Easter fluctuating dates confusion

[Soontobe60]

If Jesus Christ existed, he was supposedly born on 25th December and that date never changes. But he was crucified on Good Friday, which changes every year!
How come we know his birth date but not his death date?
When did the 25th December become known as Christmas Day?
When did the day he died become known as Good Friday and the day he rose Easter Sunday?

All questions my Year 4 children asked in school this week.

Do you mean Roman Catholic?
Lots of saints' days and All Saints Day are fixed days for Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. I could find more, I'm sure, if I looked for some.

Well no, no one who lived at the time of Christ was a Christian as Christianity didn’t exist then

Which begs the question as to whether it exists now ?

It exists in the sense it is a thing that some people believe in and also it’s big business, whether it is real is another matter.

as far as I can see it exists in that anyone gets to call themselves "Christian" without actually doing anything other than calling themselves Christian.

The brand has very much been allowed to degrade.

Yes, that was my point 😉
Your previous post made it sound like the earliest Christians were the Romans…you said you didn’t understand what a pp meant by saying the romans were pagan and they colonised the Christian celebration.

Oh I see yes ok, no the Romans were not the earliest Christians the vast majority were pagan and the early Christian church in Rome exploited the pagan celebrations by choosing pagan festival dates for Christmas Day to make it easier for them to become Christians.
I didn’t understand the comment about the pagans colonising Christian festivals, as it was the other way around unless I’ve misinterpreted the comment

It may not have been the other way round and that was pp’s point when she said “The evidence of the chronology all suggests pagan Rome made some attempt to colonise and adopt the Christian celebration (and failed) not vice-versa”.

See also, for example,
On the evidence currently available we cannot exclude the possibility that, for instance, the 30 chariot races held in honor of Sol on December 25 were instituted in reaction to the Christian claim of December 25 as the birthday of Christ. In general, the extent to which late pagan festivals copied, incorporated, or responded to Christian practices, elements, and dates deserves far more attention than it has received;cf. Bowersock 1990, 26-7, 44-53.’, Steven E Hijmans, Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome (S.l.; Groningen: s.n.; University Library Groningen 2009), 588.

What is this chronology evidence? Paganism was around long before Christianity they already had their own celebrations. The chariot races could very well have been in reaction to the Christians taking over their festivals, I’d imagine not all of them wanted to give up their religion for Christianity too easily.
The pp seemed to be saying that Christianity was the main religion and pagans attempted to adopt their celebrations which was not the case.

The answer is that we don't actually know what date Jesus was born on or died on. The church picked the days based on existing Pagan celebrations and for the purposes of even spacing. There were multiple different calendars in operation at the time and different celebrations were decided on different calendar systems.

No I was not saying that.

I was saying that the new religion, Christianity, so popular with slaves and women, was causing some unease to the pagan Roman establishment, not least because it did not embrace pantheism and multiple minor deities as had been usual and acceptable in Rome. Once the Emperor was recognised as top god, the others didn't matter so much. But Christians did not recognise the Emperor as God at all..

SO

The Roman establishment moved some of their pre-existing cults to the midwinter holy day of the new religion in the hope of attracting some of its adherents.

I’m sure it did cause unease. Paganism and Christianity coexisted for a long time together before the transition. I’m sure the emperor wasn’t best pleased about the situation and they did try to move some of their celebration days to the newer Christian celebration dates in hope that some people would come back but that doesn’t change that the Christianity ‘did it first’

edited to say …they coexisted together for many years after, the transition to Christianity was not that fast,

The Roman establishment moved some of their pre-existing cults to the midwinter holy day of the new religion in the hope of attracting some of its adherents.

But Saturnalia, the major midwinter festival in the Roman empire, was always in late December. At its longest extent its last day was the 23rd.

Saturnalia started on the 17th. At its longest it was stretched to a week, ending on the 23rd (just as Christmas ends on 6th January/2nd February).

No calculation makes it and Christmas coincide.

It is entirely natural to have midwinter community events, when there is little farm work and plentiful food - see the aforementioned Newgrange - and the Jewish religious rituals around which the dates of the birth of John, the Annunciation, and Christmas were calculated reflected a world with distinct seasons.

But the dates of Christmas were not chosen to mimic Roman activities.

A trope of Roman humorists (certainly Martial) was to complain that Saturnalia was starting earlier and lasting longer every year.

In fact it's possible that it wasn't Christians the Romans despised, so much as the Christmas they came with. 😃

They probably didn't really know or care much about Christians except as just another eastern mystery religion, all of which seemed racketty and disreputable and in need of suppression. The establishment really was freaked out by Elagabalus, and it was easier to blame his religion rather than the squabbling that ended up giving a teenage boy total power.