THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST.
The so-called "Monogram of Christ "--a term which has at one time or
another been applied to each of the symbols {image "solarwheel1.gif"}
or {image "asterisk.gif"}, {image "monogram1.gif"} or {image
"monogram3.gif"}, and {image "monogram2.gif"} or {image
"monogram4.gif"}, as but variations of one and the same
symbol--deserves a chapter to itself.
Though not first placed upon the coins of the Roman Empire by
Constantine any more than was the right-angled cross of four equal arms
or the so-called St. Andrew's cross, the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"}
was, like the {image "x.gif"} cross and the many varieties of
right-angled crosses of four equal arms, first brought into prominence
as a Roman symbol by the Emperor in question.
From the evidence at our disposal it would appear that Decius was the
first Roman ruler to make use of this form of the so-called Monogram of
Christ. Anyhow, as has already been remarked, this symbol {image
"monogram3.gif"} occurs upon a coin of the Emperor Decius struck at
Maeonia about A.C. 250; and therefore more than half a century before
the days of Constantine. And it is noteworthy that it was as a Pagan
symbol that the {image "monogram3.gif"} thus first appeared upon the
Roman coinage.
The coin in question is a bronze one, and the "Monogram of Christ"
occurs in the centre of a Greek inscription surrounding a
representation of the Sun-God Bacchus; and, apparently, as an
amalgamation or contraction of the two Greek letters equivalent to our
R and CH, _viz._: the Greek letters P and X.[50]
Why these particular letters should have been contracted, is, however,
uncertain; and the question arises as to whether the {image
"monogram3.gif"} first arose as a contraction of such Greek letters, or
as an amalgamation of the Roman letters P and X, or as the cross {image
"x.gif"} _plus_ the Greek P (our R) as the initial letter of the Greek
name for Rome.
Moreover if it be decided that the symbol first arose as a contraction
of certain letters, yet further questions arise; _viz._; in what order
those letters were first read, and what word they first represented.
Before going into such matters as these, however, it is important that
we should fully realise how certain it is that the so-called Monogram
of Christ was originally a _Pagan_ symbol. For even if this be not
considered demonstrated by its occurrence upon a Roman coin long
before, according to our Church, the Christ caused Constantine to use
it as the military standard of the Gauls, it is clearly shown by its
occurrence upon many relics of pre-Christian date.
The so-called "Monogram of Christ" can be seen, for instance, upon a
monument of Isis, the Virgin Mother of the Sun-God, which dates from
the second century before our era.[51] Also upon the coins of
Ptolemaeus; on one of which is a head of Zeus Ammon upon one side, and
an eagle bearing the {image "monogram3.gif"} in its claws upon the
other.[52] The symbol in question also appears upon Greek money struck
long before the birth of Jesus; for instance upon certain varieties of
the Attic tetradrachma. And the {image "monogram4.gif"} occurs upon
many different coins of the first Herod, struck thirty years or more
B.C.
Whether the Pagan {image "monogram3.gif"} and the Pagan {image
"monogram4.gif"} originally had the same signification or not, is
uncertain.
Almost equally uncertain is the date at which we Christians first
adopted these Pagan symbols as Christian symbols because they could be
interpreted as formed of the two first letters of the Greek word
XPI{sigma}TO{sigma}, _Christos_, Christ.
The probability is that Christians had at least drawn attention to this
possible interpretation of the symbols in question before the days of
Constantine. But this scarcely renders less noteworthy the fact, shown
further on, that the favourite symbol of the Gaulish warriors, the
solar wheel {image "solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "solarwheel2.gif"}, was
sooner or later altered by their leader into {image "monogram1.gif"} or
{image "monogram2.gif"} to please the Christians; while the symbols
{image "monogram3.gif"} and {image "monogram4.gif"} were also made use
of by Constantine.
Which form of solar wheel, monogram, or cross, was that actually
carried by the Gauls in triumph within the walls of Rome and set up by
their leader in the heart of the Eternal City, is not quite certain.
But it is clear that as both the {image "monogram3.gif"} and the {image
"monogram4.gif"} appeared upon coins struck before our era, Constantine
cannot very well have been ignorant of the fact that these were
originally Pagan symbols, when he favoured the addition of a loop to
the top of the vertical bar of the Gaulish solar symbols {image
"solarwheel1.gif"} or {image "asterisk.gif"} and {image
"solarwheel2.gif"} or {image "plus.gif"} in order that what his Gaulish
army venerated as triumphal tokens might be accepted as symbols of
victory by his Christian supporters also.
That this Gaulish monarch did so alter, and for the reason named, the
symbol or symbols venerated by his troops, is admitted by, amongst
others, that well known writer the Reverend S. Baring Gould, M.A. For,
referring to the solar wheel as a symbol of the Sun-God venerated by
the ancient Gauls, this author tells us that Constantine
"Adopted and adapted the sign for his standards, and the
_Labarum_ of Constantine became a common Christian
symbol. That there was policy in his conduct we can
hardly doubt; the symbol he set up gratified the
Christians in his army on one side and the Gauls on the
other. For the former it was a sign compounded of the
initial letters of Christ, to the latter it was the
token of the favour of the solar deity."[53]
As the fact that both the {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image
"monogram4.gif"} were in use as symbols before the commencement of our
era thoroughly disposes of our contention as Christians that the
so-called "Monogram of Christ" had its origin in the formation of a
monogram out of the two first letters of the Greek word
XPI{sigma}TO{sigma} (_Christos_, Christ), it is clear that these
symbols must have had some other origin.
Assuming that the symbols {image "monogram3.gif"} and {image
"monogram4.gif"} had the same origin, and the same signification, and
that if the {image "monogram4.gif"} was a combination of two letters
the Greek or Latin T (instead of X) was not one of them; or rather, as
these would be very considerable assumptions, more or less confining
our attention to the {image "monogram3.gif"} as the more likely of the
two to have arisen as a combination of the Greek letters P and X; let
us in passing briefly enquire into the origin of the so-called Monogram
of Christ as a Pagan symbol.
If we seek for that origin as a combination of the first two letters of
some other Greek word than Christos, _Christ_, and for the moment
assume the letters P and X to have occurred in the same order as in
that word, we see at once that the monogram may have been derived
either from the word Chrestos, _Good_, or the word Chronos, _Time_, or
the word Chrusos, _Gold_.
There is, by the way, another curious connection between the three
Greek words in question. For the name of the famous god Kronos or
Cronos was often spelt XPONO{sigma} _i.e._, Chronos.[54] And this god
Chronos--the father of Zeus; and more or less a personification of
Time, the Old Father from whom we are all descended--was identical with
Saturn, while the Saturnian Age was, as in Virgil's fourth eclogue,
ever that spoken of as the Golden age when the ancients were referring
to what they pictured as the good old times.
It will not do, however, to assume that if the symbol we are
considering first arose as a combination of the Greek letters P and X,
they were of necessity taken from, and representative of, a word in
which they occur in the same order as in _Christos_. And the fact that
in the {image "monogram4.gif"}, if not also in the {image
"monogram3.gif"}, the P is the leading feature, gives emphasis to the
point in question.
If we suppose that the so-called monogram arose as a combination of the
Greek letters in question occurring in the order P X, the student of
such matters can scarcely fail to note that the letters in question
occur in that order as the centre both of the word APXH, the _Head_,
_Chief_, or _First_; and also as the centre of the kindred word
APX{omega}, _to be first_, the only remaining letters of which, and
therefore the first and the last of this word as of the old Greek
alphabet, are, as will be seen, Alpha and Omega, the letters so
continually placed on either side of the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"}
in Christian times.
In this connection it should be pointed out that according to some of
the best authorities the first {image "monogram3.gif"} which occurs
upon any Roman coin, coming as it does after the letter _alpha_ in a
Greek inscription, should be taken with that letter as forming the PX
of APX, the latter being an abbreviation of some form or other of the
title _Archon_. This title was that given to the dignitary who was at
one and the same time the chief magistrate of the state and its chief
priest, and it may be worth remark that as Bacchus was the deity
worshipped in Lydia, the Archon in question would therefore have been
the chief priest of the Sun-God.
Several writers have, in their zeal for our religion, outrun their
discretion, and gone so far as to assume that the existence of the
so-called monogram of Christ upon this coin of the Emperor Decius is
due to some Christian having been employed in turning out the coin in
question, and having in _his_ zeal surreptitiously introduced a symbol
of his faith. But though gravely supported by more than one great
authority, this is obviously an absurd position to take up. And in any
case the facts remain that it was in this instance placed over a
representation of the Sun-God, and had for centuries been in use as a
Pagan symbol.
Passing on, however, we have next to note that, as before hinted, even
if the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} arose as a combination of two
letters, though we know that symbol to have been often used as a
contraction of the Greek letters P and X (our R and CH), there is no
proof that it arose as a combination of two Greek letters; and the
symbol may have arisen as a combination of the Roman letters P and X.
It should therefore be pointed out that in the inscriptions which have
come down to us from the Gaulish Christians of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries after Christ, the symbols {image "monogram3.gif"} and
{image "monogram4.gif"} are continually used as contractions of the
Latin word PAX, _Peace_. For though the fact that the Monogram was
often so interpreted by Christians centuries A.C. can by no means be
considered evidence that it was thus that it first arose as a Pagan
symbol centuries B.C., such a possibility should be kept before us.
But did the so-called Monogram of Christ first come into being as a
combination of two letters; Greek, Roman, or otherwise?
Even this is not certain, for this pre-Christian symbol may originally
have been a cross, as a symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, _plus_ the
Greek letter P as the initial character of the word "Rome" in what may
be called the court language of the time.
Such an explanation would more or less account for the variations
{image "monogram3.gif"} and {image "monogram4.gif"}; these being
obviously the natural ways of adding the letter P, signifying Rome, to
the crosses {image "x.gif"} and {image "plus.gif"} respectively.
All the foregoing references to the origin of the so-called monogram as
a Pagan symbol of pre-Christian date, are but speculations however. Its
origin cannot be ascertained for certain.
The revival of this pre-Christian symbol, and the prominence given to
it upon the coins of the Roman Empire, _are_, however, traceable. And,
as has been shown, they are traceable to Constantine; who induced the
Christians to accept as the Monogram of the Christ, and therefore as a
Christian as well as a Gaulish symbol of victory, the Solar Wheel
venerated by the Gaulish conquerors of Rome.
Nowadays the so-called Monogram of Christ is almost always reproduced
for us as {image "monogram3.gif"} or {image "monogram4.gif"}; but the
fact that Constantine sometimes so used it should not blind us to the
facts that it was at first usually the centre of a circle, like the
spokes of a wheel; and that the undisguised solar wheel {image
"solarwheel1.gif"} appears upon not a few of the coins issued by the
Christian successors of Constantine, while since his reign the solar
wheel {image "solarwheel2.gif"} and many an artistic variation of the
same have been Christian symbols, and when in our ornamentation of
ecclesiastical properties we omit the circle we as often as not make
the cross itself wheel-like by rounding the extremities and widening
them till they nearly meet.
Moreover it should not be forgotten that it was evidently one form or
other of the solar wheel of the Gauls, _plus_ the politic loop to one
of its spokes, which Constantine and his Gaulish warriors are said to
have seen above the meridian sun, with the divinely written legend EN
TOYT{omega} NIKA, _By this conquer_, attached. For though that
miraculous symbol is referred to as a "cross," the Monogram itself was
so referred to; and Eusebius, after telling us that the Christ appeared
to Constantine and commanded him to make a military standard for the
Sun-God worshipping Gauls, "With the same sign which he had seen in the
heavens," expressly describes this as composed of "Two letters
indicating the name of the Christ, the letter P being intersected with
X at the centre." And on this particular Labarum of Constantine, as on
the majority of the Labara represented upon his coins, the {image
"monogram3.gif"} was the centre of a circle or circular wreath, like
the spokes of a wheel.[55]
In any case the fact that the symbol {image "monogram3.gif"} was a
Pagan one centuries before the Christ is said to have made it a
Christian one for the Sun-God worshipping 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.[56] Also
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 every _Dies Solis_, or in other words
upon that day of the week which throughout the Roman Empire was held
sacred to the Sun-God and throughout Christendom 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."[57] Who 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 words _DEO 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 thou
art 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 the _first_ crosses 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 saw it 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.