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This passage was adapted from Great Rome: c. 500 B.C. –
c. 500 A.D by Joseph Campbell. In “Occidental Mythology: the Masks of God”
by Joseph Campbell. Penguin Arkana, 1991.
OCCIDENTAL MYTHOLOGY
The Myths behind the Nativity Scene
According to the Bible, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea, three wise men, called magi, came to Jerusalem from the East, saying, "Where is
he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come
to worship him." They followed the star which they had seen in the East until it came
to rest over the place where the child was. When they went into the stable, they saw the child
who was to be Christ the savior, the redeemer who would provide new life to humanity. He was
with the Virgin Mary, his maiden mother. When they saw him, they fell to their knees and worshipped
him. This is the origin of the Feast of the Magi, which is celebrated on January 6th.
The story of the birth of Christ shows striking similarities
to the Egyptian festival of the birth of the new Aion, which was celebrated on January 6 in
Egyptian Alexandria. The new Aion was a personification of Osiris, the Egyptian God of death
and resurrection, who represented the renewing vitality and fertility of nature, and was born
of Queen Isis, "the Maiden." Queen Isis is the Goddess of fertility who is sometimes
represented as a cow and her home as a stable. It is further said that in this festival there
was also a bright star, the star of Sirius (Sothis), whose rising on the horizon had been
for millenniums the watched-for sign of Aion's birth.
The present custom of celebrating the birth of Christ (the Nativity)
on December 25 was not instituted until the year 353 or 354 A.D. This was done under the Roman
Pope Liberius, possibly to incorporate two pagan traditions: 1) the celebration of the winter
solstice - the day that marks the return of the sun - which in those centuries was held on
December 25; 2) the festival of the death and resurrection of Mithra (a Persian god of light)
celebrated on that day. Celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25th allowed for Christ,
like Mithra, and the winter solstice, to be recognized as the risen sun.
Thus, we have two myths and two dates
of the Nativity scene, December 25 and January 6, with associations
pointing on one hand to the Persian and on the other to the old Egyptian
legends.
