medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>From: Steve <[log in to unmask]>
>I always thought the choice of June 24 as the Feast Day of John the
>Baptist had to do with his words in John's Gospel: "He must increase,
>and I must decrease." The days begin to shorten, of course, at this
>time, and begin to lengthen at Christmas, symbolizing the return of
>light to the world with Christ's birth. Perhaps these two days were
>chosen with this in mind.
My impression is that this was part of the theological justification, as
opposed to the motivation of replacing Sol Invictus with Jesus' birth. Given
the chronology in Luke (iirc), once Jesus' birth was settled at 25 Dec., J
the B had to be six months earlier.
Was this subject discussed on the list a few years ago?
Francine Nicholson
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