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Sol Invictus (Classical Latin: [ˈsoːɫ ɪnˈwɪktʊs], "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in 274 CE and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire.
Ratha Saptami also marks the birth of Surya to sage Kashyapa and his wife Aditi and hence celebrated as Surya Jayanti (the Sun-god’s birthday). A legend is narrated by the Kamboja empire’s King Yashovarma, a noble king who had no heir to rule his kingdom. On his special prayers to God, he was blessed with a son.
Related to the winter solstice theory, the "History of Religions" hypothesis proposes the Church chose 25 December as Jesus's birthday (dies Natalis Christi) [94] to appropriate the Roman winter solstice festival dies Natalis Solis Invicti ('birthday of the Unconquered Sun'), held on the same date.
The Bible never states when Jesus was born, [161] [162] [163] but, by late antiquity, Christians had begun celebrating his birth on 25 December. [162] In 274 AD, the Roman emperor Aurelian had declared 25 December the birthdate of Sol Invictus, a sun god of Syrian origin whose cult had been vigorously promoted by the earlier emperor Elagabalus.
The English word Christmas is a shortened form of 'Christ's Mass'. [3] The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131. [4] Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from the Greek Χριστός (Khrīstos, 'Christ'), a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîaḥ, 'Messiah'), meaning 'anointed'; [5] [6] and mæsse is from the Latin missa, the celebration of the ...
Surya, the Sun god, rides across the sky in a horse-drawn chariot à la Helios and Sol. Aruna, charioteer of Surya, god of the morning Sun. Aryaman, god of the midday Sun. Savitr, god of the twilight Sun, also known as sunrise and sunset. Mitra, often associated with the Sun. Mihir, meaning Sun. Tapati, Sun goddess.
"The only evidence for it is the celebration of the birthday of Invictus on that date in Calendar of Philocalus. Invictus is of course Sol Invictus, Aurelian's sun god. It does not follow that a different, earlier, and unofficial sun god, Sol Invictus Mithras, was necessarily or even probably, born on that day too." [25]: 299, n. 12 [d]
The Christian Council of Tours of 567 established Advent as the season of preparation for Christmas, as well as the season of Christmastide, declaring "the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany to be one unified festal cycle", thus giving significance both to 25 December and to 6 January, a solution that would "coordinate the solar Julian ...