Inspired by a discussion with Juantoo3
For Christmas, see below.
There is a link between Mithras and the Roman sun god Sol Invictus, and all the evidence suggests that the Mithraists took the date from the Sol Invictus cult.
So where does the Christian Christmas come from?
The celebration of Christmas as being appropriated from paganism has long been disposed of by sound scholarship. All the evidence shows that the early church was robust in separating itself from what it perceived as pagan practice. Not until the 6th century did the church begin to incorporate traditional festivals that they saw as corresponding to or at least not contradicting Christian teaching.
By the 3rd century there were many and various dates bandied about as the birthdate of Christ. There still are. January 2, March 25, April 18-19, 20-21 or 24-25, May 20 and November 17 and 20 were all put up as dates. Contemporary literal readings add in dates around September.
As for December 25, it's worth question why the Romans themselves came up with that date. It's the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.
The winter solstice falls nine months after the vernal equinox, a date linked to the conception of Christ and His passion.
The theory of cycles and the perfection of the Incarnation led early apologists to make certain assumptions. It is a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on March 25, as he died on March 25, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. According to a semon of Augustine: "Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."
Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied by Malachi. John's Gospel describes him as "the light of the world."
An anonymous work known as De Pascha Computus (c243AD) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox (again, the idea of complete cycles), March 25, then the conception on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in Genesis. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, the 28 March, a Wednesday, Christ should be born. For this reason Malachi the prophet, speaking about him to the people, fittingly said, 'Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings.'"
A passage in Commentary on the Prophet Daniel (204AD) by Hippolytus of Rome identifies December 25 as the date of the nativity. This passage is generally considered a late interpollation. The manuscript includes another passage, one that is more likely to be authentic, that gives the passion as March 25.
In 221AD, Sextus Julius Africanus gave March 25 as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus in his universal history. This conclusion was based on solar symbolism, with March 25 the date of the equinox. As this implies a birth in December, it is sometimes claimed to be the earliest identification of December 25 as the nativity, and we know that December 25 was a date held by the Donatists in North Africa.
Interestingly, the first mention of December 25 as the feast of Sol Invictus is not until 354AD. Emperor Aurelian gave the cult of Sol Invictus official status in 274AD, by which time the African Church at least had been using December 25 for 50 years!
It's also worth noting this document, known as "The Chronography of 354", was written at the behest of a Roman Christian named Valentinus (not the gnostic of the same name).
The original volume has not survived. It was thought to be in existence in the 7th-8th centuries. A number of copies were made at that time, with and without illustrations, which in turn were copied at the Renaissance.
The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection (Vatican Library, cod. Barberini lat. 2154).
Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian era and Renaissance periods.
So who's to say that December 25 was not a later interpolation to bring Sol Invictus in line with Christmas?
Easter is a Spring festival, common to many if not all traditions, globally. I see no contradiction in Revelation working according to the rhythms of nature.
Passover is a Spring celebration — the Passion is explicitly linked to Passover?
For Christmas, see below.
Would not the Temple have been aligned with the solar calendar in mind? Also bear in mind that Judaism was not a sun cult per se. The Veil of the Temple, according to Josephus, was a cosmological diagram, and it was a given that when one entered the Holy and then the Holy of Holies, one was passing through the veils.
Well that's an arboreal deity/fertility tradition. I've never seen any link between such ancient traditions and Christmas, other than those appearing much, much later — the last few centuries.
I think you're quite wrong here. Franz Cumont (d1947) posited this connection, but later scholars dismiss it. Roger Beck calls it 'the hoarist of ideas'. "The (Mithraic) mysteries cannot be shown to have developed from Persian religious ideas, nor does it make sense to interpret them as a forerunner of Christianity.' (Manfred Claus "The Roman Cult of Mithras", p7).
There is a link between Mithras and the Roman sun god Sol Invictus, and all the evidence suggests that the Mithraists took the date from the Sol Invictus cult.
So where does the Christian Christmas come from?
The celebration of Christmas as being appropriated from paganism has long been disposed of by sound scholarship. All the evidence shows that the early church was robust in separating itself from what it perceived as pagan practice. Not until the 6th century did the church begin to incorporate traditional festivals that they saw as corresponding to or at least not contradicting Christian teaching.
By the 3rd century there were many and various dates bandied about as the birthdate of Christ. There still are. January 2, March 25, April 18-19, 20-21 or 24-25, May 20 and November 17 and 20 were all put up as dates. Contemporary literal readings add in dates around September.
As for December 25, it's worth question why the Romans themselves came up with that date. It's the winter solstice on the Roman calendar.
The winter solstice falls nine months after the vernal equinox, a date linked to the conception of Christ and His passion.
The theory of cycles and the perfection of the Incarnation led early apologists to make certain assumptions. It is a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on March 25, as he died on March 25, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. According to a semon of Augustine: "Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."
Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied by Malachi. John's Gospel describes him as "the light of the world."
An anonymous work known as De Pascha Computus (c243AD) linked the idea that creation began at the spring equinox (again, the idea of complete cycles), March 25, then the conception on March 28, the day of the creation of the sun in Genesis. One translation reads: "O the splendid and divine providence of the Lord, that on that day, the very day, on which the sun was made, the 28 March, a Wednesday, Christ should be born. For this reason Malachi the prophet, speaking about him to the people, fittingly said, 'Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings.'"
A passage in Commentary on the Prophet Daniel (204AD) by Hippolytus of Rome identifies December 25 as the date of the nativity. This passage is generally considered a late interpollation. The manuscript includes another passage, one that is more likely to be authentic, that gives the passion as March 25.
In 221AD, Sextus Julius Africanus gave March 25 as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus in his universal history. This conclusion was based on solar symbolism, with March 25 the date of the equinox. As this implies a birth in December, it is sometimes claimed to be the earliest identification of December 25 as the nativity, and we know that December 25 was a date held by the Donatists in North Africa.
Interestingly, the first mention of December 25 as the feast of Sol Invictus is not until 354AD. Emperor Aurelian gave the cult of Sol Invictus official status in 274AD, by which time the African Church at least had been using December 25 for 50 years!
It's also worth noting this document, known as "The Chronography of 354", was written at the behest of a Roman Christian named Valentinus (not the gnostic of the same name).
The original volume has not survived. It was thought to be in existence in the 7th-8th centuries. A number of copies were made at that time, with and without illustrations, which in turn were copied at the Renaissance.
The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection (Vatican Library, cod. Barberini lat. 2154).
Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian era and Renaissance periods.
So who's to say that December 25 was not a later interpolation to bring Sol Invictus in line with Christmas?
I've heard the same...