That long ago, people noticed that every year at this time, when the days have been getting shorter and the nights longer, the cycle reverses, the sun starts coming back, and the days start getting brighter and longer again. Today, we call this the winter solstice. It s December 21st on our modern calendars. But in the ancient calendars it came four days later. So in the world of several thousand years ago, long before the man Jesus lived, December 25th was already a symbolic and famous date, the date of the winter solstice.
People didn t call it the winter solstice, though.
They spoke of things in terms of their gods and goddesses. And December 25th was the birthday of their sun-god. When you think about it, the winter solstice is the day the sun starts being born again, so by definition it is the birthday of all sun gods. For the Greeks, tomorrow was Apollo s birthday, and they carved pictures of Apollo driving his chariot pulled by flying horses across the sky, and pulling the sun behind him. Another religion, which was much more important for our own history, even though most people have now forgotten its name, was the religion of Mithraism.