I could be misremembering so correct me if I’m wrong, but Sol really wasn’t that important of a deity in Rome for a long time. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were the most important. Romans really enjoyed the island of Rhodes though. They thought it was kind of a paradise. Rhodes was always associated with the Greek Sun Deity Helios and was similarly kind of confounded with Apollo in other Greek Traditions and Ra or Horus in Egyptian Traditions.
Helios was not really an important God in the Greek Pantheon. In fact some myths say Apollo took over his office entirely and Helios just decided to become a depressed alcoholic while Apollo did all the important stuff. On a few Doric speaking islands though that wasn’t the case and he did still have a few shrines on the mainland. Also believe it or not, for a long time Poseidon was actually more important than Zeus to the Greeks. Poseidon was not just the God of the sea, but also the God of Travel and Commerce so I guess that makes sense. So how did a relatively unknown God become Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun?
Well again, Romans really liked Rhodes. Rhodians really loved Helios. So did Hellenic Jews because The Prophet Elijah, who’s Greek name is Elias also went into a chariot of fire, and Elias sounds a lot like Helios in classical pronunciation. It’s kind of this series of events that started elevating Sol above Jupiter in some communities. The cult of Saturn wasn’t really practiced outside Rome itself and Sicily and the Cult of Mars was losing influence to Mithraism and Christianity among the Army so…. Sol started really gaining popularity among Roman Nobility because he was seen as a middle ground between so many regions of Rome. Emperor Julian actually expanded on this. Sol wasn’t just the Sun. Sol was the giver of life in general, merging Roman worship with Neoplatonic and some Monotheistic ideas. Bam. Now Sol is the supreme deity. Higher than Jupiter, no longer subservient to Saturn. A lot of the writings about this don’t even exist anymore. Even as an Eastern Orthodox Christian I sort of lament that because it would be interesting to know exactly when Sol became such an important figure in Roman History when previously he was, just the Sun.
The other thing that’s puzzling is why Satanists are choosing to honor Sol so much. If you want to make a jab at Christianity then say it’s Saturnalia. You’d think they’d honor Saturn the most too because he literally ate all of his children except Jupiter in mythology and is a harvest God. Sol as Helios at least lost his son and became a depressed alcoholic as I said and in some traditions just gave all his power to Apollo. Dionysius or Bacchus was a God of hedonism with a mystery cult, why not choose him? They’re choosing the favored deity of the guy who gave up on Christianity and reverted to Paganism I guess? But he wasn’t necessarily Anti-Christian. Julian never restricted Christianity, just rejected it as his personal belief. The Empire did not prevent Christians from worshiping or preaching. Instead Julian just reopened some Pagan Temples and prayed to Sol.
I bet the majority of these people don’t know any of this and wouldn’t care if you told them. It’s just edgelord shit.
You're being too Pagan in your interpretation.
You need to regard this from a more Christian perspective, since that's what these morons are trying to oppose.
The agrarian Native American Tribes, aborigines in AUS/NZ, ancient Aztecs, Egyptians, and by your account late Pagan Romans had their traditions centered around sun worship. These traditions all involved significant amounts of blood sacrifice to appease the great illuminator. From a generalized Christian perspective, particularly that of middle ages Catholicism, sun worship = satan worship.
Ergo, celebrating Sol Invictus, and thereby venerating the Sun, they're venerating the Morning Star, Lucifer.
While I agree with the Catholic impression that these pagan traditions were devil worship, these children have glomed onto the simplest modern interpretation of that and are effectively simply anti-Catholics in the strictest literal interpretation of anti, being inverse Catholics ah la "anti-racist".
These people aren't so much trying to worship Satan so much as they're trying to make Christians mad. This is why Sol Invictus is what Phil is droning on about, rather than celebrating the winter solstice as the beginning of a new solar cycle at dawn on Dec. 23rd. Not only do these people fail at irritating Christians and normals who are too busy either at mass or with their families, they also fail to appease their chosen spiritual entity.
I resent being classified with Ngo because I'm not afraid of milkshakes.
Even ones with instant cement mix in them?
You know that stuff causes serious chemical burns if it gets on your skin and can seriously mess you up if you get in your eyes or mouth, right? Antifa started with regular milkshakes to get people to say it was cowardly to try to avoid them, then when the propaganda worked and people started trying to stand their ground (not in the shooting sense) they began adding cement mix.
