The DOI matches its Crossref record; 23 of the 23 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas
Abstract
Ce n’est qu’au IV e siècle que s’est instaurée la tradition de célébrer l’anniversaire du Christ le 25 décembre, le jour exact de sa naissance étant de fait inconnu. Aujourd’hui, les spécialistes se rangent à la théorie de Hermann Usener (fin du XIX e siècle) selon laquelle l’église primitive aurait choisi cette date dans le but de supplanter une importante fête païenne en l’honneur de Sol Invictus. Mais l’importance de cette fête a été exagérée, et les témoignages indiquent que la raison de ce choix réside plutôt dans la valeur symbolique attribuée au solstice d’hiver (traditionnellement le 25 décembre).
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Cites
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New Light on the Relationship between the Montecitorio Obelisk and Ara Pacis of Augustus
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Amanita muscaria: Ecology, Chemistry, Myths
Carboué, Q., & Lopez, M. (2021) · Encyclopedia · doi:10.3390/encyclopedia1030069 · Cited by 27
Temples and Priests of Sol in the City of Rome
Hijmans, S. E. (2010) · Mouseion Journal of the Classical Association of Canada · doi:10.1353/mou.2010.0073 · Cited by 25
Self-citationThe Origins of the Christmas Date: Some Recent Trends in Historical Research
Nothaft, C. P. E. (2012) · Church History · doi:10.1017/s0009640712001941 · Cited by 15
Locating the festival, positioning the feast: natural and calendar festivals in medieval Slovenia
Čaval, S. (2018) · World Archaeology · doi:10.1080/00438243.2018.1538814 · Cited by 5
Metadata
- Authors
- Hijmans, S.
- Corresponding author
- Hijmans, Steven
- Venue
- Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2003
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 377-398
- ISSN
- 1496-9343 (ISSN-L)
- 1913-5416
- OpenAlex
- W2567846207
- Semantic Scholar
- db8bb755cee7f916141ef3127f66c927c8331e25
- Cited by
- 16
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Mouseion Journal of the Classical Association of Canada (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Classics › Classical Antiquity Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Historical and Religious Studies of Rome
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Keywords
- Sol Invictus, winter solstice, Hermann Usener, pagan festivals, early Christian liturgy, Roman religion
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1353/mou.2003.0038
- The paper
- Hijmans, S. (2003). Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas. Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada. https://doi.org/10.1353/mou.2003.0038
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
