On this day, 2011 years ago, Jesus was born. At least that is what the earliest evidence we have – a document written by Clement of Alexandria around 200AD – indicates. Clement wrote, “From the birth of Christ, therefore, to the death of Commodus are, in all, a hundred and ninety-four years, one month, thirteen days.” The emperor Commodus died on 31 December 192AD, and today could be Christmas Day if you count backwards using the Roman calendar.
On the other hand, if you count backwards using the Egyptian calendar, which did not allow for leap years, you get a date of 6 January 2BC. A century later, the church as a whole settled on 25 December as the date for celebrating Jesus’s birth, but 6 January is still celebrated as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus by the Armenian Orthodox Church. Clement’s evidence is not necessarily reliable, because elsewhere he says that people have determined that Jesus’s birth took place on the 25th day of Pachon in the 28th year of Augustus.
That date probably works out to be 20 May 2BC. Elsewhere Clement says that some remember Jesus’s birth on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi, which is the month before Pachon. Clement of Alexandria was one of the early church fathers. He was born around 150AD, spent many years as a scholar in Alexandria, and then died in Jerusalem around 215AD.