The nations of the north also had their greatest festival of the year in midwinter. To these northern barbarians, shuddering in the snow laden forests beyond the Danube, the return of the sun was the most desired event of the year, and they soon learned the time—the winter solstice—when the “wheel” turned. The sun was figured as a fiery wheel, and as late as the nineteenth century there were parts of France where a straw wheel was set on fire and rolled down a hill, to give an augury of the next harvest.

Hence “Yule” (from the Teutonic word “hoel” or “wheel”) was the outstanding festival of the ancestors of the French and Germans, the English and Scandinavians. The sun was born, and fires (“Yule logs”, still traditionally symbols of Christmas, though usually in the form of a chocolate cake) flamed in the forest villages, the huts were decorated with holly and evergreens, Yule trees were laden with presents, and stores of solid food and strong drink were lavishly opened. This lasted until Twelfth Day, now Epiphany. The Scandinavians celebrated the 25 December as the birth day of their god Freyr, the son of their supreme god of the heavens, Odin.

Long before Christianity, as mid-winter approached, Rome was lit up with joy. It was the festival of the old vegetation-god Saturn who, as a god, died or was displaced by Jupiter, the sky-god, but had a fine temple on the Capitol. His festival lasted seven days, from 17 to 24 December, and was the most joyous time of the joyous Roman year. For the whole week, no work was done, the one law being good cheer and good nature, but the 25 December was the culmination of it all, the greatest festival in the Roman calendar—the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun…

There was great rejoicing, illuminations and public games, and all shops were closed. Presents were exchanged, and the slaves were indulged in special liberties—on this one day they were free. They donned the conical cap of the freedman—as frolickers continue at Christmas, and on other festive occasions today, to don caps of paper—and sit at table while masters wait on them.

On 25 December, crowds filled the streets and raised festive cries, and the women of Rome paraded, singing in a loud voice, “Unto us a child is born this day”. Stalls laden with presents lined the streets near the Forum, but the great present of the season was a doll, of wax or terracotta. Hundreds of thousands of these dolls were on sale on the stalls and held in the arms of passers by. Once human beings were sacrificed to Saturn, and, as human life grew more important than religion, the god or his priests had to be content with effigies of men or maids—dolls! It was a time of peace on earth, for by Roman law no war could begin during the Saturnalia, and of good-will toward all men.

The festival went back far into the mists of prehistoric times. It had been earlier a one-day festival, the feast of Saturn, an important magico-religious festival for insuring the harvest of the next year, rejoicing that the year’s work was over, and helping and propitiating the god of fecundity by generous indulgence in wine and love. The mysterious winter dying of the sun was also arrested.

The entire known world of two thousand years ago had its “Christmas without Christ”. The figure of Christ was drawn in all its chief features before a line of the gospels was written, unarguably in the details relevant to Christmas. The first symbol of the Christian religion, the manger or basket cradle of the divine child, the supposed unique exhortation to humility, was one of the most familiar religious emblems of the Pagan world. Had it been exhibited to a crowd in one of the cosmopolitan cities of the Empire, it would have been strange or new to few. One might pronounce it Horus, another Hermes, another Dionysos, but all would have shrugged their shoulders nonchalantly at the news that it was just another divine sun child in the great family of gods. The world flowed on. The names only were changed.

The identity of these old traditions with Christmas are no longer disputed by scholars. Only ignorant fundamentalist ministers and some barmy priests of other denominations deny it. The celebrations of the birthdays of Mithras and Horus are as certain as the Saturnalia. Legends of the miraculous birth of gods, demigods, and heroes in the ancient world were as certain as that the Chaldeans knew astronomy and the Romans built tenement buildings.

Christians never think it strange that the birth date of Jesus is also the birth date of many of the incarnated gods of antiquity. They never think it curious that it was for ancient astronomers when the old sun died and was re-born and a new sun began to climb again in the heavens. At the solstice, it seemed to hover at the same altitude in the sky for three days, the critical time in the slow decline and possible death of the sun. Then it began to rise on the 25 December, the great day of the sun’s rebirth. That Pagans venerated the birthday of Christ as the birthday of their gods is beyond coincidence.