In any case the fact that the symbolMonogram of Christ 3was a Pagan one centuries before the Christ is said to have made it a Christian one for the Sun-Godworshipping 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.56Also 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 everyDies Solis, or in other words upon that day of the week which throughout the Roman Empire was held sacred to the Sun-God and throughoutChristendom 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."57Who 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 wordsDEO 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 thouart 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 thefirstcrosses 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 sawit 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.
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 evenwent 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 theLogosof God.
Now although, following the Gospel of St. John, we have made it a main article of our belief that the Logos, really the ThoughtplusSpeech, 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, theWordof God) was by the philosophers called the "Intellectual Sun" and the "Light of the World",59being, as a personification of theThoughtandSpeechof theAll-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 theCosmos"), 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 theTimæusof 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 letterΧ."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 letterΧ, 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 letterΧupon the universe."62And 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 letterΧ, 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 crossX, being avowedly adopted by the pre-Christian philosophers as the symbol of the "Logos" or "First-begotten" of God in preference to thePlusbecause 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-Christiansymbol of the Christ, is, when considered in connection with the fact that nearly all the Fathers allude to the figure of the cross,anykind of cross, as a life-giving symbol from time immemorial, significant of much.
That the symbol of the cross was widely venerated in Europe long before our era, is well known to archæologists. 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 Cæsar, were admittedly of pre-Christian date. Evidences of the veneration of the cross in France before our era are so numerous andeasily ascertainable, that it will only be necessary to refer the reader to theCollection Roujou, the pages of theRevue 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 theRevue Archéologqueby Monsieur G. de Mortillet.
After referring to the relics of so much ofancient 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 lakesbefore 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) theright-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 orChicross; and (3) the Fylfot or Svastika cross.
The last named cross is a peculiar one of quite unmistakeable design; and there are two varieties,Svastika1, andSvastika2, of which one is obviously an impression or reverse view of the other.
The namesFylfotandSvastikaare very generally applied to both these symbols. The termSvastika, an Indian one, is however applied by the inhabitants of Hindostan to one only; they calling the otherSauvastika. 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 itsjourney 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 Mycenæ 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 classictongue 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 Mycenæ; 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, ahope;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.
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 Phœnician Goddess of Love—Astarte, Ashtoreth, or Ishtar, the Bride of the Sun-God—was a cross; that a cross was also associated with the Phœnician 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 Phœnician "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 withfire(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 withfireand wouldincrease, 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 asDies Solis, the Day of the Sun. For to averas 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
Passing on to Africa and a consideration of thecrux ansataor 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 theinhabitants 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 theKey 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.
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 hisIlios(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 crosseserected to Priapus can be seen in figure XI. of plate XXIX. of that well-known work,Antique Gems and Rings.67And 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 ofIliosthat 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 theSvastika1, or theSvastika2, is unknown; but Dr. Schliemann quotes with approval Professor Max Müller'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 thesun 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 theSvastika, 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, theSauvastika, 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 Norsehjolor hvel, the A.-S.hvehol, English 'wheel,' withκύκλος, Sk. Kakra, wheel; and derives jól, 'yule-tide,' the time of the winter solstice, from hjol, 'the (solar) wheel.'"
Both theSvastika1and theSvastika2occur upon the famous footprints of Buddha carved upon the Amarâvati 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 inthe Märkisches 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, theSvastika2andSvastika1represented 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,Svastika2orSvastika1, "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 ontheSvastika2andSvastika1by 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.
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 Phœnician 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 Phœnician inscriptions,themselves the earliest examples of letters properly so called,come from Cyprus."
As, moreover, when face to face with the relics of the Phœnicians we are, as Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter also remarks, "In the very midst ofancient 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 'starand 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 vaguekind was made between the All-FatherFireand His Image and First-begotten SonLight. 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 symbolof 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 Principleof 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 femalevulvaand of the diamond shaped symbol which represented the femalepudendum.
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 thirteenexamples 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 Phœnician 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 Bœotian 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,tau cross; 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 Græco-Phœnician 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 Bibliothèque 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 Græco-Phœnician 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 Phœnicians 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."
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 theHermæof 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 Hermæ a reason or excuse for paying them homage, while very similar figures are to be seen illustrated upon Christian antiquities, suchas the mosaic of which the great cross of the Lateran forms the principal feature.
The Hermæ 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 Hermæ, 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 circlewas 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 theheadgear 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 theIncarnate 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, theNatalis Invictiof 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 thirdor fourth("Afterthree 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 generativepowers 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 ruinsof 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 theGnostics 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 knownsymbol 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.