A bird was probably chosen for the emblem of the third person (i. e., the Holy Ghost) to signify incubation, by which was figuratively expressed the fructification of inert matter, caused by the vital spirit moving upon the waters. The Dove would naturally be selected in the East in preference to every other species of bird, on account of its domestic familiarity with man; it usually lodging under the same roof with him, and being employed as his messenger from one remote place to another. Birds of this kind were also remarkable for the care of their offspring, and for a sort of conjugal attachment and fidelity to each other, as likewise for the peculiar fervency of their sexual desires, whence they were sacred to Venus, and emblems of love."

Masons' marks are conspicuous among the Christian symbols. On some of the most ancient Roman Catholic cathedrals are to be found figures of Christ Jesus with Mason's marks about him.

Many are the so-called Christian symbols which are direct importations from paganism. To enumerate them would take, as we have previously said, a volume of itself. For further information on this subject the reader is referred to Dr. Inman's "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism," where he will see how many ancient Indian, Egyptian, Etruscan, Grecian and Roman symbols have been adopted by Christians, a great number of which are Phallic emblems."

1 Knight's Ancient Art and Mythology, p. 170.

2 See also, R. Payne Knight's Worship of

Priapus, and the other works of Dr. Thomas
Inman.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE BIRTH-DAY OF CHRIST JESUS.

CHRISTMAS-December the 25th- is a day which has been set apart by the Christian church on which to celebrate the birth of their Lord and Saviour, Christ Jesus, and is considered by the majority of persons to be really the day on which he was born. This is altogether erroneous, as will be seen upon examination of the subject.

There was no uniformity in the period of observing the Nativity among the early Christian churches; some held the festival in the month of May or April, others in January.'

The year in which he was born is also as uncertain as the month or day. "The year in which it happened," says Mosheim, the ecclesiastical historian, "has not hitherto been fixed with certainty, notwithstanding the deep and laborious researches of the learned."

According to IRENEUS (A. D. 190), on the authority of "The Gospel," and "all the elders who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord," Christ Jesus lived to be nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age. If this celebrated Christian father is correct, and who can say he is not, Jesus was born some twenty years before the time which has been assigned as that of his birth.' The Rev. Dr. Giles says:

Concerning the time of Christ's birth there are even greater doubts than about the place; for, though the four Evangelists have noticed several contemporary facts, which would seem to settle this point, yet on comparing these dates with the general history of the period, we meet with serious discrepancies, which involve the subject in the greatest uncertainty."

"Not only do we date our time from the exact year in which Christ is said to have been born, but our ecclesiastical calendar has determined with scrupulous minuteness the day and almost the hour at which every particular of Christ's wonderful life is stated to have happened. All this is implicitly believed by millions; yet all these things are among the most uncertain and shadowy that history has recorded. We have no clue to either the day or the time of year, or even the year itself, in which Christ was born."1

Some Christian writers fix the year 4 B. C., as the time when he was born, others the year 5 B. C., and again others place his time of birth at about 15 B. c. The Rev. Dr. Geikie, speaking of this, in his Life of Christ, says:

"The whole subject is very uncertain. Ewald appears to fix the date of the birth at five years earlier than our era. Petavius and Usher fix it on the 25th of December, five years before our era. Bengel on the 25th of December, four years before our era; Anger and Winer, four years before our era, in the Spring ; Scaliger, three years before our era, in October; St. Jerome, three years before our era, on December 25th; Eusebius, two years before our era, on January 6th; and Idler, seven years before our era, in December."

Albert Barnes writes in a manner which implies that he knew all about the year (although he does not give any authorities), but knew nothing about the month. He says:

"The birth of Christ took place four years before the common era. That era began to be used about A.D. 526, being first employed by Dionysius, and is supposed to have been placed about four years too late. Some make the difference two, others three, four, five, and even eight years. He was born at the commencement of the last year of the reign of Herod, or at the close of the year preceding."3

"The Jews sent out their flocks into the mountainous and desert regions during the summer months, and took them up in the latter part of October or the first of November, when the cold weather commenced. It is clear from this that our Saviour was born before the 25th of December, or before what we call Christmas. At that time it is cold, and especially in the high and mountainous regions about Bethlehem. God has concealed the time of his birth. There is no way to ascertain it. By different learned men it has been fixed at each month in the year."4

Canon Farrar writes with a little more caution, as follows:

Although the date of Christ's birth cannot be fixed with absolute certainty, there is at least a large amount of evidence to render it probable that he was born four years before our present cra. It is universally admitted that our received chronology, which is not older than Dionysius Exignus, in the sixth century, is wrong. But all attempts to discover the month and the day are useless. No data whatever exists to enable us to determine them with even approximate accuracy."5

1 Hebrew and Christian Records, p. 194.

2 Life of Christ, vol. i. p. 559.

3 Barnes' Notes, vol. ii. p. 402.

4 Ibid. p. 25.

Farrar's Life of Christ, App., pp. 673, 4.

Bunsen attempts to show (on the authority of Irenæus, above quoted), that Jesus was born some fifteen years before the time assigned, and that he lived to be nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age.'

According to Basnage,' the Jews placed his birth near a century sooner than the generally assumed epoch. Others have placed it even in the third century B. C. This belief is founded on a passage in the "Book of Wisdom," written about 250 B. C., which is supposed to refer to Christ Jesus, and none other. In speaking of some individual who lived at that time, it says:

He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us even to behold; for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counterfeits; he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness; he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father. Let us see if his words be true; and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. For if the just man be the son of God, he (God) will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies. Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death; for by his own saying he shall be respected."

This is a very important passage. Of course, the church claim it to be a prophecy of what Christ Jesus was to do and suffer, but this does not explain it.

If the writer of the "Gospel according to Luke" is correct, Jesus was not born until about A. D. 10, for he explicitly tells us that this event did not happen until Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Now it is well known that Cyrenius was not appointed to this office until long after the death of Herod (during whose reign the Matthew narrator informs us Jesus was born ), and that the taxing spoken of by the Luke narrator as having taken place at this time, did not take place until about ten years after the time at which, according to the Matthew narrator, Jesus was born."

Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian,' places his birth at the time Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and therefore at about a. D. 10. His words are as follows:

"It was the two and fortieth year after the reign of Augustus the Emperor, and the eight and twentieth year after the subduing of Egypt, and the death of Antonius and Cleopatra, when last of all the Ptolemies in Egypt ceased to bear

1 Bible Chronology, pp. 73, 74.

2 Hist. de Juif.

Chap. ii. 13-20,

Luke, ii. 1-7.

• Matt. ii. 1.

• See Josephus : Antiq.,bk. xviii. ch. i. sec. i.

7 Eusebius was Bishop of Cesarea from A.D. 315 to 340, in which he died, in the 70th year of his age, thus playing his great part in life chiefly under the reigns of Constantine the Great and his son Constantius.

rule, when our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, at the time of the first taxing— Cyrenius, then President of Syria-was born in Bethlehem, a city of Judea, according unto the prophecies in that behalf premised."1

Had the Luke narrator known anything about Jewish history, he never would have made so gross a blunder as to place the taxing of Cyrenius in the days of Herod, and would have saved the immense amount of labor that it has taken in endeavoring to explain away the effects of his ignorance. One explanation of this inistake is, that there were two assessments, one about the time Jesus was born, and the other ten years after; but this has entirely failed. Dr. Hooykaas, speaking of this, says:

"The Evangelist (Luke) falls into the most extraordinary mistakes throughout. In the first place, history is silent as to a census of the whole (Roman) world ever having been made at all. In the next place, though Quirinius certainly did make such a register in Judea and Samaria, it did not extend to Galilee; so that Joseph's household was not affected by it. Besides, it did not take place until ten years after the death of Herod, when his son Archelaus was deposed by the emperor, and the districts of Judea and Samaria were thrown into a Roman province. Under the reign of Herod, nothing of the kind took place, nor was there any occasion for it. Finally, at the time of the birth of Jesus, the Governor of Syria was not Quirinius, but Quintus Sentius Saturni

The institution of the festival of the Nativity of Christ Jesus being held on the 25th of December, among the Christians, is attributed to Telesphorus, who flourished during the reign of Antonius Pius (A. D. 138-161), but the first certain traces of it are found about the time of the Emperor Commodus (A. D. 180–192).3

For a long time the Christians had been trying to discover upon what particular day Jesus had possibly or probably come into the world; and conjectures and traditions that rested upon absolutely no foundation, led one to the 20th of May, another to the 19th or 20th of April, and a third to the 5th of January. At last the opinion of the community at Rome gained the upper hand, and the 25th of December was fixed upon. It was not until the fifth century, however, that this day had been generally agreed upon." How it happened that this day finally became fixed as the birthday of Christ Jesus, may be inferred from what we shall now see.

On the first moment after midnight of the 24th of December (2. e., on the morning of the 25th), nearly all the nations of the earth,

1 Eusebius: Eccl. Hist., lib. 1, ch. vi.

2 Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 56.
See Chambers's Encyclo., art. " Christ-

mas."

4 See Bible for Learners, vol. iii. p. 66.
"By the fifth century, however, whether

from the influence of some tradition, or from the desire to supplant Heathen Festivals of that period of the year, such as the Saturnalia, the 25th of December had been generally agreed unon." (Encyclopædia Brit., art. "Christ

mas."