Epiphany and its possible roots

I know that much has been spoken about the plagiarism made by christianity over ancient cultures, specially the egiptian one, but today im going to add a bit more of information based on my research (everything can be found on the internet), i hope you find it interesting.

The topic im going to talk about is the christian feast of epiphany and their possible old roots.
At the beginning the birth of christ was celebrated on January 6, but in the year 325 AD was celebrated the Council of Nicaea where it was accorded to establish the date of the feast on December 25, the date when the most important feast of Sol Invictus was casually celebrated in Rome, it is said that this switch of dates was made in order to gain more believers in the capital of the empire where its cult was widely spread, it is also said that emperor Constantine was a worshipper of Sol Invictus and that he believed that it was connected to christ, for that reason he decided to set the date of the birth of christ the same day as that of Sol Invictus (theories anyways, but there's a lot of information about this on the internet).
But which are the possible roots of January 6 being the date when the birth of christ was feasted?
In Alexandria, Egypt, a feast was celebrated on January 6, at night, this is what Epiphanius said about it.

First, at Alexandria, in the Koreum, as they call it; it is a very large temple, the shrine of Kore. They stay up all night singing hymns to the idol with a flute accompaniment. And when they have concluded their nightlong vigil, torchbearers descend into an underground shrine after cockcrow and bring up a wooden image which is seated naked on a litter. It has a sign of the cross inlaid with gold on its forehead, two other such signs, one on each hand and two other signs, one actually on each of its two knees—altogether five signs with a gold impress. And they carry the image itself seven times around the innermost shrine with flutes, tambourines and hymns, hold a feast, and take it back down to its place underground. And when you ask them what this mystery means, they reply that today, at this hour Kore—that is, the Virgin—gave birth to Aion. (Epiphanius, Panarion, 22,9)

Kore Kosmou is translated to english as the Cosmic Virgin*, and is associated with Persephone as well as with Aset, the same happens with Aion which is sometimes identified with another deity, Harpocrates, the greek name of Hor pa Khered, Horus the Child.
Anyways, this was a local cult which could be influenced by a bigger one or be completely original, for that reason more information would be necessary to reach any objective conclusion.
The last one wasnt the only feast celebrated in egypt on January 6, on that date the festival of Osiris was also celebrated and it was said that on that night the waters of the nile gained special properties and some kind of baptism was performed.
There is even another theory that is not considered as reliable by many due to the several inaccuracies that it presents, that says that the winter solstice in egypt was celebrated on January 6.
Another interesting detail to mention is that at the time of the cult of Kore Kosmou in Alexandria, that area was considered one of the most influencial christian spots in the middle east and for that reason it is possible that the roots of the christian feast could be traced to Egypt.
There certainly was something interesting going on that date in Egypt, despite more research should be done upon it to have clear results.

Very interesting! I love Egypt.. The history and Isis, Osiris, Horus. We still have much learn by our ancestors. So much has been lost. Do you believe in Atlantis?

I believe we all come from a great & lost civilization.

I dont, but the origins of certain civilizations, specially the egyptian one, can be traced back way before than what the official history says, there are lots of information within this forum related to it and to many other topics, i encourage you to take a look on them.

Regards

Soop wrote:I dont, but the origins of certain civilizations, specially the egyptian one, can be traced back way before than what the official history says

That's quite true and an important factor to take in consideration when exploring ancient civilizations and lost cultures.

Soop, nice topic.

Jonathan wrote:That's quite true and an important factor to take in consideration when exploring ancient civilizations and lost cultures.

I agree  , but unfortunately orthodox history and specially archaeology are very dogmatic and when certain sings, proofs or traces dont match with their puzzle they simply ignore them, besides the fact that even when a solid theory is presented it may take years to be finally accepted as happened with the orion correlation theory (which even today is not accepted by everyone), being the official side of both sciences ultimately limited to progress and being even harder for normal people to gain knowledge of the true history, the long forgotten past.

Regards

Kalb wrote:Soop, nice topic.

Thanks

This is a truly knowledgeable forum. I look forward to learning more!