Happy Feast of Sol Invictus

Hope you remembered the key rituals to make this year's holiday season special

Good Evening:

The table is set for the Feast of Sol Invictus

I know you think it’s Christmas, and the Jews among you think it is the first night of Chanukah. You’re all wrong.

It is actually the ancient Feast of the Unconquered Sun, which had its own cult back in the day. Ol’ Sol was having a cultural moment round about the end of the third century. Christians didn’t really spend a lot of time back then thinking about when Jesus had been born, believing it heretical pagan nonsense to even contemplate that god might have a birthday. Besides, they had more pressing concerns, like not getting martyred and the upcoming end of the world.

But syncretism eventually won out in Christianity, as it generally tended to do. And if you can’t beat those Sol Invictus folks—who were convinced that the Sun, may it ever go unconquered, was born on Dec. 25—best to feast with them and ultimately convince them that when they say “Sol,” they really meant “Jesus.”

So happy Feast of Sol Invictus, and remember that our Sol Invictus on Steroids sale lasts until the end of the year. All subscriptions are half off, and half of the rest of the proceeds go to charities:

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The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that #DogShirtDaily has of late been a lot more regular, and has contained a lot of eccentric stuff. That’s because over the last few weeks, #DogShirtDaily has a acquired a silent partner. Today the silence lifts. No, the partner is not Sol Invictus, may the sun ever go unconquered. It’s my son,

EJ Wittes

, who has been quietly working for the site for about a month and whom I have decided to out.

EJ’s job has been to make the trains run on time here, as I was falling behind and having trouble posting daily. But he has begun doing a fair bit more of late: writing the “Tell Me Something Interesting” feature and other content that gets folded into the dog shirts—including the below discussion of today’s feast. We have decided that he should share the bylines on dog shirts which reflect his labor.

The word “I” here in these posts will still refer to

Benjamin Wittes

unless the segment is clearly marked otherwise.

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Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, a short episode, but a nasty one. The estimable Eve Gaumond continued our previous experiments with AI antisemitism and managed to make it much worse. We talked over how she did it and why it matters. Not great holiday content, I’m afraid. May Sol Invictus forgive us all:

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Some Reminders for The Feast of Sol Invictus

In case you aren’t up to date on today’s festival, here are a few important points to remember as we celebrate the Unconquered Sun:

1. It is the quadriga, the four horse chariot, that is dedicated to Sol. We therefore hope you attended only quadriga races today. We sincerely trust you were not tempted by two horse chariots; those belong to Luna—who is, you guessed it, the moon.

2. You’ll be pleased to know that our deity does have an omphalos stone, which is obviously very exciting. What is an omphalos stone? It’s a stone that represents the seat of the godhead, of course. We don’t know where Sol Invictus’s omphalos is or what happened to it, of course, but Herodian reports that it’s “a huge black stone with a pointed end and round base in the shape of a cone,” so that’s something to work with. Be alert for any divine black stones that might show up wanting to be worshipped today. Here’s what it looks like, in case you need to check:

   

3. You may hear some people claiming today as the birthday of Jesus Christ, whom they identify as Sol Verus (“the true sun”) or Sol Justitiae (“the righteous sun”). Don’t fall for it. This is an attempt to trick you into forsaking your god a mere aspect of some other god’s cosmology. We are not worshipping some knock-off. We worship Sol Invictus around here. Accept no substitutes.

For more information on our Festival, I refer you to the invaluable Encyclopedia Romana.

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Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is Sekele, an okapi from the Denver Zoo. Here he is, licking his own eyeballs.

Eve and I made a computer hallucinate antisemitic propaganda, because we just had to find out if we could.

I also wish I could lick my eyeballs clean. But I can’t. My sight is forever tainted.

Don’t be like me; be like the okapi. Have a long, stiff, graceless tongue, and apply it vigorously to your own eyeballs on any convenient occasion. Video from why-animals-do-the-thing: