page_title: Solar deity
section_title: Jesus and the Sun
hierarchical_section_title: Solar deity / Overview / Christianity / Jesus and the Sun
caption_attribution_description: English: Byzantine mosaic of a Zodiac Wheel — from the 6th century ancient Beth Alpha synagogue. Located near Beit Alfa kibbitz, in northern Israel. Français&#160;: Israël - Mosaïque de la synagogue antique Beit Alpha à la représentaion naïve, que l'on croirait dessinée par un enfant. De plus les signes du zodiaque ne sont pas correctement disposés par rapport aux 4 saisons. Il s'agit d'une mauvaise imitation, inspirée d'autres mosaiques, où l'exécutant ne comprenait pas réellement ce qu'il dessinait. Il y a aussi la possibilité que les quatres coins ne représentent pas les quatre saisons mais plûtot les gardiens des vents comme l'indique le Sepher Jézirah dans sa description des forces naturelles influençant le monde de l'homme
context_page_description: A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The Sun is sometimes referred to by its Latin name Sol or by its Greek name Helios. The English word sun stems from Proto-Germanic *sunnǭ.
context_section_description: The Philocalian calendar of AD 354 gives a festival of Natalis Invicti on 25 December. There is limited evidence that this festival was celebrated at around this time before the mid-4th century. The charioteer in the mosaic of Mausoleum M has been interpreted by some as Christ. Clement of Alexandria had spoken of Christ driving his chariot across the sky. This interpretation is doubted by others: "Only the cross-shaped nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent". and the figure is seen by some simply as a representation of the sun with no explicit religious reference whatever, pagan or Christian.
  The idea that Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December because this was the date of an already existing festival of the Sol Invictus was expressed in an annotation to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe who added it wrote: "It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day." 
  In the judgement of the Church of England Liturgical Commission, this view has been seriously challenged by a view based on an old tradition, according to which the date of Christmas was fixed at nine months after 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox, on which the Annunciation was celebrated. The Jewish calendar date of 14 Nisan was believed to be that of creation, as well as of the Exodus and so of Passover, and Christians held that the new creation, both the death of Jesus and the beginning of his human life, occurred on the same date, which some put at 25 March in the Julian calendar.
  It was a traditional Jewish belief that great men lived a whole number of years, without fractions, so that Jesus was considered to have been conceived on 25 March, as he died on 25 March, which was calculated to have coincided with 14 Nisan. Sextus Julius Africanus (c.160 – c.240) gave 25 March as the day of creation and of the conception of Jesus. The tractate De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae falsely attributed to John Chrysostom also argued that Jesus was conceived and crucified on the same day of the year and calculated this as 25 March. A passage of the Commentary on the prophet Daniel by Hippolytus of Rome, written in about 204, has also been appealed to.
  Among those who have put forward this view are Louis Duchesne, Thomas J. Talley, David J. Rothenberg, J. Neil Alexander, and Hugh Wybrew.
  The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought also remarks on the uncertainty about the order of precedence between the celebrations of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun and the birthday of Jesus: "This 'calculations' hypothesis potentially establishes 25 December as a Christian festival before Aurelian's decree, which, when promulgated, might have provided for the Christian feast both opportunity and challenge." Susan K. Roll calls "most extreme" the unproven hypothesis that "would call Christmas point-blank a 'christianization' of Natalis Solis Invicti, a direct conscious appropriation of the pre-Christian feast, arbitrarily placed on the same calendar date, assimilating and adapting some of its cosmic symbolism and abruptly usurping any lingering habitual loyalty that newly-converted Christians might feel to the feasts of the state gods".
  The nimbus of the figure under Saint Peter's Basilica is described by some as rayed, as in traditional pre-Christian representations, but another has said: "Only the cross-shaped nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent" (emphasis added). Yet another has interpreted the figure as a representation of the sun with no explicit religious reference whatever, pagan or Christian. Among scholars who view the celebration of the birth of Jesus on 25 Decem
caption: Mosaic in the Beth Alpha synagogue, with the Sun represented in the centre, surrounded by the twelve zodiac constellations and with the four seasons associated inaccurately with the constellations
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