Astronomically, the sun begins a new year of life at the winter solstice, and so the 25 December, or some day proximate to that date, was selected in remote antiquity for the celebration of God’s birthday, when sun gods were worshipped. At the first moment after midnight of 24 December the nations of the East would rise to celebrate the arrival of 25 December, the birthday of their gods.

At midnight on the twenty-fifth of the month, Savarana, which is our December, millions of Krishna’s disciples celebrated his birthday by decorating their houses with garlands and gilt paper, and giving presents to friends. The people of China also traditionally celebrated this day, closing their shops. Buddha is said to have been born on this day after the Holy Ghost had descended on his virgin mother Maya. The god of the Persians, Mithras, was born on the 25 December long before the coming of Jesus.

The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth day of their great saviour Horus, the Egyptian god of light and son of a virgin mother, the queen of the heaven, Isis. Osiris, god of the dead and the underworld in Egypt, another son of a holy virgin, was born on the 25 December. Adonis, revered as a dying and rising god among the Phrygians then the Greeks, was born on the 25 December. His worshippers held him a yearly festival representing his death and resurrection, in midsummer. Even the temple at Jerusalem was used to celebrate the birthday of the god Adonis in the years when Jesus might have been born, Herod being no Jew by conviction. The cave in Bethlehem which is said to have been the birth place of Jesus was also previously a place in which the birthday of Adonis was celebrated.

The Greeks celebrated the 25 December as the birthday of Apollo, the great sun god, and it was also the day upon which were celebrated, by their respective worshippers, the births of Adonis and of Mithras. That day was the birthday of Hercules, the son of their supreme god, Zeus, through the mortal woman Alcmene. Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry among the Romans, known among the Greeks as Dionysos, was born on this day. The 25 December was so highly regarded as a day suitable for the birthday of a god that it was selected for the apotheosis of Alexander the Great when he was first acclaimed as God in the temple of Amon (Jupiter) in 322 BC.