THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ie Se a a So ESS ee
Handbook of the Hist., Organization, and Methods of Work, New York, 1892; L. L. Doggett, Hist. of the Y. M. C. A., vol. i., ib. 1896; R. C. Morse, Polity of Y. M. C. A.’s, ib. 1904; W. D. Murray, Principles and Organization of the Y. M. C. A., ib. 1910; P. Green, How to deal with Lads; a Handbook of Church Work, ib. 1910. A comprehensive little book, a new edition of which is needed, is L. W. Bacon and C. A. Northrop, Young People’s Societies, New York, 1900.
YOUNG, ROBERT: Lay theologian and orientalist; b. at Edinburgh Sept. 10, 1822; d. there Oct. 14, 1888. He received his education at private schools, 1827-88; served an apprenticeship to the printing business, 1838-45, using his spare time to study the oriental languages; became a communicant in 1842; joined the Free Church, and becanie a Sabbath-school teacher in 1843. In 1847 he took up printing and bookselling on his own account, proceeding to publish books that tended to further the study of the Old Testament and its ancient versions; his first publication was an edition with translation of Maimonides’ 613 precepts. He went to India as a literary missionary and superintendent of the mission press at Surat, in 1856, returning in 1861; conducted the ‘‘ Missionary Institute,’ 1864- 1874; and visited America in 1867. He was a moderate Calvinist, a simple Presbyterian, and a strict textual critic and theologian. His important work was the Analytical Concordance to the Bible . containing every Word in alphabetical Order, arranged under its Hebrew or Greek Original (Edinburgh, 1879); one may cite also his Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible, being a Companion to the new Translation of the Old and New Covenants . . . 2 pt. (1865); Contributions to a New Revision; or, a critical Companion to the New Testament (1881); and the Christology of the Targums, or the Doctrine of the Messiah, as it is unfolded in the ancient Jewish Targums, or Chaldee Paraphrases of the Holy Scriptures. Young was celebrated as an editor and translator of Jewish and Biblical writings in various languages, especially in Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, and Gujarati, thus and in other ways contributing to the apparatus for textual criticism. He was also active in the region of comparative linguistics and in Semitic philology.
BrsriocrapHy: Banner of Ulster, Dec. 18, 1855; DNB,
xii, 390.
YOUNG, SAMUEL EDWARD: Presbyterian; b. at Deep Cut, Auglaize Co., O., June 6, 1866. He was educated at Westminster College, Mo. (1883- 1886), and Princeton (1886-88) and Union (1888- 1889) Theological Seminaries. He has been pastor of Westminster Church, Asbury Park, N. J. (1889— 1894), Central Church, Newark, N. J. (1894-97), Second Church, Pittsburg, Pa. (1898-1908), and Bedford Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. (since 1908). He has been active in ameliorating the conditions of the life-saving service, and while at Pittsburg organized both a system of summer services in the city parks and afternoon theater services. He was vice-chairman of the committee of the General Assembly that organized the Presbyterian Brotherhood of America, and, besides being a member of the evangelistic committee of the General Assembly,
is a chaplain of the Actors’ Church Alliance of Ampriea,
YOUTZ, HERBERT ALDEN: Presbyterian; b. at Des Moines, Ia., Apr. 28, 1867. He was graduated from Simpson College, Indianola, Ia. (B.A., 1890), and Boston University, where he took a degree in 1895 (Ph.D., 1903), also studying at Berlin and Marburg in 1901-03. He held Congregational pastorates at Quincy, Mass. (1894-96), Middlefield, Mass. (1896-98), and Plymouth Congregational Church, Providence, R. I. (1898-1901); was acting professor of theology in the Chicago Theological Seminary (1903-05); professor of the same subject in the Congregational College of Montreal (1905-08); and was in 1908 appointed to his present position of professor of systematic theology in Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn, N, Y.
YULETIDE: A popular, somewhat poetic designation of the Christmastide. The name of the central festival in Greek is hémera genethlios, ta genethlia Tésou Christou (tou Sotéros) (“the birthday of Jesus Christ [or, of the Savior] ’’), though Gregory Nazianzen (Oratio, xxxviii. [MPG, xxxvi. 312-313]) unsuccessfully sought to introduce the name Theophany to distinguish this festival from that of the Epiphany (q.v.), celebrated separately on Jan.6. In Latin, the name is Natalis (dies), Natalitia, Nativitas Domini (Jesu Christi), whence the Italian Natale and the Spanish Nadal, Natividad. The French
Noél may be derived from natalis, or The Name. possibly from nvé, a ery of rejoicing on
the occasion of the birth of a prince. The Anglo-Saxon géol, yole, yule is thought to signify the solstice. In Scandinavia, the period from Christmas to Epiphany is called Jélafridr, Jélahilgh. Yule and Yuletide are still used in Scotland, while in England this older designation has been replaced by Christmas (“ Christ mass’), which appears in Dutch as Kerstmisse, Kersmis. The German Weithnachten represents the Middle High German Wthen Nahten (‘‘ Holy Nights’’). The festival either includes the whole period from Dec. 25 to Jan. 6 (the twelve nights, since the ancient Germans reckoned by nights and not by days), the Christmas week up to Dec. 31, the four days Dec. 25-28 (the feasts of the Nativity, St. Stephan, St. John the Evangelist, and Holy Innocents), or, finally, the Christ day alone. For Jan. 6 as the feast of the birth and of the baptism of Christ see EpipHANY, FEAST OF THE.
The choice of Dec. 25 as the birthday of Christ must be clearly distinguished from the celebration of the Christmas festival. Long before there was any question of a festival of Christ’s birth, the date of his birth had been sought and determined. The Church of the first two centuries had no thought of celebrating it as a festival. Origen (In Lev. hom., vill. 3, In Matt. xiv. 6 [MPG, xii. 495, xiii. 893-894), followed by Jerome (In Matt. xiv. 6 [MPL, xxvi. 97]), pronounced decisively against the celebration
of birthdays of saints and martyrs, for Relation to the days of their death should rather the Vernal be considered their natales dies. Clem-
Equinox. ent of Alexandria (Strom.,i.21 [MPG,
vill. 885-886]) says that from the birth of the Lord to the death of Commodus (Dee. 31, 192) 194 years, 1 month, and 13 days had passed,
so that Nov. 18, 751 a.u.c., was the birthday of Christ. Probably we should read 23 instead of 13 days, so that the date becomes Nov. 8. In the De pascha computus, incorrectly ascribed to Cyprian (dated by Usener in 243 a.p.), the day of the spring equinox (Mar. 25) is reckoned as the first day of creation, and Mar. 28, the day on which the sun and the moon were made, is the birthday of Jesus, in the year 1549 after the Exodus; while the Clementine Homilies set this day on the vernal equinox itself. In his chronography Julius Africanus, in 221, choosing the same day as that of the conception of Jesus, is the first to give Dec. 25, exactly nine months later, as the date of his birth; and Hippolytus, in the fourth book of his commentary on Daniel, gives Dec. 25, 4 B.c., as the day of Christ’s birth, and Mar. 25, 29 a.p., as the day of his death. In all these computations the spring equinox plays a part, as the time both of the creation of the world and of the incarnation or conception of Jesus; in the latter case the birthday follows nine months later. Duchesne assumes that Dec. 25 was chosen in the West and Jan. 6 in the Hast as the day of Christ’s birth through a reckoning which gave Mar. 25 (Tertullian, Adv. Jude@os, viii.; Hippolytus, Acta Pilate) or Apr. 6 as the day of his death, and also as the day of his conception, so that nine months later— in one case Dec. 25, in the other, Jan. 6—became the date of his birth, although Duchesne himself admits that a celebration of Apr. 6 as the day of Christ’s death appears only in a Montanist sect (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., vii. 18).
It has also been conjectured that the day was selected because of its significance in the Roman calendar, where it bore the name of dies invicti solis (‘ the day of the unconquered sun ’’), since on this day the sun began to regain its power and overcame the night. This view is supported by Poly-
dore Vergil (De rerum inventoribus, v.,
Alleged Lyons, 1558), J. A. Fabricius, D. E.
Relation to Jablonski, E. F. Wernsdorf, J. A. W. Sun-cult and Neander, K. A. Hase, and others; and Saturnalia. it is true that, after the introduction of the Christmas festival, the coming of Christ as the Light of the world was often compared with the dies invicti solis of the Romans, as by Augustine (Sermo in nativitatem Domini, vii., and in nativitatem Johannis Baptiste [MPL, xxxviii. 1007, 1302]), Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus of Turin (Sermo, iii. and iv. De nativitate Domini, MPL, \vii. 535, 537), etc. It is, however, unlikely that the birthday of Jesus was first determined by this heathen festival. Nor can Christmas be assumed to owe its origin to the Roman Saturnalia, since they lasted from Dec. 17 to Dec. 19, and even with the later prolongation to seven days, ended on Dec. 23. Still less can the origin be sought in the Germanic solar festival, since the Christmas festival arose long before the Christianizing of the Germans, although some popular usages connected with Christmas may have a Roman or Teutonic source.
The chief question in relation to Christmas is when the birthday festival, originally combined with the baptismal festival on Jan. 6, was first celebrated separately on Dec, 25, Usener has made an ex-