dawn_[473:3] on the 25th day of December. Now, this is the _Sun's
birthday_. At the commencement of the sun's apparent annual revolution
round the earth, he was said to have been born, and, on the first moment
after midnight of the 24th of December, all the heathen nations of the
earth, as if by common consent, celebrated the accouchement of the
"_Queen of Heaven_," of the "_Celestial Virgin of the Sphere_," and the
birth of the god _Sol_. On that day the sun having fully entered the
winter solstice, the _Sign of the Virgin_ was rising on the eastern
horizon. The woman's symbol of this stellar sign was represented first
by ears of corn, then with a new-born male child in her arms. Such was
the picture of the _Persian_ sphere cited by Aben-Ezra:
"The division of the first decan of the Virgin represents a
beautiful virgin with flowing hair, sitting in a chair, with
two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an infant called
IESUS by some nations, and _Christ_ in Greek."[474:1]
This denotes the _Sun_, which, at the moment of the winter solstice,
precisely when the Persian magi drew the horoscope of the new year, was
placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern
horizon. On this account he was figured in their astronomical pictures
under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin.[474:2]
Thus we see that Christ Jesus was born on the same day as Buddha,
Mithras, Osiris, Horus, Hercules, Bacchus, Adonis and other
_personifications of the_ SUN.[474:3]