From Elizabeth's sixth month to the present month: the date of Christ's birth proved

And behold, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:36-37). If, then, Elizabeth began to conceive after the month of Gorpiaios, as has been shown, we must count six months from that point. Those months are Hyperberetaios, Dios, Apellaios, Audonaios, Peritios, and Dystros. After this sixth month, Mary began to conceive; and from there, counting nine months, we will arrive at the present month. The first month of the Lord’s conception, then, is April, which is Xanthikos; after it come Artemisios, Desios, Panemos, Loios, Gorpiaios, Hyperberetaios, Dios, Apellaios, and this present month, in which we celebrate the day. And so that what I am saying may become clearer to you again, let me take up the same things once more in brief and speak to your love. Once a year the high priest alone entered the Holy of Holies. When did this happen? In the month of Gorpiaios. At that time, then, Zechariah entered the Holy of Holies; at that time he also received the good news about John. He departed from there, and his wife began to conceive. After Gorpiaios, when Elizabeth was in her sixth month—which is Dystros—Mary then began to conceive. Counting nine months from Xanthikos, then, we will come to the present month, in which our Lord Jesus Christ was born.

But we have made everything about the day clear to you. One thing remains for me to say, and then I will bring my discourse to a close, yielding to the common teacher of the greater things. For since many of the Greeks, when they hear that God was born in flesh, mock and disparage it, and they disturb and trouble many of the simpler ones, it is necessary to speak both to them and to those who are troubled, so that they may never be disturbed, persuaded by foolish people, nor troubled by the laughter of the unbelieving. For small children often laugh when we speak seriously and are occupied with necessary matters; but the laughter is evidence not of the worthlessness of the things being laughed at, but of the folly of those who laugh. The same can be said of the Greeks: they are disposed almost more foolishly than children, disparaging the things worthy of shuddering and full of much wonder, while they honor and protect the things that are truly laughable. But nevertheless, the things of ours that are laughed at by them remain in their own dignity, suffering no harm to their own glory from that laughter; and the things of theirs that are protected from every side display their own shamefulness. For how is it not the height of madness that they, being easily led astray into stones and wood and cheap carved images, bring in their own gods and shut them up as in some prison, and consider it no shame either to do or to say anything—yet they accuse us, saying that God, having built for himself a living temple from the Holy Spirit, through it benefited the world? What kind of accusation is this? For if it is shameful for God to dwell in a human body, it is far more shameful for him to dwell in stone and wood—and so much more, as stone and wood are more dishonorable than a human being, unless indeed our race seems to them to be of less value than these senseless materials.