidence supports a clear focus on Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, with very little emphasis on his birth.
In the early 4th century, however, the religious climate had changed. The Roman Empire, now based in northwest Asia Minor, first legalized Christianity and soon after, gave it special status. When Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea, bishops and deacons who had recently experienced persecution probably pinched themselves, wondering if they were dreaming!
A key figure during this time period was the African theologian Athanasius. Athanasius attended the Council of Nicaea as a young man in his late twenties with Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria. Three years later, he assumed the role of bishop in his mentor’s stead.
The background to the Council of Nicaea was the Arian controversy. Arius, another theologian from Northern Africa, taught that Jesus had a beginning in time and was not coeternal with the Father. At Nicaea, he and two others who confessed the same belief were condemned as heretics and sent into exile. Ten years later, though, the debate raged again. Succeeding emperors sided with Arian bishops over those who professed Nicaean orthodoxy. Athanasius experienced death threats, at least three separate exiles, and severe trials for the rest of his life. For this reason, later generations remembered him as Athanasius contra mundum, which means “Athanasius against the world.” Athanasius refused to compromise the truth we celebrate every December 25th.
Athanasius did not decorate a Christmas tree, exchange gifts, drink eggnog, or participate in a church Christmas pageant, and we have no evidence that he celebrated Christmas on December 25th, but we do know one thing: Athanasius thought long and hard about the birth of Jesus Christ and its significance for orthodox Christology. For that, we should all be grateful.
In one of his most well-known works, called On the Incarnation, Athanasius was one of the first theologians to attempt to navigate the paradox of the One who was both fully God and fully man. He mused,
Wow! What a thought-provoking passage! Regardless of whatever else was part of Valentinus’ first Christmas celebration, if these lines from Athanasius were part of the dinner discussion, I’d say that was a glorious Christmas indeed.
[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 17. On the Incarnation
The Chronograph of 354, partly dated to 336 AD, was essentially a picture-book with calendars and other texts, and it records the first known celebration of Christmas. While there are slight indications that Jesus’ birth was celebrated before that time, the majority of evidence supports a clear focus on Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, with very little emphasis on his birth.
In the early 4th century, however, the religious climate had changed. The Roman Empire, now based in northwest Asia Minor, first legalized Christianity and soon after, gave it special status. When Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea, bishops and deacons who had recently experienced persecution probably pinched themselves, wondering if they were dreaming!
A key figure during this time period was the African theologian Athanasius. Athanasius attended the Council of Nicaea as a young man in his late twenties with Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria. Three years later, he assumed the role of bishop in his mentor’s stead.
The background to the Council of Nicaea was the Arian controversy. Arius, another theologian from Northern Africa, taught that Jesus had a beginning in time and was not coeternal with the Father. At Nicaea, he and two others who confessed the same belief were condemned as heretics and sent into exile. Ten years later, though, the debate raged again. Succeeding emperors sided with Arian bishops over those who professed Nicaean orthodoxy. Athanasius experienced death threats, at least three separate exiles, and severe trials for the rest of his life. For this reason, later generations remembered him as Athanasius contra mundum, which means “Athanasius against the world.” Athanasius refused to compromise the truth we celebrate every December 25th.
Athanasius did not decorate a Christmas tree, exchange gifts, drink eggnog, or participate in a church Christmas pageant, and we have no evidence that he celebrated Christmas on December 25th, but we do know one thing: Athanasius thought long and hard about the birth of Jesus Christ and its significance for orthodox Christology. For that, we should all be grateful.
In one of his most well-known works, called On the Incarnation, Athanasius was one of the first theologians to attempt to navigate the paradox of the One who was both fully God and fully man. He mused,
“The Word was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. No. The marvelous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself. In creation He is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it; ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing all, yet is He Himself the Uncontained, existing solely in His Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the part. Existing in a human body, to which He Himself gives life, He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole; and He is revealed both through the works of His body and through His activity in the world…His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time — this is the wonder — as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father.”[1]
Wow! What a thought-provoking passage! Regardless of whatever else was part of Valentinus’ first Christmas celebration, if these lines from Athanasius were part of the dinner discussion, I’d say that was a glorious Christmas indeed.
[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 17. On the Incarnation
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