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    priest , of the course of Abia . " Again , the calculation itself is doubtful : St . Luke says Elizabeth hid herself five months ; therefore , when it is added that the angel was sent to Maiy in the sixth month , ti $ natural to understand the beginning of it , which would place the birth of Christ at the end of jNToyernber , as . Clem . Alex , is said to have fixed it .

    After all , there are two other systems which appear to give a nruch better solution of the whole , than any we can collect in this \ yay from history . The first is that which supposeth the institution to be copied from the Jews . At this season th § -Jews ' celebrated the dedication of the Temple : the Christians , therefore , dedicated it to the temple of Christ ' s body . The date agrees with it perfectly , Antiochus , as appears from the book of Maccahees , prophaned the

    holy place ; and , three years after , precisely on the $ arrie day of the month , viz . the 25 th of the ninth month ( Chislen—roxxt December ) * they purified it again . This was the feast mentioned , John x . 22 * which he says was in the winter . Josephus calls it the Feast of Lights CAntiq . xii . ii . ) ; and the Christians gave the same name to theirs , as they then commemorated the light which , coming into the world , enlightened eyery man . —rThe other hypothesis derives the institution

    from the heathens , frorri whom even the Papists are free to own that the Christians have taken rnany of their ceremonies and feasts ; for example , from their Pervi g ilia and Lectistemia { i . e . their wakes and village-feasts ) arose the anniversaries of the martyrs $ from their Febra % the Purification , or Candlemas ; and , again , from their Theophaniesi and Epiphanies , the feasts of this season . By the establishment of Julius Caesar , the winter solstice , or shortest day , was fixed to the

    25 th of December 5 which the heathens made the nativity - of the Mithras , or the sun , as it then began to return . Now the Christians applied the observation of the same time to the Sun of Righteousness ; 3 nd expressions to this purpose occur in the works both of Ambrose and Chrysostom , written about the time they fixed the name of this day *

    " What I have here suggested is further confirmed by the judiciou * discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton , which extend the same observation to all our saint-days ; for he abundantly demonstrates that they preformed on the same plan * . The heathens , when the sun entered any of the twelve signs , kept it as a hol y day ; and if , in this view , we calculate how it would stand in the time of Julius Caesar , when the calendar

    was made , we shall find wh ^ t was festival every month , which the Church has onl y altered and christened since with the name of some saint . Now , as this was the dead time of the year , when the heathens * Sir Isaac Newton ' s words are as follows- * - * - ** The heathens were delighted with the festivals of their gods , and unwilling to part with those delights ;

    therefore Gregory , to facilitate their conversion , instituted annual festivals to the sainta and marfyrs . Hence it came to pass , that , for exploding the festivals of the heathens , the principal festivals of the Christians succeeded in their room—as , the keeping of Christmas with ivy , feasting , play , and sports , in the room ofthd Bacchanalia and Saturnalia—the celebrating of May-day with flowers , in the room of the Floralia" Sec . —Observations on Prophecy , p . 204 . ¦¦ ¦ <

    It is a custom yet , in many parts of England , to deck the houses , and even the churches , at Christmas , with ivy . Our climate will not allow the addition ot vine - leave s ; otherwise the emblems of Bacchus would be complete ; nor woql 4 tjic usual festivities and intemperance of this season displease the former votaries of the jolly god - Whether the Gospel tolerates such conformities is another * question : at least those who think so would do well to recollect what St . P-u 4 W a % Cor . vi . —IJ , i 6 » 1

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    Origin of Christmas . 631

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1806, page 631, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1731/page/15/