The special importance of the evidence of Irenæus, 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, Irenæus 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 Irenæus which it would not be right to altogether ignore.
In the first of these passages Irenæus 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.31This 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 wasmetamorphosed, 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 Irenæus which deserves our notice, is neither more nor less than an emphatic declaration, by Irenæus 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 Irenæus 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 burialcarried out at the earliest possible moment, and then have had him resuscitated and removed to some region where he could dwell in safety.
What Irenæus 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 Ptolemæus, 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 Irenæus believed that Jesus was never executed; or that he was executed butsurvived; 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, Irenæus stated that Jesus lived to be an old man; and stated so emphatically.
Even granting that Irenæus 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.
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 thepre-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 theCross 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 theunionoftwoprinciples; 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 thanLife 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," theRatioas well as theOratioof the All-Father, which they called theLogosof God; a term badly translated in our versions of the Gospel of St. John as theWordof God, as if it signified theOratioonly.
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 orCross-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 theradiate 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 theSvastikawas 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 theChrist. 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,Solar Wheel 1orSolar Wheel 2, 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 asMonogram of Christ 1orMonogram of Christ 2,Monogram of Christ 3orMonogram of Christ 4;i.e.,ΧΡorΧΡΙ, the first two or three letters of the Greek wordΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ,Christos, Christ.
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 Emperorhe 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 Nicæa, 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 weare 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 Cæsarea, 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 noonover the Suna cross of Light in the heavens, bearing upon it or having attached to it the inscriptionΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΝΑ,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 inscriptionΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΝΑ; he himself, and hiswhole 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 ChristMonogram of Christ 1orMonogram of Christ 3orMonogram of Christ 2orMonogram of Christ 4, 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 symbolMonogram of Christ 1is perhaps the one which occurs the most frequently upon representations of the famousLabarumor Military Standard of Constantine; but that the symbolMonogram of Christ 1, theMonogram of Christ 3andMonogram of Christ 4without the circle, and theSolar Wheel 1andasterisk, are also to be seen.
Now the Gauls led by Constantine specially venerated the Solar Wheel. This had sometimes six and sometimes four spokes,Solar Wheel 1orSolar Wheel 2, 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 theLife of Constantinehe 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 aChristian—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 Cæsarea'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 theheavens, 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 ofDe 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 letterΧdrawn across them with the top circumflexed. Armed with this sign his troops—"36and 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 Cæsarea, 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 letterΡbeing intersected with the letterΧin 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-Cæsar 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, Constantinecontinued 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 ChristMonogram of Christ 1orMonogram of Christ 3orMonogram of Christ 2orMonogram of Christ 4. 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 avictorious military standard, and not as either a monogram of the Christ or a representation of thestaurosupon which Jesus was executed, that Constantine caused thisSolar Wheel 1orasterisk, orMonogram of Christ 1orMonogram of Christ 3, orMonogram of Christ 2orMonogram of Christ 4(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 Cæsarea 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 ofConstantine; 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, evenprove 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, andshining like the Sun for several hours.43And 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 wasessentially aChristiansymbol; 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 byConstantine 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 theadoption 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 canjustlybe 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.
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 Cæsar 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 Cæsars 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, proclaimedthe 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 Cæsar.
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 andEgypt, 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 fromdisease, 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 authoritiestwo 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 goout 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 anotherconception 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.45This 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 theSun-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.
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-calledstarand 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-calledstarand crescent. Such a conclusion is entirely borne out bythe 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 acrosswithin 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 "starand 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 wasadopted 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 theVictory 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 "starand 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, inouropinion) 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 ofold, 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 Phœnician 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 undoubtedlyLife. And it is clear that the conjunction ofthe 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 thesame 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 phalliccrux ansata, or Egyptian cross or symbol of Life, placed sideways, and as if the oval represented the female organ of reproduction, and thetauor 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 themthat 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 consideredthe symbol of Life as being the symbol of theSonof 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 thelaws 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 andonlya 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 broughtwith them from Babylon, the Creator is represented as saying "Letusmake man inourimage"; 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 "maleandfemale," 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 wasnotcreated 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."