How a Sun God and God of time were appropriated for Christmas

 How a Sun God and God of time were appropriated for Christmas: https://x.com/maa_bhaishiiH/status/1739216610395820517

Jesus birthday is neither recorded in the gospels of the New Testament nor in Jewish or Roman sources. Why? At his time, Jesus was a nobody - a rural illiterate itinerant laborer from the region of Galilee, which is itself a backwater of the Judean region. Christmas is not mentioned by any of the the early church fathers especially Tutellian and Ireneaus who wrote extensively in the second century. But by the time we reach the fourth century works like St Augustine or St Jermome, we have mentions of Dec 25 as a festival commemorating Jesus birth. What happened exactly in between in the third century?

In the dates from Dec 17 to Dec 25 in pagan Rome, a grand festival called Saturnalia was celebrated in honor of Saturn, the God of time. This was the equivalent of Diwali for the pagan Romans. In this period, people had feasts, exchanged gifts and there was a peculiar custom. At this period of festivity in Rome, slaves in every household would be served by their masters - the role of master and slave would be reversed. Also the slaves were allowed to criticize or be disrespectful to their masters. This festival celebrated freeing of souls and the return to an ancient golden age when Saturn ruled. This festival was celebrated with pomp all over the Roman Empire- it was an empire level grand festival and public holiday. ALSO ROMANS WOULD HAVE TREES IN THEIR HOUSED AND DECORATE WITH VARIOUS IDOLS OF VARIOUS GODS IN SATURNALIA - this eventually became Christmas trees. The idols of gods eventually replaced by bells. Now you see that Dec 25 is the final day of Saturnalia.

In the third century, the Roman Empire was undergoing a turbulent period of political instability and economic collapse. At that time many new religious cults evolved to provide new hope to the empire. One such famous diety who became popular throughout was the diety SOL INVICTUS, (latin: the unconquered sun). The origins of Sol Invictus is unclear but he might have been a local sun deity who became popular at that century of crisis. Dec 25 was celebrated as the birthday of Sol Invictus as on that day of winter solstice, the day begins to increase. Emperor Aurellian in 274 AD, declared officially Dec 25 as the nationwide birthday celebrating of Sol Invictus throughout the Roman Empire and since this coincided with the end of Saturnalia, the Romans were only more happy for they got one more God to celebrate in this festive occasion. The rebirth of sun commemorating winter to spring would commemorated by the Romans saying "OH, the Virgin has brought forth"!! The sun god Sol Invictus' birth is said to have come from a constellation personified as a Virgin.

The first Christian roman emperor Constantine was initially a worshipper of this Sun God and he continued issuing coins in the name of the sun god Sol even after conversion. What mostly happened was that the Christians would have convinced Constantine that Sol Invictus was Christ. The following is an extract from the church father Eusebius on to how Constantine converted to Christianity when he saw the sign of the cross on the day before a battle and emerged victorious in that battle next day. "He [Constantine] said [to me] that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, bearing the inscription, “Conquer by this sign”" Notice how it is written that Constantine saw the sign of the cross above the sun!!! At an afternoon! Although this story is spicy, it does convey that Constantine initially identified Christ with the sun god Sol Invictus. Thus the Dec 25 celebration of birthday of Sol eventually became appropriated as the birthday of Christ, who like the sun, apparently gave light to the world.

Good thread. Lots to research on this topic. Interestingly we still have a Tulsi Vivah during Tulsi Pujan on Dec. 25 & on Christmas Eve the Germans used to tie together fruit trees with straw ropes to make them bear fruit - saying the trees were then married.