Krishna in her arms, as is Mylitta, or Istar, of Babylon, also
with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child Tammuz on her
knee. Mercury and Aesculapius, Bacchus and Hercules, Perseus and the
Dioscuri, Mithras and Zarathustra, were all of divine and human birth.

The relation of the winter solstice to Jesus is also significant. The
birth of Mithras was celebrated in the winter solstice with great
rejoicings, and Horus was also then born: "His birth is one of the
greatest mysteries of the [Egyptian] religion. Pictures representing it
appeared on the walls of temples.... He was the child of Deity. At
Christmas time, or that answering to our festival, his image was brought
out of the sanctuary with peculiar ceremonies, as the image of the
infant Bambino is still brought out and exhibited at Rome."[180]

On the fixing of the 25th December as the birthday of Jesus, Williamson
has the following: "All Christians know that the 25th December is _now_
the recognised festival of the birth of Jesus, but few are aware that
this has not always been so. There have been, it is said, one hundred
and thirty-six different dates fixed on by different Christian sects.
Lightfoot gives it as 15th September, others as in February or August.
Epiphanius mentions two sects, one celebrating it in June, the other in
July. The matter was finally settled by Pope Julius I., in 337 A.D., and
S. Chrysostom, writing in 390, says: 'On this day [_i.e._ 25th December]
also the birth of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that while
the heathen were busy with their ceremonies [the Brumalia, in honour of
Bacchus] the Christians might perform their rites undisturbed.' Gibbon
in his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, writes: 'The [Christian]
Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his [Christ's
birth] fixed the solemn festival to the 25th December, the Brumalia or
winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
Sun.' King, in his _Gnostics and their Remains_, also says: 'The ancient
festival held on the 25th December in honour of the birthday of the
Invincible One,[181] and celebrated by the great games at the Circus,
was afterwards transferred to the commemoration of the birth of Christ,
the precise date of which many of the Fathers confess was then unknown;'
while at the present day Canon Farrar writes that 'all attempts to
discover the month and day of the nativity are useless. No data whatever
exist