These Festivals
From ancient times to the present, cultures worldwide have celebrated the sun’s return following the winter solstice. In this episode, I bring you the story of the midwinter celebrations of ancient Rome, from Saturnalia to Sol Invictus and beyond.
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Music
Purple Planet - The Gift of Giving
Purple Planet - In the Land of Make Believe
Purple Planet - A New World
Purple Planet - Spiritual Moment
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
Augustine. Sermones XII.
Catullus. Carmen 14. In The Carmina of Gaius Valerius Catullus. Edited and translated by Leonard C. Smithers. London: Smithers, 1894.
Pliny the Younger. Letters 2.17.24. Translated by J.B.Firth (1900).
Seneca the Younger. Epistulae 18.
Secondary
Bonesho, Catherine E. “The Terror of Time: The Festival of Dionysus and Saturnalia in Jewish Responses to Foreign Rule.” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period 51, no. 2 (2020): 151-178.
Bradshaw, Paul. “The Dating of Christmas: The Early Church.” In The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, edited by Timothy Larsen, 3-14. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Evola, Julius. “Sol Invictus: Encounters between East and West in the Ancient World.” East and West 8, no. 3 (1957): 303-306.
Halsberghe, Gaston H. The Cult of Sol Invictus. Brill, 1972.
Hijmans, Steven E. ”Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas.” Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada 47, no. 3 (2003): 377-398.
Hijmans, Steven E. “The Sun Which Did Not Rise in the East: The Cult of Sol Invictus in the Light of Non-Literary Evidence.” BABesch 71 (1996): 115-150.
Hijmans, Steven E. ”Temples and Priests of Sol in the City of Rome.” Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada 10, no. 3 (2010): 381-427.
Holleran, Claire. Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Nothaft, C. P. E. “The Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research.” Church History 81, no. 4 (2012): 903-911.
Roll, Susan K. Towards the Origin of Christmas. Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1995.
Schaff, Philip. From Constantine the Great to Gregory the Great, A.D. 311-600. Vol. 3. New York: C. Scribner, 1867.
Simmons, Kurt M. “The Origins of Christmas and the Date of Christ’s Birth.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58, no. 2 (2015): 299-324.
Vout, Caroline. Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
