Editing Solar deity (section)

==== Christian iconography ====
The charioteer in the [[mosaic]] of Mausoleum M has been interpreted by some as Christ by those who argue that Christians adopted the image of the Sun ([[Helios]] or Sol Invictus) to represent Christ. In this portrayal, he is a beardless figure with a flowing cloak in a chariot drawn by four white horses, as in the mosaic in Mausoleum M discovered under [[Saint Peter's Basilica]] and in an early-4th-century catacomb fresco.<ref name="Weitzmann-1979">{{cite book |first=Kurt |last=Weitzmann |title=Age of Spirituality |url=https://archive.org/details/agespiritualityl00artm |url-access=limited |location=Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=1979 |isbn= 978-0-87099179-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/agespiritualityl00artm/page/n570 522]}}</ref> The [[Halo (religious iconography)|nimbus]] of the figure under Saint Peter's Basilica is rayed, as in traditional pre-Christian representations.<ref name="Weitzmann-1979"/> [[Clement of Alexandria]] had spoken of Christ driving his chariot across the sky.<ref>{{cite book |first=Matilda |last=Webb |title=The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-90221058-2 |page=18}}</ref> This interpretation is doubted by others: "Only the ''cross-shaped'' nimbus makes the Christian significance apparent".<ref>{{cite book |first=Martin |last=Kemp |title=The Oxford History of Western Art |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19860012-1 |page=70}}, emphasis added</ref> and the figure is seen by some simply as a representation of the sun with no explicit religious reference whatever, [[Paganism|pagan]] or Christian.{{sfn|Hijmans|2009|p=567-578}}