It is not easy to pin-point the 【C1】______ of the Christmas feast, today the most importan

t feast of the Christmas season in most western Christian churches. One can only say 【C2】______ that the birth of Jesus Christ was being 【C3】______ in Rome by the year 336 A. D.; afterwards the feast was celebrated in other Christian churches throughout the worid. 【C4】______ it was celebrated on December 25th is another 【C5】______ . No date for the 【C6】______ of Jesus can be found in the New Testament, which is concerned more 【C7】______ the question "Who is Jesus？" 【C8】______ the date of his birth. Early Christian speculation about his birth date was 【C9】______ by the symbolism of the changing seasons, then popular in 【C10】______ thought, 【C11】______ paid careful 【C12】______ to the equinoxes and solstices of the sun. Christian slogans speculated that Jesuswas 【C13】______ at the spring equinox (March 25th) and there-fore was born on December 25th, the date of the winter

solstice.

In many of the Christian 【C14】______ , March25thisstillthe Feast of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel 【C15】______ to Mazy that she【C16】______ the mother of Jesus.

【C17】______ impulse for the feast of Christmas may have came too 【C18】______ the establishment of the pagan feast of the "Unconquered Sun-God" by the Emperor Aurelian in 274 A.D. to be celebrated on December 25, the day of the winter solstice in Rome and throughout the empire. 【C19】______ , Christians could celebrate the feast of the "Sun of righteousness" (Malachi 4,2), Jesus Christ, who called himself" 【C20】______ of the world."

【C1】

A．religion

B．origin

C．region

D．oration