FOREFEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION

The date of the celebration of Christmas is linked to a belief that was widespread among the biblical people during the earthly life of Jesus Christ. It was a time of universal expectation of the Messiah. The Bible consists of many books. They reflect vast periods of time. The history of the Bible is the history of the Covenant between God and man. God has always been faithful to this Covenant, but man, represented by God’s people, has constantly been unfaithful and broken the Covenant. God sent leaders and helpers to ancient Israel who delivered them from the disasters, captivity, and catastrophes into which the people had plunged themselves through their own fault. As the birth of Jesus drew near, there was a growing conviction that such a helper and deliverer was soon to come, who would once and for all, in the most decisive manner, rescue the people from all their misfortunes. It was He who was destined to become the true Anointed One of God, the one and only Messiah in Heaven and on Earth. The circumstances of His earthly life were to be not only unusual but also surrounded by supernatural events. The life of the Messiah simply had to be woven from a multitude of unique and unrepeatable coincidences. One such great coincidence was the predestination that the Messiah would die on the day of His conception.

There are corresponding prophecies about this in the biblical text. “Do no cook a young goat in its mother’s milk”, - it is said in the Book of Exodus (Chapter 23, verse 19). This prohibition proved to be so important that it is repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy, which, according to scholars, formed the basis of the Israeli Constitution during the religious revival on the eve of the Babylonian Captivity. Here is what is said in verse 21 of chapter 14 of this book: “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk”. These words are so mysterious, so closely tied to the context of the time in which they were formulated, that it took the experience of the Church and the wisdom of the Holy Fathers to give even an approximate interpretation.

“Since Christ did not suffer in childhood when Herod sought to kill him and it seemed that such danger hung over him, a prediction was made with the following words: “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Christ suffered like a lamb boiled in its mother’s milk, that is, at the time of his conception. For it is said that women’s breasts fill with milk from the moment of conception, and that Christ was conceived and suffered in that month, as evidenced not only by the celebration of Easter, but also by the day of his birth, well known to the Churches. He who was born nine months later, around December 25, was conceived, apparently, around March 25, which was also the time of his suffering in his mother’s milk, that is, during his mother’s milk," is how St. Augustine (354-430), a great Father of the Church, interprets these words of Scripture in one of his little-known but very important works, whose title literally translates as “Questions on the Seven Books,” that is, the first seven Books of Scripture (Quaestionum in Heptateuchum 2; 90). The date of March 25, mentioned by Augustine and celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation, was calculated astronomically, as it is linked to the celebration of the Jewish Passover in the year of Jesus’ crucifixion. It is this date that determines the date of Christmas.

This testimony of St. Augustine is extremely important. After all, the Church Fathers did not usually engage in historical research in liturgical matters. They celebrated events that were customary to celebrate in their local churches. During the era of the first Ecumenical Councils, there was great diversity, with churches and even individual dioceses often using their own Eucharistic prayers and even Creeds. The unification of these matters came later and is associated with the split of Eastern Christianity into two parts, Orthodox and Monophysite, and, of course, with the emergence and spread of Islam. To conclude the biblical theme, let us note that the prophecy from Exodus and Deuteronomy was not the only one. In the Book of Job, which presents the image of a suffering righteous man in whom Christians saw Christ the Messiah, Job himself curses the day he was conceived. This is also connected with the biblical predestination of the Annunciation, Christmas, and the Crucifixion.