Romans had traditionally decked their halls with boughs of holly, evergreens, and mistletoe to symbolize winter’s inability to prevent the renewal of life. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. In fact, Sunday was held as sacred throughout the year and is (evidently) where we get that name for the first day of the week.Įarly Christians might have given this festival a new meaning-to celebrate the birth of the Son of God the unconquered Son Who came to vanquish the power of death and the darkness of hell! To the ancients, this would have recalled the prophet’s oracle of the coming Messiah,įor you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means birthday of the unconquered sun because the sun was returning to vanquish the cold, dark winter. On that night, Mithras worshippers celebrated the Great Mother Goddess giving birth to the infant sun god, Mithras. | By Kharmacher – Own work, CC0, Īs the story goes, the last day of winter, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, was thought to be December 25. Copy colored after remains of paint from other Mithraea in the Archaeological Museum in Frankfurt. It announced that winter is not forever, that life continues, with an invitation to stay in good spirits. The Roman mystery religion Mithraism was a form of sun worship that had come to Rome from Syria, a century before the birth of Jesus, with the cult of Sol Invictus. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Many ancient peoples, including the Egyptians and later the Romans, believed the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. Saturnalia | By Themadchopper, Antoine-François Callet –, CC0, When I first researched for this topic, the material I found explained that in Roman times, the winter solstice marked celebrations honoring both Saturnus, the harvest god-Saturnalia was held between December 17 and 24-and Mithras, god of light. Advent originally was a time of instruction, prayer, fasting and self-reflection, in preparation to be baptized in the new year.
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