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Title: The Non-Christian Cross
An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol
Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion
Author: John Denham Parsons
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9071]
Last Updated: August 25, 2012
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS ***
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THE NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS
An Enquiry Into The Origin And History Of
The Symbol Eventually Adopted As
That Of Our Religion
By John Denham Parsons
London
1896
"O Crux, Splendidior Cunctis Astris, Mundo
Celebris, Hominibus Multum Amabilis, Sanctior
Universis."
[_Breviarium Romanum,_
_Festival Of The Invention Of The Holy Cross._
PREFACE.
The history of the symbol of the cross has had an attraction for the
author ever since, as an enquiring youth, he found himself unable to
obtain satisfactory answers to four questions concerning the same which
presented themselves to his mind.
The first of those questions was why John the Baptist, who was beheaded
before Jesus was executed, and so far as we are told never had anything
to do with a cross, is represented in our religious pictures as holding
a cross.
The second question was whether this curious but perhaps in itself
easily explained practice had in its inception any connection with the
non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism; which Jesus accepted as a matter
of course at the hands of his cousin John, and in which the sign of the
cross has for ages been the all-important feature. And it was the
wonder whether there was or was not some association between the facts
that the New Testament writers give no explanation whatever of the
origin of baptism as an initiatory rite, that this non-Mosaic
initiatory rite was in use among Sun-God worshippers long before our
era, and that the Fathers admitted that the followers of the Persian
conception of the Sun-God marked their initiates upon the forehead like
the followers of the Christ, which finally induced the author to start
a systematic enquiry into the history of the cross as a symbol.
The third question was why, despite the fact that the instrument of
execution to which Jesus was affixed can have had but one shape, almost
any kind of cross is accepted as a symbol of our faith.
The last of the four questions was why many varieties of the cross of
four equal arms, which certainly was not a representation of an
instrument of execution, were accepted by Christians as symbols of the
Christ before any cross which could possibly have been a representation
of an instrument of execution was given a place among the symbols of
Christianity; while even nowadays one variety of the cross of four
equal arms is the favourite symbol of the Greek Church, and both it and
the other varieties enter into the ornamentation of our sacred
properties and dispute the supremacy with the cross which has one of
its arms longer than the other three.
Pursuing these matters for himself, the author eventually found that
even before our era the cross was venerated by many as the symbol of
Life; though our works of reference seldom mention this fact, and never
do it justice.
He moreover discovered that no one has ever written a complete history
of the symbol, showing the possibility that the _stauros_ or post to
which Jesus was affixed was not cross-shaped, and the certainty that,
in any case, what eventually became the symbol of our faith owed some
of its prestige as a Christian symbol of Victory and Life to the
position it occupied in pre-Christian days.
The author has therefore, in the hope of drawing attention to the
subject, incorporated the results of his researches in the present
essay.
14, ST. DUNSTAN'S HILL,
LONDON, E.C.
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
WAS THE _STAUROS_ OF JESUS CROSS-SHAPED? 13
CHAPTER II.
THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX 31
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF THE OTHER FATHERS3 41
CHAPTER IV.
CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF IRENAEUS 52
CHAPTER V.
ORIGIN OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS 57
CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS 65
CHAPTER VII.
THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH 82
CHAPTER VIII.
CROSS AND CRESCENT8 92
CHAPTER IX.
THE CORONATION ORB9 104
CHAPTER X.
ROMAN COINS BEFORE CONSTANTINE 119
CHAPTER XI.
THE COINS OF CONSTANTINE 133
CHAPTER XII.
ROMAN COINS AFTER CONSTANTINE 142
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST 147
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CROSS OF THE LOGOS 163
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN EUROPE 169
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN ASIA 178
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN AFRICA 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVIDENCE OF TROY 187
CHAPTER XIX.
EVIDENCE OF CYPRUS 193
CHAPTER XX.
MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE 204
CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY 214
THE NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS.
CHAPTER I.
WAS THE _STAUROS_ OF JESUS CROSS-SHAPED?
In the thousand and one works supplied for our information upon matters
connected with the history of our race, we are told that Alexander the
Great, Titus, and various Greek, Roman, and Oriental rulers of ancient
days, "crucified" this or that person; or that they "crucified" so many
at once, or during their reign. And the instrument of execution is
called a "cross."
The natural result is that we imagine that all the people said to have
been "crucified" were executed by being nailed or otherwise affixed to
a cross-shaped instrument set in the ground, like that to be seen in
our fanciful illustrations of the execution of Jesus.
This was, however, by no means necessarily the case.
For instance, the death spoken of, death by the _stauros_, included
transfixion by a pointed stauros or stake, as well as affixion to an
unpointed stauros or stake; and the latter punishment was not always
that referred to.
It is also probable that in most of the many cases where we have no
clue as to which kind of stauros was used, the cause of the condemned
one's death was transfixion by a pointed stauros.
Moreover, even if we could prove that this very common mode of capital
punishment was in no case that referred to by the historians who lived
in bygone ages, and that death was in each instance caused by affixion
to, instead of transfixion by, a stauros, we should still have to prove
that each stauros had a cross-bar before we could correctly describe
the death caused by it as death by crucifixion.
It is also, upon the face of it, somewhat unlikely that the ancients
would in every instance in which they despatched a man by affixing him
to a post set in the ground, have gone out of their way to provide the
artistic but quite unnecessary cross-bar of our imaginations.
As it is, in any case, well known that the Romans very often despatched
those condemned to death by affixing them to a stake or post which had
no cross-bar, the question arises as to what proof we have that a
cross-bar was used in the case of Jesus.
Nor is the question an unimportant one. For, as we shall see in the
chapters to come, there was a pre-Christian cross, which was, like
ours, a symbol of Life. And it must be obvious to all that if the cross
was a symbol of Life before our era, it is possible that it was
originally fixed upon as a symbol of the Christ because it was a symbol
of Life; the assumption that it became a symbol of Life because it was
a symbol of the Christ, being in that case neither more nor less than a
very natural instance of putting the cart before the horse.
Now the Greek word which in Latin versions of the New Testament is
translated as _crux_, and in English versions is rendered as _cross,
i.e._, the word _stauros_, seems to have, at the beginning of our era,
no more meant a cross than the English word stick means a crutch.
It is true that a stick may be in the shape of a crutch, and that the
stauros to which Jesus was affixed may have been in the shape of a
cross. But just as the former is not necessarily a crutch, so the
latter was not necessarily a cross.
What the ancients used to signify when they used the word _stauros_,
can easily be seen by referring to either the Iliad or the Odyssey.[1]
It will there be found to clearly signify an ordinary pole or stake
without any cross-bar. And it is as thus signifying a single piece of
wood that the word in question is used throughout the old Greek
classics.[2]
The stauros used as an instrument of execution was (1) a small pointed
pole or stake used for thrusting through the body, so as to pin the
latter to the earth, or otherwise render death inevitable; (2) a
similar pole or stake fixed in the ground point upwards, upon which the
condemned one was forced down till incapable of escaping; (3) a much
longer and stouter pole or stake fixed point upwards, upon which the
victim, with his hands tied behind him, was lodged in such a way that
the point should enter his breast and the weight of the body cause
every movement to hasten the end; and (4) a stout unpointed pole or
stake set upright in the earth, from which the victim was suspended by
a rope round his wrists, which were first tied behind him so that the
position might become an agonising one; or to which the doomed one was
bound, or, as in the case of Jesus, nailed.
That this last named kind of stauros, which was admittedly that to
which Jesus was affixed, had in every case a cross-bar attached, is
untrue; that it had in most cases, is unlikely; that it had in the case
of Jesus, is unproven.
Even as late as the Middle Ages, the word stauros seems to have
primarily signified a straight piece of wood without a cross-bar. For
the famous Greek lexicographer, Suidas, expressly states, "Stauroi;
ortha xula perpegota," and both Eustathius and Hesychius affirm that it
meant a _straight_ stake or pole.
The side light thrown upon the question by Lucian is also worth noting.
This writer, referring to Jesus, alludes to "That sophist of theirs who
was fastened to a _skolops_;" which word signified a single piece of
wood, and not two pieces joined together.
Only a passing notice need be given to the fact that in some of the
Epistles of the New Testament, which seem to have been written before
the Gospels, though, like the other Epistles, misleadingly placed after
the Gospels, Jesus is said to have been _hanged_ upon a _tree_.[3] For
in the first place the Greek word translated "hanged" did not
necessarily refer to hanging by the neck, and simply meant suspended in
some way or other. And in the second place the word translated "tree,"
though that always used in referring to what is translated as the
"_Tree of Life_," signified not only "tree" but also "wood."
It should be noted, however, that these five references of the Bible to
the execution of Jesus as having been carried out by his suspension
upon either a tree or a piece of timber set in the ground, in no wise
convey the impression that two pieces of wood nailed together in the
form of a cross is what is referred to.
Moreover, there is not, even in the Greek text of the Gospels, a single
intimation in the Bible to the effect that the instrument actually used
in the case of Jesus was cross-shaped.
Had there been any such intimation in the twenty-seven Greek works
referring to Jesus, which our Church selected out of a very large
number and called the "New Testament," the Greek letter _chi_, which
was cross-shaped, would in the ordinary course have been referred to;
and some such term as _Kata chiasmon_, "like a chi," made use of.
It should also be borne in mind that though the Christians of the first
three centuries certainly made use of a transient sign of the cross in
the non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism and at other times, it is, as
will be shown in the next two chapters, admitted that they did not use
or venerate it as a representation of the instrument of execution upon
which Jesus died.
Moreover, if in reply to the foregoing it should be argued that as it
is well known that cross-shaped figures of wood, and other lasting
representations of the sign or figure of the cross, were not venerated
by Christians until after the fateful day when Constantine set out at
the head of the soldiers of Gaul in his famous march against Rome; and
that the Christian crosses of the remainder of the fourth century were
representations of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died; a
dozen other objections present themselves if we are honest enough to
face the fact that we have to show that they were so from the first.
For the Gauls, and therefore the soldiers of Gaul, venerated as symbols
of the Sun-God and Giver of Life and Victory the cross of four equal
arms, {image "plus.gif"}, or {image "x.gif"}, and the solar wheel,
{image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "solarwheel2.gif"}; while the
so-called cross which Constantine and his troops are said to have seen
above the midday sun was admittedly the monogram of Christ, {image
"monogram1.gif"} or {image "monogram2.gif"}, which was admittedly an
adaptation of the solar wheel, as will be shown further on; and it was
as tokens of the conquest of Rome by his Gaulish troops, that
Constantine, as their leader, erected one of these symbols in the
centre of the Eternal City, and afterwards placed upon his coins the
crosses {image "solarwheel1.gif"}, {image "solarwheel2.gif"}, {image
"monogram1.gif"}, {image "monogram2.gif"}, {image "asterisk.gif"},
{image "monogram3.gif"}, {image "monogram4.gif"}, the cross of four
equal arms {image "x.gif"}, and several variations of that other cross
of four equal arms, the right-angled {image "plus.gif"}. And it was not
till long after these crosses were accepted as Christian, and
Constantine was dead and buried, that the cross with one of its arms
longer than the other three (or two), which alone could be a
representation of an instrument of execution, was made use of by
Christians.
Another point to be remembered is that when Constantine, apparently
conceiving ours, as the only non-national religion with ramifications
throughout his world-wide dominions, to be the only one that could weld
together the many nations which acknowledged his sway, established
Christianity as the State Religion of the Roman Empire, the Church to
which we belong would naturally have had to accept as its own the
symbols which Constantine had caused to be those of the State in
question. And it should be added that the cross of later days with one
of its arms longer than the others, if not also the assumption that the
stauros to which Jesus was affixed had a cross-bar, may have been
merely the outcome of a wish to associate with the story of Jesus these
Gaulish symbols of victory which had become symbols of the Roman State,
and therefore of its State Church.
Anyway, the first kind of cross venerated by Christians was not a
representation of an instrument of execution; and the fact that we hold
sacred many different kinds of crosses, although even if we could prove
that the stauros to which Jesus was affixed had a cross-bar but one
kind could be a representation of that instrument of execution, has to
be accounted for.
Our only plausible explanation of the fact that we hold sacred almost
any species of cross is that, as we do not know what kind of cross
Jesus died upon, opinions have always differed as to which was the real
cross.
This difference of opinion among Christians as to the shape of the
instrument upon which Jesus was executed, has certainly existed for
many centuries. But as an explanation of the many different kinds of
crosses accepted by us as symbols of the Christ, it only lands us in a
greater difficulty. For if we did not know what kind of cross Jesus
died upon when we accepted the cross as our symbol, the chances
obviously are that we accepted the cross as our symbol for some other
reason than that we assert.
As a matter of fact our position regarding the whole matter is
illogical and unsatisfactory, and we ought to alter it by honestly
facing the facts that we cannot satisfactorily prove that our symbol
was adopted as a representation of the instrument of execution to which
Jesus was affixed, and that we do not even know for certain that the
instrument in question was cross-shaped.
It need only be added that there is not a single sentence in any of the
numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original
Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used
in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to
the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two
pieces nailed together in the form of a cross.
Taking the whole of the foregoing facts into consideration, it will be
seen that it is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers
to translate the word stauros as "cross" when rendering the Greek
documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that
action by putting "cross" in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros
without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary
meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its
primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at
all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it
was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon
which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.
But--the reader may object--how about the Greek word which in our
Bibles is translated as "crucify" or "crucified?" Does not that mean
"fix to a cross" or "fixed to a cross?" And what is this but the
strongest possible corroboration of our assertion as Christians that
Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped instrument?
The answer is that no less than four different Greek words are
translated in our Bibles as meaning "crucify" or "crucified," and that
not one of the four meant "crucify" or "crucified."
The four words in question are the words _prospegnumi, anastauroo,
sustauroo_, and _stauroo_.
The word prospegnumi, though translated in our Bibles as "crucify" or
"crucified," meant to "fix" to or upon, and meant that only. It had no
special reference to the affixing of condemned persons either to a
stake, pale, or post, or to a tree, or to a cross; and had no more
reference to a cross than the English word "fix" has.
The word _anastauroo_ was never used by the old Greek writers as
meaning other than to impale upon or with a single piece of timber.[4]
The word _sustauroo_ does not occur in pre-Christian writings, and only
five times in the Bible against the forty-four times of the word next
to be dealt with. Being obviously derived in part from the word
stauros, which primarily signified a stake or pale which was a single
piece of wood and had no cross-bar, _sustauroo_ evidently meant
affixion to such a stake or pale. Anyhow there is nothing whatever
either in the derivation of the word, or in the context in either of
the five instances in which it occurs, to show that what is referred to
is affixion to something that was cross-shaped.
The word _stauroo_ occurs, as has been said, forty-four times; and of
the four words in question by far the most frequently. The meaning of
this word is therefore of special importance. It is consequently most
significant to find, as we do upon due investigation, that wherever it
occurs in the pre-Christian classics it is used as meaning to
impalisade, or stake, or affix to a pale or stake; and has reference,
not to crosses, but to single pieces of wood.[5]
It therefore seems tolerably clear (1) that the sacred writings forming
the New Testament, to the statements of which--as translated for us--we
bow down in reverence, do not tell us that Jesus was affixed to a
cross-shaped instrument of execution; (2) that the balance of evidence
is against the truth of our statements to the effect that the
instrument in question was cross-shaped, and our sacred symbol
originally a representation of the same; and (3) that we Christians
have in bygone days acted, and, alas! still act, anything but
ingenuously in regard to the symbol of the cross.
This is not all, however. For if the unfortunate fact that we have in
our zeal almost manufactured evidence in favour of the theory that
_our_ cross or crosses had its or their origin in the shape of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed proves anything at
all, it proves the need for a work which, like the present one, sets in
array the evidence available regarding both the pre-Christian cross and
the adoption in later times of a similar symbol as that of the catholic
faith.
Nor should it be forgotten that the triumph of Christianity was due to
the fact that it _was_ a "catholic" faith, and not, like the other
faiths followed by the subjects of Rome, and like what Jesus seems to
have intended the results of His mission to have been inasmuch as He
solemnly declared that he was sent to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel and to them alone, the monopoly of a single nation or race.
For if Paul, taking his and other visions of Jesus as the long-needed
proofs of a future life, had not disregarded the very plain intimations
of Jesus to the effect that His mission was to the descendants of Jacob
or Israel, and to them alone; if Paul had not withstood Christ's
representative, Peter, to the face, and, with unsurpassed zeal, carried
out his grand project of proclaiming a non-national and universal
religion founded upon appearances of the spirit-form of Jesus, what we
call Christianity would not have come into existence.
The fact that but for Paul there would have been no catholic faith with
followers in every land ruled by Constantine when sole emperor, for
that astute monarch to establish as the State Religion of his loosely
knit empire, because, on account of its catholicity, that best fitted
to hold power as the official faith of a government with world-wide
dominions, is worthy of a lasting place in our memory.
Nor is the noteworthy fact last mentioned unconnected with the symbol
of the cross. For, as will be shown, it is clear that it was because
Constantine caused the figure of the cross to become a recognized
symbol of his catholic empire, that it became recognized as a symbol of
the catholic faith.
Not till after Constantine and his Gaulish warriors planted what
Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea and other Christians of the century in
question describe as a cross, within the walls of the Eternal City as
the symbol of their victory, did Christians ever set on high a
cross-shaped trophy of any description.
Moreover, but for the fact that, as it happened, the triumph of
Constantine resulted in that of the Christian Church, we should
probably have deemed the cross, if to our minds a representation of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, as anything but the
symbol of Victory we now deem it.
This is evident from the fact that the so-called cross of Jesus
admittedly fulfilled the purpose for which it was erected at the
request of those who sought the death of Jesus. And even according to
our Gospels the darkness of defeat o'ershadowed the scene at Calvary.
To put the matter plainly, the victory of Jesus was not a victory over
the cross; for He did not come down from the cross. Nor was it a
victory over His enemies; for what they sought was to get rid of a man
whom they deemed an agitator, and their wish was gratified, inasmuch
as, thanks to the cross, He troubled them no more.
In other words the victory which we ascribe to Jesus did not occur
during the gloom which hung like a pall over his native land at the
time of His execution, but upon the then approaching Sun-day of the
Vernal Equinox, at the coming of the glory of the dawn.
For the victory in question, from whatever point of view we may look at
it, was not the avoidance of defeat, but its retrieval. And its story
is an illustration of the old-world promise, hoary with antiquity and
founded upon the coming, ushered in every year by the Pass-over or
cross-over of the equator by the sun at the Vernal Equinox, of the
bounteous harvests of summer after the dearth of devastating winter;
bidding us ever hope, not indeed for the avoidance of death and
therefore of defeat, but for such victory as may happen to lay in
survival or resurrection.
It is therefore clear that even if we _could_ prove that the instrument
of execution to which Jesus was affixed was cross-shaped, it would not
necessarily follow that it was as the representation of the cause of
His death which we now deem it, that the figure of the cross became our
symbol of Life and Victory.
In any case honesty demands that we should no longer translate as
"cross" a word which at the time our Gospels were written did not
necessarily signify something cross-shaped. And it is equally incumbent
upon us, from a moral point of view, that we should cease to render as
"crucify" or "crucified" words which never bore any such meaning.
CHAPTER II.
THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX.
The Fathers who wrote in Latin, used the word _crux_ as a translation
of the Greek word _stauros_. It is therefore noteworthy that even this
Latin word "crux," from which we derive our words "cross" and
"crucify," did not in ancient days necessarily mean something
cross-shaped, and seems to have had quite another signification as its
original meaning.
A reference, for instance, to the writings of Livy, will show that in
his time the word crux, whatever else it may have meant, signified a
single piece of wood or timber; he using it in that sense.[6]
This however is a curious rather than an important point, for even the
assumption that the word _crux_ always and invariably meant something
cross-shaped, would not affect the demonstration already made that the
word _stauros_ did not.
As our Scriptures were written in Greek and were written in the first
century A.C., the vital question is what the word stauros then meant,
when used, as in the New Testament, without any qualifying expression
or hint that other than an ordinary stauros was signified. What the
Fathers chose to consider the meaning of that word to be, or chose to
give as its Latin translation, would, even if they had written the same
century, in no wise affect that issue. And, as a matter of fact, even
the earliest of the Fathers whose undisputed works have come down to
us, did not write till the middle of the second century.
Granting, however, as all must, that most if not all of the earlier of
the Fathers, and certainly all the later ones, rightly or wrongly
interpreted the word stauros as meaning something cross-shaped, let us,
remembering that this does not dispose of the question whether they
rightly or wrongly so interpreted it, in this and the next two chapters
pass in review the references to the cross made by the Fathers who
lived before Constantine's march upon Rome at the head of his Gaulish
army.
Commencing, on account of its importance, with the evidence of Minucius
Felix, we find that this Father wrote
"We assuredly see the sign of a cross naturally, in the
ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when
it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the
military yoke is lifted up it is the sign of a cross;
and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with arms
outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is
sustained by a natural reason or your own religion is
formed with respect to it."[7]
Various other pronouncements to a similar effect are to be found in the
writings of other Christian Fathers, and such passages are often quoted
as conclusive evidence of the Christian origin of what is now our
symbol. In reality, however, it is somewhat doubtful if we can fairly
claim them as such; for the question arises whether, if the writers in
their hearts believed their cross to be a representation of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, they would have
omitted, as they did in every instance, to mention that as the right
and proper and all-sufficient reason for venerating the figure of the
cross.
Moreover it is quite clear that while, as will be shown hereafter, the
symbol of the cross had for ages been a Pagan symbol of Life, it can,
as already stated, scarcely be said to have become a Christian _symbol_
before the days of Constantine. No cross-shaped symbol of wood or of
any other material had any part in the Christianity of the second and
third centuries; and the only cross which had any part in the
Christianity of those days was the immaterial one traced upon the
forehead in the non-Mosaic and originally Pagan initiatory rite of
Baptism, and at other times also according to some of the Fathers,
apparently as a charm against the machinations of evil spirits.
This "sign" or "signal" rather than "symbol" of the cross, referred to
as theirs by the Christian writers of the second and third centuries,
is said to have had a place before our era in the rites of those who
worshipped Mithras, if not also of those who worshipped certain other
conceptions of the Sun-God; and it should be noted that the Fathers
insist upon it that a similar mark is what the prophet Ezekiel referred
to as that to be placed upon the foreheads of certain men as a sign of
life and salvation; the original Hebrew reading "Set a _tau_ upon the
foreheads of the men" (_Ezek_. ix. 4), and the tau having been in the
days of the prophet in question--as we know from relics of the
past--the figure of a cross. Nor should it be forgotten that Tertullian
admits that those admitted into the rites of the Sun-God Mithras were
so marked, trying to explain this away by stating that this was done in
imitation of the then despised Christians![8]
That it was this immaterial sign or signal, rather than any material
symbol of the cross, which Minucius Felix considered Christian, is
demonstrated by the fact that the passage already quoted is accompanied
by the remark that
"Crosses, moreover, we Christians neither venerate nor
wish for. You indeed who consecrate gods of wood
venerate wooden crosses, perhaps as parts of your gods.
For your very standards, as well as your banners, and
flags of your camps, what are they but crosses gilded
and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate
the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man
affixed to it."[9]
This remarkable denunciation of the Cross as a Pagan symbol by a
Christian Father who lived as late as the third century after Christ,
is worthy of special attention; and can scarcely be said to bear out
the orthodox account of the origin of the cross as a Christian symbol.
It is at any rate clear that the cross was not our recognised symbol at
that date; and that it is more likely to have been gradually adopted by
us from Sun-God worshippers, than by the worshippers of Mithras and
other pre-Christian conceptions of the Sun-God from us.
As our era was six or seven centuries old before the crucifix was
introduced, and the earliest pictorial representation of the execution
of Jesus still existing or referred to in any work as having existed
was of even later date, much stress has been laid by us upon what we
allege to be a caricature of the crucifixion of Jesus and of much
earlier date. The drawing in question was discovered in 1856 to be
scrawled upon a wall of the Gelotian House under the Palatine at Rome;
and as no Christian representations of the alleged execution upon a
cross-shaped instrument of even a reasonably early date exist, it would
of course be greatly to our interest to be able to quote this alleged
caricature, which is said to be as old as the third and perhaps even as
old as the second century, as independent evidence of the truth of our
story. But can we fairly do so?
The drawing in question is a very roughly executed representation of a
figure with human arms, legs, and feet; but with an animal's head. The
arms are extended, and two lines, which are said to represent a cross
but appear in front of the figure instead of behind it, traverse the
arms and trunk. In the foreground is a man looking at this grotesque
figure; and an accompanying inscription is to the effect that
"Alexamenos adores his God."
Tertullian relates that a certain Jew "carried about in public a
caricature of us with this label, _An ass of a priest_. This figure had
an ass's ears, and was dressed in a toga with a book; having a hoof on
one of his feet."[10]
It is upon the strength of this passage and the two lines traversing
the figure, that we, ignoring the fact that the figure is standing,
claim this much-quoted _graffito_ as conclusive evidence of the
historical accuracy of our story. But it may be pointed out that even
if this was a caricature of the execution of Jesus made at the date
mentioned, a caricature, made certainly not less than two hundred years
after the event, is not altogether trustworthy evidence as to the
details.
And, was it a caricature of the execution of Jesus? It would appear
not.
To commence with, the two lines or scratches--for they are little
more--which we call a cross, need not necessarily have formed a part of
the original _graffito_; and, even if they did, of themselves prove
nothing. There is no reference to a cross in the inscription, nor is
there anything to show that an execution of any kind is what is
illustrated. Moreover, the hoof upon one foot, mentioned by Tertullian,
is not to be seen; a remark which also applies to the toga and the book
he mentions. And even what Tertullian referred to was not a caricature
of the execution of Jesus.
It should also be noted that the head of the figure in this famous
graffito, is more like that of a jackal than that of an ass; and
appears to have been a representation of the Egyptian god Anubis, who
is so often to be seen upon relics of the past as a figure with a
jackal's head, with human arms extended, and with human legs and feet,
as in this drawing.
Upon all points, therefore, our claim concerning the graffito is an
ill-founded one; and it cannot be considered evidence regarding either
cross or crucifixion.
There thus being no opposing evidence of any weight, it is quite clear
from the fact that as late as the third century after Christ we find a
Christian Father who venerated the sign or figure of the cross
denouncing it as a symbol, that no material representations of that
sign or figure were recognised as Christian till an even later date.
And such a conclusion is borne out by the striking fact that when
Clement of Alexandria at the beginning of the third century made out a
list of the symbols which Christians were permitted to use, he
mentioned the Fish and the Dove but said nothing regarding the
Cross.[11]
As to the sign or figure of the cross referred to by the Fathers of the
second and third centuries, even so high an authority as the Dean of
Canterbury admits, as we shall see in the next chapter, that it was not
"mainly" as reminding them of the death of Jesus that the Christians of
the second and third centuries venerated it. If, therefore, not in the
main, and, it would follow, not originally as a representation of the
instrument of execution upon which Jesus died, what more likely than
that the early Christians venerated the sign and figure of the cross as
the age-old and widely accepted symbol of Life and of the Sun-God we
know it to have been?
Anyway Minucius Felix may be said to stand alone in denouncing the
symbol of the cross as non-Christian. And as even he expresses
veneration for the figure of the cross, and must have approved of the
sign of the cross in the initiatory rite of baptism, that denunciation
evidently applied only to material representations of the cross.
Moreover the denunciation in question was clearly due to the fear that
such objects might degenerate amongst Christians, as they afterwards
did, into little better than idols. And if the sign or figure of the
cross did not mainly remind the early Christians of the death of Jesus,
it must have mainly reminded them of something else.
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF THE OTHER FATHERS.
The works which have come down to us from the Fathers who lived before
the days of Constantine make up over ten thousand pages of closely
printed matter; and the first point which strikes those who examine
that mass of literature with a view to seeing what the Christians of
the first three centuries thought and wrote concerning the execution of
Jesus and the symbol of the cross, is that the execution of Jesus was
hardly so much as mentioned by them, and no such thing as a
representation of the instrument of execution once referred to.
Another fact worthy of special note is that, whether the Fathers wrote
in Greek and used the word _stauros_, or wrote in Latin and translated
that word as _crux_, they often seem to have had in their mind's eye a
tree; a tree which moreover was closely connected in meaning with the
forbidden tree of the Garden of Eden, an allegorical figure of
undoubtedly phallic signification which had its counterpart in the Tree
of the Hesperides, from which the Sun-God Hercules after killing the
Serpent was fabled to have picked the Golden Apples of Love, one of
which became the symbol of Venus, the Goddess of Love. Nor was this the
only such counterpart, for almost every race seems in days of old to
have had an allegorical Tree of Knowledge or Life whose fruit was Love;
the ancients perceiving that it was love which produced life, and that
but for the sexual passion and its indulgence mankind would cease to
be.
Starting upon an examination of the early Christian writings in
question, we read in the _Gospel of Nicodemus_ that when the Chief
Priests interviewed certain men whom Jesus had raised from the dead,
those men made upon their faces "the sign of the stauros."[12] The sign
of the cross is presumably meant; and all that need be said is that if
the men whom Jesus raised from the dead were acquainted with the sign
of the cross, it would appear that it must have been as a pre-Christian
sign.
Further on in the same Gospel, Satan is represented as being told that
"All that thou hast gained through the Tree of Knowledge, all hast thou
lost through the Tree of the Stauros."[13]
Elsewhere we read that "The King of Glory stretched out his right hand,
and took hold of our forefather Adam, and raised him: then, turning
also to the rest, he said, 'Come with me as many as have died through
the Tree which he touched, for behold I again raise you all up through
the Tree of the Stauros.'"[14] Some see in this peculiar pronouncement a
reference to the doctrine of re-incarnation.
In the _Acts and Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Andrew_ we are told that
those who executed Andrew "lifted him up on the stauros," but "did not
sever his joints, having received this order from the pro-consul, for
he wished him to be in distress while hanging, and in the nighttime as
he was suspended to be eaten by dogs." There is nothing to show that
the stauros used was other than an ordinary stauros.
In the _Epistle of Barnabas_ are various references to the stauros;
mixed up with various passages from the Hebrew Scriptures,
quoted--without any justification--as referring to the initiatory rite
of baptism; a rite, be it noted, that was admittedly of Gentile rather
than Israelitish origin, and not unconnected with the Sun-God worship
of the Persians and other Orientals of non-Hebrew race.
The references in question commence with the enquiry, "Let us further
ask whether the Lord took any care to foreshadow the Water and the
Stauros?"
Afterwards we have a quotation of _Psalm_ i. 3-6--which likens the good
man to a tree planted by the side of a river and yielding his fruit in
due season--and the pronouncement, "Mark how he has described at once
both the Water and the Stauros. For these words imply, Blessed are they
who, placing their trust in the Stauros, have gone down into the
Water."
This further reference to the non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism is
followed by a quotation of _Ezekiel_ xlvii. 12, which speaks of a river
by whose side grow trees those who cat the fruit of which grow for
ever.
Further on is a declaration that when Moses stretched out his hands (in
a direction not specified) that victory might rest with the forces he
commanded, he stretched them out in the figure of a stauros, as a
prophecy that Jesus "would be the author of life."
A reference is then made to the Brazen Serpent, and to the pole upon
which it was placed; and it is stated that this lifeless imitation of a
serpent was a type of Jesus.
In the _Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians_ we read that the stauros
of the Christ is indeed a stumbling block to those who do not believe.
The evidence of Irenaeus, as that of one who was through his
acquaintance with the aged Polycarp almost in touch as it were with the
apostles, will on account of his importance as a witness be specially
dealt with in the next chapter.
Justin Martyr, arguing that the figure of the cross is impressed upon
the whole of nature, asks men to
"Consider all things in the world, whether without this
form they could be administered or have any certainty.
For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is
called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is
not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics do not
their work except with tools which have this shape. And
the human form differs from that of the irrational
animals in nothing else than in its being erect and
having the hands extended and having on the face
extending from the forehead what is called the nose,
through which there is respiration for the living
creature; and this shows no other form than that of the
cross. And so it was said by the prophet _The breath
before our face is the Lord Christ_. And the power of
this form is shown by your own symbols on what are
called standards and trophies; with which all your
processions are made, using these as insignia of your
power and government."[15]
Elsewhere Justin Martyr declares that the Christ
"Was symbolised both by the Tree of Life which was said
to have been planted in Paradise, and by those events
which should happen to all the just. Moses was sent with
a _rod_ to effect the redemption of the people; and with
this in his hands at the head of the people he divided
the sea. By this he saw the water gushing out of the
rock; and when he cast a _tree_ into the waters of
Marah, which were bitter, he made them sweet. Jacob by
putting _rods_ into the water troughs caused the sheep
of his uncle to conceive . . . . Aaron's _rod_ which
blossomed declared him to be the High Priest. Isaiah
prophesied that a rod would come forth from the root of
Jesse, and this was the Christ."[16]
Further on in the same work, Justin Martyr, alluding to the statement
in the Israelitish Law "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,"
states that
"It was not without design that the prophet Moses
when Hur and Aaron upheld his hands, remained in this
form until evening. For indeed the Lord remained upon
the tree almost until evening."[17]
Tertullian writes concerning the Christ "With the last enemy Death did
he fight, and through the trophy of the cross he triumphed"[18]; and
elsewhere tells us that "Cursed is every one who hangeth on a tree" was
a prediction of his death.[19]
There is also in existence a long essay by Tertullian which starts by
discussing the efficacy of "the sign" as an antidote. The sign of the
cross as traced upon the forehead in the non-Mosaic initiatory rite of
baptism seems to be what is referred to; and no representation of an
instrument of execution, or cross-shaped symbol of wood or any
material, is once mentioned.[20]
In another of Tertullian's works we come across the passage "In all the
actions of daily life we trace upon the forehead the sign."[21]
His famous reference to the Sun-God Mithras reads as follows:--
"The devil in the mystic rites of his idols competes
even with the essential portions of the sacraments of
God. He, like God, baptizes some, that is, his own
believing and faithful followers, and promises the putting
away of sins by baptism; and if I remember rightly
Mithras there signs his soldiers upon their foreheads,
celebrates the oblation of bread, introduces a representation
of the resurrection, and places the crown beyond
the sword."[22]
Elsewhere Tertullian writes:--
"If any of you think we render superstitious adoration
to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us . .
You worship _victories_, for in your trophies the cross
is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the
Romans is all through a worship of the standards . . . I
praise your zeal: you would not worship crosses
unclothed and unadorned."[23]
In another of Tertullian's works we read:--
"As for him who affirms that we are the priesthood of a
cross, we shall claim him as a co-religionist . . .
Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an
erect position is part of a cross, and indeed the
greater part of its mass. But an entire cross is
attributed to us . . . . The truth however is that
_your_ religion is _all_ cross . . . You are ashamed, I
suppose, to worship unadorned and simple crosses."[24]
In the _Instructions of Commodianus_ we read "The first law was in the
tree, and so, too, was the second."[25]
Cyprian contends that "By the sign of the cross, also, Amalek was
conquered by Moses."[26]
Elsewhere Cyprian tells us that "In this sign of the cross is salvation
for all people who are marked on their foreheads"; quoting as proof of
this, from the Apocalypse, "They had his name and the name of his
Father written on their foreheads," and "Blessed are they that do his
commandments that they may have power over the Tree of Life."[27]
Methodius tells us that "He overcame, as has been said, the powers that
enslaved us by the figure of the cross; and shadowed forth man, who had
been oppressed by corruption as by a tyrant power, to be free with
unfettered hands. For the cross, if you wish to define it, is the
confirmation of victory."[28]
Passing on to Origen, we find in one of his works the noteworthy
passage:--
"It is possible to avoid it if we do what the Apostle
saith 'Mortify your members which are upon earth,' and
if we always carry about in our bodies the death of
Christ. For it is certain that where the death of Christ
is carried about, sin cannot reign. For the power of the
_stauros_ of Christ is so great that if it be set before
a man's eyes and kept faithfully in his mind so that he
look with steadfast eyes of the mind upon that same
death of Christ, no concupiscence, no sensuality, no
natural passion, and no envious desire, is able to
overcome him."[29]
Whether however this reference to the "_stauros_ of Christ" is or is
not a reference to the figure of the cross, is doubtful.
Such is the evidence regarding the cross, whether considered as
immaterial sign or material symbol, obtainable from the writings of the
Christians who lived between the days of the Apostles and those of
Constantine; other of course than the _Octavius_ of Minucius Felix,
which was dealt with in the last chapter, and the writings of Irenaeus,
which will be dealt with in the next.
Among the noteworthy features of the evidence in question prominently
stands out the smallness of its volume.
This is but a negative point, however; and what should be carefully
borne in mind is that the evidence as a whole leads to the conclusion
that the Christians of the second and third centuries made use of the
sign and venerated the figure of the cross without, as Dean Farrar
admits, it "only or even mainly," reminding them of the death of Jesus;
and therefore otherwise than as a representation of the instrument of
execution upon which Jesus died.[30]
CHAPTER IV.
CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF IRENAEUS.
The special importance of the evidence of Irenaeus, is due to the fact
that of all the Fathers whose undisputed works have come down to us he
is the only one who can be considered to have been anything like in
touch with the Apostles. As an acquaintance of the aged Polycarp, who
is said to have been in his youth a pupil of the aged Evangelist and
Apostle St. John and to have met yet other Apostles, Irenaeus had
opportunities for ascertaining facts concerning the life and death of
Jesus which the other Fathers upon whose works we rely did not possess.
What, then, does this important witness have to say, which bears upon
the points at issue? As a matter of fact, very little.
There are, however, two passages in the works of Irenaeus which it
would not be right to altogether ignore.
In the first of these passages Irenaeus mentions that some Christians
believed that Simon of Cyrene was executed instead of Jesus, owing to
the power of Jesus to metamorphose himself and others having been
exercised with that object in view.[31] This power is referred to more
than once in our Gospels, for instance in the account of the so-called
"Transfiguration" upon the Mount; the Greek word rendered in our Bibles
as "transfigured" being the word which in translations of the older
Greek classics is rendered "metamorphosed."
Even if we pass by this belief of certain of the early Christians that
Jesus was never executed, a question here arises which should at least
be stated, and that is the question how, if Jesus was metamorphosed
upon the Mount, as the Gospels tell us, he can be said to have died as
a man at Calvary? For if upon the Mount of Transfiguration, or at any
other time previous to the scene at Calvary, Jesus was metamorphosed,
the form which was the result of the process of re-metamorphosis
necessary to make him recognisable again cannot be said to have been
born of the Virgin Mary, and can have been human only in appearance.
The other passage in the writings of Irenaeus which deserves our
notice, is neither more nor less than an emphatic declaration, by
Irenaeus himself, that Jesus was not executed when a little over thirty
years of age, but lived to be an old man. Explain it away how we will,
the fact remains; and it certainly ought not to be ignored.
At first sight this statement of Irenaeus would decidedly seem to
support the theory advanced by some, that, as the Roman Procurator
Pontius Pilate admittedly did not want to carry out the extreme penalty
in the case of Jesus, though he reluctantly consented to do so in order
to pacify the Jews and allowed Jesus to be fixed to a stauros and
suspended in public view, he took care to manage things so that Jesus
should only appear to die. The idea of course is that if Pilate wished
to preserve the life of Jesus he could easily have had him taken down
while in a drugged condition, have had the farce of burial carried out
at the earliest possible moment, and then have had him resuscitated and
removed to some region where he could dwell in safety.
What Irenaeus says concerning Jesus is that
"He passed through every age, becoming an infant for
infants. . . . So likewise he was an old man for old
men, that he might be a perfect Master for all, not
merely as regards the setting forth of the truth but
also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the
aged also and becoming an example to them likewise.
Then, at last, he came on to death itself. . . . From
the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline
towards old age, which our Lord possessed while he still
fulfilled the office of a Teacher; even as the Gospel
and all the elders testify, those who were conversant in
Asia with John the disciple of the Lord affirming that
John conveyed to them that information. And he remained
among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them
moreover saw not only John but the other apostles also,
and heard the very same account from them, and bear
testimony as to the statement. Whom, then, should we
rather believe? Whether such men as these, or
Ptolemaeus, who never saw the apostles and who never
even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an
apostle?"[32]
The reader must decide for himself or herself whether Irenaeus believed
that Jesus was never executed; or that he was executed but survived; or
that he was born when we suppose, but executed thirty years or so later
than we suppose; or that, though executed when we suppose, he was then
an old man, and was born, not at the commencement or middle or end of
the year A.C. 1, or B.C. 4, or whenever the orthodox date is, but
thirty years or more before what we call our era began. Anyhow he
mentions neither cross nor execution, and here seems to assume that
Jesus died a natural death. And in any case the fact remains that,
however mistaken he may have been, Irenaeus stated that Jesus lived to
be an old man; and stated so emphatically.
Even granting that Irenaeus must have been mistaken, his evidence none
the less affects one of the most important points debated in this work.
For it is clear that if even he knew so little about the execution of
Jesus, the details of that execution cannot have been particularly well
known; and the affirmation that the stauros to which Jesus was affixed
had a transverse bar attached may have had no foundation in fact, and
may have arisen from a wish to connect Jesus with that well-known and
widely-venerated Symbol of Life, the pre-Christian cross.
CHAPTER V.
ORIGIN OF THIS PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS.
Having in the foregoing chapters demonstrated that it is possible, if
not indeed probable, that the instrument of execution to which Jesus
was affixed was otherwise than cross-shaped; and having also shown that
it was not mainly, if indeed even partially, that the early Christians
signified that instrument by the sign of the cross; it is now desirable
that, as a preliminary to an enquiry into the circumstances under which
the cross became the symbol of Christianity, we should enquire into the
origin of the _pre_-Christian cross.
That there was a pre-Christian cross, and that it was, like ours, a
Symbol of Life, is generally admitted.
The authorities upon such subjects, however, unfortunately differ as to
the reason why the Cross came to be selected by the ancients as the
Symbol of Life. And not one of their suggestions seems to go to the
root of the matter.
Let us therefore in thought go back tens of thousands of years, and
conceive the genus Homo as a race gradually awakening to reason but as
yet unfettered by inherited traditions and creeds. Let us imagine Man
ere he began to make gods in his own image. Let us remember that what
would strike him as the greatest of all marvels would of necessity be
Life itself, and that far and away the next greatest marvel must have
been the glorious Sun; the obvious source of earth life, and Lord of
the Hosts of Heaven.
Let us bear in mind, too, that though the Nature Worship of our remote
ancestors had other striking features, the facts mentioned would lead
to the predominance of the phallic idea, and to its association with
Sun-God worship. And as Life, the greatest marvel of all, must have had
a symbol allotted to it at a very early date, let us ask ourselves what
the untutored mind of Man would be most likely to select as its symbol.
To this question there is, so far as the author can see, but one
reasonable answer:--the figure of the cross.
And the author conceives this to be the real solution of the difficulty
for this reason:--because the figure of the cross is the simplest
possible representation of that union of two bodies or two sexes or two
powers or two principles, which alone produces life.
For the ancients cannot fail to have perceived that all life more
immediately proceeds from the _union_ of _two_ principles; and the
first, readiest, simplest, and most natural symbol of Life, was
consequently one straight line superimposed upon another at such an
angle that both could be seen; in other words, a cross of some
description or other.
It is evidently probable that this was the real reason why the figure
of the cross originally came to be adopted as the Symbol of Life. But,
of course, whatever the original reason, as time rolled on other
reasons for the veneration of the cross were pointed out; nothing being
more natural than that primitive Man should, or more certain than that
he did, find pleasure in connecting with other objects of his regard
than Life itself, that which as the Symbol of Life was pre-eminently a
symbol of good omen.
The most notable instance of this is the way in which, or rather the
different ways in which, the figure of the cross was connected with the
Sun-God.
A good example of the last named fact, is the declaration of the
philosophers of ancient Greece that the figure of the cross was the
figure of the "Second God" or "Universal Soul," the _Ratio_ as well as
the _Oratio_ of the All-Father, which they called the _Logos_ of God; a
term badly translated in our versions of the Gospel of St. John as the
_Word_ of God, as if it signified the _Oratio_ only.
It was this Logos or "Second God" whom Philo, who was born before the
commencement of our era, described as the "Intellectual Sun," and even
as God's "First Begotten" and "Beloved" offspring, and the "Light of
the World"; terms afterwards made use of by the writers of our Gospels
in describing the Christ. And, as will be shown in a chapter upon the
subject, the reason the philosophers, among whom was Plato, gave for
declaring the cross to be the figure of the Logos, was that the Sun
creates this figure by crossing the Equator.
An even better illustration can be seen in the fact that in days of old
almost every civilised race held feasts at the time of the Vernal
Equinox, in honour of the Passover or _Cross_-over of the Sun.
The fact that the ancients were thus at special pains to connect the
symbol of Life with the Sun-God, and also, as we know, spoke of him as
the "Giver of Life" and the only "Saviour," was doubtless due to their
perceiving, not only that life is the result of the union of the two
principles distinguished by the titles male and female, but also that
the salvation of life is due to the action of the sun in preserving the
body from cold and in producing and ripening for its use the fruits of
the earth.
As the Giver of Life, the Sun-God was of course considered to be
bi-sexual. But when the two great lights of heaven, the Sun and the
Moon, were associated with each other, as was often and naturally the
ease, the Sun was considered to be more especially a personification of
the Male Principle, and the waxing and waning moon, as represented by
the Crescent, a personification of the Female Principle. Hence the
worship of the God associated with the radiate sun, as of that of the
Goddess associated with the crescent moon and called the Sun-God's
mother or bride, was phallic in character; and their connection is
repeatedly symbolised upon the relics which have come down to us from
antiquity by the sign of the crescent containing within its horns
either a disc or what we should consider a star-like object, which
latter was almost as favourite a mode with the ancients of representing
the sun as it is with us of representing a star or planet, as will be
shown further on.
Returning, however, to the symbol of the cross, as the first and
simplest representation of that union of the Male and Female Principles
which alone produces what we mortals call life, it is extremely curious
that the selection of the figure of the cross in comparatively modern
times as the simplest and most natural symbol both of addition and of
multiplication, should have led no one to perceive that, being for
these very reasons also the simplest and most natural symbol of Life, a
probable solution of the mystery surrounding the origin of the
pre-Christian cross as a symbol of Life, as it were stared them in the
face. As to the contention of not a few authorities, apparently founded
upon the mistaken assumption that the _Svastika_ was the earliest form
of cross to acquire importance as a symbol, that the pre-Christian
cross was originally a representation of the wheel-like motion of the
sun or a reference to the wheel of the Sun-God's chariot; it need only
be remarked that evidence exists to show that the cross was a symbol of
Life from a period so early, that it is doubtful if the Sun-God had
then been likened to a charioteer, and not certain that either chariots
or wheels had been invented. It is true that the Solar Wheel became a
recognized symbol of the Sun-God, and that additional veneration was
paid to it because the figure of the symbol of Life was more or less
discoverable in the spokes allotted to the Solar Wheel; but it is
putting the cart before the horse to suppose that the cross became the
symbol of Life because its form was so discoverable.
It only remains to be added that there undoubtedly was a connection,
however slight, between the pre-Christian Cross as the Symbol of Life,
the Solar Wheel as a symbol of the Sun-God, and the Cross as the symbol
of the Christ. And whatever the date at which the cross was first
adopted as a Christian symbol, or whatever the reason for that
adoption, there is no doubt that, as will be shown further on, our
religion was considerably influenced by the facts that the Gaulish
soldiers whose victories enabled Constantine to become Sole Emperor
venerated the Solar Wheel, {image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image
"solarwheel2.gif"}, and that their leader, who was anxious to obtain
the support of the Christians, allowed a loop to be added to the top of
the vertical spoke so that the Christians might be able to interpret
the victorious symbol as {image "monogram1.gif"} or {image
"monogram2.gif"}, {image "monogram3.gif"} or {image "monogram4.gif"};
_i.e._, XP or XPI, the first two or three letters of the Greek word
XPI{sigma}TO{sigma}, _Christos_, Christ.
CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS.
As has already been to some extent pointed out, it is evident that our
beloved Christendom more or less owes its existence to the fact that
Constantine the Great when only ruler of Gaul, himself a Sun-God
worshipper at the head of an army of Sun-God worshippers, seeing how
greatly the small but enthusiastic bodies of Christians everywhere to
be met with could aid him in his designs upon the attainment of supreme
power, bid for their support. For to this politic move, its success,
and Constantine's perception that only a non-national religion whose
followers sought to convert the whole world and make their faith a
catholic one, could really weld together different races of men, we owe
the fact that when he became Sole Emperor he made Christianity the
State Religion of the world-wide Roman Empire.
This act and its far-reaching effects, are not all we owe to
Constantine, however. It should be remembered that even our creed was
to some extent decided by him. For it was this Sun-God worshipper--who,
though he advised others to enter what he wished should become a
catholic and all-embracing religion, refused to do so himself till he
was dying--who called together our bishops, and, presiding over them in
council at Nicaea, demanded that they should determine the controversy
in the ranks of the Christians as to whether the Christ was or was not
God, by subscribing to a declaration of his Deity. It is even recorded
that he forced the unwilling ones to sign under penalty off deprivation
and banishment.
From these and other incidents in his career it would appear that,
either from policy or conviction, Constantine acted as if he thought
the Sun-God and the Christ were one and the same deity.
The probability of this is more or less apparent from what we are told
concerning the part he played in connection with what, thanks, as we
are about to see, to him, became our recognised symbol.
Our knowledge of the part played by Constantine in connection with the
symbol of the cross, except so far as we can gather it from a study of
ancient coins and other relics, unfortunately comes to us solely
through Christian sources. And the first that famous bishop and
ecclesiastical historian Eusebius of Caesarea, to whom we owe so large
a proportion of our real or supposed knowledge of the early days of
Christianity, tells us about Constantine and the cross, is that in the
year A.C. 312--a quarter of a century before his admission into the
Christian Church--Constantine and the Gaulish soldiers he was leading
saw at noon _over the Sun_ a cross of Light in the heavens, bearing
upon it or having attached to it the inscription EN TOYT{omega} NIKA,
_By this conquer_.
The words of the Bishop, who is reporting what he states the Emperor in
question to have told him personally, are:--
"He said that at mid-day when the sun was beginning to
decline he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross
of light in the heavens, above the Sun, bearing the
inscription EN TOYT{omega} NIKA; he himself, and his
whole army also, being struck with amazement at this
sight."[33]
Though this marvellous cross, declared by Christian writers of that
century to have been the so-called Monogram of Christ {image
"monogram1.gif"} or {image "monogram3.gif"} or {image "monogram2.gif"}
or {image "monogram4.gif"}, appeared to an army of Sun-God worshippers,
Constantine himself--as can be seen from his coins--remaining one for
many years afterwards if not till his death, it is put before us as a
Christian cross.
It is also noteworthy that no material representation of a cross of any
description was ever held aloft by adherents of the Christian Church,
until after Constantine is said to have had this more or less solar
cross so represented as the standard of his Gaulish army.
Mention should therefore be made of the fact that, upon the coins he
struck, the symbol {image "monogram1.gif"} is perhaps the one which
occurs the most frequently upon representations of the famous _Labarum_
or Military Standard of Constantine; but that the symbol {image
"monogram1.gif"}, the {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image
"monogram4.gif"} without the circle, and the {image "solarwheel1.gif"}
and {image "asterisk.gif"}, are also to be seen.
Now the Gauls led by Constantine specially venerated the Solar Wheel.
This had sometimes six and sometimes four spokes, {image
"solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "solarwheel2.gif"}, and the warriors of
their native land had long been in the habit of wearing a
representation of the same upon their helmets. It is therefore not
improbable that even before the date of the alleged vision when
marching upon Rome, some such symbol formed the standard of
Constantine's army.
Anyhow, that the worthy Bishop Eusebius was, like other enthusiasts,
liable to be at times carried by his enthusiasm beyond the limits of
veracity, or else was the victim of imperial mendacity, is evident. For
Eusebius tells us in the _Life of Constantine_ he wrote after the death
of his patron, that the night after this miraculous "cross" and motto
were seen in the sky above the Sun, the Christ appeared to Constantine,
and, showing the Gaulish general the same sign that had been seen in
the sky, directed him to have a similar symbol made, under which his
army--an army, be it remembered, of Sun-God worshippers--should march
conquering and to conquer![34]
All that is really likely to have happened is that Constantine, wishing
to encourage his troops, bade them rally round a standard on which was
represented the sacred Solar Wheel venerated by the Gauls; and that as
with this as a rallying point Constantine and his Gauls became masters
of Rome, the symbol we are discussing became a Roman--and therefore,
later on, upon the establishment of our faith as the State Religion of
the Roman Empire, also a _Christian_--symbol. And a loop seems to have
been sooner or later added to the top of the vertical spoke of the
Gaulish symbol, so that Christians could accept it as a Monogram of
Christ; as has already been hinted, and as will be demonstrated further
on.
A noteworthy point is that we have two accounts of Constantine's
alleged vision of the Christ, and that they do not quite agree. The
Bishop of Caesarea's account is, that the night after the Emperor--then
only ruler of Gaul--and all his soldiers saw the "cross" and motto
above the meridian sun, the Christ appeared to Constantine
"With the same sign which he had seen in the heavens,
and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign which
he had seen in the heavens, and to use it as a safeguard
in all engagements with his enemies."[35]
But the author of _De Mortibus Persecutorem_, a work said to have been
written during the reign of Constantine, and attributed to Lactantius,
refers to the alleged vision as follows:--
"Constantine was admonished in his sleep to mark the
celestial sign of God on the shields, and thus engage in
battle. He did as he was commanded, and marked the name
of the Christ on the shields by the letter X drawn
across them with the top circumflexed. Armed with this
sign his troops--"[36]
and the differences between these two accounts are greater than would
at first sight appear.
Let us however return to the story of the Bishop of Caesarea, who tells
us that the morning after the Christ appeared to Constantine, the
Emperor told this second marvel to his friends, and, sending for the
workers in gold and precious stones who are assumed to have accompanied
the Gaulish army, directed them to overlay with gold a long spear
"On the top of the whole of which was fixed a wreath of
gold and precious stones, and within this the symbol of
the Saviour's name, two letters indicating the name of
the Christ by means of its initial characters, the
letter P being intersected with the letter X in its
centre."[37]
Several questions naturally arise at this point of our enquiry, and it
is not easy--nay, it is impossible--for us Christians to honestly
dispose of all of them and yet retain our cherished opinions upon this
matter. Only one such question need be stated, and it is this: Is it
likely that the Infinite Ruler of the universe, either at mid-day or at
mid-night, went out of his way to induce a Sun-God worshipper who would
not enter the Christian Church till a quarter of a century later and
ere then was to become a murderer of innocent persons like the
boy-Caesar Licinius, to adopt a symbol which he warranted would enable
Constantine to lead on the Gauls to victory?
Pursuing the narrative of Eusebius we find that he, alluding to the
symbol which he describes as a monogram but calls a cross, states that,
setting this "victorious trophy and salutary symbol" in front of his
soldiers, Constantine continued his march against Maxentius; and, with
his forces thus "divinely aided," overthrew the Emperor just outside
the Imperial City, entered Rome in triumph, and thanked God that He had
enabled him to defeat and slay its ruler and assume the purple in that
ruler's stead.[38]
Eusebius then tells us that Constantine, who did not dispose of all his
rivals and become sole emperor till some twelve years later, as victor
in the fight with Maxentius and master of Rome though not as yet of the
whole empire, at once
"By loud proclamation and monumental inscriptions made
known to all men the salutary symbol, setting up this
great trophy of victory over his enemies, and expressly
causing it to be engraven in indelible characters that
the salutary symbol was the safeguard of the Roman
Government and entire people. Accordingly he immediately
ordered a lofty spear in the figure of a cross to be
placed beneath the hand of a statue representing himself
in the most frequented part of Rome, and the following
inscription engraven on it in the Latin tongue:--'By
virtue of this salutary sign which is the true test of
valour, I have preserved and liberated your city from
the yoke of tyranny, and I have also set at liberty the
Roman Senate and People, and have restored to them their
ancient distinction and splendour.'"[39]
Now, as we have already seen, what Eusebius referred to as the "cross"
observed above the mid-day sun (and accompanied by a miraculous
inscription in, presumably, to agree with the monogram, the Greek
language; which was, well, "Greek" to the Gaulish soldiers) was the
so-called Monogram of Christ {image "monogram1.gif"} or {image
"monogram3.gif"} or {image "monogram2.gif"} or {image "monogram4.gif"}.
That, too, was what Eusebius tells us the Christ afterwards told the
Gaulish leader Constantine to model his military standard after. That,
therefore, was the "salutary symbol" and "trophy of victory" referred
to in the above passage from the same authority.
It is therefore clear that this "lofty spear in the figure of a cross"
which Eusebius tells us was placed under the hand of the statue of
Constantine in the central place of honour in Rome, was referred to by
Eusebius as a "cross" because it was shaped like or in some way
connected with some form or other of the so-called Monogram of Christ.
And such a conclusion is borne out by the fact that spears with
cross-bars had been in use among both Gauls and Romans for centuries,
whereas this one is referred to as something out of the common.
It should also be noted that it was as a victorious military standard,
and not as either a monogram of the Christ or a representation of the
_stauros_ upon which Jesus was executed, that Constantine caused this
{image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "asterisk.gif"}, or {image
"monogram1.gif"} or {image "monogram3.gif"}, or {image "monogram2.gif"}
or {image "monogram4.gif"} (all which variations occur upon the coins
of Constantine and his successors), to become a symbol of the Roman
Empire.
Further on in his history of the Emperor, Eusebius tells us that
whenever Constantine saw his troops hard pressed, he gave orders that
the "salutary trophy" should be moved in that direction, and that
victory always resulted.
The Bishop of Caesarea then goes on to relate that Constantine selected
fifty men of his bodyguard, the most distinguished for piety, valour,
and strength, whose sole duty it was to defend this famous standard;
and that, of the elect fifty, those who fled were always slain, and
those who stood their ground were always miraculously preserved.[40]
One would imagine from all this that there was only one labarum. Many
different kinds are, however, represented upon the coins of
Constantine; as also almost every variety of ordinary cross, except,
perhaps, such as might conceivably have been a representation of an
instrument of execution, like that which has since come into vogue
among us.
Eusebius also tells us that Constantine caused to be erected in front
of his palace a lofty tablet, on which was painted a representation of
himself with the "salutary sign" over his head and a dragon or serpent
under his feet.[41]
He also informs us that inside the palace and in the principal
apartment, on a vast tablet in the ceiling, Constantine caused "the
symbol of our Saviour's passion to be fixed, composed of a variety of
precious stones inwrought with gold."[42]
Which of all the "salutary" signs that appear upon the coins of
Constantine these particular crosses were, we do not know; but it is,
at any rate, obviously unlikely that a worshipper of Apollo who refused
to enter the Christian Church till he was dying, and on his coins
always attributed his victories to the Sun-God, elevated either as a
representation of an instrument of execution.
As to the alleged finding at Jerusalem, by Helena the mother of
Constantine, of three stakes with transverse bars attached, all of
which were ancient instruments of execution and one of which was shown
by the occurrence of a miracle to have been a cross to which Jesus was
affixed three centuries before, it is clear that this is a fairy tale.
The story cannot be traced further back than to St. Cyril of Jerusalem
about A.C. 350; and Eusebius, who gives an account of Helena's visit to
Jerusalem, does not mention any such occurrence as that in question; a
sure sign that it was an invention of later date.
The Christian Church, however, in a weak moment vouched for the truth
of this ridiculous story; and while what was suffered to remain in
Jerusalem of the true cross became the treasure of that city and a
trophy captured by its foes but afterwards secured from them and once
more placed in its holiest shrine, what was broken up into relics for
the faithful throughout Christendom multiplied into a thousand
fragments; one of which forms the centre of the Vatican Cross, and such
few others of which as survive would not if examined, 'tis said, even
prove to be all of the same kind of wood, or even limited to the two
kinds for the presence of which a supposed cross-bar of another kind of
timber might be held accountable.
The same Christian Bishop to whom this fairy tale can be traced, in a
letter to one of the Emperors that succeeded Constantine declared that
on the seventh of May A.C. 351 he and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
saw a brilliant cross in the heavens, stretching from Mount Golgotha to
the Mount of Olives, and _shining like the Sun for several hours_.[43]
And this marvellous vision is vouched for by St. Jerome, Socrates,
Matins, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, as well as by St. Cyril; and is
still kept in memory by the Greek Church, a solemn festival being held
upon anniversaries of the day in question. But which particular
"salutary sign" thus shone in the sky like the Sun for hours, is
uncertain.
These painfully obvious inventions cannot but incline broad-minded
Christians to the belief that our Church went to great lengths in order
to induce people to believe that the cross was essentially a
_Christian_ symbol; which tends to show that there was a danger of
their thinking otherwise.
It is also clear from the evidence already quoted concerning the
adoption by Christians in the fourth century of a symbol they denounced
in the third, that whether Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped
instrument or not, that was not the chief reason why the phallic symbol
of Life became recognised as the symbol of the Christ.
The striking fact that though, as will be shown, the cross of four
equal arms (a cross which, as we have seen, preceded the Latin cross as
a Christian symbol, and one form of which is still the favourite symbol
of the Greek Church; while even in the other two great divisions of
Christendom its numerous variations, wheel-like and otherwise, as a
whole dispute the supremacy with the Latin cross) occurs many times
upon the coins of Constantine, yet it was the so-called Monogram of
Christ or adapted solar wheel of the Gauls which the Christians of the
fourth century were most careful to claim as a Christian symbol, should
also be noted. For though the cross of four equal arms was also put by
Constantine upon his coins as a solar symbol, yet that, being then, as
for ages previously, a symbol of the Sun-God of world-wide acceptation,
and one which as we shall see had already appeared as such upon Roman
coins, it was not so much a Gaulish symbol as the other; and it was
evidently because that other was the symbol followed by the triumphant
leader of the Gauls and his victorious army, that the Christians wished
to specially identify it with the Christ.
In any case, whether the so-called Monogram of Christ was more or less
forced upon Christianity when Constantine made our faith the State
Religion of his empire, or whether it was adopted by Christians of
their own volition, it was a politic move (than which few possible
moves could have done more to secure the triumph of our faith) to
accept as the symbol of the Christian Church what was at one and the
same time the symbol of Constantine, of the Roman State, and of the
universally adored Sun-God.
That the more generally accepted symbol of the Sun-God, the cross of
four equal arms, should in time supplant the more local one, was of
course only to be expected; as was the adoption of a cross with one arm
longer than the others, as being the only kind which could possibly be
connected with the story of Jesus as the Christ incarnate.
As to the possible objection that what has been dealt with in this
chapter has been rather the origin of the Christian custom of
manufacturing and venerating material representations of the sign or
figure of the cross than the origin of the Christian cross itself, the
answer is obvious. And the answer is that the first cross which can
_justly_ be called "Christian," was the one which was the first to be
considered, to use Dean Farrar's expressions, "mainly," if not "only,"
a representation of an instrument of execution; which cross was
undoubtedly not a transient sign or gesture but a material
representation of the cross with one arm longer than the others and was
introduced after such representations of the cross of four equal arms
and of the so-called Monogram of Christ had come into vogue among
Christians as a consequence of the influence of Constantine.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH.
Having already shown not a little cause for believing that the adoption
of the cross as our symbol is due to the fact that we Christians helped
to secure the triumph of the ambitious ruler of the Gauls, and after
receiving numberless smaller favours from Constantine during the years
he was ruler of Rome but not as yet sole emperor eventually obtained
from him the establishment of Christianity as the State Religion of the
Roman Empire, adapting the victorious trophy of the Gauls and the
various crosses venerated by them and other Sun-God worshippers to our
faith as best we could, it is desirable that we should pause to trace
the career of the man we hail as the first Christian Emperor.
To do this properly we must commence by referring to Constantine's
father, Constantius Chlorus; and to the favour shown to Constantius
Chlorus by his patron the Emperor Diocletian.
Finding the supreme rule of the almost worldwide Roman Empire too much
for one man in ill-health to undertake successfully, Diocletian in the
year A.C. 286 made Maximian co-emperor. And in A.C. 292 Diocletian
followed this up by conferring the inferior position and title of
Caesar upon Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.
In A.C. 305 Diocletian relinquished power altogether, forcing Maximian
to abdicate with him; Galerius and Constantius Chlorus thus obtaining
the coveted title of Augustus, and sharing the supreme power.
Galerius now ranked first, however; for it was to the ruler of
Illyricum and not to that of Gaul that Diocletian gave the power of
appointing Caesars to govern Italy and the East.
Constantius Chlorus died in Britain A.C. 306, the year after Diocletian
abdicated; and Galerius, who had married a daughter of Diocletian,
naturally thought that under the circumstances he ought to become sole
emperor.
The legions of Gaul, however, proclaimed the son of Constantius Chlorus
as Augustus in his stead; and as Constantine thus became ruler of Gaul
and a power to be reckoned with, Galerius thought it best to give way
so far as to grant Constantine the inferior title of Caesar.
Soon afterwards Galerius conferred the title of Augustus upon Severus;
and a little while after that the Eternal City was lost to Galerius
through the revolt of his son-in-law Maxentius, the son of Maximian.
The Senate of Rome then asked Maximian to re-assume the purple, and he
and Maxentius shared the power between them, both taking the title of
Augustus.
Upon this Severus at the request of Galerius marched upon Rome. He was,
however, defeated and slain.
After being more or less expelled by his son Maxentius, Maximian in the
year A.C. 308 marched to Gaul and married his daughter Fausta to
Constantine; at the same time conferring upon him the title of
Augustus. About this time Galerius made his friend Licinius an Augustus
in the place of Severus; whereupon Maximin, the Governor of Syria and
Egypt, demanded and was granted that title also.
There were thus in the year A.C. 308 some half-a-dozen Roman Emperors
instead of one; there being Constantine and Maximian in the west,
Maxentius at Rome, and Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin elsewhere; not
to mention Diocletian, who was content to remain in retirement.
This decided break-up of the Roman Empire was Constantine's
opportunity; and he was favourably placed, for he had a warlike and
faithful people under him.
Moreover by reversing so far as lay in his power as ruler of Gaul the
traditional policy of Rome towards Christianity, and setting himself
forward as a champion of a non-national religion which had been
persecuted because it was non-national, Constantine was secure of the
enthusiastic backing of all the Christians to be found in the dominions
of his various rivals.
In A.C. 310 Constantine either executed his father-in-law the Emperor
Maximian, or caused him to commit suicide; and the first of his five
rivals was disposed of.
In A.C. 311 the Emperor Galerius died from disease, and Constantine's
most formidable competitor, and one who undoubtedly had a better claim
than himself to the position of sole emperor, thus opportunely made way
for the ruler of Gaul.
In A.C. 312 Constantine marched at the head of the Gauls against the
Emperor Maxentius, defeated him near the Milvian Bridge outside Rome,
and entered the Eternal City in triumph. Maxentius is said to have been
drowned in the Tiber; and the Senate decreed that Constantine should
rank as the first of the three remaining Augusti.
In A.C. 313 the Emperor Maximin fought the Emperor Licinius; but his
forces were defeated, and he soon afterwards died.
Some ten years or so later Constantine went to war with his only
remaining rival, Licinius, defeated him, and became sole emperor, A.C.
324.
That despite his great qualities as a ruler the character of
Constantine was not perfect, can be easily seen from the fact that, not
content with executing the Emperor Licinius after accepting his
submission, he murdered the young Licinius; a boy certainly not over
twelve years of age, and according to some authorities two or three
years younger than that. He also put his own son Crispus to death, and
other relations as well.
We are told that Constantine was so tortured by the memory of these and
other crimes that he applied to the priests of the Gods of Rome for
absolution, but that they bravely said that there was no absolution for
such sins, whereupon this worshipper of the Sun-God turned to his
friends the Christians and they gave him what he desired.[44]
This statement seems somewhat improbable, however, as one would imagine
that the Pagan priests, when called upon by one who was Pontifex
Maximus and therefore their spiritual superior as well as the supreme
emperor, would not have scrupled to invent some purifying rite--if they
had none such--warranted to blot out the stain of every crime and
thoroughly appease offended heaven.
However this may have been, these terrible crimes of Constantine, all
committed many years after his alleged conversion to our faith, show
how badly advised we are to so needlessly go out of our way to claim as
a Christian one who refused to enter the Christian Church till he was
dying and possibly no longer master of himself.
It is said that this refusal of his to be baptised till he was weak and
dying and surrounded by Church officials who would perhaps have spread
the report that he had been baptised even if they had not then at last
been able to induce him to take the decisive step, was due, not to want
of belief, but to excess of belief; Constantine's idea being that the
longer he put off the rite in question, the more crimes would it wash
out. Or, in other words, that delay would enable him to sin with
impunity a little longer.
This may possibly have been the case, but it should at the same time be
borne in mind that whether Constantine called him Apollo or Christ, it
seems probable that it was the Sun-God to whom he referred. For
everything tends to show that this astute emperor, who so naturally
wished to establish and mould a religion which all his subjects of
whatever race or nationality might be reasonably expected to become in
time willing to accept, acted during his reign as supreme ruler of the
Roman World, if not from first to last, as if the Christ were but
another conception of the Sun-God he was brought up to worship as
Apollo and all countries venerated under some name or other.
This point is not only demonstrated by the fact that upon his coins
Constantine repeatedly declared that the Sun-God was his invincible
guide and protector and the giver even of the victory foreshadowed by
the alleged vision of the cross or Monogram of Christ above the
meridian sun, but is also clearly shown by certain incidents connected
with the founding towards the end of his life of the new metropolis
which in less than a century equalled Rome in all save antiquity.
New Rome, or, as we now call it, Constantinople, the city of
Constantine, was built on the site of, and often called by the name of,
Byzantium. It was not designed till A.C. 324, and was not dedicated
till A.C. 330, or, as some think, an even later date: Constantine dying
in the year A.C. 337.
We are told that Constantinople was dedicated to the Virgin Mother of
God.[45] This should remind us of the fact that long before our era,
and right down to the time when Constantine selected Byzantium as the
site of a new capital, that place was considered dedicated to the
Virgin Queen of Heaven.
Now in the central place of honour in his new metropolis, one would
naturally expect Constantine to erect something or other to the honour
of the God to whom he attributed his victories.
Whose, then, was the statue Constantine towards the end of his life,
and about twenty years after his alleged conversion to our faith,
erected in the centre of the Forum of New Rome?
It was a statue of the Sun-God Apollo; or, as some explain it, a statue
of himself adorned with the attributes of the Sun-God.
In fact, taking the career of Constantine as a whole, there is nothing
inconsistent with the supposition that he was a Christian only in so
far as, out of policy or conviction, he acted as if he considered the
Christ to be one of many conceptions of the Sun-God. For although, as
has been mentioned and will be shown in a later chapter, Constantine,
upon the many varieties of coins he issued, repeatedly acclaimed the
Sun-God as his companion and the author of his triumphs, he never once,
except in so far as he may have considered the God we Christians
worship to be the Sun-God, so attributed his victories to the Christ.
CHAPTER VIII.
CROSS AND CRESCENT.
Before passing in review the evidence regarding the symbol of the cross
derivable from Roman coins and other relics of antiquity, a few
introductory remarks are necessary regarding the too often forgotten
fact that the ancients naturally looked upon the Giver of Life as
bi-sexual; no life being known to them which was not a result of the
conjunction of the Male and Female Principles.
The necessarily bi-sexual character of the creator of both the Male and
Female Principles, was, it should be remembered, borne in mind by the
thinkers of old all the while they accommodatingly spoke of the Sun-God
or Giver of Life as being a personification of the Male Principle and
gave him a Bride or Virgin Mother to represent the Female Principle.
Moreover, just as the disc of the Sun, or the star-like form which the
ancients often used to signify the radiate or impregnating Sun,
naturally came to be recognised as the symbol of the Male Principle, so
the Crescent, as signifying the increasing Moon and the lesser of the
two great lights of heaven, in like manner came to be adopted as the
natural symbol of the Female Principle.
In this connection it will not be amiss to draw attention to the symbol
of the conquerors of the city founded by Constantine. For though
misleadingly called "the Crescent," that symbol is, as the reader
cannot very well fail to be aware, not a mere crescent; but one which
has within its horns what we consider to be a star-like form and
therefore call a star. And though it is possible that it was not
knowingly adopted as such by the Moslems, this dual symbol was a
combination of the ancient symbols of the Male and Female Principles.
An erroneous account of the origin of this symbol as a Moslem symbol is
given in all our works of reference which deal with the matter, as if
their compilers copied one from another without troubling to consider
the evidence for themselves.
The incorrect but widely accepted explanation in question, is to the
effect that the so-called _star_ and crescent had its origin as a
Moslem symbol in the capture of Byzantium or Constantinople by the
Turks in A.C. 1453; our works of reference stating that it was then
adopted by Mahomet II., as the symbol of the famous city he had taken
from the Christians.
But was the "star and crescent" the symbol of the City of Constantine?
It would appear not.
Ancient Byzantium was, as stated in a previous chapter, considered,
long before our era and right up to the days of Constantine, as
dedicated to the Virgin Queen of Heaven; whose symbol was a crescent.
And when Constantine rebuilt and renamed Byzantium, he dedicated New
Rome--or, as we now call it, Constantinople--to the Virgin Mother of
God and Queen of Heaven; whose symbol, as can be seen upon reference to
both ancient and modern representations of the Virgin Mary, is also a
crescent. It would therefore appear that the symbol of the city is more
likely to have been a simple crescent than the so-called _star_ and
crescent. Such a conclusion is entirely borne out by the evidence. For
though the so-called star and crescent can be seen upon three or four
coins struck at Byzantium before such a place as New Rome was thought
of, this proves little if anything; inasmuch as the symbol in question
was a very common one in days of old, and occurs frequently upon coins
struck elsewhere.
Moreover the question is what the symbol of Constantinople was at the
time it was captured by the Turks. And an inspection of the coins
issued by the Christian rulers of that city during the thousand years
and more it was in their hands, will reveal to the enquirer that though
the crescent with a _cross_ within its horns appears occasionally upon
the coins of the Emperors of the East, and in one or two instances we
see a cross of four equal arms with each extremity piercing a crescent,
it is doubtful if a single example of the so-called "_star_ and
crescent" symbol can be found upon them.
We learn from other sources also that the symbol of the imperial
Christian Metropolis captured by the Turks nearly five hundred years
ago and ever since retained by them, was a simple crescent. And there
is no doubt whatever that the dual symbol of the Moslems was adopted by
them, not when they brought about the downfall of Constantinople as a
Christian city, but centuries before, as a result of the conquest of
Persia.
It was in the year A.C. 641 that the battle of Nehavend, ever after
called by the Moslems the _Victory of Victories_, laid at the feet of
the followers of the Prophet the kingdom of Iran or Persia, and brought
to an end the Sassanian Monarchy.
Now the coins of the Sassanian kings then and for the previous two
centuries bore upon them, with scarcely an exception, the so-called
"_star_ and crescent"; and it was as the symbol of this Zoroastrian
dynasty and of the fair land of Iran, that the Moslems adopted it as
their own. What the star-like object (star-like, that is, in _our_
opinion) represented upon the coins of Iran or Persia when placed
within the horns of a crescent, was, of course, the Sun. The
supposition of certain writers that the dual symbol represented the two
crescent-presenting orbs, Venus and the Moon, is entirely mistaken. For
though the conjunction of the two crescent-shaped and feminine lights
of heaven, was of old, like the combination of the symbol of the
Sun--as representing the Male Principle--with that ever feminine symbol
the Crescent, held to signify Increase and Life, we are dealing with
what was admittedly a Mithraic symbol. And not only was the star-like
object in question the symbol of the Sun-God Mithras, but it was, as
any student of the coins of the Sassanian dynasty can see, substituted
for the disc.
Upon the Sassanian coins the so-called star, in reality a
representation neither of a star nor of a planet but of the radiate
Sun, seems to have been first substituted for the round disc as a
representation of the Sun, by Perozes, about A.C. 457; the disc in the
horns of a crescent being the symbol on the coins of his father
Isdigerd II. and other predecessors. But the dual symbol miscalled the
"star and crescent" was one even then of great antiquity, as will be
shown in a later chapter dealing with Phoenician relics discovered in
Cyprus and elsewhere.
The primary signification of the dual symbol in question, often
accompanied on the Sassanian coins by a prayer that the monarch might
"increase," or flourish generally, was undoubtedly _Life_. And it is
clear that the conjunction of the Crescent as the symbol of the Female
Principle of Life with the star-like figure which represented the
radiate, life-giving, or impregnating Sun, must have not only signified
Life, but also the necessarily bi-sexual Giver of Life.
We are thus brought to the conclusion that the Cross and the so-called
Crescent are more or less allied in signification.
Nor is this noteworthy fact to be wondered at. For only words and forms
divide the faiths of Mankind, and at heart the one object of our
desires is Life. Even those who piously lay down their lives for others
here, do so in the hope of being rewarded with longer life and more
blissful life hereafter.
Another point which is too often overlooked, is that if the followers
of the so-called Crescent have, as would appear to be the case,
forgotten the meaning of their symbol and the fact that it alludes to
the bi-sexual nature of the Creator, we followers of the Cross may all
unconsciously be in a very similar position regarding our symbol. And
as the Cross as the recognised symbol of the Christ is not of older
date than the conquest of Rome by the Gauls, and more or less resulted
therefrom, it is clear that the same remark applies if we consider the
Moslems to have adopted their symbol as that of the land they conquered
from the Sassanian kings, rather than as one with the primal and
natural interpretation of which they were content.
Anyway the cross as well as the "star and crescent" is more or less a
bi-sexual symbol, as will be clear to those who understand how the
cross came to be recognised ages before our era as the natural symbol
of Life. And a good illustration of the fact in question still exists
in the Caroccio crucifix of Milan; in which relic we see, under the
usual inscription, an androgynous Christ upon a cross, with a man's
head but half the body of female form, and with, instead of a cloth or
fig-leaf, the phallic _crux ansata_, or Egyptian cross or symbol of
Life, placed sideways, and as if the oval represented the female organ
of reproduction, and the _tau_ or incomplete cross that of the other
sex.
Like the Red Cross of to-day, the Carocco bi-sexual crucifix, once so
common in Italy, was a symbol of Life and Salvation in two senses; it
not only being considered so in itself, but being also used on the
battlefield as a rallying point for wounded soldiers, signalling to
them that bandages, drugs, and surgical aid, could be obtained where it
towered aloft.
These references to the fact that in days of old many very naturally
came to the conclusion that the Creator and Giver of Life and only
Saviour must be bi-sexual, should remind us Christians that our
assertion that the Infinite Spirit is "Our Father" is not from all
points of view an improvement upon the ideas of the ancients. For they
also, and rightly, conceived what we wrongly ignore, _viz._, that the
Infinite Author of all existence must also be "Our Mother."
In this respect Protestants have if possible gone even further astray
than members of the Greek and Roman Churches. For in the veneration
paid by the latter to Mary of Nazareth as the Bride of God, the Mother
of God, the Star of the Sea, and the Queen of Heaven, can be seen a
survival, however toned down or distorted, of the old idea that the
Deity must necessarily be of both sexes.
Even the plainly evident fact that, while in pre-Christian days the
symbol of the cross represented the two sexual powers in conjunction,
it has in Christian times come to be considered the symbol of Life as
being the symbol of the SON of God, should, moreover, lead us to note
that our religion scarcely does justice to the part played in the
economy of Nature by the fair sex. This is doubtless due to the fact
that the moulding of our creed and the interpretation of things hard to
be understood has for the most part been in the hands of the sex which,
as the author belongs to it, may by way of contrast be called unfair.
What, for instance, can be more unfair than the assumption that God, if
incarnated as one of the genus Homo, must have been born a male? Yet
that assumption is at the very basis of modern Christianity.
Moreover, even granting that the Deity was specially incarnated in
Jesus the Nazarene and therefore as a male, why should we, as if
supposing that a passing form could stamp its sex upon an Infinite
Spirit, speak of "God the Son" yet never of "God the Daughter?"
The fact is that the natural disabilities and disadvantages of the
childbearing sex have from the first resulted in the power of the male
sex to rule the roast, and one result of the predominance thus ensured
to the male sex by the laws of Nature has of course been a similar
predominance for the opinion that the Creator is of the male sex.
Some enthusiastic champion of her sex, alluding to the fact that the
opposing sex now has a monopoly of the priesthood, may even go so far
as to ask with a special meaning, Has not Man from the beginning made
God in his own image?
The male sex did not always have a monopoly of the priesthood, however;
and in few if any instances did the priests of old go so far as to
teach that the Creator, whom out of compliment to the Deity--or
themselves--they naturally spoke of as belonging to the stronger sex,
was a male and _only_ a male. Nor did they even assume such a thing.
Though the different gods and goddesses were spoken of as belonging to
this or that sex, more than one were regarded as in reality
androgynous; and the fact that the Creator and Giver of Life must of
necessity be so was very generally recognised.
As a matter of fact it is by no means certain that the Creator is not
represented as being androgynous even in our Bible. For in the account
of the Creation which the Jews brought with them from Babylon, the
Creator is represented as saying "Let _us_ make man in _our_ image";
and a race which like the Jews solemnly declared that there was but one
God, could only, it would seem, have accepted such a declaration as a
divine revelation if they conceived the God supposed to be speaking to
be androgynous, and addressing the other part of himself. This would
account for the emphasis laid upon the statement that man was created
"male _and_ female," like, or in the image of, the Creator.
In any case it is clear that if God be not female as well as male, Man
was _not_ created in the likeness of God.
The theory of the ancients that Man himself was created an androgynous
being, capable, like the Creator, of creating life in himself, but was
afterwards divided into halves, one of which is ever seeking to find
the other, need only be mentioned.
Suffice it to add that it can scarcely be said to have been altogether
progress in the right direction, which has led us mortals to call the
Author of all Life "Our Father," to the utter obscuration of the
equally important fact that the Deity in whom we live and move and have
our being must also be "Our Mother."
CHAPTER IX.
THE CORONATION ORB.
The fact that though we Christians fail to do the matter justice, the
ancients upon the contrary recognised that the Creator and the Giver of
Life cannot be rightly spoken of as belonging to one sex and one alone,
is not the only fact which those who examine relics of antiquity, such
as the coins of the Roman Empire, with a view to ascertaining what
evidence is derivable from them that bears upon the history of the
symbol of the cross, should ever bear in mind. Another point to be kept
in view is the evolution of the Christian symbol now known as the
Coronation Orb.
This compound symbol, which plays so prominent a part in the regalia of
a Christian Monarch, also crowns the topmost height of many a Christian
Temple including both St. Peter's at Rome and St. Paul's at London. And
it is noteworthy that it bears a certain resemblance to the
representation of the Apex, once worn by the Salian priests and
afterwards by the Pontifex Maximus and the Flamens generally, which
appears upon ancient coins of the _Fabia_ gens; the office of _Flamen
Quirinalis_ having been hereditary in the Fabia family.
Upon other coins also, what is said to be meant for the pontifical apex
occurs as a round ball surmounted by something very like a cross, in
the hand of a female figure representing Rome; exactly as the so-called
Coronation Orb is to be seen upon coins of later date in the hand of
this or that Christian Emperor.
The evidence as a whole, however, favours the supposition that the
Coronation Orb, instead of having been derived from the Apex of the
Pagan priests and thus signifying the claim to priesthood or headship
of the church so often made by monarchs, is a development of the round
object, frequently unsurmounted by anything, so continually to be met
with upon ancient coins of Rome in the hand of this or that God,
Goddess, or Ruler.
This being the case, it is a matter of very considerable importance
that we should be quite sure what the round object in question used to
signify, and should base our assurance upon the results of personal
investigation rather than upon the assumption that the popular
explanation is necessarily the correct one.
Though the round object in question was, as stated, in days of old
often used as a symbol by itself, it was sometimes, and, as time rolled
on, more and more frequently, surmounted by a small female figure with
wings; which figure was a representation of Victory. This figure was,
after the establishment of Christianity as the State Religion of the
Roman Empire, gradually, and only gradually, supplanted by the figure
of the cross.
Although several writers of note assume that the initiative in this
direction was taken by Constantine himself, the first step seems to
have been taken upon the death of Constantine, when a coin or medal was
issued on which the deceased monarch is called a God and is represented
as holding a round object surmounted by the so-called Monogram of
Christ; a symbol continually referred to by Eusebius and other writers
of the fourth century as a cross.
Later on an instance occurs of the Monogram surmounting a round object
held by a female figure representing Rome. This is upon a coin issued
by Nepotianus, a nephew of Constantine.
Passing on to the reign of Valentinianus II., we find that that Emperor
issued a coin upon which a round object surmounted by a cross is to be
seen in the hand of Victory herself. This would appear to have been the
first instance in which what we should call a cross, supplanted the
representation of Victory as a small female figure with wings, as a
symbol surmounting the round object which we are considering.
A similar coin was issued by Theodosius I., surnamed the Great; the
last of the Emperors of Rome whose rule extended throughout the whole
of the Roman world.
The instances named are, it will be understood, the exceptions to the
general rule during a considerable period. And upon many of the coins
of the Emperors mentioned, as well as upon those of the intervening
Emperors, the round object held by those rulers is surmounted by either
a Victory or a Phoenix; usually by the former, but in several instances
by the latter.
The first ruler who caused _himself_ to be represented as holding a
round object surmounted by an ordinary cross, was Theodosius II.,
Emperor of the East.
The fact that for a long time the Victory, the Phoenix, and the Cross,
were made use of as symbols which might be substituted one for another,
is worthy of special note. For the facts that the round object held by
Theodosius II. is as often surmounted by a Victory as by a Cross, and
that a Victory instead of a Cross was often used by succeeding
Christian Emperors, tend to show that the Victory, the Phoenix, and the
Cross were allied in signification, and equally connected with the
round object the nature and meaning of which we are about to enquire
into.
The reader may possibly object that no case has been made out for such
enquiry, inasmuch as not only did the cross in course of time entirely
supplant the Victory, but the round object from first to last, and
whether unsurmounted by anything or surmounted by a Victory or a
Phoenix or a Cross, signified the world upon which we dwell, the round
world, and nothing but the world.
Such is, of course, the popular assumption; based upon what we are
taught in school books and in standard works of reference. But, as a
matter of fact, in many cases the round object admittedly signified an
apple; the Golden Apple of the Hesperides: a well known phallic symbol.
Whenever a round object unsurmounted by anything is to be seen in the
hand of either the Sun-God Hercules or Venus the Goddess of Love, it
admittedly may have been, for it admittedly often was, a
representation, not of the world, but of the Golden Apple. And not only
does it so occur upon a very large number of coins, but in some
instances we see the Victory surmounting it; recalling to our minds the
fact that victory, as signifying the triumph of Life over Death, had a
phallic as well as a martial meaning, and is achieved every time that a
man is born into the world as a result of the tasting of the fruit of
the Tree of Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.
Moreover, though the fact is now for some reason or other ignored, the
so-called Coronation Orb of Christian Monarchs was itself once known as
the Golden Apple. It is so referred to in important Latin documents of
the Middle Ages; for instance in the famous Bull of Charles IV.
regarding the Imperial elections, wherein we read of the right of the
Counts Palatine of the Rhine to carry the symbol in question at the
coronation of their Emperor. And to this very day the so-called
Coronation Orb is known throughout Germany and Austria as
_Reichsapfel_, the Imperial Apple.
It is therefore by no means certain that the round portion of the
Coronation Orb which thus caused the name of "the Golden Apple" to be
given to this compound Christian symbol, is not, like the cross above
it, to some extent a phallic symbol.
Every one should know the classic story of the Golden Apple; how the
tree which bore the Golden Apples grew up in the Garden of the
Hesperides in honour of the wedding of Hera, a goddess who more or less
personified the female sex; how the Golden Apples are variously said to
have been dedicated to the Sun (Hellos), to the Sun-God (Dionysos), and
to the Goddess of Love (Aphrodite); how the Sun-God Hercules as one of
the twelve labours which represented the months, slew the Serpent which
guarded the tree, and plucked the fruit; and how the Goddess Eris, who
alone of all the deities was not invited to the nuptials of Peleus and
Thetis, revenged herself by throwing among the guests a Golden Apple
inscribed "To the fairest," and Paris awarded it to the Goddess of
Love, Aphrodite or Venus.
The story of the Garden of the Hesperides is at heart one with that of
the Garden of Eden; for it is obvious that the same phallic meaning
underlies each, and that they are but different versions of the same
allegory.
It may here be called to mind that it has this century been discovered
from the cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, that Eden was the name
given by Babylonians in days of old to the plain outside Babylon,
whereupon, according to the legends of that city, the creation of
living beings took place. Also that much evidence has accrued which,
impartially weighed in the balance, leads clearly to the conclusion
that the all-important commencement of Genesis, which forms as it were
the very basis of both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, was
borrowed by the Jews from Babylon. And that it was in reality a
_Babylonian_ tradition or series of traditions of far older date than
any writing of purely Jewish origin, has not only been amply proved by
recent discoveries, but might indeed have been guessed from its
reference to the Tower of Babel or Babylon.
Nor is this all, for among the age-old relics discovered in Western
Asia is a pictorial representation of the allegorical Temptation and
Fall.
Upon this noteworthy piece of evidence the Tree of Knowledge or Life,
with which the figure of the cross was identified by the early
Christians; the Serpent, which in all countries and every age has been
more or less identified with the sexual powers; the Man; the Woman; and
the Apple; are all represented. And it is important to note that,
according to the cuneiform inscription upon another time-worn relic in
the British Museum, the Babylonians of old, at a time when the
descendants of Jacob or Israel were without scriptures of their own,
had a tradition to the effect that the fate of our first parents--who,
thanks to a wicked Serpent of Darkness, tasted of the forbidden fruit
which grew in the "Garden of the Gods"--was placed in the hands of
"their Redeemer."
It should also be pointed out that this voice from the dim and distant
past distinctly states that the Redeemer in question was--the Sun-God.
In ancient days the so-called forbidden fruit or apple seems to have
borne somewhat the same symbolic meaning that the egg did. But while
the apple not only represented Life, but also, and primarily, that
union between two sexes or principles which produces life, the egg more
or less lacked the latter meaning, and, on the other hand, signified
Existence in a wider sense than the apple did.
The _Cosmos_ itself was an egg according to the conceptions of many of
the ancients; and few ideas were more widely spread, or can be traced
further back, than the one that the whole visible creation emerged from
the original Chaos or Darkness in the shape of an egg.
The egg also, and above all, signified the Sun-God, as the acknowledged
Giver of Life and Saviour of Life. Hence the prominent part which it
played in the various religious mysteries of the ancients, and also the
fact that the Egyptians represented the Sun-God Ra as giving forth such
utterances as "I am the Creative Soul of the celestial abyss. None sees
my nest, and none can break my egg." The egg referred to, was of course
the Sun itself.
Even our Christian custom of exchanging eggs at Easter is more or less
derived from Sun-God worship, being a survival from customs practised
long before our era at that particular period of the year, the time of
the Vernal Equinox or Pass-over of the Sun, when the Orient Light
crosses the Equator to rise once more in the Northern Hemisphere.
Nor are these the only facts connecting the egg with Sun-God worship,
for the Sun-God Apollo was of old represented as born from the egg of
Leda, and the Sun-God Osiris was also said to have been born from an
egg.
Moreover the Chinese believe that the first man was born from an egg,
the Orphic hymns speak of the "First-Begotten One" as "egg-born," and
the Greeks fabled that their Sun-God Dionysos sprang from the cosmic
egg.
As to the origin of the Coronation Orb, it is noteworthy that no finer
or more natural symbol of Power could have been fixed upon than a
representation of that ball of fire which was so frequently spoken of
in bygone ages as "the Orb," and from which all earthly life and power
may be said to proceed.
However the available evidence certainly seems to show that the round
object we are considering is more likely to have signified the cosmic
egg than the solar orb.
In any case the object in question cannot be shown to have represented
the world upon which we dwell and that alone; and nothing is more
likely than that so famous a symbol should, like the cross which now
adorns it, have more or less signified Life.
It should also be pointed out that this symbol of Power may have
signified, not so much that the Ruler who used it laid claim to
world-wide dominion, as that he held in his hand power over the lives
of others; and, possibly, also that he claimed to be, as the vicegerent
of the Sun-God and Giver of Life, the only legitimate Saviour of his
country.
The facts that the symbol was used in clays of old by others than the
Emperors whose sway extended over the whole of the Roman Empire, and is
nowadays considered the rightful symbol of every Christian Monarch
however limited the area over which his power is felt, should also be
borne in mind; though not of much value as evidence, as even petty
rulers have been known to boast that they held the world in their
grasp.
It should however be remembered that though the ancients, struck by the
dome-like appearance of the sky and the circular movements of the
constellations, conceived the cosmos or universe to be spherical, and
in some instances even constructed celestial globes upon which to
record the movements of Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars, it is doubtful
if a single one of them considered the world upon which we dwell to be
spherical. Also, that many a Christian Monarch has used the Coronation
Orb as a symbol of power, and yet believed the earth to be otherwise
than a globe in shape.
In this connection it should be pointed out that the round object which
the ancients represented Atlas as supporting upon his shoulders,
usually in the presence of Jupiter, was not as is vulgarly supposed the
earth, but the heavens; Hesiod telling us that Atlas bore heaven with
his head and hands, Ovid that upon Atlas rested heaven and all the
stars, and other writers of bygone ages that Atlas was a king who first
taught men that heaven had the shape of a globe.
It is of course possible that the ancients may have conceived the earth
to be otherwise than spherical, and yet, because the horizon which
appears to limit its extent seems to be circular, or for some other
reason, have considered a round object to be a representation of it.
Even where, however, the ball-like symbol we are considering may have
represented something other than the Golden Apple, the probability is
that it seldom if ever represented the earth.
For as, though the ancients may have conceived and spoken of the world
we live upon as being "round" in the same sense as a circular coin is
round, they did not think of it as being a globe, it is obvious that
the ball-like symbol in question is much less likely to have signified
the--in their belief--non-globular earth, than it is to have been a
representation of something which they did consider to be globular.
Such is the nature of the evidence which tends to show that we
Christians may be mistaken in supposing that our famous symbol the
Coronation Orb represents the round world upon which we dwell,
surmounted by the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died.
Although, however, most points have now been touched upon, including
the important fact that the so-called Coronation Orb of Christian
Monarchs used to be called, even by Christians, the Golden Apple, the
idea that it may have been the _crux ansata_, or Egyptian symbol of
Life (an upright oval, perhaps signifying the female principle, set
upon the top of the _tau_, or {image "t.gif"} cross, and thus turning
into a complete cross what is really an incomplete one, and may be
supposed to have signified the male principle), _reversed_ (_e.g.,
Archaeological Journal_ xlii. 164), should at least be mentioned. It
ought, however to be pointed out that the Orb is even more like the
ancient symbol of the planet sacred to Venus, the Goddess of Love,
reversed.
Even this point does not exhaust the subject in hand; for the fact that
in days of old we used to represent the Christ as the Pagans
represented the Sun-God, _viz._, as standing by the Tree of Life and
holding a round object meant for the phallic apple, has not yet been
dealt with in any way.
It is however desirable that before discussing the matter further we
should ascertain the nature of the evidence, regarding this and kindred
subjects, derivable from the coins of the Roman Empire.
CHAPTER X.
ROMAN COINS BEFORE CONSTANTINE.
Bearing in mind the matters mentioned in the two last chapters, let us
now pass in review the coins struck by the Romans, and make a note of
such features as may, directly or indirectly, bear upon the history of
the cross.
The first cross we meet with on the coins in question, is upon one of
Julius Caesar; who was appointed _Flamen Dialis_ B.C. 87, _Pontiff_
B.C. 74, Military Tribune B.C. 73, Quaestor B.C. 68, _Pontifex Maximus_
B.C. 63, and Dictator B.C. 49.
The cross in question consists of the name _C. Cossutius Maridianus_
arranged as a cross of four equal arms. And it should be noted that it
is admitted, even by such well-known authorities as Mr. C. W. King,
M.A., that the name was so arranged out of compliment to the official
in question _because his name had reference to the meridian sun_.[46]
Upon a coin struck by Caesar's heir, the almost equally famous Augustus
(Consul B.C. 43, Emperor B.C. 29--A.C. 14), about twenty years before
our era, we see a head of the Sun-God Bacchus upon one side; and on the
reverse a man presenting a military standard, the banner of which is
ornamented with a St. Andrew's cross.
Two other coins of the same reign and about the same date, have upon
them representations of military standards bearing the same symbol.
Upon another coin struck by Augustus we see a crescent with a star or
radiate sun within its horns, the ancient phallic symbol adopted by the
followers of the prophet Muhammad centuries later.
A similar symbol occurs upon the coins of Hadrian (A.C. 117-138).
Upon two coins of Antoninus Pius (A.C. 138-161) we see the Sun-God
Hercules plucking the Golden Apple from a tree around which the
traditional serpent is coiled.
On another coin of the same reign the Sun-God Hercules can be seen
holding a round object which admittedly represents the Golden Apple;
that symbol both of the Sun-God as (1) the bi-sexual Giver of Life and
(2) the personification of the Male Principle, and of the Goddess who
represented (1) the Love of the two sexes and (2) the Female Principle.
Upon another coin Jove holds a similar looking object.
Many coins issued in the name of Annia Galeria Faustina the wife of
Antoninus Pius, and by Marcus Aurelius (A.C. 161-180), and in the name
of his wife Annia Faustina, have upon them representations of Venus the
Goddess of Love holding a round object which is admittedly meant for
the Golden Apple. The favourite legends are _Venus Victrix_, _Venus
Felix_, and _Venus Genetrix_, and of phallic import; and in one
instance the Goddess of Love holds an infant wrapped in swaddling
clothes as well as the phallic apple.
Other coins of Marcus Aurelius or his wife have upon them
representations of Eternity as a female figure holding a round object.
In some cases the round object is surmounted by a Phoenix.
Upon a coin struck by Lucius Aurelius Verus (A.C. 160-169) that ruler
is to be seen holding a round object surmounted by a Victory.
On the coins of Commodus (A.C. 180-192) sometimes Jove and sometimes
the Emperor holds a small round object. A Victory in some cases
surmounts it.
Venus holding the Golden Apple--that is, a round object which in such
instances is admitted to have represented the Golden Apple--is to be
seen upon many coins issued in the name of Lucilla, the sister of
Commodus.
Upon coins issued by Caius Pescennius Niger a small round object
surmounted by a Victory is to be seen in the hand of Jove. On a coin
struck by Septimus Severus (A.C. 193-211) we see Rome represented as a
female figure with a shield at her side marked with a cross.
Upon another coin we see the Goddess of Love holding a round object
admittedly meant for the Golden Apple, while a child is stationed at
her feet. The legend is _Venus Genetrix_. Among the coins issued in the
name of Julia Domna, the wife of the last named Emperor, are nearly a
dozen varieties upon which Venus is represented as holding a round
object. A crescent occurs upon the reverse in some instances.
Upon several coins of Caracalla (A.C. 211-217) we see that Emperor
holding a small round object surmounted by a Victory; upon others he is
to be seen holding a Victory only.
Various coins issued in the name of Fulvia Plantilla the wife of
Caracalla, show us the Goddess of Love holding a round object. The
legends are _Venus Felix_ and _Venus Victrix_.
In the reign of Elagabalus or Heliogabalus (A.C. 218-222) a coin was
struck on which we see the Goddess Astarte, Ashtoreth, Ishtar, or
Venus, holding a cross.
Venus holding a round object is to be seen upon many coins issued in
the names of Soaemias the mother of Elagabalus, his wife Julia Aquilia
Severa, Julia Mamma the mother of Alexander Severus, and his wife
Orbiana.
On a coin of the Emperor Decius (A.C. 249-251) struck at Maeonia, we
meet with the so-called "Monogram of Christ" upon a Roman coin in the
form {image "monogram3.gif"} for the first time.
Upon a coin of Trebonianus Gallus (A.C. 251-254) Eternity is
represented as a female holding a small round object.
On another coin of this reign we see a Phoenix instead of a Victory
upon the round object held by the Emperor.
Many of the coins of ancient Rome acclaim the Sun-God as the Saviour,
and upon a coin issued by Gallienus (A.C. 254-268) we see the Sun-God
Apollo holding a cross.
Upon a coin issued by the younger Valerian we see the Sun-God holding a
small round object.
A coin struck by Tetricus (A.C. 267-264) has upon its reverse a
representation of the Sun-God holding a round object, while in the
field near the Sun-God is a cross.
On a coin issued by Claudius II. we see the Sun-God Hercules holding a
round object admittedly meant for the Golden Apple.
Upon a coin issued by Aurelianus we see the Sun-God holding a round
object surmounted by a crescent.
On a coin issued by Vabalathus we see the Sun-God Hercules holding a
round object admittedly representing the Golden Apple.
Upon a coin of Numerianus (A.C. 283-284) we see the Goddess of Love
holding a round object surmounted by a Victory. Such instances as this
should be specially noted, as nothing distinguishes the round objects
so surmounted from those held by Venus which admittedly represent the
Golden Apple, and the present fashion of our symbol the Coronation Orb
or Imperial Apple is due to the fact that a century later Theodosius
II. Emperor of Constantinople started the idea of substituting a cross
for the Victory.
Upon several coins of Carinus (A.C. 282-284) we see the Sun-God holding
a small round object.
On other coins of this reign Eternity appears as a female holding a
small round object surmounted by a Phoenix.
Upon the coins issued in the name of Magnia Urbica, wife of Carinus, on
which we see Venus holding a small round object which admittedly
represented the Golden Apple, the Crescent frequently accompanies the
representations of the Goddess of Love.
On coins issued by Diocletian (A.C. 284-305) we see both Jove and the
Sun-God holding a small round object; like the Emperor himself. A
Victory in some cases surmounts it.
The Sun-God Hercules holding a round object which admittedly signified
the Golden Apple is to be seen on other coins issued during this reign.
Among the coins issued by Diocletian's co-Emperor Maximian, is one
bearing a representation of the Sun-God Hercules in the Garden of the
Hesperides near the Tree encircled by the Serpent he slew. The Sun-God
holds a round object representing a Golden Apple plucked from the Tree
in question.
On the reverse of another coin bearing the names both of Jove the
All-Father and Hercules the Sun-God, we see the latter represented as
holding a round object, admittedly meant for the Golden Apple.
In some cases where Hercules holds the Golden Apple-for instance, upon
a coin bearing the legend _Herculi invicto Aug_.--the Golden Apple is
surmounted by a Victory.
A coin issued by Constantius Chlorus, the ruler of Gaul and father of
Constantine the Great, represents the Sun-God Hercules in the act of
plucking a Golden Apple from the famous Tree.
A coin issued in the joint names of Galerius and Constantius Chlorus,
bearing the legend _Genio Populi Romani_, has in the field on the
reverse side a cross, which takes the place occupied upon otherwise
similar coins by a star-like object not improbably representing the
sun.
Such are the more striking features of the evidence which can be
obtained from the Roman coins issued prior to the accession of
Constantine to the throne of Gaul.
The reader will have seen that the symbol of the cross occurs several
times upon the coins in question, and in almost if not quite every
instance in connection with the Sun-God.
The fact that upon a coin of Julius Caesar, and therefore before our
era, a cross admittedly occurs as a symbol of the sun, will also have
been remarked.
It will also have been noticed in how very large a number of cases the
round symbol which was a precursor of our Coronation Orb admittedly
signified the Golden Apple, and therefore was of phallic import.
Another point which the reader cannot very well fail to bear in mind,
is that where the Goddess of Love, as the representative of the sex
whose felicity lies in motherhood or the victorious production of life,
is seen carrying the symbol in question, the surrounding legend is
Venus _Genetrix_, or _Victrix_, or _Felix_, or some variation or other
of the same; and that the said legends are obviously phallic in
signification.
If we also keep before us the fact that the Golden Apple whether held
by the Sun-God or his complement the Goddess of Love, was at times
surmounted by the figure of Victory for which Christian Emperors
gradually and only gradually substituted the figure of the cross, it is
curious to note that in early Christian representations of the Christ
he is often to be seen with the Apple or forbidden fruit of the Tree of
Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.
When the Christ is in such cases depicted as a youth, the phallic apple
is usually to be seen lying near him; but when the Christ is
represented as a man, it is placed in his hand.
For instance a good example of the Christ holding the fruit of the Tree
of Life is reproduced for us in the well known work on the likeness of
Jesus by the late Thomas Heaphy.[47] Here we see, in a picture which
occurs upon a glass ornament found in the Catacombs of Rome in the tomb
of a Christian named Eutychia, an illustration of the Christ standing
by the side of the Tree of Life. The rays of the Sun surround the head
of the Christ, and in his hand is the phallic Apple.
It will have been remarked that the round object to be seen upon
innumerable Roman coins in the hand of this or that ruler or deity, and
popularly supposed to have always represented the round world upon
which we dwell although it is at the same time believed that the world
was not then considered to be round, frequently occurs in the hand of a
female figure representing Eternity. It is self-evident that a
representation of the world we live on is less likely to have been so
placed than a symbol of Life.
A still more striking fact, which cannot fail to have been noticed by
the reader of the evidence from the coins of ancient Rome quoted in the
earlier part of this chapter, is that in several instances a Phoenix
and not a Victory surmounts the so-called orb. For the story of the
Phoenix was derived from the Egyptian City of the Sun.[48] And the
fabulous bird in question was, according to Tacitus as well as
Herodotus, specially connected with the temple of the Sun-God at
Heliopolis.
Upon this point it may be added that the famous story of the Phoenix
seems to have been known to the writer of _Job_; the Septuagint version
of _Job_ xxix. 18, being "I shall die in my nest and shall multiply my
days as the Phoenix" according to some of the best authorities.
The various ages allotted to this allegorical bird had reference to the
calendar; as indeed we learn from Pliny, who tells us that
"The revolution of the Great Year in which the seasons
and stars return to their former places, agrees with the
life of this bird."[49]
This is borne out by the periods spoken of as the lifetime of the
Phoenix; as among them are one of 600 years, the Great Year referred to
by Josephus and others, and one of 1,461 years, which was the Sothic
period of the Egyptians.
It is also clear that, like the Victory and the Golden Apple it
surmounted, the Phoenix and its wonderful egg were not only connected
with the Sun-God, but also had a phallic signification.
The problem as to whether bird or egg first existed scarcely applies to
the fabulous Phoenix and its equally fabulous egg, and need not be
discussed here. Suffice it to say that the round object from which that
Christian symbol the Coronation Orb is descended, though it may at
times have more or less represented the world upon which we dwell,
seems to have primarily signified, as associated with each other in
idea, both the Golden Apple of Love and the Phoenix-like life principle
enshrined in the Egg, both the egg-like _Cosmos_ or Universe and
Eternity; but in all, and through all, and above all, the basis of all
power whether finite or infinite, _viz._, Life.
It is therefore not surprising to find that the monarchs of ancient
days claimed to rule by divine right as vice-gerents of the Sun-God, to
whose favouring influence all earthly life is traceable; and caused
themselves to be represented, upon Roman coins as receiving the Golden
Apple, and upon Egyptian monuments as receiving the Cross, from the
Sun-God, as the symbol of their authority.
Yet another point to be borne in mind, is that we Christians are
expressly taught that God the Father and God the Son are as nearly
identical as the ancients considered the Central Fire, which they
deemed the Parent of all things, and the Warmth and Light issuing
therefrom to be; or the Sun's disc and the emanations therefrom; the
Christ being represented as saying "I and My Father are one" and "He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." For though we describe ours as
a _co-equal_ Trinity, no such identity with either God the Father or
God the Son is affirmed of God the Holy Ghost, and it is remarkable
that in our ancient illustrations of the Three Persons, both the First
and the Second are represented as holding the so-called globe and
Cross, while the Third, even where depicted as of human shape like the
other two, is not.
The fact is that the co-equality of the Holy Spirit of a God who is
Himself, as Jesus declared, a Spirit, is an idea which did not find
much acceptance among Christians till a comparatively late date and is
the outcome of confused thought. And the separate personality of this
Spirit of a Spirit being entirely a Christian conception, and without a
counterpart in the theology of the ancients, few if any Pagan symbols
such as the so-called globe and the cross would have been associated
with it in any case.
CHAPTER XI.
THE COINS OF CONSTANTINE.
We are more or less in the habit of assuming that just as Paul, the
founder of the catholic faith, was converted, not altogether by reason
but as it were by force and with the rapidity of a flash of lightning,
under the rays of a meridian sun ("About _noon_ suddenly there shone
from heaven a great light round about me," _Acts_ xxii. 6; "At
_mid-day_," _Acts_ xxvi. 13), so Constantine, the establisher of that
faith as the State Religion of the empire in which Paul was so proud of
his rights as a citizen, was in similarly rapid fashion converted by
the appearance of a miraculous "cross" of light and an accompanying
legend above a meridian sun ("At _mid-day_," Eusebius, _Vit. Const.
I._).
But, as has already been pointed out, this alleged vision of
Constantine is said to have taken place during his march upon Rome in
the year A.C. 312; and during the remaining twenty-five years of his
life he acted rather as if he were converting Christianity into what he
thought most likely to be accepted by his subjects as a catholic
religion, than as if he had been converted to the teachings of Jesus
the Nazarene.
The fact is that Constantine was favourable to our religion out of
policy rather than conviction; and if after refusing so long he did
indeed, a quarter of a century after the alleged vision, consent to be
baptised when ill and dying, policy doubtless swayed him even then.
Anyway, as has already been stated and will now be seen, the evidence
of his coins conclusively shows that the God to whom Constantine from
first to last attributed his victories, was--the Sun-God.
Upon one coin issued by Constantine we see upon the reverse a nude
figure crowned with rays, with the right hand elevated toward the east,
and a round object in the left hand. In the field is a cross widened at
the extremities, and the surrounding legend is a significant one, _Soli
Invicto Comiti_. This coin was struck years after the alleged
conversion of Constantine, and the combined reference to the Sun-God
and use of the cross are worthy of special notice.
Upon two somewhat similar coins of Constantine the cross is placed
within a circular wreath of bay or laurel.
On another coin with the same legend we see the same nude figure
crowned with rays, representing the Sun-God and carrying a round
object; while in the field we see the Gaulish symbol, sometimes called
a cross, which by the addition of a loop was, as we shall see later on,
turned into the so-called Monogram of Christ.
Upon a coin with the anything but Christian legend _Marti
Conservatori_, is a cross with four equal arms.
On a somewhat similar coin with the same legend, the helmet on the
reverse is ornamented with the so-called Monogram of Christ.
Upon another coin we see Mars leaning on a shield adorned with the
so-called Monogram of Christ, the legend being _Marti Patri
Conservator_.
On a coin issued in the name of his son Crispus during the reign of
Constantine, we see two Victories holding a shield upon a pedestal
marked with a cross of four equal arms.
A similar cross appears upon a coin issued during this reign in the
name of another son of Constantine.
Upon a coin bearing the inscription _Constantinus Max. Aug._ we see
upon the reverse a cross of four equal arms.
On an otherwise similar coin a compound _tau_ cross of four equal arms,
{image "taucross.gif"}, appears.
Upon a well-known engraving of a coin in the _Annales Ecclesiastici_ of
Baronius, the {image "monogram3.gif"} form of the so-called Monogram of
Christ appears upon the helmet of Constantine. Some authorities,
however, state that this is copied as the familiar {image
"monogram3.gif"} in error; what appeared on the helmet being the
Gaulish symbol {image "asterisk.gif"} with a dot representing a star
near the top of the vertical bar. Such a dot can be seen in a similar
place upon two or three coins bearing the legend _Virtus Exercit_.
On another coin the legend _Gloria Exercitus_ surrounds two soldiers
holding military standards, between which is the symbol of the cross.
On a somewhat similar coin the compound tan cross, of which we have
already noted an example, occurs between the standards.
A cross of four equal arms appears upon a coin bearing the legend _Pax
Publica_.
A coin issued during the reign of Constantine the Great in the name of
his son Constantine, has upon its reverse a cross of four equal arms,
the extremities of which are rounded.
On an otherwise similar coin the compound tau cross appears.
Upon a coin bearing the inscription _Constantinus Max. Aug._ a cross of
four equal arms occurs near a soldier armed with spear and shield.
On the reverse of one coin we see two soldiers holding military
standards, and between the standards the so-called Monogram of Christ
appears.
A coin of similar type was issued during the reign of Constantine the
Great in the name of his son Constantine.
Upon a coin which on the obverse bears the inscription _Constantinus
Max. Aug._, we see upon the reverse Victory carrying a palm. In the
field is the symbol {image "monogram4.gif"}. The surrounding motto is
_Victoria constantini Aug._
Several coins with the legend _Gloria Exercitus_ have upon the same
side two soldiers with a labarum or military standard between them,
upon the banner of which is the symbol {image "monogram4.gif"}.
On a coin with the legend _Victoria Caesar NN_ we see Victory carrying
a palm. In the field is the Gaulish symbol {image "asterisk.gif"}.
The reverse of another coin has the legend _Constantinus Aug._, and
represents Constantine as holding a labarum or military standard
terminating in a round object. Upon the banner is the symbol {image
"monogram4.gif"}.
On a coin bearing upon its obverse the inscription _Constantinopolis_,
we see upon the other side a figure of Victory and a cross of four
equal arms.
On another coin bearing the same legend we see upon the reverse Victory
standing upon a ship, and to the left the so-called monogram.
Upon another coin we see the same symbol above the wolf and twins of
the city of Rome.
A rare coin bears upon the obverse the inscription _Constantinus Max.
Aug._, and on the reverse, surrounded by the legend _Spes Publica_, a
labarum or military standard the handle or base of which transfixes a
serpent. Upon the banner three globules are embroidered, and the symbol
{image "monogram3.gif"} appears above the cross-bar from which the
banner hangs.
Upon one medal or coin of Constantine we see the significant legend
_Soli Invicto Aeterno Aug._ inscribed around the quadriga of the
Sun-God Phoebus.
On another piece struck by Constantine the Great, the Sun-God is given
the title _Comes Aug._; Companion, Guardian, or Saviour, of the
Emperor.
Upon several coins we see the legend _Comiti Aug. NN_, and, surrounded
by the same, the Sun-God holding a small round object.
On numerous other coins also, the Sun-God is represented as holding a
small round object.
Other significant Sun-God legends to be met upon the coins of this
alleged Christian Emperor, are _Comis Constantini Aug., Soli Invicto,
Soli Comiti Augg. NN, Soli Invicto Com. D.N._ and the like.
Upon a coin bearing the legend _Soli Comiti Aug. N._ we see the Sun-God
presenting Constantine with a small round object surmounted by a
Victory.
On a coin with the legend _Pax Augustorum_, Constantine holds a
standard ornamented with a cross.
Upon another coin Constantine is to be seen holding what is said to be
a representation of the Zodiac.
On a coin issued in his own name, as upon others already mentioned as
issued in the names of his sons, we see two Victories supporting a
shield upon an altar ornamented with a cross.
Upon a somewhat similar coin the altar is ornamented with the star-like
object which in days of old so often stood for the radiate sun.
A coin with the inscription _Divo Constantino_, and on the reverse the
legend _Aeterna Pietas_ and a representation of Constantine holding a
round object surmounted by the symbol {image "monogram4.gif"}, though
usually included in the coins of that Emperor was evidently struck
after his death and deification.
The same remark applies to a somewhat similar coin, which has an
additional symbol in a plain cross in the field to the right of the
Emperor-God.
It should be noted that the question here arises as to how far it is
fair of us to claim this cross and so-called Monogram of Christ as
Christian and at the same time denounce as Pagan the deification of
Constantine referred to upon the same coins.
As to the coins of Constantine the Great as a whole, it need only be
remarked once more that while upon many of the pieces struck by him
Constantine attributed his victories to the Sun-God, not upon a single
one of them did he attribute them to the Christ; while it was ever the
Sun-God and never the Christ whom he alluded to on his coins as his
Companion, Partner, Guardian, or Saviour.
This being so, how can we honestly claim that the so-called Monogram of
Christ, and other forms of the cross, were ever placed upon his coins
by Constantine as symbols of the Christ, yet never as symbols of the
Sun-God?
CHAPTER XII.
ROMAN COINS AFTER CONSTANTINE.
Passing on to the Christian successors of Constantine the Great, we are
at once met with the significant fact that Constantine the Second
issued many different coins bearing a representation of the Sun-God
holding a small round object; and, as the surrounding legend, _Claritas
Reipublicae_.
Another coin of this son of Constantine the Great, and one which
deserves special attention, has upon its reverse a Cross and a Crescent
in juxtaposition, as if the cross signified the sun.
A very similar coin has the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} between the
military standards.
Upon another coin we see on the reverse both this Christian Emperor and
the Sun-God; the former holding a small round object, and the latter
crowning him. The surrounding legend is _Soli Invicto Comiti_.
The reverse of another coin bears the same Sun-God legend, and
represents the Sun-God as holding a small round object.
Upon another coin we see Constantine holding a small round object
surmounted by a Victory. On the reverse is the symbol {image
"monogram3.gif"}.
Constans I., another son of Constantine the Great, issued a coin on
which he is represented as holding in one hand a simply formed labarum
or military standard consisting of a straight pole terminating at the
top in a crossbar, from which hangs a banner bearing the symbol {image
"monogram3.gif"}; while in the other hand he holds a small round object
surmounted by a _Phoenix_.
Constantius II., yet another son of Constantine the Great, issued a
coin on which is the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} between the letters
{alpha} and {omega} (? APX{omega}); the legend being _Salus Aug
Nostri_.
On another coin is Constantius II. as the Sun, upon one side; and upon
the other the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} between the letters alpha
and omega once again.
Nepotianus, a nephew of Constantine the Great who took Rome in A.C. 350
but was killed as an usurper the same year, issued a coin on the
reverse of which, surrounded by the legend _Urbs Roma_, is a female
figure representing Rome and holding in her hand a round object
surmounted by the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"}.
The symbol {image "monogram4.gif"} frequently occurs upon the coins of
Valeus (A.C. 364-378). And upon one coin of this Emperor we see the
letter P surmounting a cross; surrounded by the legend _Gloria
Romanorum_.
Upon a coin of Valentinianus II. we see Victory holding a round object
surmounted by a cross, the legend being _Victoria Augustorum_.
On the coins of Theodosius I. (A.C. 378-395) we find representations of
the Emperor holding a round object surmounted by a Phoenix, and of the
Emperor holding a round object surmounted by a Victory; as also of
Victory holding a round object surmounted by a cross.
This Emperor Theodosius I., better known as Theodosius the Great, after
securing sole control of the Roman Empire brought about the final
disruption of the world-wide dominions of Rome by bequeathing them in
two portions to his sons Arcadius and Honorius; the elder, Arcadius,
becoming Emperor of Constantinople and the East, while the younger,
Honorius, became Emperor of Rome and the West: A.C. 395.
Less than a century later, _viz._, between the years A.C. 475 and 480,
the Western Empire was finally extinguished by Odoacer; the Eastern
Empire surviving it nearly a thousand years, lasting as the latter did
from the partition in A.C. 395 to the capture of Constantinople by
Mahomet II. in A.C. 1453.
It was, as stated in a previous chapter, upon the coins of an Emperor
of the East, _viz._, Theodosius II., that the first example occurs of a
representation of an Emperor holding a round object surmounted by a
cross; though, as has been noted, instances of Victory carrying an
object so surmounted had previously occurred. And it need only be added
that the symbols {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image "monogram4.gif"},
often the centre of a circle or surrounded by a circular wreath of bay
or laurel, continually occur upon the coins of the Eastern Empire, the
symbol {image "asterisk.gif"} frequently, and the undisguised solar
wheel, {image "solarwheel1.gif"} upon the coins of Eudoxia, Theodosius
II., Leo I., and others.
The evidence of the coins of the Roman Empire given in this and the two
preceding chapters, coupled with the too-often forgotten fact that the
only form of cross which could possibly be a representation of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed was the very last
form of cross to be adopted as a Christian symbol, cannot, it will be
seen, lead the unprejudiced enquirer to any other conclusion than that
the cross became the symbol of Christendom because the advent of
Constantine and his Gauls made it a prominent symbol of the Roman
Empire. And that the symbol in question was not altogether unconnected
with Sun-God worship, should be equally clear to the reader.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST.
The so-called "Monogram of Christ "--a term which has at one time or
another been applied to each of the symbols {image "solarwheel1.gif"}
or {image "asterisk.gif"}, {image "monogram1.gif"} or {image
"monogram3.gif"}, and {image "monogram2.gif"} or {image
"monogram4.gif"}, as but variations of one and the same
symbol--deserves a chapter to itself.
Though not first placed upon the coins of the Roman Empire by
Constantine any more than was the right-angled cross of four equal arms
or the so-called St. Andrew's cross, the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"}
was, like the {image "x.gif"} cross and the many varieties of
right-angled crosses of four equal arms, first brought into prominence
as a Roman symbol by the Emperor in question.
From the evidence at our disposal it would appear that Decius was the
first Roman ruler to make use of this form of the so-called Monogram of
Christ. Anyhow, as has already been remarked, this symbol {image
"monogram3.gif"} occurs upon a coin of the Emperor Decius struck at
Maeonia about A.C. 250; and therefore more than half a century before
the days of Constantine. And it is noteworthy that it was as a Pagan
symbol that the {image "monogram3.gif"} thus first appeared upon the
Roman coinage.
The coin in question is a bronze one, and the "Monogram of Christ"
occurs in the centre of a Greek inscription surrounding a
representation of the Sun-God Bacchus; and, apparently, as an
amalgamation or contraction of the two Greek letters equivalent to our
R and CH, _viz._: the Greek letters P and X.[50]
Why these particular letters should have been contracted, is, however,
uncertain; and the question arises as to whether the {image
"monogram3.gif"} first arose as a contraction of such Greek letters, or
as an amalgamation of the Roman letters P and X, or as the cross {image
"x.gif"} _plus_ the Greek P (our R) as the initial letter of the Greek
name for Rome.
Moreover if it be decided that the symbol first arose as a contraction
of certain letters, yet further questions arise; _viz._; in what order
those letters were first read, and what word they first represented.
Before going into such matters as these, however, it is important that
we should fully realise how certain it is that the so-called Monogram
of Christ was originally a _Pagan_ symbol. For even if this be not
considered demonstrated by its occurrence upon a Roman coin long
before, according to our Church, the Christ caused Constantine to use
it as the military standard of the Gauls, it is clearly shown by its
occurrence upon many relics of pre-Christian date.
The so-called "Monogram of Christ" can be seen, for instance, upon a
monument of Isis, the Virgin Mother of the Sun-God, which dates from
the second century before our era.[51] Also upon the coins of
Ptolemaeus; on one of which is a head of Zeus Ammon upon one side, and
an eagle bearing the {image "monogram3.gif"} in its claws upon the
other.[52] The symbol in question also appears upon Greek money struck
long before the birth of Jesus; for instance upon certain varieties of
the Attic tetradrachma. And the {image "monogram4.gif"} occurs upon
many different coins of the first Herod, struck thirty years or more
B.C.
Whether the Pagan {image "monogram3.gif"} and the Pagan {image
"monogram4.gif"} originally had the same signification or not, is
uncertain.
Almost equally uncertain is the date at which we Christians first
adopted these Pagan symbols as Christian symbols because they could be
interpreted as formed of the two first letters of the Greek word
XPI{sigma}TO{sigma}, _Christos_, Christ.
The probability is that Christians had at least drawn attention to this
possible interpretation of the symbols in question before the days of
Constantine. But this scarcely renders less noteworthy the fact, shown
further on, that the favourite symbol of the Gaulish warriors, the
solar wheel {image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "solarwheel2.gif"}, was
sooner or later altered by their leader into {image "monogram1.gif"} or
{image "monogram2.gif"} to please the Christians; while the symbols
{image "monogram3.gif"} and {image "monogram4.gif"} were also made use
of by Constantine.
Which form of solar wheel, monogram, or cross, was that actually
carried by the Gauls in triumph within the walls of Rome and set up by
their leader in the heart of the Eternal City, is not quite certain.
But it is clear that as both the {image "monogram3.gif"} and the {image
"monogram4.gif"} appeared upon coins struck before our era, Constantine
cannot very well have been ignorant of the fact that these were
originally Pagan symbols, when he favoured the addition of a loop to
the top of the vertical bar of the Gaulish solar symbols {image
"solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "asterisk.gif"} and {image
"solarwheel2.gif"} or {image "plus.gif"} in order that what his Gaulish
army venerated as triumphal tokens might be accepted as symbols of
victory by his Christian supporters also.
That this Gaulish monarch did so alter, and for the reason named, the
symbol or symbols venerated by his troops, is admitted by, amongst
others, that well known writer the Reverend S. Baring Gould, M.A. For,
referring to the solar wheel as a symbol of the Sun-God venerated by
the ancient Gauls, this author tells us that Constantine
"Adopted and adapted the sign for his standards, and the
_Labarum_ of Constantine became a common Christian
symbol. That there was policy in his conduct we can
hardly doubt; the symbol he set up gratified the
Christians in his army on one side and the Gauls on the
other. For the former it was a sign compounded of the
initial letters of Christ, to the latter it was the
token of the favour of the solar deity."[53]
As the fact that both the {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image
"monogram4.gif"} were in use as symbols before the commencement of our
era thoroughly disposes of our contention as Christians that the
so-called "Monogram of Christ" had its origin in the formation of a
monogram out of the two first letters of the Greek word
XPI{sigma}TO{sigma} (_Christos_, Christ), it is clear that these
symbols must have had some other origin.
Assuming that the symbols {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image
"monogram4.gif"} had the same origin, and the same signification, and
that if the {image "monogram4.gif"} was a combination of two letters
the Greek or Latin T (instead of X) was not one of them; or rather, as
these would be very considerable assumptions, more or less confining
our attention to the {image "monogram3.gif"} as the more likely of the
two to have arisen as a combination of the Greek letters P and X; let
us in passing briefly enquire into the origin of the so-called Monogram
of Christ as a Pagan symbol.
If we seek for that origin as a combination of the first two letters of
some other Greek word than Christos, _Christ_, and for the moment
assume the letters P and X to have occurred in the same order as in
that word, we see at once that the monogram may have been derived
either from the word Chrestos, _Good_, or the word Chronos, _Time_, or
the word Chrusos, _Gold_.
There is, by the way, another curious connection between the three
Greek words in question. For the name of the famous god Kronos or
Cronos was often spelt XPONO{sigma} _i.e._, Chronos.[54] And this god
Chronos--the father of Zeus; and more or less a personification of
Time, the Old Father from whom we are all descended--was identical with
Saturn, while the Saturnian Age was, as in Virgil's fourth eclogue,
ever that spoken of as the Golden age when the ancients were referring
to what they pictured as the good old times.
It will not do, however, to assume that if the symbol we are
considering first arose as a combination of the Greek letters P and X,
they were of necessity taken from, and representative of, a word in
which they occur in the same order as in _Christos_. And the fact that
in the {image "monogram4.gif"}, if not also in the {image
"monogram3.gif"}, the P is the leading feature, gives emphasis to the
point in question.
If we suppose that the so-called monogram arose as a combination of the
Greek letters in question occurring in the order P X, the student of
such matters can scarcely fail to note that the letters in question
occur in that order as the centre both of the word APXH, the _Head_,
_Chief_, or _First_; and also as the centre of the kindred word
APX{omega}, _to be first_, the only remaining letters of which, and
therefore the first and the last of this word as of the old Greek
alphabet, are, as will be seen, Alpha and Omega, the letters so
continually placed on either side of the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"}
in Christian times.
In this connection it should be pointed out that according to some of
the best authorities the first {image "monogram3.gif"} which occurs
upon any Roman coin, coming as it does after the letter _alpha_ in a
Greek inscription, should be taken with that letter as forming the PX
of APX, the latter being an abbreviation of some form or other of the
title _Archon_. This title was that given to the dignitary who was at
one and the same time the chief magistrate of the state and its chief
priest, and it may be worth remark that as Bacchus was the deity
worshipped in Lydia, the Archon in question would therefore have been
the chief priest of the Sun-God.
Several writers have, in their zeal for our religion, outrun their
discretion, and gone so far as to assume that the existence of the
so-called monogram of Christ upon this coin of the Emperor Decius is
due to some Christian having been employed in turning out the coin in
question, and having in _his_ zeal surreptitiously introduced a symbol
of his faith. But though gravely supported by more than one great
authority, this is obviously an absurd position to take up. And in any
case the facts remain that it was in this instance placed over a
representation of the Sun-God, and had for centuries been in use as a
Pagan symbol.
Passing on, however, we have next to note that, as before hinted, even
if the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} arose as a combination of two
letters, though we know that symbol to have been often used as a
contraction of the Greek letters P and X (our R and CH), there is no
proof that it arose as a combination of two Greek letters; and the
symbol may have arisen as a combination of the Roman letters P and X.
It should therefore be pointed out that in the inscriptions which have
come down to us from the Gaulish Christians of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries after Christ, the symbols {image "monogram3.gif"} and
{image "monogram4.gif"} are continually used as contractions of the
Latin word PAX, _Peace_. For though the fact that the Monogram was
often so interpreted by Christians centuries A.C. can by no means be
considered evidence that it was thus that it first arose as a Pagan
symbol centuries B.C., such a possibility should be kept before us.
But did the so-called Monogram of Christ first come into being as a
combination of two letters; Greek, Roman, or otherwise?
Even this is not certain, for this pre-Christian symbol may originally
have been a cross, as a symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, _plus_ the
Greek letter P as the initial character of the word "Rome" in what may
be called the court language of the time.
Such an explanation would more or less account for the variations
{image "monogram3.gif"} and {image "monogram4.gif"}; these being
obviously the natural ways of adding the letter P, signifying Rome, to
the crosses {image "x.gif"} and {image "plus.gif"} respectively.
All the foregoing references to the origin of the so-called monogram as
a Pagan symbol of pre-Christian date, are but speculations however. Its
origin cannot be ascertained for certain.
The revival of this pre-Christian symbol, and the prominence given to
it upon the coins of the Roman Empire, _are_, however, traceable. And,
as has been shown, they are traceable to Constantine; who induced the
Christians to accept as the Monogram of the Christ, and therefore as a
Christian as well as a Gaulish symbol of victory, the Solar Wheel
venerated by the Gaulish conquerors of Rome.
Nowadays the so-called Monogram of Christ is almost always reproduced
for us as {image "monogram3.gif"} or {image "monogram4.gif"}; but the
fact that Constantine sometimes so used it should not blind us to the
facts that it was at first usually the centre of a circle, like the
spokes of a wheel; and that the undisguised solar wheel {image
"solarwheel1.gif"} appears upon not a few of the coins issued by the
Christian successors of Constantine, while since his reign the solar
wheel {image "solarwheel2.gif"} and many an artistic variation of the
same have been Christian symbols, and when in our ornamentation of
ecclesiastical properties we omit the circle we as often as not make
the cross itself wheel-like by rounding the extremities and widening
them till they nearly meet.
Moreover it should not be forgotten that it was evidently one form or
other of the solar wheel of the Gauls, _plus_ the politic loop to one
of its spokes, which Constantine and his Gaulish warriors are said to
have seen above the meridian sun, with the divinely written legend EN
TOYT{omega} NIKA, _By this conquer_, attached. For though that
miraculous symbol is referred to as a "cross," the Monogram itself was
so referred to; and Eusebius, after telling us that the Christ appeared
to Constantine and commanded him to make a military standard for the
Sun-God worshipping Gauls, "With the same sign which he had seen in the
heavens," expressly describes this as composed of "Two letters
indicating the name of the Christ, the letter P being intersected with
X at the centre." And on this particular Labarum of Constantine, as on
the majority of the Labara represented upon his coins, the {image
"monogram3.gif"} was the centre of a circle or circular wreath, like
the spokes of a wheel.[55]
In any case the fact that the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} was a
Pagan one centuries before the Christ is said to have made it a
Christian one for the Sun-God worshipping Gauls to follow on to
victory, coupled with the facts that they are said to have seen it
above the mid-day sun, and that it was admittedly a politic adaptation
of the Solar Wheel, show us how much Eusebius and other Christian
chroniclers both invented and suppressed, and also how largely the
influence of Sun-God worship permeated and moulded our religion.
In this connection it may be noted, as a curious fact rather than as
evidence, that according to some authorities the so-called Monograms of
Christ were in earlier ages Monograms of the Sun-God Osiris.[56] Also
that both Socrates and Sozomen tell us that when the temple of the
Sun-God Serapis at Alexandria was pulled down, the symbol of the Christ
was discovered upon its foundations and the Christians made many
converts in consequence a somewhat significant statement.
Moreover we are told that upon every _Dies Solis_, or in other words
upon that day of the week which throughout the Roman Empire was held
sacred to the Sun-God and throughout Christendom is called Sun-day,
Constantine made his troops, assembled under what was admittedly a
solar symbol, recite at a given time, which was probably dawn or
mid-day, a prayer commencing "We acknowledge thee to be God alone, and
own that our victories are due to thy favour."[57] Who could this God
have been but the Sun-God, seeing that it was to the Sun-God that
Constantine upon his coins ever attributed his victories? And what is
more likely than that, wishing to take a friendly view of the deity
worshipped by their supporters the Christians, it was as conceiving the
Christ to be but the latest addition to the many conceptions of the
Sun-God, that Constantine altered the solar symbols of his troops into
the so-called Monograms of Christ, and that his troops accepted the
alterations?
And, passing from the symbol to the deity represented, let us remember
that it is recorded that various Christian paintings of ancient times
bore upon them the dedicatory words _DEO SOLI_. For this remarkable
legend means both "To God alone" and "To the Sun-God," both "To the
Sole God" and "To the God Sol;" and forcibly reminds us, not only of
the prayer which Constantine caused his troops to repeat, but also of
that fine address to the "universally adored" Sun-God commencing
"Latium calls thee Sol because in honour thou
art Solitary,
After the Father."[58]
Now, as will be shown further on, a cross of some description or other
was in every land accepted as the symbol of the universally adored
Sun-God. And while not a single one of the many books forming the New
Testament states that Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped
instrument, and the _first_ crosses Christians used as signs or symbols
bore every form but that which a cross-shaped instrument of execution
would have borne, the Christians of the fourth century, as we have
seen, went out of their way to claim even the so-called Monogram of
Christ as a cross; Eusebius so carefully speaking of it as such even
where he relates that Constantine and his soldiers saw it above the
meridian sun, that one might not unreasonably imagine him to be
claiming it as Christian because it was more or less cruciform and
therefore more or less like the world-wide symbol of the Sun-God.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CROSS OF THE LOGOS.
Having made clear the part played by Constantine in the prominence
given in his lifetime to the cross as a symbol of the Roman Empire and
therefore of what he made its State Religion, and having also shown
that while the Christian chroniclers of those days are silent
concerning the various forms of crosses placed by Constantine upon his
coins they went out of their way to allude to the so-called Monogram of
Christ as a cross, to claim it as such, and even to associate it with
the sun, let us now turn our attention again to the pre-Christian
cross.
So great was the veneration in which that phallic and solar symbol the
cross was held in the ages which preceded the birth and death of Jesus,
that the philosophers of those days even went so far as to declare that
the cross was the figure of the Life or Soul of the Universe.
Though it is a matter of very considerable importance, we Christians
for some reason or other ignore the fact that long before our era
commenced philosophers thus conceived the figure of the cross to be the
symbol of the _Logos_ of God.
Now although, following the Gospel of St. John, we have made it a main
article of our belief that the Logos, really the Thought _plus_ Speech,
of God, became about the year B.C. 4 specially incarnate in the person
of Jesus the Nazarene, we ought not to forget that, being the one Power
by which all that ever came into existence was created and all that
exists is sustained, the Logos in any case ever was, is, and will be,
incarnate in every sentient being.
As the Logos of God (or, as the Authorised Version of the Bible into
English most inadequately renders it in the first chapter of St. John's
Gospel, the _Word_ of God) was by the philosophers called the
"Intellectual Sun" and the "Light of the World",[59] being, as a
personification of the _Thought_ and _Speech_ of the All-Father, a
personification of Wisdom and Reason (which, in an even more real sense
than the emanations of the physical sun, form the "Light of the World,"
or, as the original text of the New Testament puts it, the "Light of
the _Cosmos_"), the fact that pre-Christian philosophers affirmed that
the cross was the symbol of the said "Light of the Cosmos," is
obviously one which every writer concerning the cross as a Christian
symbol ought in common honesty to deal with.
That pre-Christian philosophers did so affirm, can be seen by turning
to the _Timaeus_ of Plato, where, referring to the begetting of the
Universal Soul (whom Philo, another pre-Christian philosopher, speaks
of as the "Second God"; and as God's "Beloved Son," "Image,"
"Ambassador," "Mediator," and "First-Begotten"), Plato says
"Such was the whole plan of the Eternal God about the
God that was to be:--and in the centre he put the soul
which he diffused throughout the body:--and he made the
Universe a circle moving in a circle. Having these
purposes in view he created the world a blessed God:--he
made the soul on this wise--joined--at the centre like
the letter X."[60]
Concerning this pronouncement of the great Teacher he so revered,
Proclus wrote as follows
"Two circles will be formed, of which one is interior
but the other is exterior. One of these is called the
circle of the Same and one the circle of the Different,
or of the Fixed and of the Variable, or rather of the
Equinoctial Circle and of the Zodiac. The circle of the
Different revolves about the Zodiac, but the circle of
the Same about the Equinoctial. Hence we conceive that
the right lines are not to be applied to each other at
right angles but like the letter X, as Plato says, so as
to cause the angles to be equal only at the summit but
those on each side and the successive angles to be
unequal. For the Equinoctial Circle does not cut the
Zodiac at right angles. Such therefore in short is the
mathematical discussion of the figure of the (Universal)
Soul."[61]
Even the Fathers of the Christian Church admitted that their ideas of
the Son of God and of the cross being his symbol, were more or less
derived from pre-Christian philosophers. For we find Justin Martyr
remarking that Plato declared that
"The Power next to the Supreme God was figured in
the shape of the letter X upon the universe."[62]
And in another place this famous Father states that
"Whereas Plato, philosophising about the Son of God,
says God expressed him upon the universe in the shape
of the letter X, he evidently took the hint from Moses,
who took brass and made the sign of the cross and
placed it by the holy tabernacle, and declared that if
people would look upon that cross and believe they would
be saved."[63]
The value of all this evidence is so obvious that its mere parade is
almost sufficient.
It should however be pointed out that this cross {image "x.gif"}, being
avowedly adopted by the pre-Christian philosophers as the symbol of the
"Logos" or "First-begotten" of God in preference to the {image
"plus.gif"} because the zodiac or pathway of the Sun does not "cross"
the equator at right angles, was clearly a solar symbol. And it may be
added that though Justin Martyr is careful to claim this particular
solar cross as a symbol of the Christ, no one claims that Jesus was
executed upon an instrument so shaped; while the story that St. Andrew
was affixed to an instrument of execution so shaped, is admittedly a
worthless legend.
This claim of Justin Martyr that the solar cross of the philosophers
was a pre-Christian symbol of the Christ, is, when considered in
connection with the fact that nearly all the Fathers allude to the
figure of the cross, _any_ kind of cross, as a life-giving symbol from
time immemorial, significant of much.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN EUROPE.
That the symbol of the cross was widely venerated in Europe long before
our era, is well known to archaeologists. Of Britain in those days we
know next to nothing, history being almost silent upon the subject and
relics conspicuous by their absence. The cross is however a conspicuous
feature upon certain funeral urns which are said to date back to the
period in question. And it is noteworthy that both it and the solar
wheel occur upon several of the earliest British coins; which whether
issued as some say before, or as others aver after, the advent of
Julius Caesar, were admittedly of pre-Christian date. Evidences of the
veneration of the cross in France before our era are so numerous and
easily ascertainable, that it will only be necessary to refer the
reader to the _Collection Roujou_, the pages of the _Revue de
Numismatique_, and the writings of Messieurs De la Saussaye, Lenormant,
De Saulcy, E. Lambert, and other French authorities.
If, continuing our journey eastwards, we pass over the border into the
northern provinces of Italy, we find equally striking evidence of the
pre-Christian veneration of the symbol in question.
Let us take for example the evidence furnished by the remarkable
discoveries made in the pre-Christian cemetery unearthed at Gola-Secca.
For upon a very large proportion of the articles discovered in the
ancient tombs of the cemetery in question, a cross of some kind is the
prominent feature.
Particulars of these articles can be found recorded in the literary and
scientific journals of France. And the conclusion arrived at by the
authorities upon such matters cannot be better put than in the revised
edition in book form of an article in the _Revue Archeologque_ by
Monsieur G. de Mortillet.
After referring to the relics of so much of ancient Gaul as is
comprised in modern France, a subject he takes leave of in the words--
"But the pre-Christian cult of the cross was not
confined to Savoy and the environs of Lyons. A glance at
the coins of ancient Gaul is sufficient to show that it
existed in nearly every part"--
M. de Mortillet, crossing the frontier and dealing
with the said tombs of Gola-Secca near Milan
in Italy, sums up as follows
"One sees that there can be no doubt whatever concerning
the use of the cross as a religious sign for a very long
time before Christianity. The cult of the cross was well
spread over Gaul before its conquest and already existed
in Emilia in the Bronze Age, more than a thousand years
before Jesus Christ."
Let us pass on to yet another country, Switzerland. Here also we find
unexceptional evidence of the general recognition of the cross before
our era as a symbol which should above all others be venerated.
The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland may be said to have been brought to
light by the extraordinary drought experienced in the years A.C.
1853-4; for though piles and ancient remains were found upon the shores
of various lakes before that date, no great heed was paid to them till
the drought in question lowered the waters of the lake of Zurich and of
other lakes to an unprecedented extent, and certain discoveries due
thereto led to the matter being thoroughly investigated by
antiquarians.
The result was that many relics of the Lake Dwellers were found. And,
placed upon those relics by this forgotten race of hoary antiquity as
the sign they venerated, was the symbol of the cross.
These relics, preserved for us by the sediment carried into the lakes
by various rivers, cannot be less than 3,000 years old, are not
improbably 4,000 years old, and may quite possibly be 5,000 years old;
some authorities--Monsieur Morlot for instance--estimating their age at
from 6,000 to 7,000 years. Suffice it to record the fact that these
relics are admittedly pre-Christian.
Upon the articles in question, as on those discovered in the
pre-Christian tombs of Gola-Secca, the cross is stamped as a symbol of
life, of good omen, and of salvation. Even dies for stamping articles
with the cross have been discovered among the remains of the Lake
Dwellers. And the crosses are of three kinds; (1) the right-angled
cross of four equal arms, of which so many variations, some enclosed in
circles and some with the extremities widened and rounded, are used as
Christian symbols; (2) the other cross of four equal arms, known as the
St. Andrew's cross or _Chi_ cross; and (3) the Fylfot or Svastika
cross.
The last named cross is a peculiar one of quite unmistakeable design;
and there are two varieties, {image "svastika1.gif"}, and {image
"svastika2.gif"}, of which one is obviously an impression or reverse
view of the other.
The names _Fylfot_ and _Svastika_ are very generally applied to both
these symbols. The term _Svastika_, an Indian one, is however applied
by the inhabitants of Hindostan to one only; they calling the other
_Sauvastika_. And it is curious to note that the meanings attached to
these names, though, like the symbols allied in nature, are, also like
them, the reverse or negative or complement of each other.
For instance we are told by Sir G. Birdwood that the right handed
Svastika signifies the Male Principle, the Sun on its daily journey
from East to West, Light and Life; and that the left-handed Svastika
signifies the Female Principle, the Sun in Hades or the Underworld on
its journey from West to East, Darkness and Death.[64]
This more or less official pronouncement may be taken as a fairly
accurate one, although it is obvious that the annual as well as the
diurnal movement of the Sun should have been referred to; the half year
between the Vernal Equinox and Autumnal Equinox representing Light and
Life, and that between the Autumnal Equinox and Vernal Equinox Darkness
and Death, just as clearly as do the half days between sunrise and
sunset, sunset and sunrise. But it is to be feared that even those who
remember how often Death and Darkness are referred to as periods of
Gestation, will have some difficulty in seeing how a sign or symbol of
the Female Power of Generation can have signified Death.
The fact of course is that the symbol in question represented both Life
and Death, and represented the latter only in a minor sense and owing
to the fact that the Female Principle of Life was regarded as the
necessary reverse, negative, or complement of the Male Principle; which
latter, having of the two the better claim to be considered the starter
of life, was the one more particularly identified with Life and
therefore with the vernal Sun-God.
It would also appear that the two symbols in question to some extent
signified Fire and Water; Fire being of course the Male Principle, Day,
Summer, Light, and Life; and Water the Female Principle. This still
further illustrates the point dealt with above; for though Water is the
negative of Fire, yet Fire cannot produce Life without the aid of
Water.
Returning however to our consideration of the cross as a symbol of Life
of pre-Christian date and origin, and having already dealt with the
lands now known as Britain, France, Italy, and Switzerland, let us now
consider the evidence of Greece.
At Mycenae and elsewhere Dr. Schliemann discovered, among other relics
of a bygone age, not only articles marked with the Svastika cross and
the cross of four equal arms, but even seals and dies giving
impressions of such crosses; thus demonstrating how large and prominent
a part the symbol of the cross played in pre-Christian times among
those in whose classic tongue the earliest known copies of the
Christian Scriptures were written centuries later.
It is also remarkable that Dr. Schliemann found golden crosses in the
previously unopened tombs he discovered and explored at Mycenae; as
many as five such crosses having in some instances been placed with a
single body by those who sealed up the vaults in question thousands of
years ago and many centuries before the commencement of our era.
As few if any unrifled tombs of so ancient a date have been discovered
in Greece and first explored by a trustworthy investigator, and as,
moreover, it would only have been with the bodies of important
personages that crosses of so valuable a material as gold would have
been buried, these discoveries, coupled with the self-evident fact that
crosses of more perishable material may have been buried with the
bodies of less distinguished people, and by this time, like both the
bodies and the tombs which enclosed them, have gone to dust, are most
remarkable. And they entirely corroborate the testimony borne by the
coins of ancient Gaul, the contents of the tombs of Gola-Secca, and the
remains of the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland, to the veneration paid
long before our era by the inhabitants of Europe to the cross as the
recognised symbol of Life. Nor as the symbol only of the life which
ends in the grave, but also of the glorious hope that as the Sun, from
whom we derive that life, whether considered from a daily or yearly
point of view sinks but to rise again, even so we who owe our brief
lives to the Sun-God, may, like the Giver of Life and only Saviour,
rise from one life to another.
For whether the ancients were or were not unphilosophic enough to
believe in the resurrection of bodies whose constituent atoms are
continually changing and in time form part of other bodies, it is
absurd to assume that they did not at times like ourselves conceive and
dwell upon a hoped-for, if unexpected and improbable, Life-to-come.
Moreover it is with us, as it was with them, a _hope_; and it is
disingenuous to label as Christian what was pre-Christian, and to claim
as ours what has been common to the reasoning minds of suffering men
and women of all eras.
It is equally disingenuous on the part of us Christians to keep in the
background the noteworthy fact that even in pre-Christian ages the
symbol of that hope was--the cross.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN ASIA.
If, leaving Europe, we pass on into Asia, we find that not only have
the two varieties of Svastika crosses for thousands of years played a
prominent part as a religious symbol in Hindostan, Thibet, and China,
but that other kinds of crosses also were in bygone ages venerated by
their inhabitants.
For instance our Eastern Empire is strewn with the remains of ancient
temples built, like those of Christendom in later days, in the shape of
a cross; and we are told that the oldest of its rock-hewn caves were
planned after the same figure. It is also well-known that isolated
stone crosses of pre-historic date are to be seen in various parts of
India.
The evidence of Hindostan is however outweighed by that obtainable from
the antiquities of Western Asia, concerning some of which Sir A. H.
Layard wrote:
"The crux ansata, the tau or sign of life, is found in
the sculptures of Khorsabad, on the ivories of
Nimroud--which as I have shown are of the same
age--carried too by an Assyrian King."[65]
We have also to note the equally significant facts that the recognised
symbol of the Phoenician Goddess of Love--Astarte, Ashtoreth, or
Ishtar, the Bride of the Sun-God--was a cross; that a cross was also
associated with the Phoenician Baal or Sun-God; and that the circle and
cross, now the symbol of the planet held sacred to the Goddess of Love,
frequently occurs upon the ancient coins of Western Asia and was not
improbably more or less akin in signification to the crux ansata of
Egypt. The fact that upon very ancient remains still existing the Baal
is represented as crowned with a wheel-like nimbus of rays should also
be mentioned.
The cross more especially connected with the Phoenician "Bride of the
Sun-God" in ancient days, was, as can easily be seen upon reference to
ancient coins, where it occurs in the hand of the goddess in question,
a long handled cross such as is frequently to be seen in our pictorial
representations of John the Baptist.
As John the Baptist was an Asiatic and to some extent a pre-Christian
Asiatic, we can here, without wandering very far from the matter in
hand, pause to consider the question why we Christians represent John
the Baptist, who had nothing to do with a cross, as holding a cross; if
it be not that while Jesus was supposed to represent the Sun in its
annual ascension, John was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual
declension? What other rational explanation have we of the facts, (1)
that John is represented as saying that he baptised with water but that
Jesus would baptise with _fire_ (where the rains of winter and the heat
of summer may be referred to); and (2) that the Christian Church in
framing its calendar fixed upon what we call Midsummer day as the
birthday of John the Baptist, and upon the clay which bears the same
relation to the other solstice as the birthday of Christ, as if wishing
to illustrate that other remarkable pronouncement of John, thus placed
at the point where the days begin to shorten, concerning Jesus, thus
placed where the days begin to lengthen, "He must increase but I must
decrease"?
The probability that to its original signification of Life, that of
Salvation was added to the cross as a recognition of the fact that the
salvation of Earth-Life in general and of Mankind in particular is due
to the fact that at the Vernal Equinox the Sun-God "crosses" to save,
summer and the fruits of the earth and therefore salvation and increase
being due to the fact that the Sun then crosses the Equator, is
supported by evidence from all quarters. And if we refuse to admit that
Christianity is permeated with the ideas of Sun-God worship, we not
only have no rational explanation to offer of the prophecies put by the
Evangelists in the mouth of John the Baptist to the effect that Jesus
would baptise with _fire_ and would _increase_, but also none to offer
of many another prominent feature of our religion; such as, for
instance, the fact that while pretending to reverence all the Ten
Commandments we deliberately make a point of breaking one of them in
order to keep as a day of rest not the seventh day but the first, the
day which from time immemorial was held sacred throughout the Roman
Empire as _Dies Solis_, the Day of the Sun. For to aver as we do that
Jesus was not made the subject of a Sun-God allegory, but purposely
rose from the underworld on the Day of the Sun, at the time of the
Vernal Equinox, in order to annul a commandment previously laid down by
God and substitute a new one in silence, is only to make ourselves
ridiculous.
Returning however to the matter more particularly in hand, it should be
pointed out that the crux ansata mentioned by Layard is not the only
kind of cross to be found upon the relics of ancient Babylonia and
Assyria. For the cross of four equal arms and the solar wheel are also
to be met with.
Moreover, as all visitors to our museums should be aware, the monarchs
are represented as wearing in the place of honour round their neck and
on their breast, a Maltese cross. And this cross, worn by the kings
centuries before our era as the symbol which should above all others be
venerated, or as best signifying their power over the lives of their
subjects and their position as vice-gerents of the Sun-God, is admitted
by all the best authorities to have been the sign and symbol of the
Sun-God.[66]
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN AFRICA.
Passing on to Africa and a consideration of the _crux ansata_ or
so-called 'Key of the Nile,' we find that this variety of cross had
much the same significance attached to it by the ancients as had the
more widely accepted varieties.
As a matter of fact no one acquainted with Egyptian antiquities who
enquires into the matter in thorough going fashion, can in the end fail
to be convinced that the Egyptian cross was a phallic symbol having
reference to the sexual powers of generation and to the Sun, and being
therefore a symbol both of Life and of the Giver of Life.
The connection between the crux ansata and the Sun-God in the minds of
the inhabitants of the Land of the Nile in pre-Christian days, is very
clearly set forth by an illustration of Khuenaten in the act of
distributing gifts to his courtiers which faces page 40, volume I., of
Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson's "_Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians_." For this monarch--also known as Amenophis IV.--and his
wife are both represented as receiving the crux ansata from the
Sun-God, and the Sun is marked with the crux ansata as its peculiar
symbol.
Upon Plate IV. facing page 43 of the same famous work, we see Seti I.
surmounted by the Sun; two crosses adorning the latter. The crosses
are, moreover, attached to two serpents issuing from the sun; and these
were in ancient days phallic signs representing the sexual powers.
On page 405 is a representation of the Egyptian god Khem, or Amen-Ra
Generator; the Egyptian Priapus, or god of Generation. The names of
this phallic deity show his connection with the Sun.
It is noteworthy that this particular conception of the Sun-God is
accompanied by emblems of the sexual organs of reproduction, and that
he bears a St. Andrew's cross upon his breast.
Upon page 24 of volume III. of the same work is another representation
of Khem, or Amen-Ra Generator. In this case also he is accompanied by
phallic and solar emblems and wears a St. Andrew's cross upon his
breast.
On page 26 Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson tells us that
"Khem was considered the generating influence of the
sun, whence perhaps the reason of his being connected
with Amen-Ra: and in one of the hieroglyphic legends
accompanying his name he is styled the sun; that is the
pro-creating power of the only source of warmth, which
assists in the continuation of the various created
species."
Upon Plate XXII., facing page 44 of volume III., are three different
instances of the crux ansata being attached to the sun as the symbol of
the Sun-God.
Upon page 46 is another instance of the crux ansata being attached to
the solar serpent issuing from the sun's disc.
On Plate XXIII., facing page 52, is another illustration of the
reception of the crux ansata from the Sun-God.
Upon page 82 Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson rightly observes that it is
absurd to speak of the crux ansata or Egyptian cross as the _Key of the
Nile_, inasmuch as this cross "is less frequently seen in the hand of
the God Nilus than any deity of the Egyptian pantheon."
Upon the remarkable Plate XXXI., facing page 136, we see inscriptions
describing the reigning Pharaoh as the "Vice-gerent of the Giver of
Eternal Life"; or, in other words, of the Sun-God. Other expressions
applied to the Pharaoh are "Giver of Life and Strength like the Sun";
"Who gives all Life, Stability, and Health like the Sun"; and "Approved
of the Sun and Giver of Life like the Sun."
It is thus clear that ages before our era the cross was venerated in
Egypt as in other lands as the symbol both of Life and of the Giver of
Life; and that the deity worshipped as the Giver of Life, and ever
associated with that salutary symbol the cross, was the Sun-God.
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVIDENCE OF TROY.
Dr. Schliemann has told us that in his researches upon the site of Troy
he found that in pre-Christian if not indeed pre-historic times the
cross was, in that classic locality as elsewhere, a phallic emblem and
the symbol of life; as well as a solar emblem and the symbol of the
holy fire with which life was more or less identified. For instance on
page 337 of his _Ilios_ (1880 edition) Dr. Schliemann describes a
leaden idol discovered by him and of great antiquity. He tells us that
it was female in character and had the vulva marked with the triangle,
a symbol of the Feminine Principle. And he points out that within the
triangle was the Svastika cross.
On page 521 Dr. Schliemann describes an ancient terra cotta vase, with
the characteristics of a woman upon it, and on the vulva a St. Andrew's
cross.
Upon page 523 is a reference to another vase of similar design. Here
also a cross appears to mark the vulva.
On page 353 Dr. Schliemann admits that the Svastika cross drawn within
the triangle marking the vulva, shows that this cross was a sign of
generation in ancient and pre-historic times. This remark should
evidently have been applied by him to the St. Andrew's cross as well,
for he shows that also to have been used as a sign of the organ of
generation, as has been shown above.
We are here reminded of the fact, already noted, that the Egyptians
represented their God of Generation, Khem, or Amen-Ra Generator, as
wearing a conspicuous St. Andrew's cross. And as Khem was the Egyptian
Priapus it ought also to be pointed out that it was in ancient times
the practice to erect wooden crosses to this conception of the Sun-God.
An illustration of one example of the crosses erected to Priapus can be
seen in figure XI. of plate XXIX. of that well-known work, _Antique
Gems and Rings_.[67] And the phallic nature of such crosses cannot be
denied.
Returning, however, to the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann upon the site
of Troy, we find on page 350 of _Ilios_ that both varieties of the
Svastika cross are extraordinarily common upon the articles he
discovered.
As an Indian symbol the Svastika cross can only be traced back as far
as the fourth or fifth century B.C.; and its occurrence upon these and
other relics of earlier ages and other lands, shows us that it is
inaccurate and misleading to speak of it as "Indian."
The origin of the Svastika cross, whether the {image "svastika1.gif"},
or the {image "svastika2.gif"}, is unknown; but Dr. Schliemann quotes
with approval Professor Max Muller's remarks to the effect that Mr.
Thomas our distinguished Oriental numismatist
"Has clearly proved that on some of the Andra coins and
likewise on some punched coins depicted on Sir W.
Elliot's plate ix. _Madras Jour. Lit. and Science_, vol.
III., the place of the more definite figure of the sun
is often taken by the Svastika, and that the Svastika
has been inserted within the rings or normal circles
representing the four suns of the Ujjain pattern on
coins. He has also called attention to the fact that in
the long list of the recognised devices of the
twenty-four Jaina Tirthankaras the sun is absent; but
that while the eighth Tirthankara has the sign of the
half-moon the seventh Tirthankara is marked with the
_Svastika, i.e._, the sun. Here then, I think, we have
very clear indications that the Svastika, with the hands
pointing in the right direction, was originally a symbol
of the Sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the
autumnal sun, the _Sauvastika_, and therefore a natural
symbol of light, life, health, and wealth. That in
ancient mythology the sun was frequently represented as
a wheel is well known. Grimm identifies the Old Norse
_hjol_ or hvel, the A.-S. _hvehol_, English 'wheel,'
with {kappa|upsilon with
tonos|kappa|lambda|omicron|rho}, Sk. Kakra, wheel; and
derives jol, 'yule-tide,' the time of the winter
solstice, from hjol, 'the (solar) wheel.'"
Both the {image "svastika1.gif"} and the {image "svastika2.gif"} occur
upon the famous footprints of Buddha carved upon the Amaravati Tope,
and Dr. Schliemann remarks that we find the Svastika or Sauvastika
cross
"In Ezekiel ix. 4, 6, where--in the form of the old
Hebrew letter Tau--it is written as the sign of life on
the forehead, like the corresponding Indian symbol. We
find it twice on a large piece of ornamental leather
contained in the celebrated Corneto treasure preserved
in the Royal Museum at Berlin; also on ancient pottery
found at Konigsberg in the Neumark and preserved in the
Markisches Museum in Berlin; and on a Bowl from Yucatan
in the Berlin Ethnological Museum. We also see it on
coins of Gaza, as well as on an Imperial coin of Asido;
also on the drums of the Lapland priests."
It is noteworthy that in the neighbourhood of Troy, as in Cyprus and
other places, a cross of four equal arms, like our sign of addition, in
days of old shared with the Svastika crosses the veneration of the
people and was evidently more or less akin to those crosses in
signification. Dr. Schliemann tells us that this cross of four equal
arms "occurs innumerable times on the whorls of the three upper
pre-historic cities of Hissarlik," and that if, as Burnouf and others
suggest, the {image "svastika2.gif"} and {image "svastika1.gif"}
represented primitive fire machines, this other cross "might also claim
the honour of representing the two pieces of wood for producing the
holy fire by friction."
Elsewhere in the same work Dr. Schliemann quotes with approval the
opinion of Professor Sayce that the Svastika cross, {image
"svastika2.gif"} or {image "svastika1.gif"}, "was a symbol of
generation."
As phallic worship and Sun-God worship were admittedly always closely
connected, it is not surprising to find that Dr. Schliemann also very
highly commends a dissertation on the {image "svastika2.gif"} and
{image "svastika1.gif"} by Mr. Edward Thomas, whose conclusion is that
"As far as I have been able to trace or connect the
various manifestations of this emblem, they one and all
resolve themselves into the primitive conception of
solar motion, which was intuitively associated with the
rolling or wheel-like projection of the sun through the
upper or visible arc of the heavens."
It may therefore be considered proven that the inhabitants of classic
Troy like those of the Land of the Nile and other countries, recognised
a close affinity between the productive forces and the sun, and were
one in accepting a cross of some description as the natural symbol
whether of Life or of the Giver of Life.
CHAPTER XIX.
EVIDENCE OF CYPRUS.
Although now, owing to the march of events, the island of Cyprus is out
of the way and seldom visited, it was once otherwise. For in days of
old it occupied a favoured position between the countries then foremost
in the arts of civilisation.
In those days Cyprus was a centre of Phoenician enterprise. And, as we
are told in that fine work _'Kypros, the Bible, and Homer: Oriental
Civilisation, Art and Religion in ancient times,'_ "The oldest extant
Phoenician inscriptions, _themselves the earliest examples of letters
properly so called_, come from Cyprus."
As, moreover, when face to face with the relics of the Phoenicians we
are, as Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter also remarks, "In the very midst of
ancient Canaanitish civilisation as depicted in the Old Testament," it
will be seen that a study of the antiquities of Cyprus should have a
special interest for us Christians.
Let us therefore see what the ancient remains found in the island in
question, and others referred to in the work mentioned as illustrative
of the same, can tell us regarding phallic worship in general and the
pre-Christian cross in particular.
One of the first points to be noted in the illustrations supplied by
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter is in a cut of an ancient Cyprian coin on
Plate X.; upon which coin we see over a temple gateway the phallic
symbol since adopted by the Moslems, and commonly spoken of as the
'_star_ and crescent' although, as already shown, it originality
represented the radiate Sun or Male Principle in conjunction with the
Crescent moon or Female Principle.
Upon Plate XIX. we see several examples of the Svastika cross occurring
upon an ancient Cyprian vase.
On Plate XXV. we are shown a gold leaf taken from an ancient grave,
upon which the Svastika cross occurs.
Figure 10 upon the same plate shows us a gold leaf discovered at
Amathus upon which we see the Sun and Moon in conjunction, the Sun in
this instance being represented as a disc in the horns of the crescent.
Upon Plate XXVI. we have representations of stone pillars at Atheniaon,
upon the capitals of which are phallic emblems, including that of the
Sun as a disc within the horns of the Crescent moon.
On Plate XXX. we have in figure 7 a cut of an important cylinder now
stored in the Berlin Museum, upon which are represented both the Sacred
Tree and the Ashera. The winged Sun-disc appears over the former and
the Crescent moon over the latter.
Figure 11 upon the same plate shows us a Masseba representing the Male
Principle, surmounted by the star-like form which represented the
radiate Sun; and an Ashera, representing the Female Principle,
surmounted by the Crescent moon.
Just as in modern Christianity we make a distinction without alleging
much difference between the Father and the Son, even so in ancient
times a distinction of a similarly vague kind was made between the
All-Father _Fire_ and His Image and First-begotten Son _Light_. The
disc of the Sun seems to have represented the former and the Sun-star
or radiate Sun the latter where both were represented in one
illustration, as for instance in figure 12 on the plate last mentioned.
The illustration in question is an important one. On the left is an
Ashera under a Crescent moon; in the centre is a Masseba under the
Sun-star or radiate Sun; and on the right is an altar under a sun disc.
The phallic meaning of all this is evident; and a kind of Trinity is
presented to us, _viz._ (1) The Female Principle and perhaps the
primeval Darkness, needing impregnation or illumination ere the same
can cause aught to be; (2) the Male Principle and Light, the First-born
Son of Fire; and (3) Fire itself, the one origin of all things and
Father of Spirits, made manifest unto mortals by His First-born Son,
and best symbolled, as is Light, by the Solar Orb.
On Plate XXXI. we have in figure 4 a representation of the goddess
Ishtar, the bride of the Sun-God. Over her we see the phallic symbol of
the radiate Sun and Crescent moon in conjunction.
On Plate XXXII. we see in figure 23 the Svastika cross under a tree, in
a representation of a scarab from Ialysos. This cross coupled with the
presence of two bulls, one on either side of the tree, seem to show
that the Male Principle is referred to.
On Plate XL. we have a cut of a votive arm, holding in its hand that
phallic symbol the apple, and obtained from the sanctuary of Apollo at
Voni.
On Plate LVIII. in representations of the stone capitals of two votive
pillars from the shrine of Aphrodite at Idalion, we see various phallic
emblems; including the familiar Sun disc and Crescent moon in
conjunction.
The same remark applies to Plate LIX., where two more such pillars are
illustrated.
Upon Plate LXIX. are given no less than 134 illustrations of ancient
religious symbols, and the phallic character of nearly if not quite all
is plainly apparent.
In twelve of these the presence of the Sun or the Crescent Moon as the
case may be, points out that in the former event the Male Principle of
Life, and in the latter the Female Principle of Life, is referred to.
In six other cases the presence of the Sun and Crescent moon in
juxtaposition shows that both those Principles are referred to. And in
four other examples the presence of the Sun and Crescent moon in
conjunction shows that the union of those Principles is referred to.
Besides the numerous Masseboth and Asheroth, respectively representing
the Male and Female Principles, we see numerous examples of the
triangle which represented the female _vulva_ and of the diamond shaped
symbol which represented the female _pudendum_.
Among the remaining symbols is the cross of four equal arms.
Upon Plate LXXV. is an illustration of a vase painting in red figures
from a Stamnos from Vulci Panofka. The representation is one of the
Sun-God Dionysos upon a cross.
The said cross, which like various Christian crosses of the Dark and
Middle Ages has projecting branches and foliage, seems to have been
more or less connected with the Tree worship of ancient times.
On Plate LXXVI. we are given thirteen examples of Sacred Trees
discovered in the groves of Astarte-Aphrodite and Tanit-Artemis-Cybele,
being clay copies of the Sacred Trees erected at the entrances to the
temples. As Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter states, these evidently phallic
symbols undoubtedly played a part in the worship of the Sun-God
Tammuz-Adonis and his bride Astarte-Aphrodite.
Upon Plate LXXVII. we have a cut of an important Phoenician seal, where
we see (1) a man kneeling in adoration to a Divine Trinity connected
with the winged disc of the sun, and (2) a priest worshipping three
symbols. The three sacred symbols in question are (1) the Ashera or
symbol of the Female Life Principle; (2) the Masseba or symbol of the
Male Life Principle; and (3) a combination of the Ashera and Masseba
symbols representing the two Life Principles in conjunction.
On Plate LXXIX. we have in figure 14 a representation both of the
Sacred Tree and of the combined Ashera and Masseba. Over the latter we
naturally see the radiate Sun and Crescent moon in conjunction.
In figure 16 on the same plate are representations of an Ashera and a
Masseba, respectively surmounted by a Crescent moon and a radiate Sun.
A similar remark applies to figure 17. A sacrificing priest can be seen
in this and the last named instances.
On Plate LXXX. we have in figure 1 a representation of a holy pillar,
the volute capital of which has on it a Crescent moon within the horns
of which is a disc plainly marked with a cross. This is taken from an
ancient cylinder of Hittite origin.
On the same plate we see in figure 7 a Sun column from Tyre, upon which
we see the Crescent and disc in conjunction as in the last case, but
without the cross.
On Plate CXVIII. we have in figure 8 a cut of a fine vase from Melos
ornamented with a Svastika cross.
Upon Plate CXXXIII. we have, in figures I to 4, representations of a
sacred Boeotian chest or ark. On the front are seven Svastika crosses
(some of each variety) and one ordinary cross like our sign of
addition. On the lid we see two serpents surrounded by eight Svastika
crosses (some of each variety) and eight crosses formed of tau crosses,
{image "taucross.gif"}; besides two other crosses.
On the back are eight Svastika crosses (some of each variety) and eight
other crosses.
In figure 6 we have a cut of a chest from Athiaenon upon which two
Svastika crosses will be noticed.
In figure 8 of the same plate is an illustration of one side of another
sacred chest or ark from Athiaenon, on which two Svastika crosses of
the other variety can be seen.
Upon Plate CLV. we have in figure 9 a cut of an important Cyprian
Graeco-Phoenician Amphora discovered in an ancient grave at Kition and
now stored in the British Museum. The object represented upon it is a
Sacred Tree marked at the bottom with a St. Andrew's cross and
surrounded with Svastika crosses.
On Plate CLXXIII. we see in group 19 various objects discovered in
ancient graves; one bearing several ordinary crosses and also several
Svastika crosses, one bearing a Svastika cross of the other variety,
and a third bearing Svastika crosses of both kinds.
Upon Plate CXCII. are cuts of various Cyprian coins, the phallic symbol
of the circle and cross occurring upon Nos. 1, 9, and 10.
Leaving the Book of Plates and turning to the illustrations given with
the Text of the valuable work we are considering, we discover upon page
62 a cut showing the impression of a chalcedony cylinder from the
collection of the Due de Luynes, where the Sun is represented by a
Cross of four equal arms.
Upon page 85 we have in figure 117 an illustration of an inscribed
cylinder, now belonging to the Bibliotheque Nationale of France, in
which, as Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter remarks, the priest or king
represented is raising his arm
"In adoration in the direction of the Cross suspended in
the air before him, a holy object we often meet on
Assyrian and Babylonian monuments."
This cross, like that last named, is more like a Greek cross than a
Maltese cross.
On page 148 we have in figure 150 an illustration of a coloured image
of Aphrodite or Astarte discovered in an early Graeco-Phoenician tomb
at Kurion. This representation of the Goddess of Love and Bride of the
Sun-God is marked with several Svastika crosses, and is yet further
evidence of the phallic and solar character of that symbol.
Such is the evidence of the phallic worship and Sun-God worship of the
Phoenicians and their neighbours, of the close relationship between
such phallic worship and Sun-God worship, and of the part played in
connection with the same by the pre-Christian cross, borne by a work of
research so free from bias against the views of the Christian Church
that it has prefixed to it a letter of warm commendation from that
veteran statesman and theologian, the author of the ultra-orthodox
"_Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture_."
CHAPTER XX.
MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE.
The most noteworthy features of the available evidence illustrative of
the real origin and history of the symbol of the cross have now been
placed before the reader, but a number of more or less miscellaneous
facts directly or indirectly throwing additional light upon the subject
have still to be drawn attention to.
For instance, no mention has yet been made of the _Hermae_ of bygone
ages. And although their origin may have had no connection with the
symbol in question, it is noteworthy that some at least of the early
Christians discovered in the more or less cruciform outline of the
Hermae a reason or excuse for paying them homage, while very similar
figures are to be seen illustrated upon Christian antiquities, such as
the mosaic of which the great cross of the Lateran forms the principal
feature.
The Hermae venerated by the ancient Greeks were pillars, usually of
stone and quadrangular, surmounted in most instances with a head of
either Hermes or Dionysos; and with a peculiar transverse rail just
below the head, much used for hanging garlands upon, which made the
whole look more or less like a cross.
These pillars were erected in front of temples, tombs, and houses; but
more especially as sign posts at cross roads; and whether the head at
the top was that of Hermes the Messenger of the Gods, or, as was very
often the case, that of Dionysos the Sun-God, a phallus was always a
prominent feature.
Moreover these phallic and often solar erections called Hermae,
undoubtedly more or less cross-shaped owing to the transverse rail,
were worshipped as conducive to fecundity.
It is also worthy of notice that the cross is well known to have been
venerated in America before even the Norsemen who preceded Columbus set
foot upon that afterwards rediscovered continent.
For instance a cross surrounded by a circle was in use among the
ancient Mexicans as a solar sign, another cross was a solar symbol of
the natives of Peru from time immemorial, and we are also told by the
authorities that a cross of four equal arms with a disc or circle at
the centre was the age-old Moqui symbol of the Sun.[68]
Other noteworthy points are that the cross occurs upon Runic monuments
in Europe long before Christianity was introduced into the regions
containing them; that ancient altars to the Sun-God Mithras bearing the
sacred symbol of the cross have been discovered even in England; and
that the Laplanders of old when sacrificing marked their idols with the
symbol of the cross, using the life blood of their victims for that
purpose.[69]
It should also be pointed out that on a coin of Thasos bearing
representations of a phallic character connected with the worship of
the Thracian Bacchus, a Svastika cross is a prominent symbol; that upon
ancient vases the headgear of Bacchus is sometimes ornamented with the
cross of four equal arms; that upon a Greek vase at Lentini, Sicily, an
ancient representation of the Sun-God Hercules is accompanied by no
less than three different kinds of crosses as symbols; and that upon an
archaic Greek vase in the British Museum, the Svastika cross, the St.
Andrew's cross, and the other and right angled cross of four equal
arms, appear under the rays of the Sun. Nor should it be forgotten that
though the Svastika cross has almost died out as a Christian symbol and
was perhaps never thoroughly acclimatised as such, it often appeared
upon Christian ecclesiastical properties of the Middle Ages, and,
either as a Pagan or Christian symbol, continually occurs in the
catacombs of Rome.
We are told that circular wafers or cakes were used in the mysteries of
the Sun-God Bacchus, and, being marked with a cross, resembled the
disc-like wafers of the Christian Mass. Whether this was so or not, it
is noteworthy that a cross is said to appear upon the representation of
a circular wafer used in the mysteries of Mithras which occurs upon an
ancient fresco at Rome.
In this connection it may be mentioned, as a series of curious
coincidences, that in the Zoroastrian religion long before our era the
Sun-God Mithras bore much the same relation to the All-Father that the
Christ does in ours, and is referred to in the Zend Avesta as the
_Incarnate Word_; that Mithras is said, like the Christ, to have been
born in a cave; that the Fathers admitted that the new-born Sun had
been worshipped in the cave at Bethlehem to which the story of the
birth of Jesus referred; and that in framing its calendar our Church
fixed upon the recognised birthday of Mithras, the _Natalis Invicti_ of
the Roman Brumalia, as the birthday of the Christ.
It is also noteworthy that the Christ is thus said to have been born as
well as to have risen again the third _or fourth_ ("_After_ three
days," _Matt_, xxvii. 63; _after_ "Three days and three nights," Matt,
xii. 40) day. For the birthday of Mithras and afterwards of the Christ,
known to us as Christmas day, seems to have been fixed upon as the
third or fourth day after the winter solstice, and as that upon which
the sun's resurrection from the south was first discernible after its
apparent cessation of movement or death.
In this connection it should be added that Lucian records the fact that
the Sun-God referred to by the Fathers as worshipped at Bethlehem was
lamented as dead once a year and always acclaimed as alive again the
third day; that in several places in the Zend Avesta we meet with
passages which show that the Mithras worshippers of old believed that
at the death of a man his spirit sits at the head of the corpse for
three days and three nights, and then, at dawn, rises free from all
earthly attachments; and that we say that the execution of Jesus took
place at the time of the Passover or Vernal Equinox, while instead of
the prophesied "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth"
(_Matt_. xii. 40) the period between the death and burial on Good
Friday evening and the resurrection before dawn on Easter Sunday is
just about that during which the Sun's disc is at the Vernal Equinox
transfixed by the Equator, _viz._, 32 2/3 hours.
The question why the Cock so often, like the Cross, surmounts the
steeples wherewith we adorn our Christian churches, is brought before
us by the fact that it was in ancient days a well-known symbol both of
the generative powers and of the Sun-God; often appearing as such upon
the top of a sacred pillar in Assyrian and Babylonian representations
of priests in the act of sacrificing or worshipping. It was probably as
the "herald of the dawn" that this bird became a symbol of the Sun-God,
and it would seem that we place its effigy aloft with the same idea in
view.
Another point to be noted is that in the Kunthistorisches Museum at
Vienna is an ancient vase upon which is a representation of the Sun-God
Apollo bearing upon his breast as his one ornament and symbol a
Svastika cross.
We are reminded of the facts that we Christians were once in the habit
of alluding to the cross as the Tree of Life, and that the ancients
dressed up the trunks of trees and worshipped them as symbols of life
and growth, by an Attic vase of the fifth century B.C. Upon this is a
red coloured painting of a tree so dressed, on which is to be seen near
the top a head of the Sun-God Dionysos, and surrounding the trunk a
shirt or garment covered with crosses.
As to the evidence obtained from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
it is said that much which is of a phallic character has been, from
quite worthy motives, kept in the background. An important fact has
however been mentioned by Mr. C. W. King, M.A., in his well known work
on the _Gnostics and, their Remains_, and this at least can be
commented upon. He tells us that the Cross and the Phallus were found
placed in juxtaposition upon the walls as meaning one and the same
thing, and he goes on to add that
"This cross seems to be the Egyptian Tau, that ancient
symbol of the generative power and therefore transferred
into the Bacchic mysteries."
The foregoing are the last of the evidences throwing light upon the
origin and history of the symbol adopted by our religion as its own,
which the author thinks it necessary to bring forward in support of his
contention. And however much of the evidence sought out by the author
and in this work marshalled by him into something like order may seem
by itself to be untrustworthy or worthless, no reader can reasonably
deny that it has been proved that the cross was a well known symbol of
Life long before our era, and that as a whole the evidence tends to
show that it became such as a phallic symbol, and therefore as a symbol
of the Sun-God.
And what is the moral of the real, as distinguished from the imaginary,
history of the symbol of the cross but this: that from the beginning
nought has caused the beliefs of men to assume an appearance of radical
difference, save the difference in the name or dress with which this or
that set of men have clothed similar ideas?
For, as has already been hinted, Humanity has ever had but one God and
but one Religion. And as from one point of view Life is but another
term for the Real Presence, and Death but another term for the
withdrawal of Deity, it may be said that that God is Life, and that
Religion the desire for Life, more Life, and fuller Life. Moreover, as
has been said before, this universal worship of Life is discernible
even in the willingness of some to sacrifice what remains to them of
mortal life in the hope of thus being enabled to lay hold of a life
immortal which is not for all.
The worship of Life is natural, and must of necessity continue. Let us
however render it nobler by recognising its catholicity; and by
contemptuously refusing to either seek or accept a life of bliss
hereafter which any of our brothers and sisters are, either in our
imagination or in reality, to be debarred from sharing.
CHAPTER XXI.
SUMMARY.
At the commencement of this work it was shown that, as the Greek text
of the writings forming the New Testament testifies, not one of the
Apostles or Evangelists ever stated that Jesus was executed upon a
cross-shaped instrument of execution. The circumstances under which the
figure of the cross became the symbol of our religion, were then made
clear. And, having since demonstrated the existence in pre-Christian
ages of a widespread veneration of the figure of the cross as the
symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, which may have given rise to the
desire to associate Jesus therewith, little remains for the author to
do save draw the notice of the reader to the admissions of other
writers concerning the rise of the cross as the symbol of Christianity;
for the sake of brevity more or less confining his attention to two
well known works upon the history of religious art.
It should first however be pointed out that though we Christians affirm
that crucifixion was a form of capital punishment made use of in days
of old, and abolished the fourth century after Christ by Constantine
because Jesus was so executed, we cannot exactly prove that the
_staurosis_ thus abolished was crucifixion, or even that it included
crucifixion. For various as are the different forms of 'death by the
stauros' of which descriptions have come down to us from pre-Christian
ages and the first three centuries of our era, no relic of that date
bears a representation of an instrument of execution such as we cause
to appear in our sacred pictures, and even if, regardless of the more
exact meaning of the word stauros, we suppose the term staurosis to
have included every form of carrying out the extreme penalty by means
of affixion or suspension, we meet with no description of such an
instrument of execution as we picture. Therefore even if we were to
exclude from the staurosis abolished by Constantine all forms of
transfixion by a stauros, we could not, upon the evidence before us,
fairly say that what that astute Emperor abolished was what is usually
understood by the term crucifixion.
It will not be necessary to quote again the admission of the Reverend
S. Baring-Gould, M.A., to the effect that the so-called Cross of
Constantine or monogram of Christ was but the symbol of the Sun-God of
the Gauls with a loop added by their crafty leader to please the
Christians, but it may be pointed out that this fact is also admitted
in _Chambers's Encyclopaedia_; where we read that
"The so-called cross of Constantine was not really a
cross but a circle containing the X P I, the first three
letters of the name of Christ in Greek; and was merely
an adaptation of a symbol of a Gaulish solar deity."
And it may be added that the fact that the Monogram of Christ and the
ordinary cross so frequently used as symbols by Constantine upon his
coins and elsewhere, and thus made symbols of the Roman Empire in the
first half of the fourth century, were at first Pagan rather than
Christian symbols, also seems to be borne out by Dean Burgon in his
_Letters from Rome_, where he states
"I question whether a cross occurs on any Christian
monument of the first four centuries."[70]
Passing on however to the representative works on Christian Art already
referred to, we first come to Mrs. Jameson's famous _History of Our
Lord as exemplified in works of art_.
Upon page 315 of Volume II. the gifted authoress, after confessing that
the cross was venerated by the heathen as a symbol of Life before the
period of Christianity and referring to St. Chrysostom, who flourished
half a century after Constantine, admits that
"It must be owned that ancient objects of Art, as
far as hitherto known, afford no corroboration of the use
of the cross in the simple transverse form familiar to
us at any period preceding or even closely succeeding
the words of St. Chrysostom."
That is to say, although Constantine introduced the Monogram of Christ
and the cross of four equal arms before St. Chrysostom was born, and,
making them symbols of the Roman Empire, would, whether a Sun-God
worshipper or a Christian, in any case have imposed them upon what he
established as his State Religion, it was not till after these solar
symbols of the Gauls were accepted as Christian that such a cross as
could possibly have been a representation of an instrument of execution
was introduced.
As to the crucifix, we are told that though this is said by some to be
referred to in the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa--a Bishop of Tours who
lived in the sixth century, and also in the injunctions of the often
quoted council of Greek bishops A.C. 692 called the "Quini-sextum" or
"in Trullo," the evidence is
"Insufficient to convince most modern archaeologists
that a crucifix in any sense now accepted was meant."
In other words, not only is it clear that the cross as a representation
of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died was not introduced
till after the days of Constantine, but it is also evident that the
crucifix, the earliest known representation of that execution, was not
introduced till centuries later.
Other noteworthy admissions are made in the work above quoted from, but
we must pass on to the Dean of Canterbury's comparatively recent work
upon the same subject.
Dean Farrar states upon page 11 of his _Life of Christ as represented
in Art_ that "Of all early Christian symbols the _Fish_ was the most
frequent and the favourite."
The Fish; and not the Cross.
Moreover the Dean significantly adds upon the next page, that the Fish
"Continued to be a common symbol down to the
days of Constantine."
And the significance lies in the fact that the introduction by
Constantine of the solar symbols venerated by the Gauls, may account
for the displacement of the symbol of the Fish from favour.
Upon page 19 Dr. Farrar goes on to say that
"Two symbols continued for ages to be especially common,
of which I have not yet spoken. They were not generally
adopted, even if they appeared at all, until after the
Peace of the Church at the beginning of the fourth
century. I mean the cross and the monogram of Christ."
Here again, it will be seen, the Dean admits that the cross, as the
symbol of our religion, came in with Constantine.
Directly after the passage last quoted Dean Farrar very misleadingly
remarks: "It must be remembered that the cross was in itself an object
of utter horror even to the Pagans." For the exact reverse is the
truth, inasmuch as in almost every land a cross of some description had
been for ages venerated as a symbol of Life.
The fact of course is that the Dean here and elsewhere, like other
Christian writers, does not take the trouble to distinguish between the
symbol of the cross and the death caused by execution upon a stauros;
which instrument, by the way, was, as has been shown, not necessarily
in the shape of a cross, and appears to have been in most cases a stake
without a transverse rail. What the Pagans held in utter horror was the
awful death caused by transfixion by or affixion to a stauros, whatever
its shape; the symbol of the cross was, upon the contrary, an object of
veneration among them from time immemorial.
On page 23 Dr. Farrar, alluding to the use of the transient sign of the
cross by the Christians of early days, makes the admission
"That it did _not_ remind them of the Crucifixion only
or even mainly is proved alike by their literature and
other relics."
Exactly so: for the non-material sign traced by them (and by us) upon
the forehead in the _non-Mosaic_ initiatory rite of baptism and perhaps
also upon the breast or in the air at other times, seems to have been
the survival of a Pagan and pre-Christian custom.
Upon page 24 Dean Farrar admits that
"The cross was only introduced among the Christian
symbols tentatively and timidly. It may be doubted
whether it once occurs till after the vision of
Constantine in 312 and his accession to the Empire of
the East and West in 324."
Further on upon the same page the Dean of Canterbury, passing without
notice from symbols to instruments of execution and making no
distinction whatever, states that
"Crosses were of two kinds. The _Crux Simplex_, 'of
one single piece without transom,' was a mere stake,
used sometimes to impale, sometimes to hang the victim
by the hands."
Exactly so.
But, to bring this work to a conclusion with what is the crux of the
whole matter, is it not disingenuous in the extreme upon the part of
those of us Christians who know better, to hide the fact that it may
have been upon some such cross as the Dean here refers to, that is,
upon no cross at all, that Jesus was executed? Is it not dishonest of
us to place before the masses Bibles and Lexicons wherein we ever
carefully translate as "cross" a word which at the time the ancient
classics and our sacred writings were penned did not necessarily, if
indeed ever, signify something cross-shaped? Is it not gross disloyalty
to Truth to insist, as we do in our versions of the Christian
Scriptures, upon translating as "crucify" or "crucified" four different
words, not one of which referred to anything necessarily in the shape
of a cross?
Another point which should be mentioned, though such matters cannot be
discussed here, is that the questions whether Jesus did not prophesy
that the final Day of judgment would come before those whom he
addressed should die, and did not solemnly declare that his mission was
to the descendants of Jacob or Israel and to them alone, undoubtedly
affect our story.
As to the Gospel of the Cross, have not we Christians by, in our
imaginations, limiting its saving effects to the few who are able to
believe in it, all the centuries that we have re-echoed the cry "the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" _forced_ upon the same the unutterably
selfish meaning that the kingdom at hand for the many who simply cannot
believe is that of Hell? Was _that_ what Jesus meant, and all that the
so-called cross effected?
Moreover, whether the message of Jesus which we proclaim and variously
interpret was or was not a gospel--that is, "glad tidings "--to all
men, and from an unselfish point of view, what possible good purpose
can be served by insisting upon supplementing the simple story of his
stressful life, his magnificent love for the afflicted and suffering,
his equally magnificent hatred of qualities not altogether dissimilar
from that which enables some of us to claim to be not only admirers but
also genuine followers of a Communist who declared that those who would
follow him must first sell all their possessions and give the proceeds
to the poor;--what good purpose can be served by supplementing this,
and the account of the final conflict of Jesus with the officials of
his native land and his subsequent execution upon a stauros or stake
not stated to have had a cross-bar attached, by the adoption and
culture of a partisan and misleading fiction regarding the origin and
history of the symbol of the cross?
THE END.
---------------------
FOOTNOTES
[1] _e.g._, _Iliad_, xxiv. 453; _Odyssey_, xiv. 11
[2] _e.g._, Thuc. iv. 90; Xen. _An._ v. 2, 21.
[3] _Gal._ iii. 13; I _Pet._ ii. 24; _Acts_ v. 30; _Acts_ x. 39;
_Acts_ xiii. 29.
[4] _e.g._, Hdt. iii. 125.
[5] _e.g._, Thuc. vii. 25.
[6] Livy, xxviii. 29.
[7] Minucius Felix, _Oct._ xxix.
[8] _De Praescrip_. xl.
[9] _Oct._ xxix.
[10] _Ad Nationes_, xiv.
[11] Poed iii. II, 59.
[12] _Nicodemus_ i.
[13] _Nicodemus_ vii.
[14] _Nicodemus_ viii.
[15] _Apol_, i. 55.
[16] _Dial. cum Trypho_, lxxxvi.
[17] _Dial. cum Trypho_, xcvii.
[18] _Against Marcion_, iv. 20.
[19] _Against Marcion_, iii. 18.
[20] _Scorpiace_, i.
[21] _De Corolla_, iii.
[22] _De Proescrip_, xl.
[23] _Apologiticus_, xvi.
[24] _Ad Nationes_, xii.
[25] xxxvi.
[26] _Testimonies against the Jews_, ii. 21.
[27] _Testimonies against the Jews_, ii. 22.
[28] _Apud Gretserum_, ii.
[29] _Epist. ad Romanos_, Lib. vi.
[30] _Christ in Art_, p. 23.
[31] _Against Heresies_, i. xxiv.
[32] _Against Heresies_, II., xxii. 4-5.
[33] _Vit. Const. I._
[34] _Vit. Const. I._, 28, 29, 30.
[35] _Vit. Const. I._, 29.
[36] _De Mart. Pers._, c. 44.
[37] _Vit. Const. I._, 31.
[38] _Vit. Const. I._, 37.
[39] _Vit. Const. I._, 40.
[40] _Vit. Const. II._ 7-9.
[41] _Vit. Const. III._ 3.
[42] _Vit. Const. III._ 49.
[43] _Opera S. Cyrilli_ cura Ant. Touttee 351 Menaeum Graecum
ad diem 7 Maii.
[44] zosimus ii.
[45] Both Zonaras and Cedrenus bear testimony to this effect.
[46] _Early Christian Numismatics_.
[47] _The Likeness of Christ_, p. 20.
[48] Herodotus II., 73.
[49] Pliny, x., 2.
[ ] 2 Tacitus, _Annal_. Vi., 28. Editorial note: There is no reference
in the text to this footnote #2 at the bottom of page 130
[50] An engraving of the coin can be seen in Duruy's _Histoire
des Romains_, Torn. vii.
[51] Bockh, C.I.G. n. 4713 b.
[52] Berlin Collection 428.
[53] _Strange Survivals_, 286.
[54] _e.g._, Arist. _Mundi_.
[55] Bar. _Ann_. A.C. 312.
[56] Basnage, iii., 23.
[57] Eusebius, _Vit. Const._ iv.
[58] Martianus Capella.
[59] _e.g._ Philo, _De Somniis_, i.
[60] _Timaeus_, 34-36.
[61] _Theol. Plat._
[62] _Apol._
[63] _Apol._
[64] _Report on the Old Records of the India Office_, London,
1891, x., xi.
[65] _Nineveh_, ii. 213.
[66] _e.g._, C. W. King, M.A. _Early Christian Numismatics_;
Professor Rawlinson; &c., &c.
[67] C. W. King, M.A.
[68] _First Annual Report U. S. Bureau of Ethnology._
[69] Ol. Varelli, _Scandage Runic;_ Ans. Rudbeckins, _Atlant.:
e.g._ an altar discovered ac Rudchester, Northumberland: Sheffer,
_Lapponic_.
[70] _Letters from Rome_, 1862, p. 210.
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