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For those unaware that many cultures and ideologies celebrate the Winter Solstice: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?
The Winter Solstice was evidently celebrated as long ago as Stonehenge construction. www.holidayextras.co.ukHolidays 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
On what authority do you tell me to not say 'A Catholic source'?bjs wrote: (Also, don't say "A Catholic source." If you have a source, just cite it.)
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.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.
Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History(OUP USA, 2012), Giovanni R. RuffiniThen 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.
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)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.
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt(Thames & Hudson, 2003), Richard H. WilkinsonAccording 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 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.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.
A Brief History of Ancient Astrology(Wiley, 2008), Roger BeckMonth of December...
22: Winter Solstice.
23: Procyon sets in the morning.
25: The birth of the sun, light increases
Ovid also says the sun is reborn around the time of the winter solstice.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’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
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.nightshadetwine wrote: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. . . .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.
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 LehouxA Brief History of Ancient Astrology(Wiley, 2008), Roger BeckMonth of December...
22: Winter Solstice.
23: Procyon sets in the morning.
25: The birth of the sun, light increasesSpeaking 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.’
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.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)The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt(Thames & Hudson, 2003), Richard H. WilkinsonAccording 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].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.
This is the most fascinating part of your post, and I'm glad you shared it!nightshadetwine wrote: The sun god Horus's birth was celebrated on December 25th.
Isis Regina--Zeus Sarapis(Walter de Gruyter, 2001), Reinhold MerkelbachMedieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History(OUP USA, 2012), Giovanni R. RuffiniThen 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.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.
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: Thanks for the opportunity to learn, and looking forward to your reply.I agree with all of this. I considered the possibility that there was tampering with the Antiochus calendar.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.
Apparently the winter solstice was on different days according to different people. There wasn't just one set day.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 Pliny The Elder says the winter solstice is on the 25th.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
The translator of Pliny's Natural History notes that the eight day before the calends of January is: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
So it seems that not everyone agreed on an exact date for the winter solstice.Twenty-fifth of December
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: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.
Glenn S. Holland, Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Chantilly: The Teaching Company LLC, 2005), Lecture 7.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.
Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. by J. Baines (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971-96)...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.
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)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.
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.
Eight days before the calends of January is December 25th.This is the most fascinating part of your post, and I'm glad you shared it!
- Eight days before the calends of January would seem to be December 24th, not 25th
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...
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.- 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.
Essays on the History of Religions(Brill, 1967), Raffaele PettazzoniThe 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.
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.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.
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.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.
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?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.
