The winter solstitial point is really December 21st; but the ancients always kept the festival of the birth of the sun-god on December 25th, because at twelve o’clock, midnight between December 24th and 25th the uppermost stars in the constellation _Virgo_ made their appearance above the horizon, being the first indication of the birth of the new sun, which had taken place exactly three days and three nights previously. This gave rise to the popular superstition that the new sun-god was born of a virgin, from whose womb he had been trying to extricate himself for the space of three days and three nights. From this the idea prevailed that the sun-god underwent similar periods of struggle also at the summer solstice and the two equinoctial points; and thus arose the legend of the two crucifixions, the one at the vernal equinox, when the sun in _Aries_ crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Lamb of God” on March 21st, commencing the ascension to heaven on March 25th; and the other at the autumnal equinox, when the sun in _Libra_ (the balance of justice) crossed the Equator and was crucified as the “Just Man” on September 23rd, descending to hell for three days and three nights, after which he emerged into the shades until born again at the winter solstice. A very popular deity of the Lower Nile was Mises (drawn from water), the sun-god of wine and mirth, who was born on Mount Nyssa (Sinai), and was found as a babe in a box floating on the Red Sea, and who, by means of his magic wand, took his army dry-shod through the Sea and the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes, drew water from rocks, and caused the land through which he passed to flow with milk, wine, and honey. He was depicted with a ram’s horn on his forehead, being the personification of the new-born sun delivering the world from the powers of darkness, and was afterwards worshipped in Phœnicia as Iēs, in Greece as Dionysos (Διονυσος], God of Nyssa), son of Zeus, and in Rome as Bacchus. The temples dedicated to this sun-god were, in the time of the Greek kings of Egypt, very gorgeous, the mystic table having upon it, not only the infant in its cradle, the transubstantiated bread, and the Osirian crucifix, but also a bleeding lamb, the emblem of the sun-god at the vernal equinox, over which was placed the Phœnician name of Mises, Iēs, in Greek capitals (ΙΗΣ]), surrounded by the rays of glory, to signify that he was the risen and crucified sun-god, and one with Horus and Amen-Ra.