THE FIRST CHRISTMAS

WHEN WAS
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS?


In what year was Jesus born?

Modern research has succeeded in establishing the dates of our Lord’s life with considerable accuracy.

It was Dionysius Exiguus, a monk who died in 556, who fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christmas the center of the history of mankind; using such historical information as was available to him, he placed our Lord’s birth in the year 753 after the foundation of Rome and made the following year 1 A.D. This computation, although it is a few years too late, is the one still used in most of the world for dating purposes.

We know from the Gospels that Jesus was born “in the days of Herod the king (Mt. 2:1; cf Lk 1:5). We now, know, from information given by he Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, that Herod died in the year 750 after the foundation of Rome. Therefore, the date of Christ’s birth must be brought forward at least by four years from that worked out by Dionysius. Moreover,...