Sun cults

Sun or sun-worship cult (also sun or sun worship religion ) describes a religion or a cult, whose central motif of orientation or worship is the sun. Here, the physical central star of our solar system represents the supreme deity, eg in the form of a personified sun god, or the highest power of the respective cosmology.

Sun worship in the history of mankind

People have probably worshiped the sun as a source of life since the dawn of their history and their associated solar deities. Hence the large number of legends and the fact that the sun is in many religions plays a role. Especially in hot regions of the sun god was also a chief god, while he was in the Nordic regions more suitable for the solstices important.

Ancient Egypt

The sun was in ancient Egypt in the form of Re / Ra long time supreme deity. It was considered right eye of heaven Lord Horus ( sun eye) or as an independent world body to part. There was the idea that the sun is a lenticular disc. Others thought that the sun was a red, glowing disc befahre the sky in a solar barque. However, they also reflected the life cycle of an Egyptian resist: The sun was as a child born in the morning ( Khepri ), was at noon in the prime of life ( Re) and died in the evening as an old man ( Atum ).

Later, it was believed that the sun could take in every hour at which it was visible, a different shape. For example: From the child of the man with Aries and falcon's head up to the old man in monkeys, lions and then Aries and falcon.

The worship of the sun is according to some researchers, a possible origin of monotheism. In the Egyptian 18th Dynasty, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, there was a by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten (ca. 1351-1334 BC), introduced Aton cult for a short time. Here the solar disk was the symbol of the one God Aton, which replaced all other Egyptian deities ( see also Akhetaten ).

Bronze age

The jungsteinheitliche Stonehenge as observation device was aligned with the turning points of the sun and used until at least the Bronze Age.

In Germany there were (for example, in Beckstedt, District of Oldenburg ) stones are associated with concentric grooves dated by archaeologists to the Bronze Age and a sun cult. The researcher Arno Stern points out, however, that such forms occur each non- preformed Mala catcher in the representations. The Stone of Beckstedt is now in Gottorp Castle.

Similar representations are also available in the UK, Sweden and Denmark. The Nebra Sky Disk is supposedly a solar barque. Similarly, the gold disc of the sun chariot of Trundholm, the gold disc of Moordorf and various Bronze Age Radkreuz symbols is interpreted as sacred representations of the sun. The artists of the Bronze Age are doing may have religious elements from other cultures, such as the solar barque of Egyptian mythology was added in portions.

Germans and Celts

In the religion of the Germanic peoples the sun festivals were regarded as midsummer and midwinter feast as high holidays. In Norse mythology, the sun is a sun goddess Sol, one of many deities, personalized.

The festivals of the Celts were more moon -related ( cf. Colignykalender ). For the Celts, it was reportedly the Druids, who possessed great knowledge of astronomy and the sun should have closely monitored.

Greece and Rome

The Greeks worshiped the sun god Helios, who appeared in the east from the ocean, wandered across the sky in the evening and again in the sea sank ( Homer, Odyssey 3.1 ). The famous Colossus of Rhodes is said to have represented Helios, yet its meaning as a whole remained rather limited.

In Imperial Rome, the sun god Sol Invictus was highly popular. In the third century after Christ, this cult who wore henotheistic character was supported by a series of emperors (especially Aurelian ) strongly promoted and raised almost to a state religion. At that time the Sunday was (this solis ) declared a public holiday - what he was held in the Christian era, to distinguish themselves from the Jewish Sabbath. Even Constantine the Great had been before his conversion to Christianity as his father was a follower of the Sun God. Many elements of this religion were taken over by the Christians - starting with the light and darkness imagery up to Christmas Date: December 25 had previously been celebrated as the birthday of the sun god or of Mithras.

Even after the enforcement of Christianity held the cult of Sol Invictus to the end of late antiquity. One of the last great temple ( the Syrian Baalbek ) was not destroyed until 554 AD under Justinian I..

Significant for the Western Christian culture is the compliance of the Sol Holiday on December 25 with the Christian Christmas and its proximity to the Saturnalia. The codification of the birth of Christ on December 25th happened ecclesiastical hand in the first half of the 4th century, after the Constantinian turn, on the eve of the Middle Ages. The real birthday of Jesus is unknown.

Sol Invictus Mithras in Mithrasrelief Heidelberg - New Home, 2nd Century, Baden State Museum

Constantine the Great 307-337 as Sol Invictus. Minted in Lugdunum about 309-310. Sol standing charged with the face to the right, right hand, the globe in left.

Mosaic of Christ as Sol Invictus in the Vatican necropolis, 3rd century

Modern and contemporary times

In some esoteric movements the sun become very important. In Neo-Paganism there are attempts to reconstruct solar cults, the Yule festival is celebrated as a festival of the summer solstice in the Nordic- Germanic Neopaganism aligned for example. The extreme right-wing Armanen Order cultivates a Nordic cult of the sun.

Ironic use

As unnatural sun cult and the excessive use of tanning beds and tanning salons is considered by many. People who try at every opportunity to bask in the open air are referred to as " sun worshipers ".