THE CORONATION ORB.
The fact that though we Christians fail to do the matter justice, the
ancients upon the contrary recognised that the Creator and the Giver of
Life cannot be rightly spoken of as belonging to one sex and one alone,
is not the only fact which those who examine relics of antiquity, such
as the coins of the Roman Empire, with a view to ascertaining what
evidence is derivable from them that bears upon the history of the
symbol of the cross, should ever bear in mind. Another point to be kept
in view is the evolution of the Christian symbol now known as the
Coronation Orb.
This compound symbol, which plays so prominent a part in the regalia of
a Christian Monarch, also crowns the topmost height of many a Christian
Temple including both St. Peter's at Rome and St. Paul's at London. And
it is noteworthy that it bears a certain resemblance to the
representation of the Apex, once worn by the Salian priests and
afterwards by the Pontifex Maximus and the Flamens generally, which
appears upon ancient coins of the _Fabia_ gens; the office of _Flamen
Quirinalis_ having been hereditary in the Fabia family.
Upon other coins also, what is said to be meant for the pontifical apex
occurs as a round ball surmounted by something very like a cross, in
the hand of a female figure representing Rome; exactly as the so-called
Coronation Orb is to be seen upon coins of later date in the hand of
this or that Christian Emperor.
The evidence as a whole, however, favours the supposition that the
Coronation Orb, instead of having been derived from the Apex of the
Pagan priests and thus signifying the claim to priesthood or headship
of the church so often made by monarchs, is a development of the round
object, frequently unsurmounted by anything, so continually to be met
with upon ancient coins of Rome in the hand of this or that God,
Goddess, or Ruler.
This being the case, it is a matter of very considerable importance
that we should be quite sure what the round object in question used to
signify, and should base our assurance upon the results of personal
investigation rather than upon the assumption that the popular
explanation is necessarily the correct one.
Though the round object in question was, as stated, in days of old
often used as a symbol by itself, it was sometimes, and, as time rolled
on, more and more frequently, surmounted by a small female figure with
wings; which figure was a representation of Victory. This figure was,
after the establishment of Christianity as the State Religion of the
Roman Empire, gradually, and only gradually, supplanted by the figure
of the cross.
Although several writers of note assume that the initiative in this
direction was taken by Constantine himself, the first step seems to
have been taken upon the death of Constantine, when a coin or medal was
issued on which the deceased monarch is called a God and is represented
as holding a round object surmounted by the so-called Monogram of
Christ; a symbol continually referred to by Eusebius and other writers
of the fourth century as a cross.
Later on an instance occurs of the Monogram surmounting a round object
held by a female figure representing Rome. This is upon a coin issued
by Nepotianus, a nephew of Constantine.
Passing on to the reign of Valentinianus II., we find that that Emperor
issued a coin upon which a round object surmounted by a cross is to be
seen in the hand of Victory herself. This would appear to have been the
first instance in which what we should call a cross, supplanted the
representation of Victory as a small female figure with wings, as a
symbol surmounting the round object which we are considering.
A similar coin was issued by Theodosius I., surnamed the Great; the
last of the Emperors of Rome whose rule extended throughout the whole
of the Roman world.
The instances named are, it will be understood, the exceptions to the
general rule during a considerable period. And upon many of the coins
of the Emperors mentioned, as well as upon those of the intervening
Emperors, the round object held by those rulers is surmounted by either
a Victory or a Phoenix; usually by the former, but in several instances
by the latter.
The first ruler who caused _himself_ to be represented as holding a
round object surmounted by an ordinary cross, was Theodosius II.,
Emperor of the East.
The fact that for a long time the Victory, the Phoenix, and the Cross,
were made use of as symbols which might be substituted one for another,
is worthy of special note. For the facts that the round object held by
Theodosius II. is as often surmounted by a Victory as by a Cross, and
that a Victory instead of a Cross was often used by succeeding
Christian Emperors, tend to show that the Victory, the Phoenix, and the
Cross were allied in signification, and equally connected with the
round object the nature and meaning of which we are about to enquire
into.
The reader may possibly object that no case has been made out for such
enquiry, inasmuch as not only did the cross in course of time entirely
supplant the Victory, but the round object from first to last, and
whether unsurmounted by anything or surmounted by a Victory or a
Phoenix or a Cross, signified the world upon which we dwell, the round
world, and nothing but the world.
Such is, of course, the popular assumption; based upon what we are
taught in school books and in standard works of reference. But, as a
matter of fact, in many cases the round object admittedly signified an
apple; the Golden Apple of the Hesperides: a well known phallic symbol.
Whenever a round object unsurmounted by anything is to be seen in the
hand of either the Sun-God Hercules or Venus the Goddess of Love, it
admittedly may have been, for it admittedly often was, a
representation, not of the world, but of the Golden Apple. And not only
does it so occur upon a very large number of coins, but in some
instances we see the Victory surmounting it; recalling to our minds the
fact that victory, as signifying the triumph of Life over Death, had a
phallic as well as a martial meaning, and is achieved every time that a
man is born into the world as a result of the tasting of the fruit of
the Tree of Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.
Moreover, though the fact is now for some reason or other ignored, the
so-called Coronation Orb of Christian Monarchs was itself once known as
the Golden Apple. It is so referred to in important Latin documents of
the Middle Ages; for instance in the famous Bull of Charles IV.
regarding the Imperial elections, wherein we read of the right of the
Counts Palatine of the Rhine to carry the symbol in question at the
coronation of their Emperor. And to this very day the so-called
Coronation Orb is known throughout Germany and Austria as
_Reichsapfel_, the Imperial Apple.
It is therefore by no means certain that the round portion of the
Coronation Orb which thus caused the name of "the Golden Apple" to be
given to this compound Christian symbol, is not, like the cross above
it, to some extent a phallic symbol.
Every one should know the classic story of the Golden Apple; how the
tree which bore the Golden Apples grew up in the Garden of the
Hesperides in honour of the wedding of Hera, a goddess who more or less
personified the female sex; how the Golden Apples are variously said to
have been dedicated to the Sun (Hellos), to the Sun-God (Dionysos), and
to the Goddess of Love (Aphrodite); how the Sun-God Hercules as one of
the twelve labours which represented the months, slew the Serpent which
guarded the tree, and plucked the fruit; and how the Goddess Eris, who
alone of all the deities was not invited to the nuptials of Peleus and
Thetis, revenged herself by throwing among the guests a Golden Apple
inscribed "To the fairest," and Paris awarded it to the Goddess of
Love, Aphrodite or Venus.
The story of the Garden of the Hesperides is at heart one with that of
the Garden of Eden; for it is obvious that the same phallic meaning
underlies each, and that they are but different versions of the same
allegory.
It may here be called to mind that it has this century been discovered
from the cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, that Eden was the name
given by Babylonians in days of old to the plain outside Babylon,
whereupon, according to the legends of that city, the creation of
living beings took place. Also that much evidence has accrued which,
impartially weighed in the balance, leads clearly to the conclusion
that the all-important commencement of Genesis, which forms as it were
the very basis of both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, was
borrowed by the Jews from Babylon. And that it was in reality a
_Babylonian_ tradition or series of traditions of far older date than
any writing of purely Jewish origin, has not only been amply proved by
recent discoveries, but might indeed have been guessed from its
reference to the Tower of Babel or Babylon.
Nor is this all, for among the age-old relics discovered in Western
Asia is a pictorial representation of the allegorical Temptation and
Fall.
Upon this noteworthy piece of evidence the Tree of Knowledge or Life,
with which the figure of the cross was identified by the early
Christians; the Serpent, which in all countries and every age has been
more or less identified with the sexual powers; the Man; the Woman; and
the Apple; are all represented. And it is important to note that,
according to the cuneiform inscription upon another time-worn relic in
the British Museum, the Babylonians of old, at a time when the
descendants of Jacob or Israel were without scriptures of their own,
had a tradition to the effect that the fate of our first parents--who,
thanks to a wicked Serpent of Darkness, tasted of the forbidden fruit
which grew in the "Garden of the Gods"--was placed in the hands of
"their Redeemer."
It should also be pointed out that this voice from the dim and distant
past distinctly states that the Redeemer in question was--the Sun-God.
In ancient days the so-called forbidden fruit or apple seems to have
borne somewhat the same symbolic meaning that the egg did. But while
the apple not only represented Life, but also, and primarily, that
union between two sexes or principles which produces life, the egg more
or less lacked the latter meaning, and, on the other hand, signified
Existence in a wider sense than the apple did.
The _Cosmos_ itself was an egg according to the conceptions of many of
the ancients; and few ideas were more widely spread, or can be traced
further back, than the one that the whole visible creation emerged from
the original Chaos or Darkness in the shape of an egg.
The egg also, and above all, signified the Sun-God, as the acknowledged
Giver of Life and Saviour of Life. Hence the prominent part which it
played in the various religious mysteries of the ancients, and also the
fact that the Egyptians represented the Sun-God Ra as giving forth such
utterances as "I am the Creative Soul of the celestial abyss. None sees
my nest, and none can break my egg." The egg referred to, was of course
the Sun itself.
Even our Christian custom of exchanging eggs at Easter is more or less
derived from Sun-God worship, being a survival from customs practised
long before our era at that particular period of the year, the time of
the Vernal Equinox or Pass-over of the Sun, when the Orient Light
crosses the Equator to rise once more in the Northern Hemisphere.
Nor are these the only facts connecting the egg with Sun-God worship,
for the Sun-God Apollo was of old represented as born from the egg of
Leda, and the Sun-God Osiris was also said to have been born from an
egg.
Moreover the Chinese believe that the first man was born from an egg,
the Orphic hymns speak of the "First-Begotten One" as "egg-born," and
the Greeks fabled that their Sun-God Dionysos sprang from the cosmic
egg.
As to the origin of the Coronation Orb, it is noteworthy that no finer
or more natural symbol of Power could have been fixed upon than a
representation of that ball of fire which was so frequently spoken of
in bygone ages as "the Orb," and from which all earthly life and power
may be said to proceed.
However the available evidence certainly seems to show that the round
object we are considering is more likely to have signified the cosmic
egg than the solar orb.
In any case the object in question cannot be shown to have represented
the world upon which we dwell and that alone; and nothing is more
likely than that so famous a symbol should, like the cross which now
adorns it, have more or less signified Life.
It should also be pointed out that this symbol of Power may have
signified, not so much that the Ruler who used it laid claim to
world-wide dominion, as that he held in his hand power over the lives
of others; and, possibly, also that he claimed to be, as the vicegerent
of the Sun-God and Giver of Life, the only legitimate Saviour of his
country.
The facts that the symbol was used in clays of old by others than the
Emperors whose sway extended over the whole of the Roman Empire, and is
nowadays considered the rightful symbol of every Christian Monarch
however limited the area over which his power is felt, should also be
borne in mind; though not of much value as evidence, as even petty
rulers have been known to boast that they held the world in their
grasp.
It should however be remembered that though the ancients, struck by the
dome-like appearance of the sky and the circular movements of the
constellations, conceived the cosmos or universe to be spherical, and
in some instances even constructed celestial globes upon which to
record the movements of Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars, it is doubtful
if a single one of them considered the world upon which we dwell to be
spherical. Also, that many a Christian Monarch has used the Coronation
Orb as a symbol of power, and yet believed the earth to be otherwise
than a globe in shape.
In this connection it should be pointed out that the round object which
the ancients represented Atlas as supporting upon his shoulders,
usually in the presence of Jupiter, was not as is vulgarly supposed the
earth, but the heavens; Hesiod telling us that Atlas bore heaven with
his head and hands, Ovid that upon Atlas rested heaven and all the
stars, and other writers of bygone ages that Atlas was a king who first
taught men that heaven had the shape of a globe.
It is of course possible that the ancients may have conceived the earth
to be otherwise than spherical, and yet, because the horizon which
appears to limit its extent seems to be circular, or for some other
reason, have considered a round object to be a representation of it.
Even where, however, the ball-like symbol we are considering may have
represented something other than the Golden Apple, the probability is
that it seldom if ever represented the earth.
For as, though the ancients may have conceived and spoken of the world
we live upon as being "round" in the same sense as a circular coin is
round, they did not think of it as being a globe, it is obvious that
the ball-like symbol in question is much less likely to have signified
the--in their belief--non-globular earth, than it is to have been a
representation of something which they did consider to be globular.
Such is the nature of the evidence which tends to show that we
Christians may be mistaken in supposing that our famous symbol the
Coronation Orb represents the round world upon which we dwell,
surmounted by the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died.
Although, however, most points have now been touched upon, including
the important fact that the so-called Coronation Orb of Christian
Monarchs used to be called, even by Christians, the Golden Apple, the
idea that it may have been the _crux ansata_, or Egyptian symbol of
Life (an upright oval, perhaps signifying the female principle, set
upon the top of the _tau_, or {image "t.gif"} cross, and thus turning
into a complete cross what is really an incomplete one, and may be
supposed to have signified the male principle), _reversed_ (_e.g.,
Archaeological Journal_ xlii. 164), should at least be mentioned. It
ought, however to be pointed out that the Orb is even more like the
ancient symbol of the planet sacred to Venus, the Goddess of Love,
reversed.
Even this point does not exhaust the subject in hand; for the fact that
in days of old we used to represent the Christ as the Pagans
represented the Sun-God, _viz._, as standing by the Tree of Life and
holding a round object meant for the phallic apple, has not yet been
dealt with in any way.
It is however desirable that before discussing the matter further we
should ascertain the nature of the evidence, regarding this and kindred
subjects, derivable from the coins of the Roman Empire.