sted on
any other day but Jan. 6.

Chrysostom, in a sermon preached at Antioch on Dec. 20, 386 or 388, says
that some held the feast of Dec. 25 to have been held in the West, from
Thrace as far as Cadiz, from the beginning. It certainly originated in
the West, but spread quickly eastwards. In 353-361 it was observed at
the court of Constantius. Basil of Caesarea (died 379) adopted it.
Honorius, emperor (395-423) in the West, informed his mother and brother
Arcadius (395-408) in Byzantium of how the new feast was kept in Rome,
separate from the 6th of January, with its own _troparia_ and
_sticharia_. They adopted it, and recommended it to Chrysostom, who had
long been in favour of it. Epiphanius of Crete was won over to it, as
were also the other three patriarchs, Theophilus of Alexandria, John of
Jerusalem, Flavian of Antioch. This was under Pope Anastasius, 398-400.
John or Wahan of Nice, in a letter printed by Combefis in his _Historia
monothelitarum_, affords the above details. The new feast was
communicated by Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (434-446), to
Sahak, Catholicos of Armenia, about 440. The letter was betrayed to the
Persian king, who accused Sahak of Greek intrigues, and deposed him.
However, the Armenians, at least those within the Byzantine pale,
adopted it for about thirty years, but finally abandoned it together
with the decrees of Chalcedon early in the 8th century. Many writers of
the period 375-450, e.g. Epiphanius, Cassian, Asterius, Basil,
Chrysostom and Jerome, contrast the new feast with that of the Baptism
as that of the birth _after the flesh_, from which we infer that the
latter was generally regarded as a birth according to the Spirit.
Instructive as showing that the new feast travelled from West eastwards
is the fact (noticed by Usener) that in 387 the new feast was reckoned
according to the Julian calendar by writers of the province of Asia, who
in referring to other feasts use the reckoning of their local calendars.
As early as 400 in Rome an imperial rescript includes Christmas among
the three feasts (the others are Easter and Epiphany) on which theatres
must be closed. Epiphany and Christmas were not made judicial _non dies_
until 534.

For some years in the West (as late as 353 in Rome) the birth feast was
appended to the baptismal feast on the 6th of January, and in Jerusalem
it altogether supplanted it from about 360 to 440, when Bishop Juvenal
introduced the feast of the 25th