Sol Invictus

Christmas postcard / Photography / 2015
"It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day."
—Jacob Bar-Salibi, 12th-century Syrian bishop, cited in Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries, Ramsay MacMullen, 1997.