What do Mithra (also known as Mithras) and Jesus have in common? The answer is December 25, Mithra’s birthday. When was Jesus really born?
Many solar deities were flourishing in the Middle East, Mediterranean and Europe prior to the days of Jesus and Christianity. In Rome, Mithra (or Mithras) worship was the predominant religion. Mithra was originally the Vedic God Mitra, one of the twelve Adityas of the Rig Veda, the worship of whom reached Rome through Persia, Asia Minor and Syria. He was the symbol of friendship, light, transparency, and justice, because he used to be invoked in various treaties. In Persia he was called Mithra. There his birthday became December 25 and the festival of ShabeYaldaa was his birthday celebration. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (nearly 2500yrs ago) mentions this festival was the biggest in Persia at that time. In the Zoroastrian religion, Mithra was considered as the mediator between the highest God Ahura Mazda and humanity.
It was believed Mithra would lead the dead to heaven, resurrect the dead, will judge the humanity on the last day of the world etc. (His role as the judge on the last day comes from Zoroastrian faith as Hindus have no day of judgment). Mithra worship was present in the Middle East at least 3000 years ago as can be seen from the famous Hittite-Mittiani treaty in which he is invoked. In Syria Mithraism arrived well before the turn of the Common Era (AD/CE).
The counter part of Julius Caesar in Syria was Mithradetus (meaning the justice of Mithra). It was believed that the Syrian sea pirates brought Mithra worship into Rome. In Rome he underwent further transformation. Mithras was born on December 25 by emerging from a rock (born of the virgin- Earth), a birth attended by shepherds. As an adult, he hunted for a sacred bull, captured, and dragged it into a cave where he slayed it with a short sword. They thought from the bull’s blood and semen arose grain (also attributed to the god Saturn) and the general vitality of nature. An inscription in the Santa Prisca Mithraeum on the Aventine in Rome says, “You saved us by shedding the eternal blood.” (Of course, the blood was of the bull; not of Mithra). There is not enough extant literature about Roman Mithraism, most likely because the church would have destroyed them when it got power.
Almost all we know today is based on the interpretation by modern scholars from reliefs, sculptures, and paintings on surviving monuments, mostly in the Mithraea (Mithraic sanctuaries). Mithraism reigned in Rome for about five centuries ending in the 4th century CE. Several hundred Mithraic monuments were found in Rome (Coarelli, 1979). Adapted for Roman taste, the most popular Romanized form of Mithraism was Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, whose re-birth was celebrated as the climax of the mid-winter Saturnalia, on December 25. Saturnalia honored the “good old days” when the god Saturn ruled a supposed “Golden Age”, and there were no masters and no slaves, and everything was easy.
The pagan celebration of Saturnalia first began as a harvest and agriculture celebration on December 17, to give thanks to the god Saturn. With the popularity of the Mithra celebrations, the revelry of Saturnalia was decided to be extended through December 25, and later through the New Year in the Gregorian Calendar.
For the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, the birth of Jesus Christ was not celebrated at all. The Christian religion’s most significant holidays were Epiphany on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth, and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honoring Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from 336 A.D. Notice this is also around the time when the popular pagan Mithra celebrations of feasting, frolicking, orgies and in some cases, murder took place.
Remember in 2 Kings 17:17 that this was at the time they had child sacrifice, as if sacrificing their first-born children in the fires in the pagan, ziggurat temple could possibly take away their sins or could be used as a bargaining chip for good fortune for themselves.
That is when it was decided to extend the celebration, from December 17, the feast day honoring the god Saturn, who they revered since they thought Saturn brought them a bountiful harvest, and combine the revelry past December 25, the pagan feast day of Mithra, the god of light, and into the New Year.
The bible does not mention Jesus’ exact birthday, and the Nativity story contains conflicting clues. For instance, the presence of shepherds and their sheep suggest a spring or fall birth. When church officials settled on December 25 at the end of the third century, they likely wanted the date to coincide with existing pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) on December 17, and Mithra (the Persian god of light) on his birthday which was celebrated between December 22 and 25, placed on the shortest, darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. That way, it became easier to convince Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion. They could then celebrate the Son God rather than the Sun god.
Some, including the Puritans of colonial New England, even banned its observance of Christmas because they viewed its traditions—the offering of gifts and decorating trees, for example—as linked to paganism. Check out Jeremiah 10:1-4. Here we have the first biblical account of cutting down “Christmas” trees, nailing them up so they do not fall over in their homes, and decorating them with ornaments of silver and gold. Jeremiah 10:5-10 talks about the pagan Winter Solstice celebrations as idols and how they cannot replace the One, True God. Jeremiah 7:18 condemns the pagan practice of baking cakes for the queen of heaven.
The pagan Emperor Constantine worshiped the sun god Mithra. Constantine is the one who decided to put the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25. Constantine only became a Christian on his deathbed. Roman pontiffs followed Constantine’s lead in 354 AD. Bishop Liberius of Rome ordered the people to celebrate on December 25. We see the mixing of the good seed with the bad, or pagan and Christian worshipping a god and The God of all Creation on the same day, in this example.
In the early days of the United States, celebrating Christmas was considered a British custom and fell out of style following the American Revolution. It was not until 1870 that Christmas became a federal holiday.
God Bless Everyone Everywhere