Posted by Luke J. Wilson on 19th December 2019 in Christmas | christmas,xmas,origins,pagan,pagan roots,church fathers,church history,Saturnalia,Epiphany,Annunciation,Tertullian,Origen,john chrysostom,incarnation,liturgical calendar,church calendar,festivals
..., let the
Epiphany be to you the most honoured, in which the Lord made to you a display of His own divinity. And let that feast take place on the sixth of the tenth month [January]. After that, the fast of Lent is to be observed by you as containing a memorial of our Lord’s manner of life and teaching. But let this solemnity be observed before the fast of Easter, beginning from the second day of the week and ending at the Day of the Preparation. After those solemnities, breaking your fast, begin the holy week of Easter, all of you fasting in this week with fear and trembling. — Apostolic Constitutions ~390 AD
Much of what is instructed here hasn’t chang...