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The Pagan Greek Mythology
of Helios the Sun

In antiquity, the sun-god was represented as the driver of a fiery chariot who wore a crown of thorns or fiery rays. The chariot was the sun which was pulled through the sky above the clouds by four horses that represented the four seasons.

The sun was the most powerful astrological body in the ancient world and was worshipped as the image of God in almost every nation, especially in ancient Greece. The Neo-Pythagorean philosophers believed that God, called "The One," whose image was the Sun, talked to Man through the divine medium of geometry, arithmetic, words, signs, symbols and even the letters of their alphabet through the power of gematria! In ancient Egypt, the astrological symbol consecrated to the sun god Ra was a circle with a dot in the middle, which was also the symbol for the number "1," named "Divine Unity."

In Greek mythology, Hyperion was the Titan of light, the father of the sun, the moon, and the dawn, and Helios was his son. Each morning at dawn, Helios rose from the ocean in the east and rode his chariot, pulled by four horses, across the sky to descend in the west. He was called upon by witnesses because he saw and knew everything that happened on earth.

Helios was depicted as a youth with a halo wearing a billowing white cloak.  His daughters were Phaethusa ("radiant") and Lampetia ("shining"). He had a son named Phaeton who drove his chariot across the sky one day but the unskilled youth lost control of the horses and fell to his death.

He was later depicted as a key figure in the Mithraic mystery religion that was a key competitor with early Christianity. He is shown on a relief in the Mithraeum under St. Prisca in Rome. In early Christian art, Jesus was sometimes represented as an incarnation of Helios such as in a fresco in the necropolis beneath St. Peter's in Rome.

Metaphors of Helios, the Sun

Many different cultures had Sun-Gods. For the Greeks he was named Apollo, Zeus, or Helios, for the Egyptians he was Horus, for the Romans he was Sol Invicus, for the Phonecians he was Baal, for the Persians he was Mithra, for the first Christians he was personified as Jesus, the Christ. The following metaphors are characteristics and attributes of the "Sun" of God:

• The sun is the "Light of the World."
• The sun is "the image that shines on them" 2Cor 4:4.
• The sun "comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him." Rev 1
• The sun is from "the beginning and the end"
• The sun is their Lord which comes as a "Thief in the Night"
• The Sun causes the end where "the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and everything done on it will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10)
• The sun (like the above drawing) wears a crown of thorns or a halo.
• The sun "walks on water" when it rises or sets on a body of water
• The sun has "eyes that are like fire"
• The sun is "a consuming fire"
• The sun "brings fire down from heaven"
• The sun helps to make seeds grow
• The sun's "followers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the Zodiac, through which the sun passes.
• The sun is "crucified," when it passes through the spring and fall equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is resurrected.
• The long stem cross represented the staff of Apollo long before the time of Jesus
• Dec 25th is the winter solstice and birth of the sun.

The early Christian Church eagerly promoted Jesus-Helios-Sol sun symbolism to appease the Roman emperor Constantine who was the high priest of Sol Invictus all through his reign. The sun symbolism continues to the present day on robes, banners, icons, behind the cross in a ray of light, flames coming from the heart of Jesus, etc. Priests even bow and kiss a monstrance which is a gold statue of the sun on a pedestal during processions.