|
Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the official sun god of the later Roman Empire and a patron of soldiers. In 274 AD the Roman emperor Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree about whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol,〔See S.E.Hijmans, "The sun that did not rise in the east", Babesch 71 (1996) p.115–150〕 a revival of the cult of Elagabalus〔See Gaston Halsberghe, "The cult of Sol Invictus", Leiden: Brill, 1972〕 or completely new.〔As Hijmans states (p.115): "Scholars have consistently postulated a clear distinction between the Republican Sol Indiges and the Imperial Sol Invictus." and p.116 "We should keep in mind, however, that most scholars agree that this cult (Indiges ) was never important, and that it had disappeared altogether by the beginning of the second century AD"〕 The god was favored by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on their coins until Constantine I.〔Halsberghe, "The cult of Sol Invictus", p.155: "Up to the conversion of Constantine the Great, the cult of Deus Sol Invictus received the full support of the emperors. The many coins showing the sun god that these emperors struck provide official evidence of this." and p.169 "the custom of representing Deus Sol Invictus on coins came to an end in AD 323."〕 The last inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387,〔Halsberghe, "The cult of Sol Invictus", p.170 n.3: "CIL VI, 1778, dates from AD 387,"〕 and there were enough devotees in the 5th century that Augustine found it necessary to preach against them.〔Halsberghe, p.170, n.4: "Augustine, ''Sermones'', XII; also in ''Ennaratio in Psalmum'' XXV; ''Ennaratio'' II, 3."〕 The idea, particularly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, that the solstice date of 25 December for Christmas was selected because it was also the date of a Roman festival of ''Dies Natalis Solis Invicti'' (Birthday of the Unconquered Sun) is challenged by the church.〔 Different explanations for the date similarity are considered to be "academically thoroughly viable hypotheses" by some.〔(Susan K. Roll, ''Toward the Origin of Christmas'' (Peeters Publications 1995 ISBN 978-90-3900531-6), p. 88 )〕 Both theories have supporters, with some claiming that the festival of ''Dies Natalis Solis Invicti'' was later syncretized with Christmas,〔(''Intransigence and Indifference: Essays Concerning Religion and Spirituality'' ) (2009) by Jarred James Breaux〕 and others saying that the Christian celebration may predate the festival of the ''Dies Natalis Solis Invicti''.〔(Steven Hijmans, "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas" in ''Mouseion'', Number 47/3 (2003), pp. 384–385 )〕〔(Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, "Christmas" in Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, Hugh Pyper (editors), ''The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought'' (Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 978-0-19860024-4), p. 124 )〕 ==''Invictus'' as epithet== ''Invictus'' ("Unconquered, Invincible") was an epithet for several deities of classical Roman religion, including the supreme deity Jupiter, the war god Mars, Hercules, Apollo, and Silvanus.〔Hijmans, S. E. (2009). "The sun which did not rise in the east", p. 124.〕 It had been in use from the 3rd century BC.〔Hijmans, Steven Ernst. (2009). ''Sol: The Sun in the Art and Religions of Rome'' (diss., University of Groningen 2009), p. 18, with citations from the ''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.''〕 The Roman cult to Sol is continuous from the "earliest history" of the city until the institution of Christianity as the exclusive state religion. Scholars have sometimes regarded the traditional Sol and ''Sol Invictus'' as two separate deities, but the rejection of this view by S.E. Hijmans has found supporters.〔 (a reworking of Hijmans, 1996; Matern, 2001; Wallraff, 2002; and Berrens, 2004; all follow Hijmans.〕 An inscription of AD 102 records a restoration of a portico of Sol in what is now the Trastevere area of Rome by a certain Gaius Iulius Anicetus. While he may perhaps have had in mind an allusion to his own ''cognomen'', which is the Latinized form of the Greek equivalent of ''invictus'', ἀνίκητος (''aniketos''),〔(Hijmans, 2009, 486, footnote 22)〕 the earliest extant dated inscription that uses ''invictus'' as an epithet of Sol is of AD 158.〔''CIL'' VI, 715: Soli Invicto deo / ex voto suscepto / accepta missione / honesta ex nume/ro eq(uitum) sing(ularium) Aug(usti) P(ublius) / Aelius Amandus / d(e)d(icavit) Tertullo et / Sacerdoti co(n)s(ulibus)() (Publius Aelius Amandus dedicated this to the god Sol Invictus in accordance with the vow he had made, upon his honorable discharge from the equestrian guard of the emperor, during the consulship of Tertullus and Sacerdos); ''see'': Campbell, J. (1994). ''The Roman army, 31 BC–AD 337: a sourcebook'', p. 43; Halsberghe 1972, p. 45.()〕 Another, stylistically dated to the 2nd century, is inscribed on a Roman phalera (ornamental disk): ''inventori lucis soli invicto augusto'' ("to the contriver of light, sol invictus augustus").〔Guarducci, M. (1957/1959). Sol invictus Augustus. ''Rendiconti della Pont'', 3rd series 30/31, pp. 161 ff. Accademia Romana di Archeologia〕〔An illustration is provided in Kantorowicz, E. H. (1961). Gods in Uniform, 368–393, 383, fig. 34 ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', ''105''(4), (August 1961).〕 ''Augustus'' is a regular epithet linking deities to the Imperial cult. Sol Invictus played a prominent role in the Mithraic mysteries, and was equated with Mithras himself.〔Ulansey, David. (1989). ''The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries'', p. 107. Oxford University Press.〕 〔Salzman, Michele Renee. (2004). Pagan and Christian Notions of the Week in the 4th Century CE Western Roman Empire In ''Time and Temporality in the Ancient World'', p. 192. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.〕 〔Alvar, Jaime, tr. Gordon, Richard (2008). ''Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras'', p. 100. Brill.〕 The relation of the Mithraic Sol Invictus to the public cult of the deity with the same name is unclear and perhaps non-existent.〔(Alvar, 2008, p. 203)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sol Invictus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|