Christianity before the first Christmas

Two years ago, my Christmas feature on Reaction was an examination of recent scientific developments in determining the correct date of Christ’s birth, with the most state-of-the-art research arriving at 25 December, 1 BC as the likeliest candidate, leaving a gap of just one week before the commencement of the Christian era. That is a smaller discrepancy in the Gregorian calendar calculation than had long been allowed for, both by the Church and scientists. 

The traditional terminology of 1 BC, rather than 1 BCE, is used here because the recently contrived terms “BCE” and “CE” refer to a “Common Era”, which is the opposite of the chronological reality. What common era? In the Hebrew calendar, this is the year 5784; in the Buddhist calendar, which begins on 13 May, 544 BC, we are in the year 2566; in the Islamic calendar, which starts on 16 July, 622 AD, this year’s date is 1444. 

So, it is positively perverse to calculate the date conventionally from the birth of Christ, as has long been done in the West, and call it a “common era”, simply because many Western academics have an antipathy to Christianity, but recognise it would create mayhem to meddle with the calendar by creating Year One of the Postmodern Era, in imitation of the French revolutionaries, whose heirs would lose the totemic date 1789, just as Britain would lose 1066, 1688 and 1940. Such petty behaviour is increasingly discrediting academe.

However, beyond the technicalities of calculating calendar dates, there is a more substantial phenomenon that deserves to engage our attention at Christmas and that is the prophetic awareness of an expected messiah across various cultures, even outside the Judaic tradition. This is the time of year, during Advent and Christmas, when the prophet Isaias, or Isaiah, from the 8^th century BC, comes into his own. Although much of his canon is devoted to the intricacies of Jewish politics in his own time and later, making his writings a boon to ancient historians, it also contains the most striking predictions of the coming of Christ.

In our culture, many of these prophecies are familiar, due to the popularity of Handel’s Messiah, where they are splendidly embedded in great music, like jewels in a fine setting. Even without music, when the relevant passages are extracted from the Book of Isaiah they convey in majestic language an imposing prophecy of the messianic triumph.

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” (7:14) “For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.” (9:6)

But the prophecy is not restricted to the triumphant features of the Incarnation: in later verses, Isaiah also foretells the passion of Christ: “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not… But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.” (53:3-5) Even Christ’s silence at his trial before the high priest is foretold: “He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.” (53:7)

Considering that these prophecies were known to Christ’s Jewish contemporaries, it is difficult to comprehend how they could have expected the messiah to be a victorious warlord. Of course, Isaias/Isaiah is not alone in the Old Testament in prophesying the advent of Christ. The Psalms contain similar predictions. “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool. The Lord will send forth the sceptre of thy power out of Sion: rule thou in the midst of thy enemies. With thee is the principality in the day of thy strength: in the brightness of the saints: from the womb before the day star I begot thee.” (Psalm 109: 1-3)

The triumphalism of those verses celebrating the power and glory of the Messiah might understandably have aroused expectations among the Jews of a mighty earthly ruler, but the fact remains that they were counterbalanced by Isaiah. In any case, Psalm 21 paints a startlingly prophetic picture of Christ’s passion: “They have pierced my hands and feet. They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me. They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.” (Psalm 21: 17-19)

It seems only natural that the sacred scripture of a highly literate civilisation such as the Hebrews should have contained forecasts of the advent of a messiah. What is more surprising is that pagan sources, chronologically antedating the Nativity, should also have contained references to the same event. One of the most controversial examples is the famous Fourth Eclogue of the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC). 

In this hexameter verse, composed around 40 BC, Virgil makes allusion to the birth of a wonder-child who would restore the Golden Age: 

“Now dawns the last age of Cumaean song!

Once more the cycle of centuries begins,

The Virgin reappears and Saturn reigns:

From heaven descends a new progeny;

Now to this child to whom the iron race

Throughout the world shall cease and turn to gold,

Extend thine aid, Lucina, chaste and kind,

For thy Apollo reigns.”

Some early Christians claimed to detect elements of the Christian narrative in this overtly pagan poetry. Constantine the Great became convinced that Virgil was a pre-Christian prophet; St Augustine was willing to concede the possibility of some element of divine inspiration, while insisting that Virgil could not have been aware of the full significance of what he wrote; St Jerome was scornful of the whole concept. By the Middle Ages, however, a school of thought had sprung up that regarded Virgil as a “virtuous pagan”, effectively an unconscious Christian prophet. 

Virgil was conscripted into mediaeval mystery plays and into Dante’s Divine Comedy, where he was even credited with the conversion of Statius. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries scholars retreated from a Christian interpretation to dispute over various theories of appropriation: was Virgil familiar with Hebrew scripture and had he drawn from it for artistic reasons? Or had he absorbed similar material, at second hand, from Eastern mystical writings?

All of which smacks of intellectuals ignoring the obvious, since it seems credible that Virgil had himself supplied the answer, by citing the Cumaean Sybil at the beginning of this passage. The tenth Sybil, or prophetess, based at Cumae, near Naples was credited with having prophesied the birth of Christ. A text based on a Christian manuscript in Greek, from the 4^th century, made that claim and contained an acrostic spelling out Christ’s name and attributes. But relating in the 4^th century something that occurred in the 1^st century is history or myth, rather than prophecy.

Here we encounter a tantalising chicken-and-egg situation. Was Virgil aware of some prophecy of the Sibyl relating to Christ, or did his invocation of her in verses partly analogous to the Christian tradition cause later generations to assume she had made such a prophecy? Or has too much been read into Virgil’s text? While it would be easy to dismiss the whole controversy as coincidence, there are elements to it that demand research and elucidation, if possible.

One extraordinary factor is the degree of respect that the Church, over centuries, accorded to a pagan prophetess. Michelangelo painted her on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, along with Isaiah, and, even more extraordinarily, she is featured in the Requiem Mass, in a celebrated text that has attracted the talents of composers such as Mozart and Verdi. 

The Sequence prayer for the Requiem Mass, attributed either to the Franciscan Thomas of Celano or the Dominican Latino Orsini, both in the 13^th century, is known from its opening words as the Dies irae (Day of wrath) and contains the phrase “Teste David cum Sibylla”: “The day of wrath, that day, will dissolve the world in ashes, by the testimony of David along with the Sibyl.” While the latest possible date for the composition of this prayer is the 13th century, some scholars believe it may go back as far as to the time of St Gregory the Great (elected pope in 590). That clearly reflects the strength of a tradition that merits consideration and investigation.

There are grounds for detecting a pre-Christian tradition even further afield. The three Wise Men, or Magi, of the Nativity accounts can be identified as Zoroastrian priest-astronomers from Persia, or possibly from the Arabian peninsula, as outlined in the article on the date of Christmas on Reaction two years ago. The astronomer R. W. Sinnot demonstrated that, on 17 June, 2 BC, there was an exceptional Jupiter-Venus planetary conjunction when the combined planets became 200 times brighter than Regulus (“The Little King”) in the constellation Leo and one of the brightest objects visible from earth.

This, months later, brought the Magi to Jerusalem in search of the new-born King of the Jews, having “come to adore him”. But why would they adore a king of the Jews? They did not adore Herod when they met him. Clearly, their studies of religious tradition and literature had informed them that this king had a divine origin. It is possible the Magi did not come from Persia, but were Zoroastrian-influenced scholars from the Arabian peninsula.

Here, too, Isaiah has something relevant to say: “For the riches of the sea shall be poured out before you, bearing gold and frankincense and heralding the praises of the Lord.” (60: 6) The psalmist is even more specific: “May the kings of Tarshish and the islands bring tribute, the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts.” (Psalm 72: 10) 

Isaiah specifically predicted that kings would come from Ephah, Midian and Sheba. Midian was present-day Jordan, Sheba what is now Yemen. In the time of Jesus, Sheba/Yemen was ruled by a Jewish dynasty that would have been informed and interested in all prophetic matters. The Arabian peninsula is also the one place where the plants grow from which comes the resin to manufacture both frankincense and myrrh.

It is evident that the prophecy of the Messiah was not confined to Jewish territory but, over centuries, had spread throughout lands inhabited by Gentiles. Isaiah was also significant for his insistence that the Messiah would be king of the whole world, Gentiles included, and not only of the Jews. Much information has been lost, other lore tantalisingly half-preserved; but, overall, it is clear that there was an expectation of the birth of a Messiah far beyond the confines of Israel and that, for centuries, a kind of pre-Christianity existed long before the actual birth of Christ, which we are joyfully about to celebrate.

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