things, by the origin of the so-called Maltese Cross, which originally
was carved out of solid granite, and represented by four huge phalli
springing from a common center, which were afterward changed by the
Knights of St. John of Malta into four triangles meeting at a central
globe; thus we see combined the symbol of eternal and the emblem of
constantly renovating life. The reason why the Maltese Cross had so
distinctly a phallic origin, and why the Knights of St. John saw fit
to make something more decent of it, is not clear, but a study of
Assyrian antiquities of the days of Nineveh and Babylon shows that it
referred to the four great gods of the Assyrian Pantheon, and that with
a due setting it signifies the sun ruling both the earth and heavens.
Schliemann discovered many examples of it on the vases which he exhumed
from the ruins of Troy.
But probably the most remarkable of all crosses is that which is
exceedingly common upon Egyptian monuments and is known as the
_Crux-Ansata_, that is the handled cross, which consisted of the
ordinary Greek _Tau_ or cross, with a ring on the top. When the
Egyptian was asked what he meant by this sign he simply replied that it
was a divine mystery, and such it has largely remained ever since. It
was constantly seen in the hands of Isis and Osiris. In nearly the same
shape the Spaniards found it when they first came to this continent.
The natives said that it meant "Life to come."
In the British Museum one may see, in the Assyrian galleries, effigies
in stone of certain kings from whose necks are suspended sculptured
Maltese crosses, such as the Catholics call the Pectoral Cross. In
Egypt, long before Christ, the sacred Ibis was represented with human
hands and feet, holding the staff of Isis in one hand and the Cross in
the other. The ancient Egyptian astronomical signs of planets contained
numerous crosses. Saturn was represented by a cross surmounting a ram's
horn; Jupiter by a cross beneath a horn, Venus by a cross beneath a
circle (practically the Crux-Ansata), the Earth by a cross within the
circle, and Mars by a circle beneath the cross; many of these signs are
in use to-day. Between the Buddhist crosses of India and those of the
Roman church are remarkable resemblances; the former were frequently
placed upon a Calvary as is the Catholic custom to-day. The cross is
found among the hieroglyphics of China and upon Chinese pagodas, and
upon the lamps with which they illuminated their temples. Upon the
ancient Phoenician medals were inscribed the Cross, the Rosary and the
Lamb. In England there has been for a long time the custom of eating
the so-called Hot-Cross Buns upon Good Friday:--this is no more than
a reproduction of a cake marked with a cross which used to be duly
offered to the serpent and the bull in heathen temples, as also to
human idols. It was made of flour and milk, or oil, and was often eaten
with much ceremony by priests and people.
Perhaps the most ancient of all forms of the cross is the cruciform
hammer known sometimes as Thor's Battle Ax. In this form it was
venerated by the heroes of the North as a magical sign, which thwarted
the power of death over those who bore it. Even to-day it is employed
by the women of India and certain parts of Africa as indicating the
possession of a taboo with which they protect their property. It has
been stated that this was the mark which the prophet was commanded to
impress upon the foreheads of the faithful in Judah. (Ezekiel 9:4).
It is of interest also as being almost the last of the purely
pagan symbols to be religiously preserved in Europe long after the
establishment of Christianity, since to the close of the Middle Ages
the Cistercean monk wore it upon his stole. It may be seen upon the
bells of many parish churches, where it was placed as a magical sign to
subdue the vicious spirit of the tempest.
The original cross, no matter what its form, had but one meaning;
it represented creative power and eternity. In Egypt, Assyria and
Britain, in India, China and Scandinavia, it was an emblem of life
and immortality; upon this continent it was the sign of freedom from
suffering, and everywhere it symbolized resurrection and life to come.
Moreover from its common combination with the yoni or female emblem, we
may conclude, with Inman, that the ancient Cross was an emblem of the
belief in a male Creator and the method by which creation was initiated.
Next to the Cross, the _Tree of Life_ of the Egyptians furnishes
perhaps the most ancient and universal symbol of immortality. The tree
is probably the most generally received symbol of life, and has been
regarded as the most appropriate. The fig tree especially has had the
highest place in this regard. From it gods and holy men ascended to
heaven; before it thousands of barren women have worshipped and made
offerings; under it pious hermits have become enlightened, and by
rubbing together fragments of its wood, holy fire has been drawn from
heaven.
An anonymous Catholic writer has stated, "No religion is founded upon
international depravity. Searching back for the origin of life, men
stopped at the earliest point to which they could trace it and exalted
the reproductive organs in the symbols of the Creator. The practice was
at least calculated to procure respect for a side of nature liable,
under an exclusively spiritual regime, to be relegated to undue
contempt. * * * Even Moses himself fell back upon it when, yielding to
a pressing emergency, he gave his sanction to serpent worship by his
elevation of the brazen serpent upon a pole or cross, for all portions
of this structure constituted the most universally accepted symbol of
sex in the world."
As perfectly consistent with the ancient doctrine that deity is
both male and female take this thought from Proclus, who quotes the
following among other Orphic verses:
"Jupiter is a man; Jupiter is also an immortal maid;" while in the
same commentary we read that "All things were contained in the womb of
Jupiter."
In this connection it was quite customary to depict Jupiter as a
female, sometimes with three heads; often the figure was drawn with a
serpent and was venerated under the symbol of fire. It was then called
Mythra and was worshipped in secret caverns. The rites of this worship
were quite well known to the Romans.
The hermaphrodite element of religion is sex worship; gods are styled
he-she; Synesius gives an inscription on an Egyptian deity, "Thou art
the father and thou art the mother; thou art the male and thou art the
female." Baal was of uncertain sex and his votaries usually invoked
him thus, "Hear us whether thou art god or goddess." Heathens seem
to have made their gods hermaphrodites in order to express both the
generative and prolific virtue of their deities. I have myself heard
one of the finest living Hindoo scholars, a convert to Christianity,
invoke the God of the Christian Church both as father and as mother.
The most significant and distinctive feature of nature worship
certainly had to do with phallic emblems. This viewed in the light of
ancient times simply represented allegorically that mysterious union of
the male and female principle which seems necessary to the existence of
animate beings. If, in the course of time, it sadly degenerated, we may
lament the fact, while, nevertheless, not losing sight of the purity
and exalted character of the original idea. Of its extensive prevalence
there is ample evidence, since monuments indicating such worship are
spread over both continents and have been recognized in Egypt, India,
Assyria, Western Europe, Mexico, Peru, Hayti and the Pacific Islands.
Without doubt the generative act was originally considered as a solemn
sacrament in honor of the Creator. As Knight has insisted, the indecent
ideas later attached to it, paradoxical as it may seem, were the result
of the more advanced civilization tending toward its decline, as we see
in Rome and Pompeii. Voltaire speaking of phallic worship says "Our
ideas of propriety lead us to suppose that a ceremony which appears
to us so infamous could only be invented by licentiousness, but it
is impossible to believe that depravity of manners would ever lead
among any people to the establishment of religious ceremonies. It is
probable, on the contrary, that this custom was first introduced in
times of simplicity, and that the first thought was to honor a deity in
the symbol of life which it gives us."
The so-called Jewish rite of circumcision was practiced among Egyptians
and Phoenicians long before the birth of Abraham. It had a marked
religious significance, being a sign of the Covenant, and was a
patriarchal observance because it was always performed by the head of
the family. Indeed on the authority of the Veda, we learn that this was
the case also even among the primitive Aryan people.
Later in the centuries, as Patterson has observed, obscene methods
became the principal feature of the popular superstition and were,
in after times, even extended to and intermingled with gloomy rites
and bloody sacrifices. The mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus celebrated
at Eleusis were probably the most celebrated of all the Grecian
observances. The addition of Bacchus was comparatively a late one, and
this name Bacchus was first spelled Iacchos; the first half, _Iao_,
being in all probability related to _Jao_ which appears in Jupiter or
Jovispater, and to the Hebrew Yahve, or Jehovah. Jao was the Harvest
God and consequently the god of the grape, hence his close relation to
Bacchus. How completely these Eleusinian mysteries degenerated into
Bacchic orgies is of course a matter of written history.
I have not yet alluded to the reverence paid to the fish, both as
phallic emblem and as a Christian symbol. The supposition that the
reason why the fish played so large a part in early Christian symbolism
was because of the fact that each letter of the Greek word _Ichthus_
could be made the beginning of words which when fully spelled out, read
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, etc., is altogether too far-fetched;
though it be true it is a scholastic trick to juggle with words in this
way rather than to find for them a proper signification.
Among the Egyptians and many other nations, the greatest reverence
was paid to this animal. Among the natives the rivers which contained
them were esteemed more or less sacred; the common people did not
feed upon them and the priests never tasted them, because of their
reputed sanctity, while at times they were worshipped as real deities.
Cities were named after them and temples built to them. In different
parts of Egypt different fish were worshipped individually; the Greek
comedians even made fun of the Egyptians because of this fact. Dagon
figures as the Fish-god, and the female deity known as Athor, in Egypt,
is undoubtedly the same as Aphrodite of the Greeks and Venus of the
Romans, who were believed to have sprung from the sea. Lucian tells us
that this worship was of great antiquity; strange as this idolatry may
appear, it was yet most wide-spread and included also the veneration
which the Egyptians, before Moses, paid to the river Nile.
It is important to remember that Nun, the name of the father of Joshua,
is the Semitic word for fish, while the phallic character of the fish
in Chaldean mythology cannot be gainsaid. Nim, the planet Saturn, was
the fish-god of Berosus, and the same as the Assyrian god Asshur, whose
name and office are strikingly similar to those of the Hebrew leader
Joshua.
Corresponding to the ancient phallus or lingam, which was the masculine
phallic symbol, we have the Kteis or Yoni as the symbol of the female
principle; but an emblem of similar import is often to be met with in
the shape of the shell, the fig leaf or the letter delta, as may be
frequently seen from ancient coins and monuments. Similar attributes
were at other times expressed by a bird, using the dove or sparrow,
which will at once make one think of the prominence given to the dove
in the fable of Noah and the Ark. Referring again to the fish symbol
let me say that the head of Proserpine is very often represented
surrounded by dolphins; sometimes by pomegranates which also have a
phallic significance. In fact, Inman in his work on Ancient Faiths
says of the pomegranate, "The shape of this fruit much resembles that
of the gravid uterus in the female, and the abundance of seeds which
it contains makes it a fitting emblem of the prolific womb of the
celestial mother. Its use was largely adopted in various forms of
worship; it was united with bells in the adornment of the robes of the
Jewish High Priest; it was introduced as an ornament into Solomon's
Temple, where it was united with lilies and with the lotus."
Its arcane meaning is undoubtedly phallic. In fact, as Inman has
stated, the idea of virility was most closely interwoven with religion,
though the English Egyptologists have suppressed a portion of the facts
in the history which they have given the world; but the practice which
still obtains among certain Negroes of Northern Africa of mutilating
every male captive and slain enemy is but a continuance of the practice
alluded to in the 2nd Book of Kings, 20:18, Isaiah, 39:17, and 1st
Samuel 18:26.
Frequently in sacred Scripture we find allusions to the Pillar as
a most sacred emblem, as for example in Isaiah 19:19, "In that day
there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt
and a pillar to the border thereof to Jehovah," etc. Moreover God
was supposed to have appeared to his chosen people as a _pillar of
fire_. Nevertheless when among idolatrous nations _pillars_ were set
up as a part of their rites we find them noticed in Scripture as an
_abomination_, as for example, Deut. 12:3, "Ye shall overthrow their
altars and break their pillars;" Levit. 26:1, "Neither rear ye up a
standing image."
Among the Jews the pillar had much the same significance as the
pyramid among the Egyptians or the triangle or cone among votaries of
other worships. The Tower of Babel must have been purely a mythical
creation but in the same direction. Although Abraham is regarded as
having emigrated from Chaldea in the character of a dissenter from the
religion of his country (see Joshua 24:2-3), his immediate descendants
apparently had recourse to the symbols to which I have alluded. Thus he
erected altars and planted pillars wherever he resided, and conducted
his son to the land of Moriah to sacrifice him to the deity, as was
done among the Phoenicians. Jeptha in like manner sacrificed his own
daughter Mizpeh, and the temple of Solomon was supposed to have been
built upon the site of Abraham's ancient altar. Jacob not only set up a
pillar at the place which he called Bethel but made libations; Samuel
worshipped at the High Places at Ramah, and Solomon at the Great Stone
in Gibeon. It remained for Hezekiah to change the entire Hebrew cult.
He removed the Dionysiac statues and phallic pillars as well as the
conical and omphallic symbols of Venus and Ashtaroth, broke in pieces
the brazen serpent of Moses and overthrew the mounds and altars. After
him Josiah removed the paraphernalia of sun worship and destroyed the
statues and emblems of Venus and Adonis, (2nd Kings, 23:4-20).
The Greek Hermes was identical with the Egyptian Khem, as well as with
Mercury and with Priapus, also with the Hebrew Eloah; thus when Jacob
entered into a covenant with Laban his father-in-law, a pillar was
set up and a heap of stones made and a certain compact entered into;
similar land marks were usual with the Greeks and placed by them upon
public roads.
As Mrs. Childs has beautifully said, "Other emblems deemed sacred by
Hindoos and worshipped in their temples have brought upon them the
charge of gross indecencies. * * * If light with its grand revealings,
and heat, making the earth fruitful with beauty, excited wonder and
worship among the first inhabitants of our world, is it strange that
they likewise regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth?
Were they impure thus to regard it? Or are _we_ impure that we do _not_
so regard it?"
Constant, in his work on Roman Polytheism says, "Indecent rites may be
practiced by religious people with the greatest purity of heart, but
when incredulity has gained a footing among these peoples then those
rites become the cause and pretext of the most revolting corruption."
The phallic symbol was always found in temples of Siva, who corresponds
to Baal, and was usually placed as are the most precious emblems of
our Christian temples to-day, in some inmost recess of the sanctuary.
Moreover lamps with seven branches were kept burning before it, these
seven branched lamps long antedating the golden candlestick of the
Mosaic Tabernacle. The Jews by no means escaped the objective evidence
of phallic worship; in Ezekiel 16:17, is a very marked allusion to the
manufacture by Jewish women of gold and silver phalli.
As a purely phallic symbol and custom mark the significance of certain
superstitions and practices even now prevalent in Great Britain. Thus
in Boylase's _History of Cornwall_ it is stated that there is a
stone in the Parish of Mardon, with a hole in it fourteen inches in
diameter, through which many persons creep for the relief of pains
in the back and limbs, and through which children are drawn to cure
them of rickets, this being a practical application of the doctrine
of regeneration. In 1888 there was printed in the _London Standard_ a
considerable reference to passing children through clefts in trees as
a curative measure for certain physical ailments. The same practice
prevails in Brazil and in many other places, and within the present
generation it has been customary to split a young ash tree and, opening
this, pass through it a child for the purpose of curing rupture or some
other bodily ailment.
The phallic element most certainly cannot be denied in Christianity
itself, since in it are many references which to the initiated are
unmistakable. From the fall of man with its serpent myth and its
phallic foundation to the peculiar position assigned to the Virgin
Mary as a mother, phallic references abound. However, it should not
be forgotten that whatever were the primitive ideas on which these
dogmas were based, they had been lost sight of or had been received in
a fresh aspect by the founders of Christianity. The fish and the cross
originally typified the idea of generation and later that of life,
in which sense they were applied to Christ. The most plainly phallic
representation used in early Christian Iconography, is undoubtedly the
_Aureole_ or elliptical frame work, containing usually the figure of
Christ, sometimes that of Mary. The Nimbus also, generally circular
but sometimes triangular, is of positive phallic significance, even
though it contain within it the name of Jehovah. The sun flowers
which sometimes are made to surround the figure of St. John the
Evangelist are the lotus flowers of the Egyptians. The divine hand
with the thumb and two fingers outstretched, even though it rests on a
cruciform nimbus, is a phallic emblem, and is used by the Neapolitans
of to-day to avert the Evil Eye, although it was originally a symbol
of Isis. Indeed the Virgin Mary is the ancient Isis, as can be most
easily established, since the virgin "Succeeded to her form, titles,
symbols, rites and ceremonies." (King). The great image still moves
in procession as when Juvenal laughed at it, and her proper title is
the exact translation of the Sanskrit and the equivalent of the modern
Madonna, the Lotus of Isis, and the Lily of the modern Mary. Indeed, as
King has written, "It is astonishing how much of the Egyptian symbolism
passed over into usages of the following times." The high cap and
hooked staff of the god became the bishop's mitre and crozier. The term
Nun is purely Egyptian and bore its present meaning. The Crux Ansata,
testifying the union of the male and female principle in the most
obvious manner, and denoting fecundity and abundance, is transformed
by a simple inversion into an orb surmounted by a cross, the ensign of
royalty.
The teaching of the Church of Rome regarding the Virgin Mary shows a
remarkable resemblance to the teachings of the ancients concerning
the female associate of the triune deity. In ancient times she has
passed under many and diverse names; she was the Virgin, conceiving and
bringing forth from her own inherent power; she was the wife of Nimrod;
she has been known as Athor, Artemis, Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Cybele,
etc.
As Anaitis she is Mother and Child, appearing again as Isis and Horus;
even in ancient Mexico Mother and Child were worshipped. In modern
times she reappears as the Virgin Mary and her Son; she was queen of
fecundity, queen of the gods, goddess of war, Virgin of the Zodiac, the
mysterious Virgin "Time" from whose womb all things were born. Although
variously represented she has been usually pictured as a more or less
nude figure carrying an infant in her arms. (Inman, "Ancient Faiths").
Inman declares without hesitation that the trinity of the ancients is
unquestionably of phallic origin, and others have strenuously contended
and apparently proven that the male emblem of generation in divine
creation was three in one, and that the female emblem has always been
the triangle or accepted symbol of trinity. Sometimes two triangles
have been combined forming a six-rayed star, the two together being
emblematical of the union of the male and female principles producing
a new figure; the triangle by itself with the point down typifies the
delta or yoni through which all things come into the world.
Another symbol of deity among the Indians was the Trident, and this
marks the belief in the Trinity which very generally prevailed in
India among the Hindoos. As Maurice says, "It was indeed highly proper
and strictly characteristic that a three-fold deity should wield a
triple scepter." Upon the top of the immense pyramids of Deoghur,
which were truncated, and upon whose upper surface rested the circular
cone--that ancient emblem of the Phallus and of the Sun, was found
the trident scepter of the Greek Neptune. It is said that in India is
to be found the most ancient form of Trinitarian worship. In Egypt it
later prevailed widely, but scarcely any two states worshipped the
same triad, though all triads had this in common at least that they
were father, mother and son, or male and female with their progeny. In
the course of time, however, the worship of the first person was lost
or absorbed in the second and the same thing is prevalent among the
Christians of today, for many churches and institutions are dedicated
to the second or third persons of the Trinity but none to the first.
The transition from the old to the new could not be effected in a short
time and must have been an exceedingly slow process, therefore we need
not be surprised to be told of the ancient worship that after its
exclusion from larger places it was maintained for a long time by the
inhabitants of humbler localities; hence its subsequent designation,
since from being kept up in the villages, the _pagi_, its votaries,
were designated _pagani_, or pagans.