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    As the present season has been devoted to celebrate the nativity of Christ , it may perhaps gratify the curiosity of some persons to shew what light we have from antiquity for the origin of this institution . The churches of the East pretend to have received from the Apostle James the custom they retain of the 6 th of January , in memory of the birth and baptism of Christ 3 whereas the Weatern Church has chosen the 25 th of December . However , we have no account either of the

    one or the other before the fourth century . Chrysostom is the most ancient of the fathers who has distinctly mentioned it 9 and it is enters tainrng to observe what he has said , in a sermon delivered by him on Christmas day , when he was onljr a presbyter at Antioch . € 1 have long desired , ' says he ^ < & > solemnize this day with so numerous an assembly , for it is not yet ten years since this day has been so clearly known ; for it was communicated from the West a few years ago . ^ He afterwards adds , < I know that many dispute about the day , some

    maintaining that it 4 S a late invention , others that it is an ancient one : * and it is certain that in this very age of Chrysostom , the 6 th of January was observed in France 5 but this devout father attempts to demonstrate the new opinion and practice to which he conformed . His first argument is the promptitude with which the feast has been established ; but this can have little weight in it , if we consider the age . The second is , from the time of the enrolment , which mu §| . have been known at Rome ; and since this appointment was received from the

    Christians of that city , it might be presumed they had some authority for it ; not , he says , that he was ever there himself , nor does he cite any testimony from thence , but acted herein by implicit faith . Now It appears from the account they give of Pope Julius's searching the archives , forty years before , that they never pretended to any other evidence than that of Jos ^ phus to another point , which is a mere forgery . However , Chrysostom was so far imposed upon by it as to rest the

    whole argument on the following reasoning : that Elizabeth was six months gone when Mary conceived 5 and that Zacharias was in the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement , the latter end of September , when the angel informed him that he should have a son . JMow these six-months would reach to Lady-day , upon which they would place the incarnation of Christ , and consequently his birth oil the 25 th of December . But facts destroy this whole system ; for it is false that Zacbarias was high-priest , or in the holy of holies : he was a common

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    { 630 )

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    ORIGIN OF CHRISTMAS . To the Editor of the Monthly Repository . Sir , As you have occasionally inserted extracts from scarce and Valuable books among other articles , in your very useful Magazine , you will oblige me by affording room for the following

    extract from a sermon by the hte celebrated Dr . Latham * containing an account of the probable origin of the festival called Christmas . I am , Sir , your constant reader ^ A Consistent Protestant * Gotham , Notts , Dec . 25 .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 630, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/14/