The Truth About Christmas

The Sun, A Universal Deity


THE adoration of the sun was one of the earliest and most natural forms of religious expression.

Complex modern theologies are merely involvements and amplifications of this simple aboriginal belief.

The primitive mind, recognizing the beneficent power of the solar orb, adored it as the proxy of the

Supreme Deity. Concerning the origin of sun worship, Albert Pike makes the following concise

statement in his Morals and Dogma: "To them [aboriginal peoples] he [the sun] was the innate fire of

bodies, the fire of Nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all

generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense,

indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy,

that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent

influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the BRAHMA of the Hindus, and

MITHRAS of the Persians, and ATHOM, AMUN, PHTHA, and OSIRIS, of the Egyptians, the BEL of

the Chaldeans, the ADONAI of the Phœnicians, the ADONIS and APOLLO of the Greeks, became but

personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and

rejuvenates the world's existence."

Among all the nations of antiquity, altars, mounds, and temples were dedicated to the worship of the orb

of day. The ruins of these sacred places yet remain, notable among them being the pyramids of Yucatan

and Egypt, the snake mounds of the American Indians, the Zikkurats of Babylon and Chaldea, the round

towers of Ireland, and the massive rings of uncut stone in Britain and Normandy. The Tower of Babel,

which, according to the Scriptures, was built so that man might reach up to God, was probably an

astronomical observatory.

Many early priests and prophets, both pagan and Christian, were versed in astronomy and astrology;

their writings are best understood when read in the light of these ancient sciences. With the growth of

man's knowledge of the constitution and periodicity of the heavenly bodies, astronomical principles and

terminology were introduced into his religious systems. The tutelary gods were given planetary thrones,

the celestial bodies being named after the deities assigned to them. The fixed stars were divided into

constellations, and through these constellations wandered the sun and its planets, the latter with their

accompanying satellites.

Christianity and the Sun

For reasons which they doubtless considered sufficient, those who chronicled the life and acts of Jesus

found it advisable to metamorphose him into a solar deity. The historical Jesus was forgotten; nearly all

the salient incidents recorded in the four Gospels have their correlations in the movements, phases, or

functions of the heavenly bodies.

Among other allegories borrowed by Christianity from pagan antiquity is the story of the beautiful, blue-

eyed Sun God, with His golden hair falling upon His shoulders, robed from head to foot in spotless

white and carrying in His arms the Lamb of God, symbolic of the vernal equinox. This handsome youth

is a composite of Apollo, Osiris, Orpheus, Mithras, and Bacchus, for He has certain characteristics in

common with each of these pagan deities.

The philosophers of Greece and Egypt divided the life of the sun during the year into four parts;

therefore they symbolized the Solar Man by four different figures. When He was born in the winter

solstice, the Sun God was symbolized as a dependent infant who in some mysterious manner had

managed to escape the Powers of Darkness seeking to destroy Him while He was still in the cradle of

winter. The sun, being weak at this season of the year, had no golden rays (or locks of hair), but the

survival of the light through the darkness of winter was symbolized by one tiny hair which alone

adorned the head of the Celestial Child. (As the birth of the sun took place in Capricorn, it was often

represented as being suckled by a goat.)

At the vernal equinox, the sun had grown to be a beautiful youth. His golden hair hung in ringlets on his

shoulders and his light, as Schiller said, extended to all parts of infinity. At the summer solstice, the sun

became a strong man, heavily bearded, who, in the prime of maturity, symbolized the fact that Nature at

this period of the year is strongest and most fecund. At the autumnal equinox, the sun was pictured as an

aged man, shuffling along with bended back and whitened locks into the oblivion of winter darkness.

Thus, twelve months were assigned to the sun as the length of its life. During this period it circled the

twelve signs of the zodiac in a magnificent triumphal march. When fall came, it entered, like Samson,

into the house of Delilah (Virgo), where its rays were cut off and it lost its strength. In Masonry, the

cruel winter months are symbolized by three murderers who sought to destroy the God of Light and

Truth.

The coming of the sun was hailed with joy; the time of its departure was viewed as a period to be set

aside for sorrow and unhappiness. This glorious, radiant orb of day, the true light "which lighteth every

man who cometh into the world," the supreme benefactor, who raised all things from the dead, who fed

the hungry multitudes, who stilled the tempest, who after dying rose again and restored all things to life--

this Supreme Spirit of humanitarianism and philanthropy is known to Christendom as Christ, the

Redeemer of worlds, the Only Begotten of The Father, the Word made Flesh, and the Hope of Glory.

The Birthday of the Sun
The pagans set aside the 25th of December as the birthday of the Solar Man. They rejoiced, feasted,

gathered in processions, and made offerings in the temples. The darkness of winter was over and the

glorious son of light was returning to the Northern Hemisphere. With his last effort the old Sun God had

torn down the house of the Philistines (the Spirits of Darkness) and had cleared the way for the new sun

who was born that day from the depths of the earth amidst the symbolic beasts of the lower world.

Concerning this season of celebration, an anonymous Master of Arts of Balliol College, Oxford, in his

scholarly treatise, Mankind Their Origin and Destiny, says: "The Romans also had their solar festival,

and their games of the circus in honor of the birth of the god of day. It took place the eighth day before

the kalends of January--that is, on December 25. Servius, in his commentary on verse 720 of the seventh

book of the Æneid, in which Virgil speaks of the new sun, says that, properly speaking, the sun is new

on the 8th of the Kalends of January-that is, December 25. In the time of Leo I. (Leo, Serm. xxi., De

Nativ. Dom. p. 148), some of the Fathers of the Church said that 'what rendered the festival (of

Christmas) venerable was less the birth of Jesus Christ than the return, and, as they expressed it, the new

birth of the sun.' It was on the same day that the birth of the Invincible Sun (Natalis solis invicti), was

celebrated at Rome, as can be seen in the Roman calendars, published in the reign of Constantine and of

Julian (Hymn to the Sun, p. 155). This epithet 'Invictus' is the same as the Persians gave to this same

god, whom they worshipped by the name of Mithra, and whom they caused to be born in a grotto

(Justin. Dial. cum Trips. p. 305), just as he is represented as being born in a stable, under the name of

Christ, by the Christians."