The Nativity by Caravaggio, 1609. The angel’s parchment reads “Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Luke 2:14)”.
The nativity accounts in the New Testament gospels of Matthew and Luke do not mention a date or time of year for the birth of Jesus. In Western Christianity, it has been traditionally celebrated on December 25 as Christmas (in the liturgical season of Christmastide), a date that can be traced as early as the year 330 among Roman Christians. Before then in Eastern Christianity, Jesus' birth was generally celebrated on January 6/7 (late at night on January 6) as part of the feast of Theophany,also known as Epiphany, which commemorated not only Jesus' birth but also his baptism by John in the Jordan River and possibly additional events in his life. Some scholars have speculated that the date of the celebration was moved in an attempt to replace the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Some scholars note that Luke's descriptions of shepherds' activities at the time of Jesus' birth suggest a spring or summer date. The theory that December 25 was the birthdate of Jesus is earliest noted in a fragment of the Chronographiai of Sextus Julius Africanus in the year 221.
The Gospel of Matthew places Jesus' birth under the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. The author of Matthew also recorded that Herod had all the male children in Bethlehem two years old and younger executed, based on a prophecy relayed to him by the magi that a new King of the Jews had been born in the town. The order's instruction of "two and under", along with the inference that it took Herod time to realize that the magi were not about to deliver the child to him, implies a birth no later than 6-4 BC. The Gospel of Luke dates the birth ten years after Herod's death during the census of Quirinius, described by the historian Josephus.
No comments:
Post a Comment