CROSS AND CRESCENT.
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-called _star_ and 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-called _star_ and
crescent. Such a conclusion is entirely borne out by the 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 a _cross_ within 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 "_star_ and
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 was adopted 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 the _Victory 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
"_star_ and 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, in _our_
opinion) 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 of old, 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 Phoenician 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 undoubtedly _Life_. And it is
clear that the conjunction of the 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 the same 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 phallic _crux ansata_, or Egyptian cross or symbol of
Life, placed sideways, and as if the oval represented the female organ
of reproduction, and the _tau_ or 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
them that 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 considered the symbol of Life as
being the symbol of the SON of 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 the laws 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 and _only_ a 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 brought with them from Babylon, the
Creator is represented as saying "Let _us_ make man in _our_ image";
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
"male _and_ female," 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
was _not_ created 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."