Christian Plaques That Would Commemorate for the Day They Were Born Again
Sol Invictus and Christmas
"But unto you that fright my name shall the Sun of righteousness ascend with healing in his wings."
Malachi 4:2
The worship of the Dominicus (Sol) was indigenous to the Romans, who had a temple to Sol Indiges on the Quirinal that was said to have been established past Tatius, king of the Sabines, the first inhabitants of the hill who, after the rape of the Sabine women, reconciled with Romulus and ruled jointly in the eighth century BC (Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria, I.seven.12; Varro, De Lingua Latina, V.10). In that location likewise was a temple to Sol (also as one to Luna) in the Circus Maximus, where chariot races took place under the auspices of these deities (Tacitus, Register, XV.74; Tertullian, De Spectaculis, Eight.1). The four-horse quadriga, for instance, was consecrated to the sun, just every bit the ii-horse biga was entrusted to the Moon (Tertullian, 9.3). The foundation dates, too, of the temples on the Quirinal and in the Circus both were in August (the ninth and twenty-8th, respectively), when the heat of the sun was most intense.
Afterwards the great fire of AD 64, in which a large portion of Rome was destroyed, Nero erected a colossal statue of himself 120 anxiety high (Suetonius, Life of Nero, XXXI.ane), which Vespasian converted to that of Sol, placing a radiant crown on its head (Suetonius, Vespasian, Xviii.1; Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV.45). Vespasian too was the commencement emperor to display the paradigm of Sol on imperial coinage. By the second century Ad, this autochthonous deity was being eclipsed by an Eastern cult of the Sun, Invictus appearing equally an epithet in an inscription in Ad 158. Several decades later, Commodus became the first Roman emperor to appropriate the title for himself (Dio, Roman History, LXXIII.xv.iii).
Septimius Severus, who had control of Legio IV Scythica in Syrian arab republic (Historia Augusta, III.6), married Julia Domna, younger daughter of the loftier priest of Sol Invictus Elagabal (Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, XXIII.2; Historia Augusta, 3.nine), whose son Caracalla also adopted the title Invictus. In AD 219, non long after Elagabalus arrived from Syria, where he had been the hereditary priest of the sun god Elagabal in Emesa, Sol Invictus (the Invincible or Unconquerable Sun) was introduced to Rome every bit its principal deity. Elagabalus enlarged the Temple of Jupiter Victor on the Palatine and rededicated it in Advertizement 221 as the Elagabalium (Herodian, Roman History, V.5.8), where the rites of Jews and Christians were to be transferred "in order that the priesthood of Elagabalus might include the mysteries of every course of worship" (Historia Augusta, 3.4). Indeed, the emperor, sought "to cancel not only the religious ceremonies of the Romans only also those of the whole world, his one wish being that the god Elagabalus should be worshipped everywhere" (VI.7).
"In every respect an empty-headed young idiot" (Herodian, V.7.1ff), Elagabalus, having impiously presumed to elevate a foreign god higher up Jupiter himself (Dio, LXXX.11.one), was killed past the praetorian guard and the cult of Sol Invictus suppressed. Information technology was re-established half a century later in less contentious form by Aurelian, whose troops had been inspired by a "divine class" in the Boxing of Emesa confronting Zenobia in Ad 272 (Historia Augusta, XXV.3, 5). Victorious, he entered the city and went to the Temple of Elagabalus, where the apparition again appeared to him. Aurelian triumphantly returned to Rome two years subsequently, after recovering the Gallic Empire, and was hailed as Restitutor Orbis, "Restorer of the World." A magnificent temple to Sol was erected, to which keen quantities of gold and jewels were defended, and a new higher of pontiffs established to serve the god, who was to exist the supreme deity of Rome (Historia Augusta, XXV.6, XXXV.3, XXXIX.vi; Victor, XXXV.vii; Eutropius, Abridgment of Roman History, Ix.xv.one; Zosimus, New History, I.61).
Games were instituted as well, which are recorded in the Chronography of AD 354, an illustrated codex (the beginning in Western fine art) compiled that year in Rome equally a gift to a Christian aristocrat. In the section known equally the Agenda of Philocalus (subsequently the calligrapher whose name appears on the dedication page), Eight Kal. Jan. (December 25) is annotated N INVICTI CM Thirty. Although the dedication is uncertain (equally there is no name fastened to the epithet), the presumption is that Natalis Invicti refers to the altogether of the Invincible Dominicus, who is mentioned in the games of Baronial 28, and the foundation date of his temple. Xxx races (circenses missus) were run in the circus that day. And every four years, thirty-six races were dedicated to Sol on the last day of games that extended from October 19-22, peradventure to commemorate the earlier triumphal procession of Aurelian. These quadrennial games are mentioned by Julian (ruled AD 361-363) in his Hymn to Male monarch Helios (CLV), who refers to them equally a "more recent" establishment.
In another section of the Chronography commemorating the laying to rest of martyrs (Disposition of Martyrs, the earliest record of the Roman sanctoral), the liturgical year begins on December 25, and 8 Kal. Jan. is annotated natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae ("Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea"). In a section listing the consuls, there too is a note for AD 1: dominus Iesus Christus natus est VIII kal. Ian. These are the beginning references to Dec 25 as the birthday of Jesus. Since no martyrs are mentioned afterward AD 336, the first commemoration of Christmas observed by the Roman church in the Due west is presumed to engagement to that year.
"Bruma is so named, considering so the day is brevissimus 'shortest'....The time from the bruma until the sun returns to the bruma, is called an annus 'year'....The first part of this fourth dimension is the hiems 'wintertime.'"
Varro, On the Latin Linguistic communication (VI.viii-ix)
In the Julian calendar, December 25 marked the wintertime solstice, the shortest solar day of the twelvemonth, after which the days begin to lengthen, cf. Vitruvius, "This time from the shortness of the days, is called Bruma (winter) and the days Brumales" (On Compages, 9.3.3). In computing the seasons, Pliny, too, remarks that the days begin to increase immediately after the winter solstice (bruma) on a.d.8 kal. Ian (Xviii.221). For Ovid, bruma was the offset of the new sun and the terminal of the former (Fasti, I.163), equally it was for Servius, who equates the new sunday (sol novus) with the eighth day earlier the Kalends of Jan (Commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil, VII.720; also Two.472, "Bruma, that is, winter")�and Censorinus, who in turn identifies the new sun with the bruma, "a novo sole, id est a bruma" (De Die Natali, XXI.13)
In 45 BC, it was decreed that public cede should exist made to celebrate the birthday of Julius Caesar (Dio, XLIV.4.4), a cede that became obligatory after he later was declared a god (XLVII.xviii.five). The birthday of Augustus, too, was recognized in thanksgiving later his victory at Actium (LI.19.2), as were the birthdays of other Julia-Claudians. The dies natales of family and friends were celebrated, as well, with gifts and banquets. Horace remembered the altogether of his friend and patron Maecenas (Odes, Four.11), as was the altogether of Messalla by Tibullus (Elegies, I.7), Macrinus by Persius (Satires, II), Cynthia by her lover Propertius (Elegies, Iii.x), and Virgil past a reverential Silius (Pliny the Younger, Epistles, Three.vii.8).
Unlike the Romans, however, Jews and Christians tended not to recognize birthdays. Belatedly in the first century AD, Josephus remarks that "the constabulary does non permit usa to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby beget occasion of drinking to backlog" (Confronting Apion, II.26). Indeed, only two birthdays are mentioned in the New Attestation: that of Pharaoh (Genesis 40:twenty) and Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, whose marriage to his brother's wife Herodias had been denounced by John. When her daughter Salome danced before the king at his birthday feast, she was promised whatsoever she might ask�which, at the instigation of her mother, was the head of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:6ff, Mark 6:17ff; Luke 9:7ff; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.v.2).
That the gods themselves had birthdays was thought ridiculous every bit well. Writing about AD 296, Arnobius mocks pagans for anthropomorphizing them. "We men get together our vintages, and they call up and believe that the gods gather and bring in their grapes; nosotros have birthdays, and they affirm that the powers of heaven take birthdays" (Adversus Nationes, Seven.34). Rather, it was the ceremony of one's death that should be remembered; indeed, "the day of death [is better] than the day of ane's birth" (Ecclesiastes 7:1).
Marker and Paul make no reference to when Jesus was built-in, and Matthew and Luke, although they include an account of Jesus' birth, exercise not mention the time of year. Nor were the early Christian fathers interested in establishing a agenda date. Origen admonished his listeners in Alexandria that "Not i from all the saints is found to have celebrated a festive day or a great feast on the day of his birth. No one is found to have had joy on the solar day of the birth of his son or girl. Only sinners rejoice over this kind of altogether....the saints non but do non celebrate a festival on their nascence days, simply, filled with the Holy Spirit, they expletive the day" (Homilies on Leviticus, Viii.3.two).
The Nascency is not mentioned among the "certain days" (Preparation Mean solar day, Passover, and Pentecost) that should exist observed (Against Celsus, Viii.22). Nor is it included in the feasts recognized by Tertullian (On Baptism, 19), who, writing in the last years of the second century Advertizing, admonished Christians not to partake in the Saturnalia, or souvenir-giving at the New year's day or midwinter, or "an idol's birthday" when "every pomp of the devil is frequented" (On Idolatry, X). "The Saturnalia and New-year's and Midwinter's festivals and Matronalia are frequented�presents come and go�New-twelvemonth's gifts �games join their racket �banquets join their din!" (14). Just as the infidel does non celebrate the Dominicus (Sunday) or Pentecost, so Christians should not partake in their festivals; rather, they accept a festive day every week whereas pagans celebrate only in one case a year. "When the earth rejoices, allow the states grieve; and when the world after grieves, we shall rejoice" (XIII).
If the birth of Jesus was non celebrated by the early on church, information technology as well was because there was not a consensus equally to when it actually had occurred. Writing soon afterward the assassination of Commodus on December 31, Advert 192, Clement of Alexandria provides the earliest documented dates for the Nativity. I hundred ninety-4 years, one month, and xiii days, he says, had elapsed since then, which corresponds to a birth date of Nov eighteen or, if the forty-ix intercalary days missing from the Alexandrian agenda are added, Jan six. Moreover, "There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord's nativity, just also the twenty-four hour period" (Stromata, I.21), including dates in April and May, every bit well as some other day in January.
Hippolytus, a younger contemporary of Clement, does state that the Nativity had occurred on December 25 (Commentary on Daniel, IV.23.3). And, although the statement may be a later interpolation, he reiterated several decades later (in Advertising 235) that Jesus was born nine months later on the ceremony of the creation of the world, which Hippolytus believed to accept been on March 25 (Chronicon, 686ff). The Nascence thus would be on December 25.
In about Advertising 221, Julius Africanus wrote the Chronographiae, the beginning Christian chronology. Although he does not specifically mention the Nascency, he believed that Jesus had been conceived on March 25. In AD 243, Cyprian is the first Christian author to acquaintance the nascence of Jesus with the Sun: "O! The splendid and divine Providence of the Lord, that on that day, even at the very mean solar day, on which the Sunday was made [March 28], Christ should be born" (De Pascha Computus, Xix) . Cosmos itself was on March 25, the vernal equinox, and the Sun created on the fourth day, March 28. It followed that the "Dominicus of righteousness," in Malachi's phrase, would be born then likewise.
On December 25, AD 380, Gregory of Nazianzus delivered a sermon in Constantinople in which he referred to the day as "the feast of God's Actualization, or of the Nativity: both names are used, both titles given to the one reality....The name of the feast, then, is 'Theophany' because he has appeared, but 'Birth' considering he has been born" (Oration XXXVIII.iii). Then on January 6, AD 381, he preached on the Baptism (Oration XL), a date traditionally celebrated as the Theophany (the Feast of the Epiphany in the Western church, commemorating the visitation of the Magi in Bethlehem). Traditionally, the Eastern church building historic the Nativity and Epiphany (the realization that Jesus was the manifestation of Christ) every bit a single Banquet of the Epiphany on January vi. Dec 25 as the Nativity of Jesus (and a separate feast) was not agreed upon until the tardily fourth century Advertisement.
The Nativity kickoff was celebrated in Alexandria on Dec 25, Ad 432, when Paul, Bishop of Emesa, preached before Cyril on Mary every bit Mother of God (Theotokos). Eventually, the fourth dimension between the Nativity and Epiphany became known as the Twelve Days of Christmas. John Cassian (d. Advertizing 435), writes that the church in Egypt connected to celebrate both the Baptism and Nativity "non separately as in the Western provinces simply on the single festival of this day" (Conference, X.2).
One-half a century after the Philocalian Calendar had commemorated the first celebration of Christmas in the West, John Chrysostom delivered his homily on the feast day of Philogonius, bishop of Antioch, who had died some sixty years earlier. It was delivered on Dec xx, probably in Advert 386. The mean solar day and calendar month are confirmed by the fact that John is anticipating the Banquet of the Nativity, which was to occur in five days' time (Dec 25). That was the 24-hour interval he delivered another homily, In Diem Natalem ("On the Altogether"), in which he remarks that it has been less than ten years since the festival had been introduced at Antioch.
"A feast is approaching which is the nearly solemn and awe-inspiring of all feasts....What is it? The birth of Christ co-ordinate to the mankind. In this feast namely Epiphany, holy Easter, Ascension and Pentecost have their beginning and their purpose. For if Christ hadn't been built-in co-ordinate to the flesh, he wouldn't take been baptised, which is Epiphany. He wouldn't have been crucified, which is Easter. He wouldn't have sent the Spirit, which is Pentecost. And then from this event, as from some bound, different rivers flow�these feasts of ours are born."
John Chrysostom, Homily VI: On St. Philogonius (23-24)
And yet Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis who died in AD 403, continued to debate that January 6 was the date of Jesus' nascency. "Greeks, I mean idolaters, celebrate this mean solar day on the eighth before the Kalends of January [Dec 25], which Romans telephone call Saturnalia....For this partitioning between the signs of the zodiac, which is a solstice, comes on the 8th before the Kalends of Jan, and the twenty-four hour period begins to lengthen considering the light is receiving its increase. And it completes a menses of thirteen days until the eighth before the Ides of January [January 6], the twenty-four hours of Christ's birth" (Panarion, "Refutation of All the Heresies," IV.22.5-6; also Iv.24.1: "For Christ was built-in in the month of January, that is, on the eighth before the Ides of January�in the Roman calendar this is the evening of Jan fifth, at the beginning of January sixth"). (Epiphanius is wrong in understanding the Saturnalia to be on December 25; it was on December 17, although it eventually was extended to December 23.)
The winter solstice, which coincided with the Christian festival, withal was recognized however. Leo I (Advert 440-461) repeatedly was obliged to admonish the faithful not to honor the lord's day on the very doorsteps of the old basilica of St. Peter'south in Rome, which was oriented to the east, so that the sun would illuminate the alcove. Worshippers, as did Leo, faced east�advertizement orientem, "For as the lightning cometh out of the due east, and shineth even unto the west; then shall as well the coming of the Son of man be" (Mathew 24:27).
"From such a organisation of teaching proceeds as well the ungodly exercise of certain foolish folk who worship the dominicus as information technology rises at the offset of daylight from elevated positions: even some Christians think it is so proper to practise this that, before entering the blessed Campaigner Peter�s basilica, which is defended to the 1 Living and truthful God, when they have mounted the steps which lead to the raised platform, they plow round and bow themselves towards the rising sun and with bent neck do homage to its brilliant orb. We are full of grief and vexation that this should happen, which is partly due to the fault of ignorance and partly to the spirit of heathenism: because although some of them practise perhaps worship the Creator of that fair light rather than the Low-cal itself, which is His creature, yet we must abstain even from the appearance of this observance: for if one who has abandoned the worship of gods, finds it in our own worship, will he not hark back again to this fragment of his old superstition, as if it were commanded, when he sees it to be common both to Christians and to infidels?"
Sermon XXVII: On the Feast of the Nativity, 7 (Pt. IV)
And Origen, who was "non quite seventeen years old" when Septimius Severus began his persecution of Christians (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (VI.2.12), declared that "Of all the quarters of the heavens, the east is the only direction we plow to when nosotros pour out prayer," although he confessed not to know the reasons for doing so, which "I think, are not easily discovered past anyone" (Homilies on Numbers, V.1.four).
But, even if in facing east Christians worshipped the creator of the sunday and non the sun itself, there was business concern that pagans would be mislead past the practice and confuse one religion with another. Leo certainly was enlightened, fifty-fifty in the 5th century Advertising, of the coincidence betwixt the banquet of the Nascence and the wintertime solstice, and that the honour that should be inherent in the former might be thought to accept derived from the latter. (Several centuries before, in Advertising 197, Tertullian had contended shortly after his own conversion with the same accusations of worshipping the sun, praying to the e, and devoting Sunday to worship, Apology, Sixteen.9ff; as well Advertizing Nationes, I.thirteen)
"Having therefore so confident a promise, dearly beloved, bide firm in the Organized religion in which you are built: lest that aforementioned tempter whose tyranny over y'all Christ has already destroyed, win you back over again with any of his wiles, and mar even the joys of the nowadays festival by his deceitful art, misleading simpler souls with the pestilential notion of some to whom this our solemn feast solar day seems to derive its accolade, not and then much from the nativity of Christ as, co-ordinate to them, from the rising of the new sun. Such men's hearts are wrapped in total darkness, and have no growing perception of the true Light: for they are still fatigued away by the foolish errors of heathendom, and because they cannot lift the optics of their mind in a higher place that which their lecherous sight beholds, they pay divine award to the luminaries that minister to the globe. Permit non Christian souls entertain whatsoever such wicked superstition and portentous lie."
Sermon XXII: On the Feast of the Nativity, II (Pt. VI)
Three centuries later, the papacy still was confronted with these vestiges of pagan custom. In AD 742, Boniface, campaigner and archbishop of Germany, reproached Zacharias, complaining that his attempt to catechumen the heathen in that location was being thwarted by the behavior of Christians in Rome.
"Because the sensual and ignorant Allemanians, Bavarians and Franks meet that some of these abuses which we condemn are rife in Rome, they think that the priests there allow them, and on that business relationship they reproach usa and take bad case. They say that in Rome, near the church of St. Peter, they have seen throngs of people parading the streets at the beginning of Jan of each yr, shouting and singing songs in infidel way, loading tables with food and drink from morning time till night, and that during that time no man is willing to lend his neighbor burn down or tools or anything useful from his own firm. They recount also that they have seen women wearing pagan amulets and bracelets on their arms and legs and offering them for auction. All such abuses witnessed by sensual and ignorant people bring reproach upon united states of america here and frustrate our work of preaching and teaching. Of such matters the Apostle says reprovingly: 'You have begun to observe special days and months, special seasons and years. I am anxious over you: has all the labour I accept spent on you been useless?' [Galatians 4:10]" (Alphabetic character of Boniface to Pope Zacharias on His Accession to the Papacy).
In seeking to determine the date of Christmas, critics accept tended to discuss the thing in ane of two ways. Those who would calculate the date seek to demonstrate that the Nativity of Jesus can be determined by the chronology of the liturgical agenda. Proponents of an historical approach, on the other hand, tend to interpret Christmas as a exchange for the annual nativity of Sol Invictus on December 25.
In the Julian reform of the Roman calendar, December 25, the 8th day later on the Kalends of January (Eight Kal. Jan.), was recognized as the wintertime solstice. Nine months before, March 25 was the vernal equinox, the eighth day before the Kalends of April (VIII Kal. Apr.), which marked the beginning of spring. This tradition of assigning the equinoxes and solstices to the eighth day before the Kalends (the first day of the month) later was embraced by the church in its calculation of the nascence date of Jesus.
Rabbinic scholars had understood the births and deaths of the Sometime Testament patriarchs to have occurred on the aforementioned day. Because Jesus was deemed to be perfect, his life was thought to be complete as well and to comprise a whole number of years. March 25 (the eighth Kalends of April) was believed to be the date of his conception (Annunciation) and, exactly nine months later, December 25 (the eighth Kalends of Jan) his Nascency. The engagement of Jesus' formulation and crucifixion, therefore, were thought to have occurred on the same twenty-four hours of the year: March 25 (the 8th Kalends of April) (Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos, VIII.17; Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel four:23; Augustine, On the Trinity, IV.5; Dionysius Exiguus, Argumenta Paschalia, XV). Fittingly, this as well was the twenty-four hour period on which the world itself was believed to have been created.
In correlating the conception of John the Baptist with the nativity of Jesus, the author of a fourth century AD tract erroneously attributed to John Chrysostom (De Solstitiis et Aequinoctiis, "On the Solstices and Equinoxes") calculated that Elizabeth (the mother of John) must have conceived on the Day of Atonement, September 24 (the eighth Kalends of October) on the mistaken supposition that her husband Zechariah and then served as high priest in the Temple (cf. Luke 1:26, where she is "in the 6th month" of her own pregnancy when Mary conceives). John's nascence, therefore, was presumed to be June 24 (the 8th Kalends of July) and that of Jesus 6 months afterward on December 25. The one-day discrepancy betwixt the two dates tin be attributed to how the Roman calculated the days of the calendar month. There is one less day in June than in December, as there is when counting the six months betwixt June 24 (VIII.Kal.Jul.) and Dec 25 (8.Kal.Jan.).
John was understood to be preparing the way for Jesus (cf. John 3:30, "He must increase, but I must subtract"), just as the lord's day begins to diminish at the summertime solstice and eventually increases later the wintertime solstice. And, every bit the four seasons were counted from equinox to solstice and from solstice to equinox in the Roman calendar, so Christian feasts were aligned with these traditional turning points in the solar twelvemonth: the conception (and death) of Jesus on the vernal equinox (March 25), the nascency of John the Baptist on the summer solstice (June 24), the conception of John on the autumnal equinox (September 24), and the birth of Jesus on the winter solstice (Dec 25). The same liturgical calculation was used past the eastern church, which also believed that Jesus was conceived and died on the same day, April vi�and therefore must take been born exactly nine months later on Jan 6. (Astronomical usage follows this convention�but with current dates, with bound usually beginning on March 21, summer on June 21, autumn on September 21, and winter on Dec 21.)
Hijmans presents a critical re-evaluation of the history of religions hypothesis and the notion that the early church incorporated the feast of Sol Invictus into its own liturgy, positing instead that the heathen festival was "'rediscovered' past pagan authorities in response to the appropriation of the winter solstice by Christianity." The festival of Sol Invictus, in other words, may not have been identified with December 25 until after the offset Christmas had been celebrated on that day. Nor, he argues, should the cosmic symbolism attached to the wintertime solstice, which may have led the church to adopt December 25 for its feast of the Birth, exist confused with a cult of Sol on that date.
The wintertime solstice, when the light of day finally begins to lengthen, would take a natural clan with the "Sun of righteousness." Indeed, Tertullian writes that "It is therefore due to a want of listen and reflection that many are offended by the mere fact that heresies have so much power. How much would they accept if they did not exist?" (On the Prescription of Heretics, I). Hither, the paradox is that the absence of heresy would confound the predictions of Scripture, every bit when ane is admonished to "beware of simulated prophets" (Matthew 7:15).
Like the cult of Sol Invictus, Mithraism was introduced from the E and perceived by the church to be sufficiently similar to Christianity that it was considered a threat. In the 2d century Advert, for example, Justin Martyr wrote of the Eucharist, "Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to exist washed. For, that staff of life and a loving cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, y'all either know or can learn" (First Apology, LXVI). The mysteries of Mithra, he insisted, were distortions of the prophecies of Daniel and Isaiah, contrived that "the words of righteousness be quoted also by them." (Dialogue with Trypho, LXX)
Tertullian, besides, was obliged to acknowledge similarities between Mithraism and Christianity but, rather than albeit that Christianity might have adopted certain rites, disparages them as diabolical counterfeits. "Allow us take annotation of the devices of the devil, who is wont to ape some of God�south things with no other blueprint than, by the faithfulness of his servants, to put us to shame, and to condemn us." (De Corona, "The Chaplet,'" 15).
He likewise was an apologist for charges that Christians worshipped the sun.
"Others, once more, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude, believe that the sunday is our god. We shall be counted Persians perchance, though nosotros do not worship the orb of mean solar day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his ain disk. The idea no doubtfulness has originated from our being known to turn to the eastward in prayer. But you, many of you, also nether pretence sometimes of worshipping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same manner, if nosotros devote Sun-day to rejoicing, from a far different reason than Sun-worship, nosotros take some resemblance to those of yous who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they besides make it away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant (Apology, XVI.9-eleven).
Tertullian repeats the argument in Ad Nationes ("Against the Nations"), adding that "you who reproach usa with the lord's day and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are non far off from your Saturn and your days of rest" (I.13). He also seems to reject Hijmans' notion that pagans might have appropriated December 25 because of its renewed importance to Christians. Tertullian, at least, has no qualms almost existence mistaken for a pagan. Even if the heathen does not celebrate the Dominicus or Pentecost for fright of being thought Christian, and so Christians need non be apprehensive about the Saturnalia, or New year's day's or Midwinter, for such festivals occur only once a year, whereas Christians celebrate every eighth day (Sunday).
"Oh better fidelity of the nations to their ain sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself! Not the Lord's day, not Pentecost , fifty-fifty it they had known them, would they take shared with usa; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are non apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens! If whatever indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, y'all take it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs simply in one case annually: you have a festive day every eighth mean solar day. Call out the individual solemnities of the nations, and set them out into a row, they will non be able to make up a Pentecost " (On Idolatry, 14).
Rather than juxtapose the notions of calculation theory and history of religions equally mutually exclusive alternatives or contend whether Christians or pagans were the starting time to appropriate December 25 as the natal twenty-four hour period of their respective god, the wintertime solstice, when the light of day first becomes ascendant, would seem the natural altogether of both the Invincible Sun and the "Sun of righteousness."
In AD 312, as Constantine was about to fight the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, he perceived a sign, a "a cross of low-cal in the heavens, above the lord's day" (Eusebius, Life, I.28) to which he attributed his victory. Information technology was Constantine who decreed in Ad 321 that, with an exception for farmers, Sunday was to exist a day of rest. "On the venerable Mean solar day of the Sunday permit the magistrates and people residing in cities remainder, and let all workshops exist closed" (Codex Justinianus, III.12.2). The resurrection of Christ as well was said to accept occurred on a Sunday, the mean solar day after the Jewish Sabbath (cf. Marker 15:42, one Corinthians 15:3). And in Advert 386, Theodosius decreed Sunday to be holy (Codex Theodosianus, II.8.xviii). It was a natural association, therefore, to identify the birth of Jesus, the "Sun of righteousness," with that of the Sun itself (cf. Cyprian, The Lord'due south Prayer, XXXV, where he is identified as "the true sunday").
The conflation of Lord's day and Son can be seen likewise in the Christmas hymn "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" where in the fifth stanza is the poetry "Hail the Sun of righteousness! / Light and life to all he brings." Originally written in 1739 by Charles Wesley (the blood brother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church) equally a Hymn for Christmas-Day, information technology was changed past George Whitefield to "Hail the Son of Righteousness!" In 1753, Whitefield likewise altered the first line of the hymn from "Hark how all the welkin rings" to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," which, although an improvement, doubtless must have irritated Wesley, who believed that sky (the meaning of "welkin") rang with joy. He besides understood the affections (and a multitude of the heavenly host) in Luke 2:xiii-14 to be "saying, Glory to God in the highest," not singing the words.
In the Preface to his 1780 Drove of Hymns for the Apply of the People Called Methodists, which did not include the hymn by Charles, John Wesley beseeched those who would alter his lyrics (or those of his brother) to "let them stand just every bit they are, to have things for better or worse; or to add the truthful reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page; that we may no longer exist accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men" (VII).
The picture above, the head surrounded by a radiant crown or nimbus, is a detail from a marble altar dedicated to the lord's day god. From Palmyra (Syria), it dates from the 2nd half of the first century AD and at present is in the Galleria Lapidaria (Capitoline Museums, Rome). The first line reads "Sacred to the most holy Dominicus." The accompanying hawkeye was thought to be the messenger of the god.
References: A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church building, Serial Ii (1890-1896) edited by past Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (1987, 1994) translated past Frank Williams; On Roman Fourth dimension: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (1990) by Michele Renee Salzman; Toward the Origins of Christmas (1995) by Susan K. Roll (who translates the seventh sermon of Leo; "The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question" by Susan Chiliad. Ringlet, in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (2000) edited by Maxwell Johnson); A Collection of Hymns for Social Worship (1758) past George Whitefield (this is the seventh of xxx-six editions); Aurelian and the Third Century (1999) by Alaric Watson; John Chrysostom (1999) by Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen; Homilies on Leviticus 1-xvi (1990) translated by Gary Wayne Barkley; "Birthday Rituals: Friends and Patrons in Roman Poetry and Cult" (1992) past Kathryn Argetsinger, Classical Antiquity, 11(2), 175-193; Christian Worship: Its Origin and Development (1889/1903) by 50 Duchesne; The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Deutschland: Existence the Lives of SS. Willibrord, Boniface, Sturm, Leoba and Lebuin, Together with the Hodoepericon of St. Willibald and a Selection from the Correspondence of St. Boniface (1954) past C. H. Talbot; Gregory of Nazianzus (2006) past Brian E. Daley; The Cult of Sol Invictus (1972) by Gaston H. Halsberghe; On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Tardily Artifact (1990) past Michele Renee Salzman; "The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research" (2012) by C. P. E. Nothaft, Church History, 81(four), 903-911; The Works of the Emperor Julian (1913) translated by Wilmer Cave Wright (Loeb Classical Library); Time in Roman Religion: One Yard Years of Religious History (2012) by Gary Forsythe; The Origins of the Liturgical Year (1986) by Thomas J. Talley; Sol: The Sunday in the Art and Religion of Rome (2009) by Steven Ernst Hijmans (PhD dissertation); "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas" (2003) past Steven Hijmans, Mouseion, 3, 377-398; Divus Julius (1971) by Stefan Weinstock; Origin: Homilies on Numbers (2009) translated past Thomas P. Scheck. The online blogs of Tom Schmidt and Roger Pearse too present important discussions.
Source: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/invictus.html
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