The Non-Christian Cross Part 13

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 Ma.s.seboth and Asheroth, respectively representing the Male and Female Principles, we see numerous examples of the triangle which represented the female _v.u.l.v.a_ 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 ill.u.s.tration of a vase painting in red figures from a Stamnos from Vulci Panofka. The representation is one of the Sun-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 wors.h.i.+p of the Sun-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+pping three symbols. The three sacred symbols in question are (1) the Ashera or symbol of the Female Life Principle; (2) the Ma.s.seba or symbol of the Male Life Principle; and (3) a combination of the Ashera and Ma.s.seba 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 Ma.s.seba. 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 Ma.s.seba, 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 Lx.x.x. 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 Hitt.i.te 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 Cx.x.xIII. 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.syrian 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 ill.u.s.tration of a coloured image of Aphrodite or Astarte discovered in an early Graeco-Phoenician tomb at Kurion. This representation of the G.o.ddess of Love and Bride of the Sun-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p and Sun-G.o.d wors.h.i.+p of the Phoenicians and their neighbours, of the close relations.h.i.+p between such phallic wors.h.i.+p and Sun-G.o.d wors.h.i.+p, 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 ill.u.s.trative 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 ill.u.s.trated upon Christian antiquities, such as the mosaic of which the great cross of the Lateran forms the princ.i.p.al 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 G.o.ds, or, as was very often the case, that of Dionysos the Sun-G.o.d, 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 Nors.e.m.e.n 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-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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-G.o.d 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-G.o.d Bacchus, and, being marked with a cross, resembled the disc-like wafers of the Christian Ma.s.s. 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-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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-G.o.d referred to by the Fathers as wors.h.i.+pped 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 pa.s.sages which show that the Mithras wors.h.i.+ppers 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 Pa.s.sover 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 c.o.c.k 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-G.o.d; often appearing as such upon the top of a sacred pillar in a.s.syrian and Babylonian representations of priests in the act of sacrificing or wors.h.i.+pping. It was probably as the "herald of the dawn" that this bird became a symbol of the Sun-G.o.d, 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-G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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-G.o.d Dionysos, and surrounding the trunk a s.h.i.+rt 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-G.o.d.