The Date of Christmas

Way back here we mentioned Pope Liberius, sent into exile by Constantius II because he wouldn't censure St. Athanasius for condemning Arianism (Constantius was an Arian). Liberius went to Beroea (modern Véroia in northern Greece), and Felix II became (an anti-)pope.

Liberius' fourteen-year papacy (352 - 366) is usually mentioned in relation to the Arian controversy and his replacement by Felix. But he is given credit for at least one other decision that has endured to modern times: the date of Christmas. The topic of the pagan date of Christmas gets mentioned every year in media, but the details are never revealed. Here they are.

It was clear, according to the mention of shepherds in the Gospel of Luke, that the birth likely happened in springtime. That didn't mean the birth had to be celebrated then; the Church could afford to be pragmatic about that, in its own way. By the 3rd century, Christians were already celebrating January 6th as the day when Jesus was revealed as divine, the Feast of the Epiphany. We now turn to one scholar:

About the beginning of the third century there arose in the Western countries a new opinion on the person of the Saviour. He was now held to have been a God from birth, His Father having been God Himself. [...] Within little more than a century that new dogma conquered the countries round the Mediterranean, [...] In the face of that view it could scarcely any longer appear proper to celebrate the memory of the deification of Christ in the festival of Epiphany on January 6. [Yule and Christmas: their place in the Germanic year, by Alexander Tille, p.120]

In 354, Liberius celebrated not only January 6 as "the appearance of Christ in God-like glory," but also he enforced December 25 as the actual birth, to reinforce the idea that Jesus was God from birth, not deified 12 days later. (And there's a bonus explanation: the 12 days of Christmas exist because of the dual celebrations from 25 December to 6 January.)

Liberius could not have been unaware of the long-term affects of this positioning. He knew that he was appropriating a day that was important to the Roman calendar: the old Dies Natalis Solis Invicti ["Day of Birth of the Unconquered Sun"]. By taking over that celebration he would eventually replace the Roman pagan festival with the Roman Christian one. I say "Roman" Christian because, in the Eastern Church the date of the Epiphany remained the primary date to celebrate.

Pachomius

St. Anthony the Great is credited with being the first monk in that he did not just live an ascetic life, but also he removed himself from civilization and went into the desert. The eremitical (hermit) life appealed to many in the years to follow, but not everyone had the self-discipline to lead that kind of life. This is where Pachomius was needed.

St. Pachomius (c.292-348) was born a pagan. Drafted into military service by the Roman army, he noticed how Christians brought food to the conscripts. When he left the army a few years later, he investigated Christianity and converted in 314. After seven years as a hermit, he traveled to where St. Anthony was living, modeling his life after Anthony's solitary example. Then, however, a vision told him to create a community where others could join him.

Hermits had clustered together in the same area before, but Pachomius created an organized structure for monks who actually lived and worked together, holding their possessions in common and following a similar schedule. This style of monastic tradition is called cenobitic, a Latin word from the Greek words for "common" [κοινός] and "life" [βίος].

He created the first community shortly after this vision; the first person to join him was his brother John. Many more were to follow. Pachomius built nine monasteries, but the trend caught on: by the time of his death there were an estimated 3000 communities in Egypt. Pachomius was referred to as "Abba," [father], from which the terms "abbot" and "abbey" come. He also wrote the Rule of Pachomius, creating guidelines for communities. It is written in the Coptic (Egyptian) language.

Pachomius never was ordained as a priest. St. Athanasius visited him and wanted to ordain him in 333—Pachomius, like Athanasius, had proven to be a vocal opponent of Arianism—but Pachomius did not want ordination. He died on 9 May 348, presumably from plague.

St. Menas

In 1905, C.M. Kaufman of Frankfort led an expedition into Egypt and made excavations that unearthed the legacy of St. Menas. He found the ruins of a monastery, a well, a basilica, many inscriptions asking the saint's aid, and thousands of miniature water pitchers and oil lamps.

Based on the inscription on the vessels found by Kaufman (Eulogia tou agiou Mena = Remembrance of St. Menas), the vessels were intended as souvenirs of the saint. The location excavated was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in the 5th and 6th centuries, and flasks like those found by Kaufman had been found for years in Africa, Spain, Italy, France and Russia. It was assumed that they contained oil, but now it is thought that they probably held water from the local well, and likely were supposed to have curative powers.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Menas was martyred under Emperor Diocletian in 295 (other sources say 309—there was more than one Menas in the first few centuries of the Common Era, and it is difficult to reconcile all the records). An Egyptian by birth, Menas had actually served in the Roman army, but left the army when he learned of the poor treatment of Christians by the empire. He went into retreat, engaging in fasting and prayer. He came out of retreat to proclaim the Christian faith in the middle of a Roman religious festival. He was dragged before the authorities, scourged and beheaded. Here is where the legend truly begins: supposedly, his body was to be burned, but the flames worked on it for three days without destroying it.

"Menas flask" in the Louvre

The martyr's body was brought to Egypt and placed in a church, and his name began to be invoked by Christians in need. Then an angel appeared to Pope Athanasius, telling him to have the body transported into the western desert outside Alexandria. While being transported, the camel carrying it stopped at one point and would not move. The followers buried the body in that spot.

Later, the location was forgotten, but a shepherd noticed that a sick sheep fell on a certain spot and rose up cured. The story spread that this spot cured illnesses. When the leprous daughter of the Emperor Zeno (c.425-491) traveled there for a cure, she received a vision at night from St. Menas, telling her that it was his burial place. Her father had the body exhumed, a cathedral built, and a proper tomb prepared for St. Menas. A city and industry sprang up, since so many people came to be cured. Water from the well dug in that location began to be bottled for pilgrims and supplicants. These flasks were found in several countries, but it wasn't until Kaufman's 1905 expedition that their true origin was uncovered.

Saint Anthony

The Classical and Middle Ages generated more Saints Anthony that you can shake a crozier at:

Anthony of Antioch (d.302)
Anthony the Hermit (c.468-c.520) aka Anthony of Lérins
Anthony of Kiev (c.983-1073) aka Anthony of the Caves
Anthony of Rome (d.1147) aka Anthony Rimlyanin
Anthony of Padua (c.1195-1231) aka Anthony of Lisbon
Anthony of Florence (1389-1459)

But if you wanted to talk about an Anthony, wouldn't you pick the one they called "the Great"?

St. Anthony the Great (c.251-356) was mentioned in yesterday's post, supporting St. Athanasius against Arianism. He was a Coptic Christian from Egypt, but is recognized as a saint by the Coptic, Roman Catholic, Bulgarian Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches.

His denomination-crossing significance derives from his status as the first monk. To be honest, there were monks—ascetics, men who chose to deny themselves worldly pleasure in order to study and pray—before him, but his decision to go out into the desert of Libya to get away from civilization was the example that made other ascetics take note.

It was about the year 270 that he heard the words from the Gospel of Matthew 19:21 at mass: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor." He was moved to act immediately: he convinced his sister to join a local group of nuns, sold his considerable property, gave the money to the poor (except for a small amount he set aside for his sister's needs), and headed into the desert. He fasted during daylight hours, lived on bread and salt and water, slept on the ground, resisted devilish temptation, and fought demons.

The Enemy subjected him to the temptations of the flesh and the anxieties of the world like thoughts of his family and loved ones, urging him to return to the world (as we are told by his biographer, St. Athanasius):

But the more the Evil One brought unto him filthy and maddening thoughts, the more Saint Anthony took refuge in prayer and in abundant supplication, and amid them all he remained wholly chaste.

Monastery of St. Anthony

Stories of Anthony's great devotion and asceticism were taken back to civilization by visitors, and more and more people came to learn from him and share in his growing reputation for holiness. But Athanasius tells us that Anthony was horrified by this, lest he himself be exalted as more worthy than other men. The so-called "first monk" never founded a monastery, never gathered followers, never preached a set of rules for others to live by. He pursued his own path to faith. On his death bed, he instructed the division of his garments to others, and requested to be put into an unmarked hole in the ground by two friends, Marcarius and Amatas, and the location left unrevealed to prevent veneration.

That didn't stop others from using him as a focal point, however. Shortly after his death at the age of 105, his followers started to dig and expand a spring in the cave where he lived, creating an oasis. Around this they began to build a monastery. The Monastery of St. Anthony still stands today, the oldest and largest Coptic monastery in Egypt. Its extreme isolation saved it from being a target of Arab conquest. It has changed and expanded greatly over the centuries, but can still be found 1300 feet above sea level in the desert southeast of Cairo.