But come now, first I will speak of the Sun, the first principle of all things, From which all, that we look upon, has sprung. Both earth, and billowy deep, and humid air; titan and Ether too, which binds all things around.

~ Clement of Alexandrai ; the Stromata (V.VIII)

The Sun of God

Dupuis identified pre-Christian rituals in Syria, Egypt and Persia as representing the birth of a god to a virgin at the winter solstice, and connected this to the winter rising of the constellation of Virgo. He believed that this and other annual occurrences were allegorised as the life-histories of solar deities, who passed their childhoods in obscurity (low elevation of the sun after the solstice), died (winter) and were resurrected (spring equinox). Jewish and Christian myth could also be interpreted according to the solar pattern: the Fall of Man in Genesis was an allegory of the hardship caused by winter, and the resurrection of Christ the "paschal lamb" at Easter represented the growth of the Sun's strength in the sign of Aries at the spring solstice.

God Sun