Happy Saturnalia, Merry Sol Invictus... ( Archived) (20)

Seasons Greetings, people of all faiths and denominations. History has made this a time of celebration, thoughts of peace, and remembrance of what grace and prosperity we have engendered in the previous year. I'd like to take this time to wish everyone Happiness for the coming year, and not to forget that this season is a time to celebrate the bounty of the gods.

Saturnalia is an ancient Roman Tradition, pre-dating Christmas, and I wish all pagans a happy one. Christians take it for granted that Christ's birthday in winter is metaphorical, but for those who don't know the history, here is a snippet from Wikipedia:

"There is a theory that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25 (the Winter Solstice on the Julian calendar) as Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. This theory is much disputed, as the dates of Saturnalia are not coincident with Christmas. A more refined argument is that Christmas was set on the feast of Sol Invictus, which was on December 25, and which had supplanted Saturnalia.

The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia said that early Christians independently came up with the date of December 25 based on a Jewish tradition of the "integral age" of the Jewish prophets (the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception), and a miscalculation of the date of Jesus' death. But the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia cites a hypothesis suggested by H. Usener as "accepted by most scholars today", that "the birth of Christ was assigned the date of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian calendar ...) because ... the pagan devotees of Mithra celebrated the dies natalis Solis Invicti."

A theory has been advanced that the establishment of the feast of Sol Invictus on December 25 was an attempt by Aurelian to co-opt the day already celebrated by Christians for a pagan festival."

As you see, accusations have flown back and forth between polytheists and Christians as to who supplanted whose holiday. Since this is supposedly a time of peace and celebration, I wish you all the wisdom to accept others as they are, rather than causing strife by being self-righteous in any way. The origins are lost in antiquity but not the spirit. Lets all try to make Christmas spirit a 365 affair, and then perhaps, Peace on Earth isn't such an impossible dream.

Happy Holidays all.

Happy Holidays GB!

Happy Holidays to all!
*hugs...

Happy Holidays !! wishing you lots of cheer and happiness ahead !!

Heya trace. ho ho ho!

My book is in a holding pattern currently. I'm still writing, but Life's demands have made the time for that less and less.