What we're looking at today is a quote attributed to John Chrysostom, which goes:
"On this day also the Birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome in order that while the heathen were busied with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed."
This comes from Charles King's work "The Gnostics and Their Remains" where he quotes the above as the words of Chrysostom. A slightly different version of this quote goes:
"On this day, also, the birth of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that whilst the heathen were busy with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed."
This one, however, comes from another writer quoting King (and as one will notice by some differences, they're quoting King accurately as "birthday"is turned into "birth" and "busied" is turned into "busy"). Ultimately, everyone I have seen who has offered either quote gives no source, has King as a source, or their source ends up tracing back to King.
You've likely heard the allegation that December 25 was chosen as the date of Christmas to coincide with a pagan holiday on that date. The above quote is normally used to argue in favor of that idea, given its statement that because the heathen were doing their own profane ceremonies, Christians would be undisturbed. But of course we come to the question: Did John Chrysostom actually say this?
If one wants the quick version, this quote appears to be made up. If you want the much longer version, that's what the rest of this post is for.
Before talking about the quote, a few comments should be made on the whole "Christmas's date is taken from a pagan holiday" claim in general. The only pagan holiday that Christmas's date could plausibly have been taken from is Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birthday of the Invincible Sun (Sol)), a celebration of the birth of Sol, the Roman god of the Sun (some have conflated this with the birthday of Mithras, but there is no indication that Mithras ever had any birthday on such a date; Mithras scholar Roger Beck refers to that idea as "that hoariest of "facts" about Mithras", see footnote on page 299). Saturnalia sometimes gets posited as the source of the date of Christmas, but it didn't occur on December 25, but a little earlier in the month. And any other winter solstice festivals people try to point to were celebrated outside of the Roman Empire and therefore too far away to have been any plausible influence on the date of Christmas. That leaves us with Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. The problem with this idea is, it is not clear which one came first. The Chronography of 354 contains the first undisputed reference to Christmas (although the Chronograph itself is from 354 AD, hence the name, this specific portion is usually dated to the 330's). However, we have no clear record of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti being celebrated prior to this (some point to Aurelian dedicating a temple to Sol in 274 AD on December 25, but this is not evidence it was an actual celebration, or that one was created as a result). The first apparent record of the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti celebration is ironically also in the Chronograph of 354, when it says "N·INVICTI" which is shorthand for "Natalis Invicti", or "Birthday of the Invincible." However, whether this is actually a reference to Dies Natalis Solis Invicti is disputed, as it makes no mention of Sol (Sol is both the name of a Sun god and also the name of the Sun), so it may be this holiday is of even later origin. Even if we accept it is a reference to this holiday, it means we have no attestation that Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was celebrated before Christmas, raising the possibility of it coming after, perhaps in response. There are some points of evidence people can point to for either predating this period (on the Christmas side, see for example this article here which points to some possible evidences of Christmas prior to the fourth century) but all are less clear than the Chronograph of 354.
The bottom line here is that despite the popular idea that Christmas's date was chosen in response to Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, we are without definite evidence that Dies Natalis Solis Invicti even predates Christmas; it could easily be the other way around and its date was chosen in imitation of Christmas.
This then brings us to the quote attributed to Chrysostom. If this quote is legitimate, then it would indeed be strong evidence that Christmas's date was chosen due to overlapping with an unspecified "heathen" holiday, given Chrysostom lived in the fourth century. This would be far better evidence than, say, the "Scriptor Syrus" who made a similar claim that is sometimes cited... but this "Scriptor Syrus" was an unknown Syrian writer from the 12th century and is therefore worthless as any kind of primary source (see here and here).
But this is our first sign that this Chrysostom quote is false: Why isn't this Chrysostom quote used more? There is various scholarly writings about the date of Christmas, including those that discuss what John Chrysostom said about Christmas, and none of them I have seen make mention of this quote. Why is it therefore only relegated to an old 19th century work with an ambiguous citation and some people copying from it? So already we have reason to be skeptical of this quote. But let's see if we can see if it's true or not.
As noted, the earliest instance I have been able to find of this quote is from King. Here is the larger context of it from Charles King's book The Gnostics and Their Remains, page 49 of the 1864 printing:
"Similarly, the ancient festival held on the 25th day of December in honour of the "Birthday of hte Invincible One," and celebrated by the "Great Games" of the Circus (as marked in the ancient Kalendar VIII. KAL. IAN. N. INVICTI. C.M.XXIV.), was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the Birth of Christ, the precise day of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown. Thus Chrysostom (Hom. 31) quotes the above direction of the Kalendar, and rightly understands it as referring to the Birthday of the Invincible Mithras, adding, "On this day also the Birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome in order that whilst the heathen were busied with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed." Again he exclaims, "But they call this day the Birthday of the Invincible One: who is so invincible as the Lord that overthrew and vanquished Death? Or because they style it the Birthday of the Sun? He is the Sun of Righteousness of whom Malachi saith, 'Upon you, fearful ones, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.'""
The "Kalendar" he refers to is the Chronography of 354. The problem is, as my discussion above notes, this provides no evidence of this occurring prior to Christmas, and it makes no reference to Mithras.
King does give this quote to Chrysostom, attributing it to the vague "Hom. 31". He then offers another quote from Chrysostom, apparently from the same source, which is "But they call this day the Birthday of the Invincible One: who so invincible as the Lord that overthrew and vanquished Death? Or because they style it the Birthday of the Sun? He is the Sun of Righteousness of whom Malachi saith, 'Upon you, fearful ones, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.'" For the record, King, in an article published a few years prior, makes it clear that the two quotes are both supposed to be from this "Hom. 31". In Volume 26 (1869) of The Archaeological Journal, on page 234 he says:
"And the origin of our festival of Christmas Day is best stated in the words of S. Chrysostom himself (Hom. xxxi.), "On this day the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that whilst the heathens were occupied in their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed . . . . But they call this day 'The Birthday of the Invincible One:' who is so invincible as the Lord that overthrew and vanquished Death? Or, because they style it the 'Birthday of hte Sun.' He is the Sun of Righteousness, of whom Malachi saith, 'Upon you, fearful ones, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.'""
Oddly, he provides yet another variant, this time saying "occupied" rather than "busied". Granted, Chrysostom did not write in English so one could say it might be an alternate translation... but it's still odd for King to offer different versions of the quote in different works. Regardless, this shows that he is citing both of these quotes to the same work by Chrysostom, this "Hom. 31" ("Hom. xxxi" in the other source)
Now, the citation given by King is vague indeed. "Hom. 31" obviously stands for "Homily 31", but Homily 31 of what? Chrysostom has hundreds of homilies; this number is of little help if King does not specify what collection of homilies this comes from.
I decided to try to search around on Google Books to see if I could find other people referring to "Homily 31". There actually were a number who referred to a "Homily 31" by Chrysostom that apparently had something to do with Christmas, although they did not repeat the quote given by King. Unfortunately, most did little to aid me in actually finding this mysterious homily due to them being unclear themselves about the source and where to find it. But they do at least show there was a homily numbered 31 that had something to do with Christmas.
Eventually, however, I found a few that were slightly more clear, even if still not very much. William Cave's work "Primitive Christianity" (page 125 in Volume 1 of the 1728 printing), refers to a homily about Christmas by Chrysostom that is cited to "Serm. 31. to.5.p.417" (Sermon 31 of tome (volume) page 417). Cave does not offer either quote that King gives, but does mention that Chrysostom discusses how the December 25 date of Christmas was recently introduced to Antioch, but had been celebrated in the West for a longer period.
The sermon number matches with King's citation, though. Unfortunately, while it tells us that this is found on page 417 of volume 5, it does not tell us what this volume 5 is of. Still, it helps enough, and I was able to eventually determine that the work in question was the 1702 lengthily-titled work "Sancti Patris Nostri Joannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Sermonum de Diversis Novi Testamenti Locis" which was a collection of various sermons Chrysostom wrote. Here is where we run into a bit of an oddity, though. Column 417 of volume 5, which is what was cited, does have a Christmas-related homily, but it is listed as Sermon 33. The one actually listed as Sermon 31 several pages earlier has nothing to do with Christmas. But this 33rd sermon has to be the "Sermon 31" that Cave was referring to given the way the pages and volumes match up perfectly.
I did find another source (Joseph Bingham's "Orignes Ecclesiasticae") that refers to what is obviously the same homily, but cites it to a separate collection of Chrysostom's sermons/homilies. This is on page 59 of Volume 7 of the 1844 printing of "Origines Ecclesiasticae" (if consulting a different printing that divides things differently, note this is in Book 10 Chapter 4 Section 2). Bingham again discusses a Christmas homily by Chrysostom, and while not noting King's quote, does offer the quote "That ten years were not yet past since they came to the true knowledge of the day of Christ's birth, which they kept on Epiphany, till the Western Church gave them better information." We can tell by his description this is the same one as Cave offered. And he offers a citation of "Chrysost. Hom. xxxi. de Natali Christi. (Bened. 1718. vol. ii. p. 355, A 2.)" Note he refers to this as Homily 31 (xxxi), and he cannot be simply copying Cave's citation because he offers a different one.
The work in view here is "Joannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani Opera omnia" and as the citation notifies us, is found on page 354 of Volume 2 (the above citation is for page 355 because that was the specific page the quote it was offering was from). However, we again run into a numbering question. It does not say the number on the homily itself, but if you turn back to the table of contents, you see that it is numbered 36. So I do not know where the number "31" is supposed to come from. Perhaps these homilies were numbered as 31 in some earlier collection but had their numbering updated in the later ones, and Cave and Bingham simply kept the older numbering even while citing the later collections that used a different numbering?
Regardless of how they ended up with 31 for these, this same sermon or homily has been cited as homily 31 by multiple writers, and writers who were in fact citing separate collections. Thus I think we can assume that this was the Homily 31 in view, given we have multiple authors refer to it as such, even while appealing to different collections. Here is where we run into an immediate problem. Neither quote that King offers is found here.
The ones we looked at were in Latin, but someone did offer an English translation, which can be found on pages 180-201 here. I do not see the quote there. In fact, the claim that the date of Christmas was only recently set by Rome appears to be actually denied by Chrysostom, who says (pages 180-181):
"Although it is not yet the tenth year, from when this day has become clear and well known to us, but nevertheless it has flourished through your zeal, as if delivered to us from the beginning and many years ago. Whence one would not be in error to call the day both new and old: new because it was recently made known to us; at the same time, old and time-honored because it quickly became of like stature as the older days, and reached the same measure in stature with them. For just as with hardy and good trees (for the latter, as soon as they are put down into the earth, immediately shoot up to a great height and are heavy with fruit), so too this day being well known among those dwelling in the West from the beginning, and now having been brought us, and not many years ago, thus shot up at once and bore so much fruit, as is possible to see now--our sacred court filled, and the whole Church crowded by the multitude of those gathering together."
When Christians began celebrating Christmas on December 25 is a disputed subject; as noted at the start, we know for certain it was by the mid-fourth century by the latest, though there are some indications that it celebration started earlier. But whenever it started in the West, it appears this custom came to the East later on in the 4th century, which is why Chrysostom says it has not been ten years since they (Constantinople) were using that date, and before using this they used another date. Thus "This day being well known among those dwelling in the West from the beginning, and now having been brought to us, and not many years ago." Chrysostom's claim it was known to the West from the beginning is probably a stretch, but it is true the West had the tradition of December 25 prior to the East, which celebrated Christmas in early January. However, important for our purposes is the fact he makes the claim of it being celebrated from the beginning in the West. Whether or not Chrysostom was right about December 25 being celebrated from the beginning in the West (which includes Rome), it doesn't make sense for him to say that if he also claimed, as the quote attributed to him says, that it was only recently set to December 25 by Rome. In fact, the only mention of Rome is to say "And it is possible for the one who desires to know exactly to read the original codices publicly stored at Rome and learn the time of the census" which he uses to defend the date.
So while referred to as "Homily 31" by several other writers, this one does not have either of the quotes King offers, and in fact seems to contradict them.
I was originally going to close this there, but I did do a little more digging to try to see if I could find anything about King's second quote (the one mentioning "Sun of Righteousness") he claimed was from this Chrysostom homily, as I did recall finding someone before King using that quote, although a different translation. So I set off to look for that, and did have somewhat better success.
I'll skip past the lengthy process that I underwent to find it, but long story short, the second quote is found in a Latin sermon/homily attributed to John Chrysostom, but not by him. This sermon has several names it goes by, with the most common appearing to be some variant of "De natiuitate sancti Ioannis Baptistae Sermo" (there are alternate renderings by doing things like putting sermo at the start, replacing U's with V, or I's with J, abbreviating Sancti as S, so you can get things like "Sermo de nativitate sancti S. Joannis Baptistae" or various things in between). Another possible name, which comes from the first words of it, is "De solstitiis et aequinoctiis". The author and date are unknown, but it is apparently considered to probably be from sometime in the fourth century.
This can be found in several locations, such as the place I originally found it due to it being cited by something else, which is column 1107 of the 1570 work "Tomus Secundus Operum Divi Ioannis Chrysostomi, Archiepiscopi Constanantinopolitiani" (listed as "Tomus primus (-quintus) omnium operum Diui Ioannis Chrysostomi" on Google Books). Although this quote was attributed to a "Homiily 31" by King, it says nothing about it being the 31st in this work. At the end of the sermon is where the "invincible one" quote comes from.
Some information about this work can be found here, and an English translation here. The English translation renders the applicable passage as:
"They also call it ‘Birthday of the Invictus’. But who is invictus [unconquered] if not our Lord, who suffered death and then conquered it? Or when they call it ‘Birthday of the Sun’ – well, Christ is the sun of righteousness that the prophet Malachi spoke of: The sun of righteousness shall arise for all you who fear his name; salvation is in his wings."
This matches it well enough. This, however, does little to give any indication that the date of Christmas was taken from Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, as this comes after both celebrations were done, and it says nothing of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti as being celebrated before Christmas (again, it could very well have been an imitation of Christmas). This means the quote fits with either the idea of Christmas coming after Dies Natalis Solis Invicti as well as the idea of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti coming after Christmas and being the one doing the imitating. Thus it provides no evidence for Christmas being an imitation of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (if anything it implies the opposite).
There is one final wrinkle that should be noted. I have focused on the
1862 edition of The Gnostics and Their Remains, but King later published a
second edition in 1887. On page 120, he makes a very similar claim, and says:
"Chrysostom, for example, declares (Hom. xxxi.) that the Birthday of Christ had then lately been fixed at Rome upon that day, in order that whilst the heathen were busied with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform their holy rites without molestation."
He gives the same citation of Homily 31, but this time does not present it as a quote, and omits the other quote. However, even as a summary, this doesn’t fit with what Chrysostom actually said in what seems to be the "Homily 31".
There are other homilies about Christmas spuriously attributed to Chrysostom, so it's possible maybe one of those is the source. Of course, even if that is the case, then it means it wasn't said by Chrysostom. But when we consider the citation of "Homily 31" and the other part of the quote King offers, we end up with only two plausible homilies in view, and in neither of the two homilies that might be plausibly what King has in mind--one of which is not even by Chrysostom--is this said. So where did it come from?
This is where the trail ends, because everything goes back to King. But where did King get this quote from? Was he copying some earlier source unavailable to us (a lot of works are not available online!) which claimed the quotes were from "Homily 31"? Did he get some separate things mixed up, such as perhaps taking what someone else said, perhaps a 19th century writer, and that person happened to mention Chrysostom and King mistook it as an actual Chrysostom quote? Something else entirely? We don't know.
But whatever caused King to give this alleged quote by Chrysostom that Christmas was "lately fixed at Rome" and was done to coincide with the festivals of the "heathen", the quote appears false. King gave what by all appearances is an inaccurate quote and others simply repeated his error due to not verifying the quote. So the final conclusion, as I noted early on, is that this quote by all appearances is simply a false one.