§ 77. THE CHKISTMAS CYCLE. 397
of the world, to tlie birth-festival of the iinconquered sun, which on the twenty-fifth of December, after the winter solstice Ijreaks the growing power of darkness, and begins sltigw hia heroic career. It was at the same time, moreover, the prevailing opinion of the church in the fourth and fifth centuries, that Christ was actually born on the twenty-fifth of December ; and Chrysostom appeals, in behalf of this view, to the date of the registration under Quirinus (Cyrenius), preserved in the Eoman archives. But no certainty respecting the birth-day of Christ can be reached from existing data.'
Around the feast of Christmas other festivals gradually gathered, which compose, with it, the Christmas Cycle. The celebration of the twenty-fifth of December was preceded by the Christmas Yigils, or Christmas Night, which was spent with the greater solemnity, because Christ was certainly born in the night.^
After Gregory the Great the four Sundays before Christmas began to be devoted to the preparation for the coming of our Lord in the flesh and for his second coming to the final judgment. Hence they were called Advent Sundays. With the beginning of Advent the church year in the West began. The Greek church reckons six Advent Sundays, and begins them with the fourteenth of l^ovember. This Advent season was designed to represent and reproduce in the consciousness of the chm'ch at once the darkness and the yearning and hope of the long ages before Christ. Subsequently all noisy anmse-
' Dies or natcdes invicfi Soils. This is the feast of the Persian sun-god Mithraa which was formally introduced in Rome under Domitian and Trajan.
■ In the early church, the 6th of January, the day of the Epiphany festival, was regarded by some as the birth-day of Christ. Among Biblical chronologists, Jerome, Baronius, Lamy, Usher, Petavius, Bengel, and SeyfFarth, decide for the 25th of December, while Scaliger, Hug, Wieseler, and Ellicott (Hist. Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, p. TO, note 3, Am. ed.), place the birth of Christ in the month of February. The passage in Luke, ii. 8, is frequently cited against the common view, because, according to the Talmudic writers, the flocks in Palestine were brought in at the beginning of November, and not driven to pasture again till toward March. Yet this rule, certainly, admitted many exceptions, according to the locality and the season. Comp. the extended discussion in Wieseler: Chronologische Synopse, p 132 if., and SeyiFarth, Chronologia Sacra.
• Luke ii. 8.
398 THIRD PEBIOD. A.D. 311-590.
ments and also Aveddings were forbidden during this season. The pericopes are selected with reference to the awakening of repentance and of desire after the Hedeemer.
From the fonrth century Christmas was followed by the memorial days of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Dec. 26), of the apostle and evangelist John (Dec. 27), and of the Innocents of Bethlehem (Dec. 28), in immediate succession ; representing a threefold martyrdom : martyrdom in will and in fact (Stephen), in will without the fact (John), and in fact without the will, an unconscious martyrdom of infantile innocence. But Christian martyrdom in general was regarded by the early church as a heavenly birth and a fruit of the earthly birth of Christ. Hence the ancient festival hymn for the day of St. Stephen, the leader of the noble army of martyrs : " Yesterday was Christ born upon earth, that to-day Stephen might be born in heaven." ' The close connection of the feast of John the Evangelist with that of the birth of Christ arises from the confidential relation of the beloved disciple to the Lord, and from the fundamental thought of his Gospel : "The Word was made flesh." The innocent infant-martyrs of Bethlehem, '•' the blossoms of martyrdom, the rosebuds torn ofl' by the hurricane of persecution, the offering of first-fruits to Christ, the tender flock of sacrificial lambs," are at the same time the representatives of the innumerable host of children in heaven. More than half of the human race are said to die in infancy, and yet to children the word emphatically applies: "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Tlie mystery of infant martyrdom
' " Heri natus est Christus in terris, ut hodie Stephanus nasccretur in coelis.' The connection is, however, a purely ideal one ; for at first the death-day of Stephen was in August ; afterward, on account of the discovery of his relics, it was transferred to January.
' Comp. the beautiful hymn of the Spanish poet Prudentius, of the fifth century : " Salvete flores martyrum." German versions by Nickel, Konigsfeld, Biissler, Ilagenbach, &c. A good English version in " The Words of the Hymnal Noted," Lond p. 46:
" All hail ! ye Infant-Martyr flowers, Cut off in life's first dawning hours : As rosebuds, snapt in tempest strife, When Herod sought your Saviour's life," &c.