It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Mithras

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SallyF
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It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Mithras

Post #1

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The Christian-Jewish propaganda does NOT say anything about celebrating the Divine Leader's birthday. We were only instructed to pretend to eat his flesh and drink his blood, for example.

I propose that Christianity has been a fraud from the very start.

Is stealing the birthdays of other supposed god-men part of the fraudulence …?
"God" … just whatever humans imagine it to be.

"Scripture" … just whatever humans write it to be.

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Post #41

Post by Zzyzx »

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bjs wrote: I am trying to understand how you reached your conclusion for the source you cited. Your source lists five dates; one in January, one in May, one in March, one in April, and one in December. Three of the five dates are nowhere near the Winter Solstice.

This would seem to contradict the idea that dates where chosen because of the “rebirth of the sun.�

Can you explain your reasoning?
For those unaware that many cultures and ideologies celebrate the Winter Solstice:
Holidays celebrated on the winter solstice
• Alban Arthan (Welsh)
• Blue Christmas (holiday) (Western Christian)
• Brumalia (Ancient Rome)
• Dongzhi Festival (East Asia)
• Korochun (Slavic)
• Sanghamitta Day (Theravada Buddhism)
• Shalako (Zuni)
• Yald� (Iran)
• Yule in the Northern Hemisphere (Neopagan)
• Ziemassvētki (ancient Latvia)

Other related festivals
• Saturnalia (Ancient Rome): Celebrated shortly before winter solstice
• Saint Lucy's Day (Christian): Used to coincide with the winter solstice day
• Christmas: Takes place shortly after winter solstice, absorbed tradition from winter solstice celebration. Speculated to originate from solstice date, see Christmas#Solstice date and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
• Cold Food Festival (Korea, Greater China): 105 days after winter solstice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_so ... bservances
The Winter Solstice was evidently celebrated as long ago as Stonehenge construction. www.holidayextras.co.uk
bjs wrote: (Also, don't say "A Catholic source." If you have a source, just cite it.)
On what authority do you tell me to not say 'A Catholic source'?
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Post #42

Post by SallyF »

[Replying to post 41 by Zzyzx]



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Cultures around the world that have been crushed by the religion of the Genocidal Jehovah, and the Soon-to-be-Genocidal Jesus, are reclaiming their ancient heritages.

Britons again celebrate the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge.

Christianity can no longer lay the false claim to primacy and monopoly on the season …

Especially when they cannot confirm that their Leader even existed, let alone was sired by a god on a human virgin …

And whose birth details are as vague and superstition-filled as any other fantasy figure.
"God" … just whatever humans imagine it to be.

"Scripture" … just whatever humans write it to be.

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Post #43

Post by Mithrae »

[Replying to post 41 by Zzyzx]

This seems to indirectly contradict the OP claim that Christians "stole" the date of Christmas. While there is little or no clear attestation to the specific date of December 25th (a few days after the solstice) prior to both Christian and then Roman use in the 3rd century CE, midwinter and solstice celebrations are more or less culturally universal, for fairly obvious reasons. So saying that all of those cultures "stole" the idea off another would obviously be absurd, while saying that only Christians stole it would be special pleading.

Even if we had grounds for rejecting the hypotheses either that a date of Jesus' birth was 'calculated' from doctrine that he was conceived/incarnated around the date of his death/excarnation in late March, or that Christians loosely imported into the Julian calender a December celebration on the 25th day of the month (Hannukah) - and as far as I've seen, we don't have good reasons for rejecting either of those, with the former actually supported by historical evidence - it would still seem to be little more than emotive/hyperbolic speculation to claim that the date of the Christians' midwinter* celebration was 'stolen.'


* In the charitable spirit of the season, I choose not to hold it against the northerners for having their seasons backwards.

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Post #44

Post by nightshadetwine »

Mithrae wrote: [Replying to post 41 by Zzyzx]
While there is little or no clear attestation to the specific date of December 25th (a few days after the solstice) prior to both Christian and then Roman use in the 3rd century CE, midwinter and solstice celebrations are more or less culturally universal, for fairly obvious reasons. So saying that all of those cultures "stole" the idea off another would obviously be absurd, while saying that only Christians stole it would be special pleading.
There seems to be a pre-Christian tradition of the sun being born/reborn on the 25th of December or around the time of the winter solstice.

The sun god Horus's birth was celebrated on December 25th.

Isis Regina--Zeus Sarapis(Walter de Gruyter, 2001), Reinhold Merkelbach
Then the nocturnal Osiris consecration takes place, during the night of the 24th to the 25th of December. We know from Epiphanios that the Isis worshipers celebrated a big festival on December 25, the Kikellia. In the context of a discussion of the day of the birth of Christ, he speaks of the day of the winter solstice and the increase of the light and says the Hellenes (= the Gentiles) celebrate this day on the eighth day before the calends of January (= December 25), on the day known to the Romans as Saturnalia, to the Agyptians, Kronia, in Alexandria, Kikellia. The Kikellia occurs only once in the texts known to us, in the Greek version of the Kanoposdekretes, which was written on the 29th of Choiach in 238 BC... Since the 29th Choiach fell on the 25th of December in the Alexandrian calendar of the imperial period, there is little doubt that the imperial age was identical with the Ptolemaic festival. In Ptolemaic times, the time of Kikellia was calculated after the Egyptian year of conversion, which lost one day every 4 years. So this Isis festival fell in the year 238 on the 17th of February of the Julian year. In the year 30 BC when Augustus conquered Egypt, the 29th Choiach fell on the 25th of December. Augustus had the Egyptian year fixed by adding a leap day every 4 years. The Kikellia were celebrated on December 25th.
Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History(OUP USA, 2012), Giovanni R. Ruffini
Modern scholars have suggested that the role of the Choiak festival in "popular consciousness" survived in the liturgical practice of the Coptic Church, which intensifies at the end of Choiak with the celebration of Christmas. Some aspects of modern Coptic religious festivals are believed to be direct continuations of ancient Egyptian Osirian rites from the month of Choiak. Chronologically, the assimilation of the Choiak festival with Christmas would have been easy: Celebration of Osiris's victory over death on 30 Choiak fell shortly after the ultimate date for Christmas, December 25 or 28 or 29 Choiak, and celebration of the Choiak festival continued at Philae in southern Egypt into the fourth and fifth centuries. December 25 proper was the date of the Kikellia, the celebration of the birth of Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. The Kikellia is frequently attested in the third and early fourth centuries and is documented as late as the writings of Epiphanios of Salamis at the end of the fourth century.
Mark J. Smith, “P. Carlsberg 462: A Fragmentary Account of a Rebellion Against the Sun of God,� A Miscellany of Demotic Texts and Studies(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000)
According to one Egyptian tradition, the solar deity was born at the winter solstice. Plutarch identifies that day as the one on which Isis gave birth to Harpocrates[Horus].
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt(Thames & Hudson, 2003), Richard H. Wilkinson
Furthermore, at the time of the winter solstice the sun would have risen in the area of the [sky]goddess's figure--her pudendum--from which it would be imagined to be born, just as nine months earlier, at the spring equinox, the sun would have set in the positions of the goddess's head--suggesting it was being swallowed.
The Antiochus calendar says the sun is born on December 25th. Antiochus lived sometime around the end of the 1st century CE to the beginning of the 2nd century CE.

Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World: Parapegmata and Related Texts in Classical and Near-Eastern Societies(Cambridge University Press, 2007), Daryn Lehoux
Month of December...
22: Winter Solstice.
23: Procyon sets in the morning.
25: The birth of the sun, light increases
A Brief History of Ancient Astrology(Wiley, 2008), Roger Beck
Speaking of the differences in age of the representation of various gods, the fourth-century (ce) polymath Macrobius said that these all ‘‘relate to the Sun, who is made to appear very small at the winter solstice’’ (Saturnalia 1.18.10). ‘‘In this form,’’ he continues, ‘‘the Egyptians bring him forth from the shrine on the set date to appear like a tiny infant on the shortest day of the year.’’ By the same metaphorical logic, the Calendar of Antiochus of Athens named December 25 the ‘‘Sun’s birthday,’’ with the notation ‘‘light increases.’
Ovid also says the sun is reborn around the time of the winter solstice.

Roman Landscape: Culture and Identity(Cambridge University Press, 2010), Diana Spencer
Ovid’s lengthy opening entry tackles the month’s titular god, Janus, who manifests himself to explain why he has two faces. Janus is the gatekeeper to the year; he completes the old year and ushers in the new one … The year begins, Janus states tersely, when the sun is reborn after midwinter

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Post #45

Post by SallyF »

[Replying to post 44 by nightshadetwine]



Welcome to our robust forum …!

Scholarly response …!

"Stole" is evocative on my part. Helps with the robustness.

Main points:

The early biblical propaganda says nothing of celebrating birthdays of gods or godmen … or anyone else for that matter. The writers were a misanthropic lot who only seemed to take delight in things like blood sacrifices and genocide.

The propaganda of the possibly fictional Jesus character says nothing of throwing a birthday bash for him every year.

Birthday bashes for gods and godmen existed in other cultures for really quite a long time before the kerfuffle the Holy Ghost had under the blue hijab of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We are unlikely to find written admission that early Christians stole/appropriated/syncretised the idea as part of their marketing/brainwashing programme.

But the joining if the dots looks very clear to most of us ...

Especially the Roman Catholic Church and the Jehovah's Witness and certain smartmouth Atheists.

Conclusion (for me anyway)

Christian claims on the primacy and monopoly of the Solstice Season for their Divine Leader are illegitimate.
"God" … just whatever humans imagine it to be.

"Scripture" … just whatever humans write it to be.

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Post #46

Post by Mithrae »

[Replying to post 44 by nightshadetwine]

Howdy Nightshade, and welcome to the forum :)
nightshadetwine wrote:
Mithrae wrote: [Replying to post 41 by Zzyzx]
While there is little or no clear attestation to the specific date of December 25th (a few days after the solstice) prior to both Christian and then Roman use in the 3rd century CE, midwinter and solstice celebrations are more or less culturally universal, for fairly obvious reasons. So saying that all of those cultures "stole" the idea off another would obviously be absurd, while saying that only Christians stole it would be special pleading.
There seems to be a pre-Christian tradition of the sun being born/reborn on the 25th of December or around the time of the winter solstice. . . .


The Antiochus calendar says the sun is born on December 25th. Antiochus lived sometime around the end of the 1st century CE to the beginning of the 2nd century CE.

Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World: Parapegmata and Related Texts in Classical and Near-Eastern Societies(Cambridge University Press, 2007), Daryn Lehoux
Month of December...
22: Winter Solstice.
23: Procyon sets in the morning.
25: The birth of the sun, light increases
A Brief History of Ancient Astrology(Wiley, 2008), Roger Beck
Speaking of the differences in age of the representation of various gods, the fourth-century (ce) polymath Macrobius said that these all ‘‘relate to the Sun, who is made to appear very small at the winter solstice’’ (Saturnalia 1.18.10). ‘‘In this form,’’ he continues, ‘‘the Egyptians bring him forth from the shrine on the set date to appear like a tiny infant on the shortest day of the year.’’ By the same metaphorical logic, the Calendar of Antiochus of Athens named December 25 the ‘‘Sun’s birthday,’’ with the notation ‘‘light increases.’
That's certainly possible, but not certain. If the winter solstice were on the 22nd, by definition the days are getting longer from the 23rd onward; so why would a single author mark the shortest, darkest day of the year on the 22nd and then "light increases" on the 25th? While not touching on that point specifically, Roger Pearse notes the distinct possibility of later changes made to extant copies of Antiochus' work, particularly in the 4th-6th centuries CE; a later copyist's notation about the "birth of the sun" on December 25th would certainly make sense in that timeframe, after the establishment of the Sol Invictus festival.
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/201 ... anslation/
  • Daryn Lehoux, “Astronomy, weather, and calendars in the ancient world: parapegmata and related texts in classical and Near Eastern societiesâ€�, CUP, 2007. . . .

    Lehoux catalogues these sort of texts, and describes each, and then — I nearly missed this — gives the text and translates them. The calendar of Antiochus is described on p.162, and is item A.x in Lehoux’s classification. Here is what he says.
    • " A.x. The Antiochus parapegma [27] is a short Greek parapegma that correlates stellar phases with changes in the weather and occasionally with causal statements such as ‘July 14: The whole of Orion rises at the same time as the sun; it causes (poiei=) rain and wind.’ All dates are in what I call the modified Julian calendar (i.e., dates are given as 1 July, 2 July, etc. rather than by the traditional method of counting down to the Kalends, Nones and Ides), which system seems to have begun to be used in the fourth century ad, rather than the sixth, as Mommsen thought.[28]

      27. Extant in six manuscripts, of which the earliest is fourteenth-century, and the latest is seventeenth. Edition: Boll, 1910a.
      28. For this argument see Ferrua, 1985."
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/201 ... anslation/
  • I’ve been reading a 1977 article by David Pingree entitled Antiochus and Rhetorius. It highlights some of the peculiar features of the transmission of technical works. Such works are peculiarly liable to acquire additions, subtractions, and revisions. There is a simple reason for this. You go to Tacitus to read about the history of the first century. But you go to Antiochus of Athens because you want to draw up a horoscope. And if you find Antiochus’ work is a bit unsatisfactory in some respect, you’re quite liable to write notes in the margin of your copy, or to produce a shortened version of the useful bits, or whatever. You don’t care so much about Antiochus. It’s what he has to say that matters. You’re only interested in whether the book helps you do that horoscope or not. . . .
    • " The object of this paper is to eliminate the confusion that has been created regarding Antiochus and Rhetorius, and to establish a program for editing Rhetorius that may seem unusual to a classicist, but that is necessary in the editing of Greek astrological texts.

      " The manuscripts cannot be relied on to preserve the original compositions of ancient authors; Ptolemy’s Apotelesmatika is virtually the only such text that seems to have survived relatively unscathed by the “improvements� of scribes, though the variant readings of Hephaestio of Thebes and of “Proclus� indicate that even its text is not completely pure. It is of the utmost importance for understanding the history of the transmission of the texts and the history of Byzantine scholarship in astrology that the various epitomes of each work be carefully distinguished and separately edited."
So I don't think that the Antiochus calendar alone would be sufficient to establish any significance to the date of December 25th specifically prior to Christian usage.
nightshadetwine wrote: Mark J. Smith, “P. Carlsberg 462: A Fragmentary Account of a Rebellion Against the Sun of God,� A Miscellany of Demotic Texts and Studies(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000)
According to one Egyptian tradition, the solar deity was born at the winter solstice. Plutarch identifies that day as the one on which Isis gave birth to Harpocrates[Horus].
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt(Thames & Hudson, 2003), Richard H. Wilkinson
Furthermore, at the time of the winter solstice the sun would have risen in the area of the [sky]goddess's figure--her pudendum--from which it would be imagined to be born, just as nine months earlier, at the spring equinox, the sun would have set in the positions of the goddess's head--suggesting it was being swallowed.
The solstice, as we've just seen from Antiochus, occurred on December 22nd not the 25th. Solstice celebrations of any variety are hardly surprising and obviously don't imply any pagan influence on the date of Christmas. But it's also worth noting that the deity under discussion here - Harpocrates or 'Horus' - is a very specific iteration and interpretation of the many guises under which Horus was seen throughout thousands of years of Egyptian history. There was probably quite a lot of diversity in worship and depictions of Horus even within the imperial Roman period alone, for that matter! The name Horus apparently means 'falcon,' so there's a discernible but hardly obvious series of steps from falcon > sky god > god whose eye is the sun > solar deity born at the solstice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus
  • Horus or Her, Heru, Hor in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists.[2]
nightshadetwine wrote: The sun god Horus's birth was celebrated on December 25th.

Isis Regina--Zeus Sarapis(Walter de Gruyter, 2001), Reinhold Merkelbach
Then the nocturnal Osiris consecration takes place, during the night of the 24th to the 25th of December. We know from Epiphanios that the Isis worshipers celebrated a big festival on December 25, the Kikellia. In the context of a discussion of the day of the birth of Christ, he speaks of the day of the winter solstice and the increase of the light and says the Hellenes (= the Gentiles) celebrate this day on the eighth day before the calends of January (= December 25), on the day known to the Romans as Saturnalia, to the Agyptians, Kronia, in Alexandria, Kikellia. The Kikellia occurs only once in the texts known to us, in the Greek version of the Kanoposdekretes, which was written on the 29th of Choiach in 238 BC... Since the 29th Choiach fell on the 25th of December in the Alexandrian calendar of the imperial period, there is little doubt that the imperial age was identical with the Ptolemaic festival. In Ptolemaic times, the time of Kikellia was calculated after the Egyptian year of conversion, which lost one day every 4 years. So this Isis festival fell in the year 238 on the 17th of February of the Julian year. In the year 30 BC when Augustus conquered Egypt, the 29th Choiach fell on the 25th of December. Augustus had the Egyptian year fixed by adding a leap day every 4 years. The Kikellia were celebrated on December 25th.
Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History(OUP USA, 2012), Giovanni R. Ruffini
Modern scholars have suggested that the role of the Choiak festival in "popular consciousness" survived in the liturgical practice of the Coptic Church, which intensifies at the end of Choiak with the celebration of Christmas. Some aspects of modern Coptic religious festivals are believed to be direct continuations of ancient Egyptian Osirian rites from the month of Choiak. Chronologically, the assimilation of the Choiak festival with Christmas would have been easy: Celebration of Osiris's victory over death on 30 Choiak fell shortly after the ultimate date for Christmas, December 25 or 28 or 29 Choiak, and celebration of the Choiak festival continued at Philae in southern Egypt into the fourth and fifth centuries. December 25 proper was the date of the Kikellia, the celebration of the birth of Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. The Kikellia is frequently attested in the third and early fourth centuries and is documented as late as the writings of Epiphanios of Salamis at the end of the fourth century.
This is the most fascinating part of your post, and I'm glad you shared it! :) I'm not sure whether it convincingly shows a pre-Christian veneration of December 25th, however. For example there's some pretty worrying discrepancies in the comments I've highlighted in green:
- Eight days before the calends of January would seem to be December 24th, not 25th
- Saturnalia at the time went from December 17th through 23rd
- Kronia (the feast of Chronus, Greek equivalent to Saturn and with some similarities in celebration) was held in late July/early August!
With apparent imprecisions such as this, how can we be sure that Epiphanius in a discussion of the birth of Christ was not approximating (perhaps even moreso) in the case of 'Kikellia' also?

The Kanoposdekretes (Canopus Decree) is obviously pre-Christian, but from a quick look doesn't seem to give us a lot to go on. It says that "The entry of Osiris in the holy barque takes place here yearly at the defined time, at the temple at Akar bamara in die month Choiak 29th day" and "when are solemnized the days of Kaaubek back in the month Choiak before the procession of Osiris" (emphasis mine). Choiak 29th does indeed seem to correspond with December 25th after Augustus' rule: But assuming that S. Birch is correct in identifying Ptolemaic Kaaubek as a precursor to the Kikellia festival documented five centuries later, this would seem to imply that imperial-era Kikellia lasted multiple days ending by December 24th (if not earlier).

But more importantly, from some quick googling of the Khoiak festivals I can't see any clear reference to the birth of Horus at all.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ival-drama
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/di ... hoiak.html
https://www.ancient.eu/article/1032/fes ... ent-egypt/
Rather, the festival seems to have had a largely agricultural rather than solar significance for virtually all of Egypt's history. And while it's unclear whether or not a loose seasonal alignment was maintained throughout the Old, Middle and New kingdoms through use of intercalary months (apparently there's little or no evidence for their systematic use, at least, though it's hard to imagine they could have failed to do so), it seems clear that any such seasonal alignment was lost by the Greek period (perhaps diminished in significance by that stage?). As your quote suggests and some other sources I've seen confirmed, in 238 BCE the end of Khoiak occurred in February: So not only is there little evidence for a 'birth of Horus' aspect to earlier Khoiak festivals, but given the solstice association made by later writers it actually seems quite improbable that such an element existed in pre-Roman Khoiak celebrations.

Your second quote notes that "The Kikellia is frequently attested in the third and early fourth centuries and is documented as late as the writings of Epiphanios of Salamis at the end of the fourth century." So the only clear(?) reference prior to the 3rd century CE seems to be the comment in the Canopus Decree about 'Kaaubek,' which provides no real details as to the festival's content/meaning and seems to imply a date before Khoiak 29th.



In short, from the material you've provided and my own subsequent research, it seems that all I can conclude with confidence is that sometime between 30BCE and 300CE - on a now-fixed calendar - some people in Egypt began celebrating the birth of Horus as part of 'Kikellia' near the end of Khoiak (the last day of which corresponded to Dec. 26th), causing writers such as Epiphanius to loosely associate the festival with Saturnalia (Dec. 17th to 23rd), the solstice (Dec. 22nd) and Christmas (Dec. 25th). Apparently Plutarch identifies the 'birth of Harpocrates' on the solstice specifically, which would considerably undermine the idea of influence on Christmas.

Fascinating topic either way :) Thanks for the opportunity to learn, and looking forward to your reply.

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Post #47

Post by Zzyzx »

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Point of clarification:


The December Solstice is either on Dec 20, 21, 22 or 23.
https://www.timeanddate.com › calendar › december-solstice

The variation is NOT due to changes in the Earth orbit, but to irregularities induced by the calendar we use.
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Post #48

Post by nightshadetwine »

Mithrae wrote: [Replying to post 44 by nightshadetwine]
That's certainly possible, but not certain. If the winter solstice were on the 22nd, by definition the days are getting longer from the 23rd onward; so why would a single author mark the shortest, darkest day of the year on the 22nd and then "light increases" on the 25th? While not touching on that point specifically, Roger Pearse notes the distinct possibility of later changes made to extant copies of Antiochus' work, particularly in the 4th-6th centuries CE; a later copyist's notation about the "birth of the sun" on December 25th would certainly make sense in that timeframe, after the establishment of the Sol Invictus festival...

So I don't think that the Antiochus calendar alone would be sufficient to establish any significance to the date of December 25th specifically prior to Christian usage.
I agree with all of this. I considered the possibility that there was tampering with the Antiochus calendar.
The solstice, as we've just seen from Antiochus, occurred on December 22nd not the 25th. Solstice celebrations of any variety are hardly surprising and obviously don't imply any pagan influence on the date of Christmas.
Apparently the winter solstice was on different days according to different people. There wasn't just one set day.


A history of ancient mathematical astronomy(Springer-Verlag, 1975), Otto Neugebauer
Columella himself remarked that the entry of the sun into Capricorn on Dec. 17 defines the winter solstice according to Hipparchus, while December 24 is the winter solstice according to the Chaldeans
Apparently Pliny The Elder says the winter solstice is on the 25th.

Pliny the elder, Natural History 18.221
The winter solstice begins at the eighth degree of Capricorn, the eighth day before the calends of January(2), in general...

(2)Twenty-fifth of December
The translator of Pliny's Natural History notes that the eight day before the calends of January is:
Twenty-fifth of December
So it seems that not everyone agreed on an exact date for the winter solstice.
But it's also worth noting that the deity under discussion here - Harpocrates or 'Horus' - is a very specific iteration and interpretation of the many guises under which Horus was seen throughout thousands of years of Egyptian history. There was probably quite a lot of diversity in worship and depictions of Horus even within the imperial Roman period alone, for that matter! The name Horus apparently means 'falcon,' so there's a discernible but hardly obvious series of steps from falcon > sky god > god whose eye is the sun > solar deity born at the solstice.
Horus was associated with a few different things but he was definitely associated with the sun. Specifically the newborn sun. It was common for Egyptian deities to be associated with more than one thing. As Mark Smith says:
According to one Egyptian tradition, the solar deity was born at the winter solstice. Plutarch identifies that day as the one on which Isis gave birth to Harpocrates.
Glenn S. Holland, Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Chantilly: The Teaching Company LLC, 2005), Lecture 7.
...the identity of Horus as a sun god is the primary identity. It becomes less important over time, but it is still his primary identity.
Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. by J. Baines (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971-96)
Many Egyptian gods can be the sun god, especially Re, Atum, Amun, and manifestations of Horus. Even Osiris appears as the night form of the sun god in the New Kingdom.
Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demotic Spells, Volume One: Texts, Second Edition, trans. H. Martin, Jr. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986-96)
Harpokrates (“Horus the child�) typically is portrayed with a finger of his right hand to his mouth, and he also may hold a crook and flail in his left hand. Harpokrates is the son of Isis and Osiris and is identified with the rising sun.
This is the most fascinating part of your post, and I'm glad you shared it! :) I'm not sure whether it convincingly shows a pre-Christian veneration of December 25th, however. For example there's some pretty worrying discrepancies in the comments I've highlighted in green:
- Eight days before the calends of January would seem to be December 24th, not 25th
Eight days before the calends of January is December 25th.

The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: De fide. Books II and III(Brill, 2013), Frank Williams
For the Savior was born during the forty-second year of the Roman emperor Augustus—in the thirteenth consulship of the same Octavian Augustus and the consulship of Silanus, as the Roman consul lists indicate. For these say as follows: "During their consulships," I mean Octavian's thirteenth and the consulship of Silanus, "Christ was born on the eighth before the Ides of January... And it completes a period of thirteen days until the eighth before
the Ides of January, the day of Christ's birth...
- Saturnalia at the time went from December 17th through 23rd
- Kronia (the feast of Chronus, Greek equivalent to Saturn and with some similarities in celebration) was held in late July/early August!
With apparent imprecisions such as this, how can we be sure that Epiphanius in a discussion of the birth of Christ was not approximating (perhaps even moreso) in the case of 'Kikellia' also?

The Kanoposdekretes (Canopus Decree) is obviously pre-Christian, but from a quick look doesn't seem to give us a lot to go on. It says that "The entry of Osiris in the holy barque takes place here yearly at the defined time, at the temple at Akar bamara in die month Choiak 29th day" and "when are solemnized the days of Kaaubek back in the month Choiak before the procession of Osiris" (emphasis mine). Choiak 29th does indeed seem to correspond with December 25th after Augustus' rule: But assuming that S. Birch is correct in identifying Ptolemaic Kaaubek as a precursor to the Kikellia festival documented five centuries later, this would seem to imply that imperial-era Kikellia lasted multiple days ending by December 24th (if not earlier).

But more importantly, from some quick googling of the Khoiak festivals I can't see any clear reference to the birth of Horus at all.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ival-drama
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/di ... hoiak.html
https://www.ancient.eu/article/1032/fes ... ent-egypt/
Rather, the festival seems to have had a largely agricultural rather than solar significance for virtually all of Egypt's history. And while it's unclear whether or not a loose seasonal alignment was maintained throughout the Old, Middle and New kingdoms through use of intercalary months (apparently there's little or no evidence for their systematic use, at least, though it's hard to imagine they could have failed to do so), it seems clear that any such seasonal alignment was lost by the Greek period (perhaps diminished in significance by that stage?). As your quote suggests and some other sources I've seen confirmed, in 238 BCE the end of Khoiak occurred in February: So not only is there little evidence for a 'birth of Horus' aspect to earlier Khoiak festivals, but given the solstice association made by later writers it actually seems quite improbable that such an element existed in pre-Roman Khoiak celebrations.

Your second quote notes that "The Kikellia is frequently attested in the third and early fourth centuries and is documented as late as the writings of Epiphanios of Salamis at the end of the fourth century." So the only clear(?) reference prior to the 3rd century CE seems to be the comment in the Canopus Decree about 'Kaaubek,' which provides no real details as to the festival's content/meaning and seems to imply a date before Khoiak 29th.
The kikellia lasted for more than one day. The birth of Horus was part of the Kikellia and that seems to have taken place on the 25th of December.

Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World, Sarolta A. Takacs
The Kikellia, a festival of the searching and finding of Osiris and the birth of Harpocrates, was celebrated for two days around the time of the
winter solstice. 48

48. During imperial times the Kikellia were held December 24 - 25.
Essays on the History of Religions(Brill, 1967), Raffaele Pettazzoni
According to Epiphanios, Panarion haeres. li, 22 (vol. ii, p.284 foll. Holl), the Kikellia were celebrated at Alexandria on the day of the Kronia, Dec. 25. The Kikellia, mentioned in the decree of Canopus, were a festival in honour of Isis, incorporated in a festal cycle of Osiris and celebrated immediately before and on the same day as a procession in his honour... They fell on Choiak 29, and since that day corresponded to Dec. 25 of the Julian calendar at the date (26-25 B.C.) of its adoption in Alexandria, Dec. 25 remained the fixed date of the Kikellia in Roman times.
So these Choiak festivals for Osiris, Isis, and Horus were celebrated in the winter. When the Egyptian calendar was fixed by Augustus in 30 BCE, the birth of Horus was celebrated on December 25th.

So there definitely is a tradition of the sun being born or reborn around the time of the winter solstice(whenever that may be). Ovid mentions the sun being born during the winter solstice. I personally think it's possible that there was an influence on the birth of Jesus. It seems like a strange coincidence that the sun was said to be born around the same time Jesus was said to be born.

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Post #49

Post by JehovahsWitness »

[Replying to post 48 by nightshadetwine]

I dont think its a "strange coincidence at all" , indeed it's no secret that the church at the time deliberately adopted dates of pagan festivals presumably in an attempt to displace paganism in the minds of their converts.; somewhat like secuarlism has adopted "Christmas" in our times making it acceptable to the nonnreligious.
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Post #50

Post by Mithrae »

JehovahsWitness wrote: [Replying to post 48 by nightshadetwine]

I dont think its a "strange coincidence at all" , indeed it's no secret that the church at the time deliberately adopted dates of pagan festivals presumably in an attempt to displace paganism in the minds of their converts.; somewhat like secuarlism has adopted "Christmas" in our times making it acceptable to the nonnreligious.
The church at which time? In the late 4th century and afterwards, when an increasingly official and homogenized Christianity was consolidating its position as the state religion of the Roman/Byzantine and subsequent kingdoms, that kind of approach certainly makes a lot of sense. But would it make sense in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries as an occasionally-persecuted minority religion consisting of an array of different sects/beliefs and decentralized churches? In those circumstances a copycat approach, offering a pale imitation of a more established pagan sect, wouldn't necessarily have much effectiveness in attracting new converts, whereas it most likely would invite condemnation for heretical tendencies from other rival (or even otherwise cordial) sects and churches.


#####

nightshadetwine wrote: So there definitely is a tradition of the sun being born or reborn around the time of the winter solstice(whenever that may be). Ovid mentions the sun being born during the winter solstice. I personally think it's possible that there was an influence on the birth of Jesus. It seems like a strange coincidence that the sun was said to be born around the same time Jesus was said to be born.
It's certainly possible (maybe even probable) that a celebration occurring around the time of the winter solstice was a factor influencing Christians' readiness to adopt a particular date. There's plenty of astronomical symbolism and metaphor in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and in this case the symbolism would be particularly obvious; "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world" (John 1:9). If the sun darkened at Jesus' death, why would it not brighten at his birth?

But is there any reason to insert a pagan festival in there as an intermediary step between the solstice and Christmas? Particularly since either the 'calculation hypothesis' or a loose importation of Hannukah into the Roman calendar (or both, for that matter) provide less outlandish and in the former case historically attested reasons why early Christians were looking at late December in the first place. While the solstice itself may have been a positive factor encouraging Christians to accept that as a good time to celebrate the nativity, odds are that pagan celebrations on particular dates around that time would have had a drag factor (at least throughout the 3rd and early 4th centuries, if my comments to JW are reasonable).

I'll get back to you later on the rest of your post :)

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