Sun of Justice. Roman religion(s) and the emergence of the Christian Christmas

December 1, 2019 to February 2, 2020

An exhibition in cooperation with the Bibelhaus Erlebnis Museum Frankfurt.

The birth of Jesus of Nazareth played no special role for early Christians. The oldest evangelist, Mark, does not even mention it. Instead, Christians celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection. The question of when his birth is supposed to have taken place has long been disputed among Christian scholars. It was in the fourth century AD that people in the city of Rome began to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December. Influences from the religions and cults of antiquity had an impact on the emergence of this urban Roman Christmas festival.

In the exhibition, go on a search for traces of the origins of the Christian Christmas festival - from the sources in the New Testament of the Bible to the customs of the Romans to the cult of the Roman state gods and the emperor. Archaeological finds such as coins and figures of gods from antiquity impressively illustrate the topic.