Christmas and Pagan Romans – 3  The Saturnalia may not have had
any meaningful link with Christmas, but there was a pagan
festival for the solstice which did celebrate the coming of the
light and victory over darkness, and it was celebrated on
December 25. Instead of a link between Christmas and the
Saturnalia scholars suggest that the date of Christmas was a
Christian takeover of the feast of Dies Natalis Sol Invictus–the
birthday of the Roman sun god Sol.  The problem is– this Roman
feast is a late innovation. In the year 278AD (well after
Christianity began to burgeon across the empire) the Emporer
Aurelian began to promote the cult of Sol Invictus. There is no
evidence that the birth of Sol Invictus was celebrated on
December 25 until around 360 AD. This is well after the date of
Emperor Constantine’s conversion in 315, and during the
influence of Julian the Apostate–who attempted to turn back the
tide of Christianity and return Rome to its pagan origins.
Therefore instead of Christians adopting a pagan h