The Non-Christian Cross Part 10

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.

a.s.suming 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 a.s.sumptions, 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sume 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 G.o.d Kronos or Cronos was often spelt XPONO{sigma} _i.e._, Chronos.[54] And this G.o.d 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 a.s.sume 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 t.i.tle _Archon_. This t.i.tle 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 wors.h.i.+pped in Lydia, the Archon in question would therefore have been the chief priest of the Sun-G.o.d.

Several writers have, in their zeal for our religion, outrun their discretion, and gone so far as to a.s.sume 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 surrept.i.tiously 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-G.o.d, and had for centuries been in use as a Pagan symbol.

Pa.s.sing 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-G.o.d, _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-G.o.d wors.h.i.+pping 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-G.o.d wors.h.i.+pping 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-G.o.d wors.h.i.+p 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-G.o.d Osiris.[56] Also that both Socrates and Sozomen tell us that when the temple of the Sun-G.o.d 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-G.o.d and throughout Christendom is called Sun-day, Constantine made his troops, a.s.sembled 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 G.o.d alone, and own that our victories are due to thy favour."[57] Who could this G.o.d have been but the Sun-G.o.d, seeing that it was to the Sun-G.o.d that Constantine upon his coins ever attributed his victories? And what is more likely than that, wis.h.i.+ng to take a friendly view of the deity wors.h.i.+pped by their supporters the Christians, it was as conceiving the Christ to be but the latest addition to the many conceptions of the Sun-G.o.d, that Constantine altered the solar symbols of his troops into the so-called Monograms of Christ, and that his troops accepted the alterations?

And, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d alone" and "To the Sun-G.o.d," both "To the Sole G.o.d" and "To the G.o.d 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-G.o.d 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-G.o.d. 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-G.o.d.

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 a.s.sociate 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d (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 G.o.d) 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 G.o.d"; and as G.o.d's "Beloved Son," "Image,"

"Amba.s.sador," "Mediator," and "First-Begotten"), Plato says

"Such was the whole plan of the Eternal G.o.d about the G.o.d 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 G.o.d:--he made the soul on this wise--joined--at the centre like the letter X."[60]

Concerning this p.r.o.nouncement 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, says G.o.d expressed him upon the universe in the shape of the letter X, he evidently took the hint from Moses, who took bra.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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.