Christmas, the 25th of December, will open upon us, on Tuesday next.
This is a great day among Christian nations. But what peculiar influence has
been imparted to this day that it should occupy so conspicuous a prominence,
above other days? Was man created on Christmas? Did Noah enter the ark on
Christmas? Or what great event has transpired to make Christmas so memorable Listen, and I will inform you. In the sixth
century of our era, there lived a Romish monk, by the name of Dionysius Exiguus:
he imagined that Christ was born on the 25th of December. This wild conjecture,
without any substantial proof, was received by the Romish Church, and handed
down, like many other foolish traditions, to the present day. Learned
chronologists are now fully convinced, that this monkish simpleton conceived
the idea, and palmed the fabrication upon the world, entirely unsupported by
evidence.
Chronologists have no certain data on which to ground a calculation,
fixing the birth-day of our Redeemer. Wieseler, from approximative data,
supposes it to have been about the 10th of January. Greswell, from similar
data, believes it to have been the 5th of April. (See Smith's Dic. vol. i, p.
1074.)
The day of the crucifixion is not so uncertain. Some chronologists
assert that it transpired in March ; (See Arago's Astronomy, vol. ii, p. 772 ;)
but the great majority maintain that it took place on the day of the Passover,
as described by St. John, the Evangelist, which is said to have occurred on
Friday, the 6th of April, corresponding to the 14th of the old Jewish month
Abib, now called Nisan. (Smith's Dic. vol. ii, p. 719 : also vol. i. p. 1067.)
. . .
We have already brought the testimony of chronologists to prove that
he was crucified on Friday, the 6th of April. Deduct 32 of our years and 360 days
from the period of the crucifixion, and we have April 11th for the exact day of
his birth. Also, if we deduct 1721 weeks and 1 day from the time of the
crucifixion, we find that the 11th day of April, or the first birthday of
Christ, was on Friday. If he had lived to be 33 years of age, according to our
reckoning, that is, including the 8 intercalary days, (one day of which being
added every 4 years,) the anniversary of his birth-day would have fallen on
Wednesday : but he was crucified 5 days before this, or on the preceding
Friday, which, as already observed, was on the 6th of April.
From the above data, we have arrived at the certain conclusion, that
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was born on Friday after mid-day, (Jerusalem
local time,) April 11th, which is the True Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Therefore, the 11th day of April next will be our TRUE CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S
DAY for the True Era of our Lord 1870.
The set time that Christ, by New Revelation, organized his Latter-day
Kingdom, was on the 6th of April, A.D. 1830, Dionysius’s Vulgar Era, which is
the same as the 6th of April, A.D. 1833, True Christian Era. This stupendous
event, so long predicted by the Prophets, took place precisely 1800 years, to
the very day, from his crucifixion. (Orson Pratt, “True
Christmas and New Year’s Day,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 28,
no. 51 [December 22, 1866]: 808, 810-11)
For another “take”
on the issue of the date of Jesus’s birth and crucifixion, see:
Jerry D. Grover,
Jr., Calendars
and Chronology of the Book of Mormon (2023).
