Is Christmas Christ's Birthday? No, Not at All.

The Winter Solstice and Saturnalia Before Christmas

When considering the origins of Christmas, the first thing to keep in mind is the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. Saturnalia was not merely a feast during the winter solstice. During this period, the roles of slaves and masters were temporarily reversed, and laws and social hierarchies were suspended. People drank large amounts of wine, exchanged gifts, and were freed from daily discipline. This festival, where order itself was placed in a 'state of exception,' was extremely popular in Roman society at the time.
For the state, Saturnalia was a way to release popular discontent, but it was also a festival that always carried danger. This is because the festival did not just allow for revelry; it physically allowed people to experience the feeling that 'order is not eternal.'
It is an important element that the god to whom this festival was dedicated was not a sun god, but Saturn. Saturn is the equivalent of Cronus in Greek mythology and was considered an ancient king who ruled over the 'Golden Age'—a time when humanity knew neither labor nor domination. He was not a god who supported the current order, but a god who symbolized a world principle that existed before it.
The celestial body of Saturn also carried the same symbolism. As the slowest-moving planet visible to the naked eye and located at the outermost edge of the heavens, Saturn represented 'time itself' or the 'circulating cosmic order' to the ancients. The notion that 'Saturn once played the role of the sun' was not an astronomical claim, but a symbol that before linear time, a different world order existed.
During the winter solstice, when the sun is at its weakest (when the current sun sets), the old order rises for just a moment. Saturnalia was a festival where that memory was reenacted by society as a whole.
In the old Roman Empire, Mithraism, which I wrote about in a previous article, had an influence that could be called borderless. Mithraism was a sun worship practiced secretively in underground temples, spreading throughout the empire, mainly among soldiers and bureaucrats. Mithra was a god associated with the sun and symbolized death, rebirth, and the victory of light. I have written about the underground mysteries and elements like the Phrygian cap in a previous article, so please check that out if you are interested.

While Saturnalia was a public festival held on the surface of the city, Mithraism was an inward-looking mystery religion practiced underground. It is interesting that despite being a mystery religion, it had such influence in the Roman Empire at the time.

The Council of Nicaea and the Institutionalization of 'Orthodox Light'

The Council of Nicaea (or the First Council of Nicaea) is often explained as the resolution of a theological dispute. In reality, it was a decisive turning point where 'the state became able to define what is orthodox.' In the Christian world until then, both the position that Christ was a created being and the position that he was of the same substance as God coexisted. However, the council established the latter as the only orthodoxy and fixed Christ as a being of the same substance as God the Father. What is important here is that through this decision, the metaphor of 'light' was fixed in a form that could withstand state governance.
Until then, light was a polysemous symbol linked to seasons, cycles, death, and rebirth. But the light after Nicaea became a principle of order that was singular, universal, and radiated from the center. It was not a light pregnant with ambiguity or reversal, but a light that illuminated the world in one direction. This was both a theological reorganization and a device for integrating the empire under a single ideology. Thus, Christianity was institutionalized as the state religion of the Roman Empire (the Roman Catholic Church). In that process, pagan rituals like Saturnalia were not suddenly banned. The method taken was more sophisticated: first, public support for pagan rituals was stopped, and temples and festivals lost their official meaning. What was dangerous to the state was not the act of people drinking and making noise. The problem was the experience of 'reversal,' where masters and slaves swapped places and order was temporarily suspended. Saturnalia reminded people with their bodies that order is not eternal. That is why the invalidation and overwriting of meaning were chosen instead of prohibition.

The Placement of December 25th and the Overwriting of Festivals

There is absolutely no biblical basis for Christ's birthday being set on December 25th. None of the Gospels specify the season of his birth, and this date was placed later.
Around December 25th was a time that already carried powerful symbolism in the Roman world. Spanning the winter solstice, this season, when the sun is at its weakest and begins to regain its strength, has long been shared as a time to celebrate rebirth and circulation.
What happened here was not the destruction of existing festivals, but the absorption and reorganization of their meaning. By concentrating the symbols of the sun, light, and rebirth into a single existence called Christ, the old festivals were able to survive in a 'Christianly interpreted form.' The elements of Saturnalian indulgence and reversal were cut away, and what remained was a festival where the act of celebrating itself reinforced order.
This was a far more effective method than forcibly banning pagan festivals. People continued to celebrate the return of light as they always had, but its meaning had already been reclaimed by another story. The cyclical time of the winter solstice was replaced by the singular, salvation-historical event of Christ's birth, and time came to be understood as linear rather than circular.
Thus, December 25th was fixed as a day to celebrate the 'birth of Christ' rather than the 'rebirth of the sun.' Light was no longer a symbol of natural phenomena or cosmic cycles. It was light as the sole truth guaranteed by the state and the church. Through this shift, the festival transformed from a place that shook order into a device that confirmed and reproduced it.


This structure appears repeatedly when religion becomes linked to state governance. Organizing diverse and boundary-crossing faiths and concentrating symbols into a central deity. Re-editing festivals and myths into forms that do not evoke dangerous memories. The structure of Japanese mythology, which we will look at next, also reveals its contours clearly for the first time within this context.

The Amaterasu Myth and the Structure of State Religion

This Roman transformation has a structure surprisingly similar to the formation process of Japanese mythology. In ancient Japan, too, the original faith was polytheistic, boundary-crossing, and deeply linked to the rhythms of the land, seasons, and community. Gods did not exist as a single entity at the center, but were scattered across various regions, sometimes opposing each other, sometimes overlapping. However, in the process of state formation, this diversity was organized.
Placed at the center was the sun goddess Amaterasu. Amaterasu Omikami is not merely a sun god. She is a god reconstructed as an entity that bears political legitimacy in its entirety by being directly linked to the imperial line.
What is important here is the point that light was positioned not as a natural phenomenon, but as a principle to justify governance. Light in a polytheistic world was unstable—circulating, hiding, and reappearing. But light in state mythology becomes a symbol of order that consistently illuminates the world from the center.
The myth of the transfer of the land also appears to be part of this reorganization. There, events that could have been told as armed conflict or a change in rule are rewritten into stories of 'agreement' and 'transfer.' Violence disappears from the foreground, and the transition of order is depicted as an amicable contract. This is very similar to the structure in Rome where the memory of Saturnalian reversal was neutralized by the overwriting of festivals.
In Rome, Christ took on the symbols of the winter solstice and the sun. In Japan, Amaterasu concentrated light and legitimacy into herself. In both cases, religion was reorganized for the state to be established, and dangerous ambiguities and reversals were pushed outside the narrative.
Also, this Saturnalia is reminiscent of the scene of the Heavenly Rock Cave, where light is temporarily lost, and its absence is filled by the community's feast.

Christmas is an example of the most successful overwriting of myth, and perhaps the Amaterasu myth was a device of the same type in Japan.
Light has always been celebrated. However, it seems that who that light belongs to and what it justifies have been carefully re-selected in every era.