Christ Dated

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. . . . They departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.--Matthew, 2: 1-9.

The star in the east was Saturn. So last week pronounced a German wise man, Professor Oswald Gerhardt of Berlin, who had been pursuing it for years. And Jesus Christ was born April 2 in the year 7 B. C., wrote Professor Gerhardt in Forschungen und Fortschreiten (Researches and Progress). According to ancient Jewish and Christian texts, Saturn ruled the Hebrews. The Messiah was expected to arrive under this "Star of God," which was called both Chiun (Amos, 5:26) and Remphan (Acts, 7:43). In Babylon and Susa, whence came the Wise Men, Saturn was visible at the time of Christ's birth only in the first week in April. Travelling westward, the Wise Men would have seen it overhead between Oct. 10 and Dec. 15 as they proceeded to Bethlehem from Jerusalem. For their arrival at the house of Joseph and Mary, Professor Gerhardt selects a middle date, Nov. 5. Jesus would then have been seven months old.

Most scholars have concluded that Christ was born late in the year 5 B. C. or the 749th Year of Rome (Anno Urbis Conditae). He could not have been born later because Herod, who sought to have Him slaughtered along with the rest of the Jewish younglings, died the year following. For centuries after Christ's death no one thought to use Anno Domini as the base of a calendar. When the 6th Century monk Dionysius Exiguus finally did so, he made a miscalculation of four to six years which has not yet been rectified.

Respectable authorities have assigned Christ's birthday to every month in the year. Widely celebrated with independent local feasts throughout Christendom, by the 4th Century it became settled upon Dec. 25, possibly through the influence of old pagan midwinter festivals. Long before Professor Gerhardt of Berlin could make use of astronomy in his researches, the church father Hippolytus picked April 2 as Christ's birthday. Arguments against its falling in winter are that this is Palestine's rainy season: the Romans would not have then held the census which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem; nor would the shepherds who gathered around Christ's manger have had their flocks in the fields in such weather.

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