"... that date of
the pagan festival for the birthday of Helios, December 25,
was taken over by Christians for the birthday of the
Christ."
- The
Harvest of Hellenism, by F.E. Peters (New York, 1970) p.443
"Why, we may ask,
did the Church choose December 25 for the celebration
of her Founder's Birth? No one now imagines that the date is
supported by a reliable tradition; it is only one of various
guesses of early Christian writers. As a learned eighteenth-century
Jesuit has pointed out, there is not a single month in the
year to which the Nativity has not been assigned by some
writer or other. The real reason for the choice of the day most
probably was, that upon it fell the pagan festival just mentioned
[the birthday of the unconquered Sun]."
- Christmas in Ritual and Tradition,
Christian and Pagan,
by
Clement A. Miles, p.22