The Triad, or Trinity, has been traced to Phœnicia, Egypt, Japan, and
India; the triple deities Asshur, Anu, and Hea forming the “tau.” This
mark of the Christians, Greeks, and Hebrews became the sign or type of
the deities representing the Phallic trinity, and in time became the
figure of the cross. It is remarked by Payne Knight that “The male
organs of generation are sometimes found represented by signs of the
same sort, which properly should be called the symbol of symbols. One of
the most remarkable of these is a cross, in the form of the letter (T),
which thus served as the emblem of creation and generation before the
Church adopted it as a sign of salvation.”
Another writer says, “Reverse the position of the triple deities Asshur,
Anu, Hea, and we have the figure of the ancient ‘tau’ of the Christians,
Greeks, and ancient Hebrews. It is one of the oldest conventional forms
of the cross. It is also met with in Gallic, Oscan, Arcadian, Etruscan,
original Egyptian, Phœnician, Ethiopic, and Pelasgian forms. The
Ethiopic form of the ‘tau’ is the exact prototype and image of the
cross, or rather, to state the fact in order of merit and time, the
cross is made in the exact image of the Ethiopic ‘tau.’ The fig-leaf,
having three lobes to it, became a symbol of the triad. As the male
genital organs were held in early times to exemplify the actual male
creative power, various natural objects were seized upon to express the
theistic idea, and at the same time point to those parts of the human
form. Hence, a similitude was recognised in a pillar, a heap of stones,
a tree between two rocks, a club between two pine cones, a trident, a
thyrsus tied round with two ribbons with the two ends pendant, a thumb
and two fingers, the caduceus. Again, the conspicuous part of the sacred
triad Asshur is symbolised by a single stone placed upright—the stump of
a tree, a block, a tower, spire, minaret, pole, pine, poplar, or palm
tree, while eggs, apples, or citrons, plums, grapes, and the like
represented the remaining two portions, altogether called Phallic
emblems. Baal-Shalisha is a name which seems designed to perpetuate the
triad, since it signifies ‘my Lord the Trinity,’ or ‘my God is three.’”
We must not omit to mention other Phallic emblems, such as the bull, the
ram, the goat, the serpent, the torch, fire, a knobbed stick, the
crozier; and still further personified, as Bacchus, Priapus, Dionysius,
Hercules, Hermes, Mahadeva, Siva, Osiris, Jupiter, Moloch, Baal, Asher,
and others.
If Ezekiel is to be credited, the triad, T, as Asshur, Anu, and Hea, was
made of gold and silver, and was in his day not symbolically used, but
actually employed; for he bluntly says “whoredom was committed with the
images of men,” or, as the marginal note has it, images of “a male”
(Ezek. xvi. 17). It was with this god-mark—a cross in the form of the
letter T—that Ezekiel was directed to stamp the foreheads of the men of
Judæa who feared the Lord (Ezek. ix. 4).
That the cross, or crucifix, has a sexual origin we determine by a
similar rule of research to that by which comparative anatomists
determine the place and habits of an animal by a single tooth. The cross
is a metaphoric tooth which belongs to an antique religious body
physical, and that essentially human. A study of some of the earliest
forms of faith will lift the veil and explain the mystery.
India, China, and Egypt have furnished the world with a _genus_ of
religion. Time and culture have divided and modified it into many
species and countless varieties. However much the imagination was
allowed to play upon it, the animus of that religion was
sexuality—worship of the generative principle of man and nature, male
and female. The cross became the emblem of the male feature, under the
term of the _triad_—three in one. The female was the _unit_; and, joined
to the male triad, constituted a sacred four. Rites and adoration were
sometimes paid to the male, sometimes to the female, or to the two in
one.
So great was the veneration of the cross among the ancients that it was
carried as a Phallic symbol in the religious processions of the
Egyptians and Persians. Higgins also describes the cross as used from
the earliest times of Paganism by the Egyptians as a banner, above which
was carried the device of the Egyptian cities.
The cross was also used by the ancient Druids, who held it as a sacred
emblem. In Egypt it stood for the signification of eternal life.
Schedeus describes it as customary for the Druids “to seek studiously
for an oak tree, large and handsome, growing up with _two principal arms
in the form of a cross_, besides the main stem upright. If the two
horizontal arms are not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fasten
a _cross-beam_ to it. This tree they consecrate in this manner: Upon the
right branch they cut in the bark, in fair characters, the word ‘Hesus’;
upon the middle, or upright stem, the word ‘Taranius’; upon the left
branch ‘Belenus’; over this, above the going off of the arms, they cut
the name of the god _Thau_; under all, the same repeated, _Thau_.”