THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN ASIA.
If, leaving Europe, we pass on into Asia, we find that not only have
the two varieties of Svastika crosses for thousands of years played a
prominent part as a religious symbol in Hindostan, Thibet, and China,
but that other kinds of crosses also were in bygone ages venerated by
their inhabitants.
For instance our Eastern Empire is strewn with the remains of ancient
temples built, like those of Christendom in later days, in the shape of
a cross; and we are told that the oldest of its rock-hewn caves were
planned after the same figure. It is also well-known that isolated
stone crosses of pre-historic date are to be seen in various parts of
India.
The evidence of Hindostan is however outweighed by that obtainable from
the antiquities of Western Asia, concerning some of which Sir A. H.
Layard wrote:
"The crux ansata, the tau or sign of life, is found in
the sculptures of Khorsabad, on the ivories of
Nimroud--which as I have shown are of the same
age--carried too by an Assyrian King."[65]
We have also to note the equally significant facts that the recognised
symbol of the Phoenician Goddess of Love--Astarte, Ashtoreth, or
Ishtar, the Bride of the Sun-God--was a cross; that a cross was also
associated with the Phoenician Baal or Sun-God; and that the circle and
cross, now the symbol of the planet held sacred to the Goddess of Love,
frequently occurs upon the ancient coins of Western Asia and was not
improbably more or less akin in signification to the crux ansata of
Egypt. The fact that upon very ancient remains still existing the Baal
is represented as crowned with a wheel-like nimbus of rays should also
be mentioned.
The cross more especially connected with the Phoenician "Bride of the
Sun-God" in ancient days, was, as can easily be seen upon reference to
ancient coins, where it occurs in the hand of the goddess in question,
a long handled cross such as is frequently to be seen in our pictorial
representations of John the Baptist.
As John the Baptist was an Asiatic and to some extent a pre-Christian
Asiatic, we can here, without wandering very far from the matter in
hand, pause to consider the question why we Christians represent John
the Baptist, who had nothing to do with a cross, as holding a cross; if
it be not that while Jesus was supposed to represent the Sun in its
annual ascension, John was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual
declension? What other rational explanation have we of the facts, (1)
that John is represented as saying that he baptised with water but that
Jesus would baptise with _fire_ (where the rains of winter and the heat
of summer may be referred to); and (2) that the Christian Church in
framing its calendar fixed upon what we call Midsummer day as the
birthday of John the Baptist, and upon the clay which bears the same
relation to the other solstice as the birthday of Christ, as if wishing
to illustrate that other remarkable pronouncement of John, thus placed
at the point where the days begin to shorten, concerning Jesus, thus
placed where the days begin to lengthen, "He must increase but I must
decrease"?
The probability that to its original signification of Life, that of
Salvation was added to the cross as a recognition of the fact that the
salvation of Earth-Life in general and of Mankind in particular is due
to the fact that at the Vernal Equinox the Sun-God "crosses" to save,
summer and the fruits of the earth and therefore salvation and increase
being due to the fact that the Sun then crosses the Equator, is
supported by evidence from all quarters. And if we refuse to admit that
Christianity is permeated with the ideas of Sun-God worship, we not
only have no rational explanation to offer of the prophecies put by the
Evangelists in the mouth of John the Baptist to the effect that Jesus
would baptise with _fire_ and would _increase_, but also none to offer
of many another prominent feature of our religion; such as, for
instance, the fact that while pretending to reverence all the Ten
Commandments we deliberately make a point of breaking one of them in
order to keep as a day of rest not the seventh day but the first, the
day which from time immemorial was held sacred throughout the Roman
Empire as _Dies Solis_, the Day of the Sun. For to aver as we do that
Jesus was not made the subject of a Sun-God allegory, but purposely
rose from the underworld on the Day of the Sun, at the time of the
Vernal Equinox, in order to annul a commandment previously laid down by
God and substitute a new one in silence, is only to make ourselves
ridiculous.
Returning however to the matter more particularly in hand, it should be
pointed out that the crux ansata mentioned by Layard is not the only
kind of cross to be found upon the relics of ancient Babylonia and
Assyria. For the cross of four equal arms and the solar wheel are also
to be met with.
Moreover, as all visitors to our museums should be aware, the monarchs
are represented as wearing in the place of honour round their neck and
on their breast, a Maltese cross. And this cross, worn by the kings
centuries before our era as the symbol which should above all others be
venerated, or as best signifying their power over the lives of their
subjects and their position as vice-gerents of the Sun-God, is admitted
by all the best authorities to have been the sign and symbol of the
Sun-God.[66]