THE NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS
An Enquiry Into The Origin And History Of
The Symbol Eventually Adopted As
That Of Our Religion
By John Denham Parsons
London
1896
"O Crux, Splendidior Cunctis Astris, Mundo
Celebris, Hominibus Multum Amabilis, Sanctior
Universis."
[_Breviarium Romanum,_
_Festival Of The Invention Of The Holy Cross._
PREFACE.
The history of the symbol of the cross has had an attraction for the
author ever since, as an enquiring youth, he found himself unable to
obtain satisfactory answers to four questions concerning the same which
presented themselves to his mind.
The first of those questions was why John the Baptist, who was beheaded
before Jesus was executed, and so far as we are told never had anything
to do with a cross, is represented in our religious pictures as holding
a cross.
The second question was whether this curious but perhaps in itself
easily explained practice had in its inception any connection with the
non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism; which Jesus accepted as a matter
of course at the hands of his cousin John, and in which the sign of the
cross has for ages been the all-important feature. And it was the
wonder whether there was or was not some association between the facts
that the New Testament writers give no explanation whatever of the
origin of baptism as an initiatory rite, that this non-Mosaic
initiatory rite was in use among Sun-God worshippers long before our
era, and that the Fathers admitted that the followers of the Persian
conception of the Sun-God marked their initiates upon the forehead like
the followers of the Christ, which finally induced the author to start
a systematic enquiry into the history of the cross as a symbol.
The third question was why, despite the fact that the instrument of
execution to which Jesus was affixed can have had but one shape, almost
any kind of cross is accepted as a symbol of our faith.
The last of the four questions was why many varieties of the cross of
four equal arms, which certainly was not a representation of an
instrument of execution, were accepted by Christians as symbols of the
Christ before any cross which could possibly have been a representation
of an instrument of execution was given a place among the symbols of
Christianity; while even nowadays one variety of the cross of four
equal arms is the favourite symbol of the Greek Church, and both it and
the other varieties enter into the ornamentation of our sacred
properties and dispute the supremacy with the cross which has one of
its arms longer than the other three.
Pursuing these matters for himself, the author eventually found that
even before our era the cross was venerated by many as the symbol of
Life; though our works of reference seldom mention this fact, and never
do it justice.
He moreover discovered that no one has ever written a complete history
of the symbol, showing the possibility that the _stauros_ or post to
which Jesus was affixed was not cross-shaped, and the certainty that,
in any case, what eventually became the symbol of our faith owed some
of its prestige as a Christian symbol of Victory and Life to the
position it occupied in pre-Christian days.
The author has therefore, in the hope of drawing attention to the
subject, incorporated the results of his researches in the present
essay.
14, ST. DUNSTAN'S HILL,
LONDON, E.C.
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
WAS THE _STAUROS_ OF JESUS CROSS-SHAPED? 13
CHAPTER II.
THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX 31
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF THE OTHER FATHERS3 41
CHAPTER IV.
CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF IRENAEUS 52
CHAPTER V.
ORIGIN OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS 57
CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS 65
CHAPTER VII.
THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH 82
CHAPTER VIII.
CROSS AND CRESCENT8 92
CHAPTER IX.
THE CORONATION ORB9 104
CHAPTER X.
ROMAN COINS BEFORE CONSTANTINE 119
CHAPTER XI.
THE COINS OF CONSTANTINE 133
CHAPTER XII.
ROMAN COINS AFTER CONSTANTINE 142
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST 147
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CROSS OF THE LOGOS 163
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN EUROPE 169
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN ASIA 178
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN AFRICA 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVIDENCE OF TROY 187
CHAPTER XIX.
EVIDENCE OF CYPRUS 193
CHAPTER XX.
MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE 204
CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY 214
THE NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS.
CHAPTER I.
WAS THE _STAUROS_ OF JESUS CROSS-SHAPED?
In the thousand and one works supplied for our information upon matters
connected with the history of our race, we are told that Alexander the
Great, Titus, and various Greek, Roman, and Oriental rulers of ancient
days, "crucified" this or that person; or that they "crucified" so many
at once, or during their reign. And the instrument of execution is
called a "cross."
The natural result is that we imagine that all the people said to have
been "crucified" were executed by being nailed or otherwise affixed to
a cross-shaped instrument set in the ground, like that to be seen in
our fanciful illustrations of the execution of Jesus.
This was, however, by no means necessarily the case.
For instance, the death spoken of, death by the _stauros_, included
transfixion by a pointed stauros or stake, as well as affixion to an
unpointed stauros or stake; and the latter punishment was not always
that referred to.
It is also probable that in most of the many cases where we have no
clue as to which kind of stauros was used, the cause of the condemned
one's death was transfixion by a pointed stauros.
Moreover, even if we could prove that this very common mode of capital
punishment was in no case that referred to by the historians who lived
in bygone ages, and that death was in each instance caused by affixion
to, instead of transfixion by, a stauros, we should still have to prove
that each stauros had a cross-bar before we could correctly describe
the death caused by it as death by crucifixion.
It is also, upon the face of it, somewhat unlikely that the ancients
would in every instance in which they despatched a man by affixing him
to a post set in the ground, have gone out of their way to provide the
artistic but quite unnecessary cross-bar of our imaginations.
As it is, in any case, well known that the Romans very often despatched
those condemned to death by affixing them to a stake or post which had
no cross-bar, the question arises as to what proof we have that a
cross-bar was used in the case of Jesus.
Nor is the question an unimportant one. For, as we shall see in the
chapters to come, there was a pre-Christian cross, which was, like
ours, a symbol of Life. And it must be obvious to all that if the cross
was a symbol of Life before our era, it is possible that it was
originally fixed upon as a symbol of the Christ because it was a symbol
of Life; the assumption that it became a symbol of Life because it was
a symbol of the Christ, being in that case neither more nor less than a
very natural instance of putting the cart before the horse.
Now the Greek word which in Latin versions of the New Testament is
translated as _crux_, and in English versions is rendered as _cross,
i.e._, the word _stauros_, seems to have, at the beginning of our era,
no more meant a cross than the English word stick means a crutch.
It is true that a stick may be in the shape of a crutch, and that the
stauros to which Jesus was affixed may have been in the shape of a
cross. But just as the former is not necessarily a crutch, so the
latter was not necessarily a cross.
What the ancients used to signify when they used the word _stauros_,
can easily be seen by referring to either the Iliad or the Odyssey.[1]
It will there be found to clearly signify an ordinary pole or stake
without any cross-bar. And it is as thus signifying a single piece of
wood that the word in question is used throughout the old Greek
classics.[2]
The stauros used as an instrument of execution was (1) a small pointed
pole or stake used for thrusting through the body, so as to pin the
latter to the earth, or otherwise render death inevitable; (2) a
similar pole or stake fixed in the ground point upwards, upon which the
condemned one was forced down till incapable of escaping; (3) a much
longer and stouter pole or stake fixed point upwards, upon which the
victim, with his hands tied behind him, was lodged in such a way that
the point should enter his breast and the weight of the body cause
every movement to hasten the end; and (4) a stout unpointed pole or
stake set upright in the earth, from which the victim was suspended by
a rope round his wrists, which were first tied behind him so that the
position might become an agonising one; or to which the doomed one was
bound, or, as in the case of Jesus, nailed.
That this last named kind of stauros, which was admittedly that to
which Jesus was affixed, had in every case a cross-bar attached, is
untrue; that it had in most cases, is unlikely; that it had in the case
of Jesus, is unproven.
Even as late as the Middle Ages, the word stauros seems to have
primarily signified a straight piece of wood without a cross-bar. For
the famous Greek lexicographer, Suidas, expressly states, "Stauroi;
ortha xula perpegota," and both Eustathius and Hesychius affirm that it
meant a _straight_ stake or pole.
The side light thrown upon the question by Lucian is also worth noting.
This writer, referring to Jesus, alludes to "That sophist of theirs who
was fastened to a _skolops_;" which word signified a single piece of
wood, and not two pieces joined together.
Only a passing notice need be given to the fact that in some of the
Epistles of the New Testament, which seem to have been written before
the Gospels, though, like the other Epistles, misleadingly placed after
the Gospels, Jesus is said to have been _hanged_ upon a _tree_.[3] For
in the first place the Greek word translated "hanged" did not
necessarily refer to hanging by the neck, and simply meant suspended in
some way or other. And in the second place the word translated "tree,"
though that always used in referring to what is translated as the
"_Tree of Life_," signified not only "tree" but also "wood."
It should be noted, however, that these five references of the Bible to
the execution of Jesus as having been carried out by his suspension
upon either a tree or a piece of timber set in the ground, in no wise
convey the impression that two pieces of wood nailed together in the
form of a cross is what is referred to.
Moreover, there is not, even in the Greek text of the Gospels, a single
intimation in the Bible to the effect that the instrument actually used
in the case of Jesus was cross-shaped.
Had there been any such intimation in the twenty-seven Greek works
referring to Jesus, which our Church selected out of a very large
number and called the "New Testament," the Greek letter _chi_, which
was cross-shaped, would in the ordinary course have been referred to;
and some such term as _Kata chiasmon_, "like a chi," made use of.
It should also be borne in mind that though the Christians of the first
three centuries certainly made use of a transient sign of the cross in
the non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism and at other times, it is, as
will be shown in the next two chapters, admitted that they did not use
or venerate it as a representation of the instrument of execution upon
which Jesus died.
Moreover, if in reply to the foregoing it should be argued that as it
is well known that cross-shaped figures of wood, and other lasting
representations of the sign or figure of the cross, were not venerated
by Christians until after the fateful day when Constantine set out at
the head of the soldiers of Gaul in his famous march against Rome; and
that the Christian crosses of the remainder of the fourth century were
representations of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died; a
dozen other objections present themselves if we are honest enough to
face the fact that we have to show that they were so from the first.
For the Gauls, and therefore the soldiers of Gaul, venerated as symbols
of the Sun-God and Giver of Life and Victory the cross of four equal
arms, {image "plus.gif"}, or {image "x.gif"}, and the solar wheel,
{image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "solarwheel2.gif"}; while the
so-called cross which Constantine and his troops are said to have seen
above the midday sun was admittedly the monogram of Christ, {image
"monogram1.gif"} or {image "monogram2.gif"}, which was admittedly an
adaptation of the solar wheel, as will be shown further on; and it was
as tokens of the conquest of Rome by his Gaulish troops, that
Constantine, as their leader, erected one of these symbols in the
centre of the Eternal City, and afterwards placed upon his coins the
crosses {image "solarwheel1.gif"}, {image "solarwheel2.gif"}, {image
"monogram1.gif"}, {image "monogram2.gif"}, {image "asterisk.gif"},
{image "monogram3.gif"}, {image "monogram4.gif"}, the cross of four
equal arms {image "x.gif"}, and several variations of that other cross
of four equal arms, the right-angled {image "plus.gif"}. And it was not
till long after these crosses were accepted as Christian, and
Constantine was dead and buried, that the cross with one of its arms
longer than the other three (or two), which alone could be a
representation of an instrument of execution, was made use of by
Christians.
Another point to be remembered is that when Constantine, apparently
conceiving ours, as the only non-national religion with ramifications
throughout his world-wide dominions, to be the only one that could weld
together the many nations which acknowledged his sway, established
Christianity as the State Religion of the Roman Empire, the Church to
which we belong would naturally have had to accept as its own the
symbols which Constantine had caused to be those of the State in
question. And it should be added that the cross of later days with one
of its arms longer than the others, if not also the assumption that the
stauros to which Jesus was affixed had a cross-bar, may have been
merely the outcome of a wish to associate with the story of Jesus these
Gaulish symbols of victory which had become symbols of the Roman State,
and therefore of its State Church.
Anyway, the first kind of cross venerated by Christians was not a
representation of an instrument of execution; and the fact that we hold
sacred many different kinds of crosses, although even if we could prove
that the stauros to which Jesus was affixed had a cross-bar but one
kind could be a representation of that instrument of execution, has to
be accounted for.
Our only plausible explanation of the fact that we hold sacred almost
any species of cross is that, as we do not know what kind of cross
Jesus died upon, opinions have always differed as to which was the real
cross.
This difference of opinion among Christians as to the shape of the
instrument upon which Jesus was executed, has certainly existed for
many centuries. But as an explanation of the many different kinds of
crosses accepted by us as symbols of the Christ, it only lands us in a
greater difficulty. For if we did not know what kind of cross Jesus
died upon when we accepted the cross as our symbol, the chances
obviously are that we accepted the cross as our symbol for some other
reason than that we assert.
As a matter of fact our position regarding the whole matter is
illogical and unsatisfactory, and we ought to alter it by honestly
facing the facts that we cannot satisfactorily prove that our symbol
was adopted as a representation of the instrument of execution to which
Jesus was affixed, and that we do not even know for certain that the
instrument in question was cross-shaped.
It need only be added that there is not a single sentence in any of the
numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original
Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used
in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to
the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two
pieces nailed together in the form of a cross.
Taking the whole of the foregoing facts into consideration, it will be
seen that it is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers
to translate the word stauros as "cross" when rendering the Greek
documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that
action by putting "cross" in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros
without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary
meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its
primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at
all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it
was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon
which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.
But--the reader may object--how about the Greek word which in our
Bibles is translated as "crucify" or "crucified?" Does not that mean
"fix to a cross" or "fixed to a cross?" And what is this but the
strongest possible corroboration of our assertion as Christians that
Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped instrument?
The answer is that no less than four different Greek words are
translated in our Bibles as meaning "crucify" or "crucified," and that
not one of the four meant "crucify" or "crucified."
The four words in question are the words _prospegnumi, anastauroo,
sustauroo_, and _stauroo_.
The word prospegnumi, though translated in our Bibles as "crucify" or
"crucified," meant to "fix" to or upon, and meant that only. It had no
special reference to the affixing of condemned persons either to a
stake, pale, or post, or to a tree, or to a cross; and had no more
reference to a cross than the English word "fix" has.
The word _anastauroo_ was never used by the old Greek writers as
meaning other than to impale upon or with a single piece of timber.[4]
The word _sustauroo_ does not occur in pre-Christian writings, and only
five times in the Bible against the forty-four times of the word next
to be dealt with. Being obviously derived in part from the word
stauros, which primarily signified a stake or pale which was a single
piece of wood and had no cross-bar, _sustauroo_ evidently meant
affixion to such a stake or pale. Anyhow there is nothing whatever
either in the derivation of the word, or in the context in either of
the five instances in which it occurs, to show that what is referred to
is affixion to something that was cross-shaped.
The word _stauroo_ occurs, as has been said, forty-four times; and of
the four words in question by far the most frequently. The meaning of
this word is therefore of special importance. It is consequently most
significant to find, as we do upon due investigation, that wherever it
occurs in the pre-Christian classics it is used as meaning to
impalisade, or stake, or affix to a pale or stake; and has reference,
not to crosses, but to single pieces of wood.[5]
It therefore seems tolerably clear (1) that the sacred writings forming
the New Testament, to the statements of which--as translated for us--we
bow down in reverence, do not tell us that Jesus was affixed to a
cross-shaped instrument of execution; (2) that the balance of evidence
is against the truth of our statements to the effect that the
instrument in question was cross-shaped, and our sacred symbol
originally a representation of the same; and (3) that we Christians
have in bygone days acted, and, alas! still act, anything but
ingenuously in regard to the symbol of the cross.
This is not all, however. For if the unfortunate fact that we have in
our zeal almost manufactured evidence in favour of the theory that
_our_ cross or crosses had its or their origin in the shape of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed proves anything at
all, it proves the need for a work which, like the present one, sets in
array the evidence available regarding both the pre-Christian cross and
the adoption in later times of a similar symbol as that of the catholic
faith.
Nor should it be forgotten that the triumph of Christianity was due to
the fact that it _was_ a "catholic" faith, and not, like the other
faiths followed by the subjects of Rome, and like what Jesus seems to
have intended the results of His mission to have been inasmuch as He
solemnly declared that he was sent to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel and to them alone, the monopoly of a single nation or race.
For if Paul, taking his and other visions of Jesus as the long-needed
proofs of a future life, had not disregarded the very plain intimations
of Jesus to the effect that His mission was to the descendants of Jacob
or Israel, and to them alone; if Paul had not withstood Christ's
representative, Peter, to the face, and, with unsurpassed zeal, carried
out his grand project of proclaiming a non-national and universal
religion founded upon appearances of the spirit-form of Jesus, what we
call Christianity would not have come into existence.
The fact that but for Paul there would have been no catholic faith with
followers in every land ruled by Constantine when sole emperor, for
that astute monarch to establish as the State Religion of his loosely
knit empire, because, on account of its catholicity, that best fitted
to hold power as the official faith of a government with world-wide
dominions, is worthy of a lasting place in our memory.
Nor is the noteworthy fact last mentioned unconnected with the symbol
of the cross. For, as will be shown, it is clear that it was because
Constantine caused the figure of the cross to become a recognized
symbol of his catholic empire, that it became recognized as a symbol of
the catholic faith.
Not till after Constantine and his Gaulish warriors planted what
Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea and other Christians of the century in
question describe as a cross, within the walls of the Eternal City as
the symbol of their victory, did Christians ever set on high a
cross-shaped trophy of any description.
Moreover, but for the fact that, as it happened, the triumph of
Constantine resulted in that of the Christian Church, we should
probably have deemed the cross, if to our minds a representation of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, as anything but the
symbol of Victory we now deem it.
This is evident from the fact that the so-called cross of Jesus
admittedly fulfilled the purpose for which it was erected at the
request of those who sought the death of Jesus. And even according to
our Gospels the darkness of defeat o'ershadowed the scene at Calvary.
To put the matter plainly, the victory of Jesus was not a victory over
the cross; for He did not come down from the cross. Nor was it a
victory over His enemies; for what they sought was to get rid of a man
whom they deemed an agitator, and their wish was gratified, inasmuch
as, thanks to the cross, He troubled them no more.
In other words the victory which we ascribe to Jesus did not occur
during the gloom which hung like a pall over his native land at the
time of His execution, but upon the then approaching Sun-day of the
Vernal Equinox, at the coming of the glory of the dawn.
For the victory in question, from whatever point of view we may look at
it, was not the avoidance of defeat, but its retrieval. And its story
is an illustration of the old-world promise, hoary with antiquity and
founded upon the coming, ushered in every year by the Pass-over or
cross-over of the equator by the sun at the Vernal Equinox, of the
bounteous harvests of summer after the dearth of devastating winter;
bidding us ever hope, not indeed for the avoidance of death and
therefore of defeat, but for such victory as may happen to lay in
survival or resurrection.
It is therefore clear that even if we _could_ prove that the instrument
of execution to which Jesus was affixed was cross-shaped, it would not
necessarily follow that it was as the representation of the cause of
His death which we now deem it, that the figure of the cross became our
symbol of Life and Victory.
In any case honesty demands that we should no longer translate as
"cross" a word which at the time our Gospels were written did not
necessarily signify something cross-shaped. And it is equally incumbent
upon us, from a moral point of view, that we should cease to render as
"crucify" or "crucified" words which never bore any such meaning.