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Okay, I read both articles. Neither proves anything. He even admits that the Theophilus document was considered an Irish forgery, but claims it was resolved by the Council of Whitby in AD 663. But he also notes that the Christmas date is found in recension A, while also noting that Eusebius is mentioned in recension A. Conversely, recension B contains neither. Although he attempts to make a case for the date's authenticity nonetheless, it's a plain fact that if the author of the work mentioned Eusebius, then the document is fourth century or later, and therefore not authentic.I don't think Deborah was claiming it's in our current copies of the Gospel of James (or Protoevangelium of James, or Infancy Gospel of James). The statements of "earlier version of the Gospel of James" indicate the claim was rather that the writers were quoting from an earlier version of it we don't have, and the quote isn't in the copies we do.
And that is more clear after I discovered where Deborah's claims were coming from. Wondering if maybe these arguments were being taken from someone else, I did a search for part of the quote that Deborah listed as being from Nicephorus ("But it was in her fifteenth year on the 25th day of December that she bore the Light of the World. And when he who was the eternal and before all ages Word had passed thirty-three years, her son went forth from the earth. After the cross, however, at his request, she completed eleven years in the home of John, so that the whole age of her life being gathered together were fifty-nine years.") and turned up the following article:
December 25th and the Epistle of Theophilus
This article provides a translation of the Epistle of Theophilus and the Council of Caesarea about AD 196, and examines its reference to the Christmas date. We will conclude that, although the document is not from the hand of Theophilus, it is not awww.academia.edu
This is an article (published in Dallas Theological Seminary's journal Bibliotheca Sacra) by Kurt Simmons. Kurt Simmons is a proponent of December 25 being the date of Jesus's birth (he has a website about it!) and has written various articles--some published in theological journals--arguing there is evidence of early recognition of December 25 as Christmas. The above article is concerning the Theophilus citation. Now, the author of this article presents a more nuanced approach than Deborah did; he does not claim that the work is actually from Theophilus and in fact admits it is from a later time period. His assertion is instead that even though it's from later, it could still be giving correct information about prior practice. It also mentions Julius Africanus, the Protoevangelium of James, and Nicephorus quoting Evodius, just like Deborah's post did. What clinches that this is the source of those statements is it makes the same typo in the citation as Deborah offered, saying "Nicephorus Calistus, Ecclesiastical History 3.2" when it should be "Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History 2.3." So a lot of these talking points seem to be from Kurt Simmons.
With the source known, the arguments become more clear. Now, the Julius/Protoevangelium/Nicephorus portions in the above article are basically abbreviated versions of the argument the author made in an earlier article (mentioned in a footnote) called "Revisiting The Fathers: An Examination of the Christmas Date in Several Early Patristic Writers", published in "Questions Liturgiques" (a journal published by KU Leuven University). The article can be found here or here. The argument, to try to summarize briefly, is that there was an earlier version of the Protoevangelium of James that did mention a December 25 date, which is what is being quoted by Nicephorus, but the copies we have of the Protoevangelium of James now were rewritten and do not include that mention. Since the Protoevangelium of James dates from the second century, this means an earlier one would be in the second century at the latest and provide evidence for December 25 in the second century. As for Julius Africanus, while we have no explicit quotation from him mentioning December 25 (we possess only fragments of his work), it is asserted that parts of the Excerpta Latinae Barbari (which mentions a December 25 birth date) match up so well with what we know of Julius's writings that the December 25 in it seems to have been taken from Julius, which would be an early source for December 25. There are other things brought up in the article (for example, it discusses Hippolytus, borrowing heavily--by the author's own admission--from Thomas Schmidt's argument that the December 25 reference is legitimate and not an interpolation), but those are the ones about Julius/Protoevangelium/Nicephorus.
One can read the article itself for more in-depth information on the author's reasons for these conclusions to see if they agree. Unfortunately, Deborah's post left out some of this information and thus ended up being very confusing. For example, as noted, Julius Africanus mentions December 25 in no surviving text; Kurt Simmons admits this, but argues that there is evidence he did. The arguments were not included in Deborah's post and thus it simply asserts Julius Africanus mentions it, leaving a reader confused. I wish Deborah had linked to the article(s) directly so the information would be more clear (perhaps this was done in a previous post and I missed it).
So anyway, that's basically where the claims appear to come from. You can take a look at Kurt Simmons's "Revisiting The Fathers: An Examination of the Christmas Date in Several Early Patristic Writers" article yourself (or his others) and see what you think of its arguments.
Meanwhile, his other argument concerning Julius Africanus demonstrates a possible trace of calculation theory. However, I don't personally find this significant. Julius Africanus lived from 160-240 CE, Hippolytus from 170-235 CE. They were direct contemporaries. Given the fact that both of their works were well circulated and known by many, it's very easy to speculate that contemporaneous authors with access to each other's works could easily result in one or the other being derivative.
It is my opinion that the document for Theophilus is a fabrication, and it is my position that neither Hippolytus nor Africanus demonstrate any definitive evidence for a tradition of December 25th outside of their own theosophical calculations. Simmons wrote a great article, but it's only convincing in a bubble. If you're already aware of many of the facts, it packs a whole lot less punch.
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