Birth and Passion of _Christ__.

The times of the Birth and Passion of _Christ_, with such like niceties,
being not material to religion, were little regarded by the _Christians_ of
the first age. They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the
cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin _Mary_, on
the 25th of _March_, which when _Julius Caesar_ corrected the Calendar was
the vernal Equinox; the feast of _John_ Baptist on the 24th of _June_,
which was the summer Solstice; the feast of St. _Michael_ on _Sept._ 29,
which was the autumnal Equinox; and the birth of _Christ_ on the winter
Solstice, _Decemb._ 25, with the feasts of St. _Stephen_, St. _John_ and
the _Innocents_, as near it as they could place them. And because the
Solstice in time removed from the 25th of _December_ to the 24th, the 23d,
the 22d, and so on backwards, hence some in the following centuries placed
the birth of _Christ_ on _Decemb._ 23, and at length on _Decemb._ 20: and
for the same reason they seem to have set the feast of St. _Thomas_ on
_Decemb._ 21, and that of St. _Matthew_ on _Sept._ 21. So also at the
entrance of the Sun into all the signs in the _Julian_ Calendar, they
placed the days of other Saints; as the conversion of _Paul_ on _Jan._ 25,
when the Sun entred [Aquarius]; St. _Matthias_ on _Feb._ 25, when he entred
[Pisces]; St. _Mark_ on _Apr._ 25, when he entred [Taurus]; _Corpus
Christi_ on _May_ 26, when he entred [Gemini]; St. _James_ on _July_ 25,
when he entred [Cancer]; St. _Bartholomew_ on _Aug._ 24, when he entred
[Virgo]; _Simon_ and _Jude_ on _Octob._ 28, when he entred [Scorpio]: and
if there were any other remarkable days in the _Julian_ Calendar, they
placed the Saints upon them, as St. _Barnabas_ on _June_ 11, where _Ovid_
seems to place the feast of _Vesta_ and _Fortuna_, and the goddess
_Matuta_; and St. _Philip_ and _James_ on the first of _May_, a day
dedicated both to the _Bona Dea_, or _Magna Mater_, and to the goddess
_Flora_, and still celebrated with her rites. All which shews that these
days were fixed in the first _Christian_ Calendars by Mathematicians at
pleasure, without any ground in tradition; and that the _Christians_
afterwards took up with what they found in the Calendars.

Neither was there any certain tradition about the years of _Christ_. For
the _Christians_ who first began to enquire into these things, as _Clemens
Alexandrinus_, _Origen_, _Tertullian_, _Julius African