Welcome to the Eric Erickson Show podcast, Our Three.

Hello there. It is Eric Erickson here. The phone number is 877-97-9-7-3-7-4-25 if you want to be on the program.

You can text Eric, E-R-I-C-K, to 33-777-7.

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You should get my daily show notes.

You should because all the stuff I talk about, all the extra writing,

it's there. You can get the podcast, the live stream, my social media links to Instagram.

You should follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all that. And I, because today is December 25th, or today is December 1st, I have to talk to you about

December 25th because I do this on December 1st.

So the very first day of December that I'm on radio every year.

Why is Christmas on the 25th day of December? You like me, more likely than not,

learned that Christmas is on December 25th because early Christians used pagan Roman holidays and over time co-opted them.

And December 25th was around Saturnalia, the Roman Empire's Midwinter Festival.

There was also on December 25th, Emperor Aurelian, placed Solenvictus on December 25th, Emperor Aurelian placed Saul Invictus on December 25th, the fifth feast of the

unconquered son. And so the theory was that Christians could get heathen to convert to

their religion worshipping the son of God by saying, hey, this is the unconquered son of Saul Invictus.

And it's December 25th.

There's a problem that it took me being a grown-up to learn.

Those explanations sound way more convincing than the evidence behind them.

The theories only became popular in the 1800s as German theologians began engaging in comparative theology.

But if you actually go back to the earliest of the Christian church, there is a lot of evidence that Christmas was being supported on December 25th before

Orillian made that the Feast of the Unconquered Sun.

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