THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN EUROPE.
That the symbol of the cross was widely venerated in Europe long before
our era, is well known to archaeologists. Of Britain in those days we
know next to nothing, history being almost silent upon the subject and
relics conspicuous by their absence. The cross is however a conspicuous
feature upon certain funeral urns which are said to date back to the
period in question. And it is noteworthy that both it and the solar
wheel occur upon several of the earliest British coins; which whether
issued as some say before, or as others aver after, the advent of
Julius Caesar, were admittedly of pre-Christian date. Evidences of the
veneration of the cross in France before our era are so numerous and
easily ascertainable, that it will only be necessary to refer the
reader to the _Collection Roujou_, the pages of the _Revue de
Numismatique_, and the writings of Messieurs De la Saussaye, Lenormant,
De Saulcy, E. Lambert, and other French authorities.
If, continuing our journey eastwards, we pass over the border into the
northern provinces of Italy, we find equally striking evidence of the
pre-Christian veneration of the symbol in question.
Let us take for example the evidence furnished by the remarkable
discoveries made in the pre-Christian cemetery unearthed at Gola-Secca.
For upon a very large proportion of the articles discovered in the
ancient tombs of the cemetery in question, a cross of some kind is the
prominent feature.
Particulars of these articles can be found recorded in the literary and
scientific journals of France. And the conclusion arrived at by the
authorities upon such matters cannot be better put than in the revised
edition in book form of an article in the _Revue Archeologque_ by
Monsieur G. de Mortillet.
After referring to the relics of so much of ancient Gaul as is
comprised in modern France, a subject he takes leave of in the words--
"But the pre-Christian cult of the cross was not
confined to Savoy and the environs of Lyons. A glance at
the coins of ancient Gaul is sufficient to show that it
existed in nearly every part"--
M. de Mortillet, crossing the frontier and dealing
with the said tombs of Gola-Secca near Milan
in Italy, sums up as follows
"One sees that there can be no doubt whatever concerning
the use of the cross as a religious sign for a very long
time before Christianity. The cult of the cross was well
spread over Gaul before its conquest and already existed
in Emilia in the Bronze Age, more than a thousand years
before Jesus Christ."
Let us pass on to yet another country, Switzerland. Here also we find
unexceptional evidence of the general recognition of the cross before
our era as a symbol which should above all others be venerated.
The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland may be said to have been brought to
light by the extraordinary drought experienced in the years A.C.
1853-4; for though piles and ancient remains were found upon the shores
of various lakes before that date, no great heed was paid to them till
the drought in question lowered the waters of the lake of Zurich and of
other lakes to an unprecedented extent, and certain discoveries due
thereto led to the matter being thoroughly investigated by
antiquarians.
The result was that many relics of the Lake Dwellers were found. And,
placed upon those relics by this forgotten race of hoary antiquity as
the sign they venerated, was the symbol of the cross.
These relics, preserved for us by the sediment carried into the lakes
by various rivers, cannot be less than 3,000 years old, are not
improbably 4,000 years old, and may quite possibly be 5,000 years old;
some authorities--Monsieur Morlot for instance--estimating their age at
from 6,000 to 7,000 years. Suffice it to record the fact that these
relics are admittedly pre-Christian.
Upon the articles in question, as on those discovered in the
pre-Christian tombs of Gola-Secca, the cross is stamped as a symbol of
life, of good omen, and of salvation. Even dies for stamping articles
with the cross have been discovered among the remains of the Lake
Dwellers. And the crosses are of three kinds; (1) the right-angled
cross of four equal arms, of which so many variations, some enclosed in
circles and some with the extremities widened and rounded, are used as
Christian symbols; (2) the other cross of four equal arms, known as the
St. Andrew's cross or _Chi_ cross; and (3) the Fylfot or Svastika
cross.
The last named cross is a peculiar one of quite unmistakeable design;
and there are two varieties, {image "svastika1.gif"}, and {image
"svastika2.gif"}, of which one is obviously an impression or reverse
view of the other.
The names _Fylfot_ and _Svastika_ are very generally applied to both
these symbols. The term _Svastika_, an Indian one, is however applied
by the inhabitants of Hindostan to one only; they calling the other
_Sauvastika_. And it is curious to note that the meanings attached to
these names, though, like the symbols allied in nature, are, also like
them, the reverse or negative or complement of each other.
For instance we are told by Sir G. Birdwood that the right handed
Svastika signifies the Male Principle, the Sun on its daily journey
from East to West, Light and Life; and that the left-handed Svastika
signifies the Female Principle, the Sun in Hades or the Underworld on
its journey from West to East, Darkness and Death.[64]
This more or less official pronouncement may be taken as a fairly
accurate one, although it is obvious that the annual as well as the
diurnal movement of the Sun should have been referred to; the half year
between the Vernal Equinox and Autumnal Equinox representing Light and
Life, and that between the Autumnal Equinox and Vernal Equinox Darkness
and Death, just as clearly as do the half days between sunrise and
sunset, sunset and sunrise. But it is to be feared that even those who
remember how often Death and Darkness are referred to as periods of
Gestation, will have some difficulty in seeing how a sign or symbol of
the Female Power of Generation can have signified Death.
The fact of course is that the symbol in question represented both Life
and Death, and represented the latter only in a minor sense and owing
to the fact that the Female Principle of Life was regarded as the
necessary reverse, negative, or complement of the Male Principle; which
latter, having of the two the better claim to be considered the starter
of life, was the one more particularly identified with Life and
therefore with the vernal Sun-God.
It would also appear that the two symbols in question to some extent
signified Fire and Water; Fire being of course the Male Principle, Day,
Summer, Light, and Life; and Water the Female Principle. This still
further illustrates the point dealt with above; for though Water is the
negative of Fire, yet Fire cannot produce Life without the aid of
Water.
Returning however to our consideration of the cross as a symbol of Life
of pre-Christian date and origin, and having already dealt with the
lands now known as Britain, France, Italy, and Switzerland, let us now
consider the evidence of Greece.
At Mycenae and elsewhere Dr. Schliemann discovered, among other relics
of a bygone age, not only articles marked with the Svastika cross and
the cross of four equal arms, but even seals and dies giving
impressions of such crosses; thus demonstrating how large and prominent
a part the symbol of the cross played in pre-Christian times among
those in whose classic tongue the earliest known copies of the
Christian Scriptures were written centuries later.
It is also remarkable that Dr. Schliemann found golden crosses in the
previously unopened tombs he discovered and explored at Mycenae; as
many as five such crosses having in some instances been placed with a
single body by those who sealed up the vaults in question thousands of
years ago and many centuries before the commencement of our era.
As few if any unrifled tombs of so ancient a date have been discovered
in Greece and first explored by a trustworthy investigator, and as,
moreover, it would only have been with the bodies of important
personages that crosses of so valuable a material as gold would have
been buried, these discoveries, coupled with the self-evident fact that
crosses of more perishable material may have been buried with the
bodies of less distinguished people, and by this time, like both the
bodies and the tombs which enclosed them, have gone to dust, are most
remarkable. And they entirely corroborate the testimony borne by the
coins of ancient Gaul, the contents of the tombs of Gola-Secca, and the
remains of the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland, to the veneration paid
long before our era by the inhabitants of Europe to the cross as the
recognised symbol of Life. Nor as the symbol only of the life which
ends in the grave, but also of the glorious hope that as the Sun, from
whom we derive that life, whether considered from a daily or yearly
point of view sinks but to rise again, even so we who owe our brief
lives to the Sun-God, may, like the Giver of Life and only Saviour,
rise from one life to another.
For whether the ancients were or were not unphilosophic enough to
believe in the resurrection of bodies whose constituent atoms are
continually changing and in time form part of other bodies, it is
absurd to assume that they did not at times like ourselves conceive and
dwell upon a hoped-for, if unexpected and improbable, Life-to-come.
Moreover it is with us, as it was with them, a _hope_; and it is
disingenuous to label as Christian what was pre-Christian, and to claim
as ours what has been common to the reasoning minds of suffering men
and women of all eras.
It is equally disingenuous on the part of us Christians to keep in the
background the noteworthy fact that even in pre-Christian ages the
symbol of that hope was--the cross.