by Gavin Ashenden
Why the propagandists won’t give up on the ‘sol-invictus’ myth.
It happens almost every year that propagandists try to steal Christmas from Christ and the Church.
A couple of days ago, it was English Heritage’s turn. They put out a tweet claiming that Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December was adopted, stolen, or borrowed from the Roman sun god Sol Invictus and a pagan midwinter festival.
Tom Holland, the co-host of The Rest Is History, put his head in his hands and tweeted, “Please make it stop.” Every time this old trope is trotted out with the intention of destabilising and stealing Christmas, historians have to remind propagandists that the claim is simply wrong.
Which raises the obvious question: why do they keep doing it?
The reason the claim is wrong is straightforward. Some time before the Roman pagan festival emerges in the sources, the Church had already made its impact and claims known with the belief that Christ’s conception took place on March 25, leading naturally to the celebration of his birth on December 25. The Sol Invictus festival breaks into public consciousness significantly later. In other words, it follows rather than precedes.
But the more important question we have to face is what this repeated attempt to hijack Christmas is really about. Why is paganism being used as a political tool?