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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
The original text includes Greek characters. For this
text version these letters have been replaced with
transliterations.
The original text contains two symbols that are
represented in this version as [symbol].
THE MASCULINE CROSS.
[Illustration: _God Indra Nailed to a Cross._]
[Illustration: _Buddhist Cross._]
[Illustration: _Cross Common on Ancient Assyrian Monuments._]
[Illustration: _Ancient Heathen,--Mexican Cross._]
THE MASCULINE CROSS
Or
A History of Ancient and Modern Crosses and
Their Connection with the Mysteries of Sex Worship
Also an Account of the Kindred Phases of
Phallic Faiths and Practices.
Privately Printed
1904.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE CROSS 1
CHAPTER II.
THE CROSS (Continued) 23
CHAPTER III.
THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD 42
CHAPTER IV.
THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD (Continued) 63
CHAPTER V.
THE GOLDEN CALF OF AARON 79
CHAPTER VI.
CIRCUMCISION 91
CHAPTER VII.
ANDROGYNOUS DEITIES, SEX WORSHIP, &C. 100
INTRODUCTORY.
_In the following pages certain things supposed to be of comparatively
modern origin have been traced back to the remotest historic ages of the
world; as a consequence, it follows that the modern symbolical meaning
given to such things is sometimes only one acquired in subsequent times,
and not that exactly which was originally intended,--it must not be
supposed, therefore, that the interpretation belonging to the epoch in
which we are first enabled to trace a definite meaning is to be
conclusively regarded as that which gave birth to the form of the symbol.
The original may have been--probably was--very different to what came
after; the starting point may have been simplicity and purity, whilst the
developments of after years were degrading and vicious. Particularly so
was this the case in the Lingam worship of the vast empire of India;
originally the adoration of an Almighty Creator of all things, it became,
in time, the worship of the regenerative powers of material nature, and
then the mere indulgence in the debased passions of an abandoned and
voluptuous nature._
_With regard to the symbol of the Cross, it may be repugnant to the
feelings of some to be told that their recognition of its purely Christian
origin is a mistake, and that it was as common in Pagan as in more
advanced times; they may find consolation, however, in the fact that its
real beginning was further back still in the world's history, and that
with Paganism it was, as it had been with Christianity, simply an adopted
favourite._
_Our story is taken up in the middle epoch of the history, and shews the
relationship of the things we deal with to prevailing phallic faiths and
practices._
THE MASCULINE CROSS.
CHAPTER I.
_Universal prevalence of the Cross--Mistakes--The Cross not of
Christian Origin--Christian Veneration of the Cross--The Roman
Ritual--The Cross equally honoured by the Gentile and Christian
Worlds--Druidical Crosses--The Copt Oak of Charnwood Forest--Assyrian
Crosses in British Museum--Pectoral Crosses--Egyptian Crosses--Greek
Cross--St. Andrew's Cross--Planetary Signs and Crosses--Monogram of
Christ at Serapis--Cross in India--Pagodas in form of
Crosses--Mariette Bey's Discovery--Buddhist and Roman Crosses--Chinese
Crosses--Kampschatkan Crosses--American Crosses--Cross among the Red
Indians--The Royal Commentaries of Peru--Mexican Ideas relative to the
Cross--The Spaniards in America--Sign of the Cross--Cross as an
Amulet--Hot-cross Buns--Tertullian on the Use of the Cross._
The universal prevalence of the cross as an ornament and symbol during the
last eighteen centuries in the Christian church has led to some great, if
not grave, mistakes. It has been supposed, and for various obvious reasons
very naturally so, to be of exclusively Christian origin, and to represent
materially no more than the instrument by which the founder of that
religion was put to death; and, spiritually or symbolically, faith in the
sacrificial atoning work he then completed. There are not a few people
about who, having become imbued with this idea, rush to the hasty
conclusion that wherever the cross is found, and upon whatever monuments,
it indicates a connection with Christianity, and is therefore of
comparatively modern origin. History, in consequence, becomes a strange
and unfathomable mystery, especially when it belongs to kingdoms of
well-known great antiquity, amongst whose symbols or ornaments the cross
is plentiful, and the mind finds itself involved in a confusion from which
it cannot readily extricate itself. Never was there a greater blunder
perpetrated, or a more ignorant one, than the notion of the figure of the
cross owing its origin to the instrument of Christ's death, and the
Christian who finds comfort in pressing it to his lips in the hour of
devotion or of trouble must be reminded that the ancient Egyptian did a
similar thing.
The fact is, there is great similarity between the cross worship, or
veneration if you please, of ancient and modern times. Christians, we
know, are apt to repudiate the charge of rendering worship to this symbol,
but it is clear from what is printed in some of their books of devotion
that some sort of worship is actually rendered, though disguised under
other names. As to the veneration thus offered being right or wrong, we
here say nothing; the fact only concerns us so far as it relates to the
subject we have in hand.
If we open the _Tablet_ (Roman Catholic newspaper) for the 26th of
November, 1853, we read:--"Those of our readers who have visited Rome
will, doubtless, have remarked, at the foot of the stairs which descend
from the square of the Capitol to the square of the Campo Vaccino, under
the flight of steps in front of the Church of St. Joseph, and over the
door of the Mamertine prison, a very ancient wooden crucifix, before which
lamps and wax tapers are constantly burning, and surrounded on all sides
with exvotos and testimonies of public thanksgiving. No image of the
crucified Saviour is invested with greater veneration.... The worship
yielded to the holy crucifix of Campo Vaccino is universal at Rome, and is
transmitted from generation to generation. The fathers teach it to the
children, and in all the misfortunes and all the trials of life the first
idea is almost always to have recourse to the holy crucifix, the object of
such general veneration, and the source of so many favours. It is, above
all, in sickness that the succour of the holy image is invoked with more
confidence and more eagerness.... There are few families in Rome who have
not to thank the holy crucifix for some favour and some benefit.... In the
interval of the sermons and other public exercises of devotion the holy
crucifix, exposed on the high altar in the midst of floods of light, saw
incessantly prostrated before it a crowd of adorers and suppliants.... As
soon as the holy image of the Saviour had appeared on the Forum, the Holy
Father advanced on the exterior flight of steps of the church to receive
it, and when the shrine had arrived at the base of the stairs of the
Church of San Luca, at some paces from the flight of steps on which the
Holy Father stood, in rochet, stole, and pallium of red velvet, he bowed
before the holy crucifix and venerated it devoutly."
In harmony with this, the Missal supplies us with prayers and hymns in the
service for Good Friday, addressed directly to the cross.
"We adore Thy cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify Thy holy
resurrection; for by the wood of the cross the whole world is filled with
joy."
"O faithful cross, O noblest tree,
In all our woods there is none like thee.
No earthly groves, no shady bowers
Produce such leaves, such fruit, such flowers.
Sweet are the nails and sweet the wood,
Which bore a weight so sweet and good."
"O lovely tree, whose branches bore
The royal purple of His gore,
How glorious does thy body shine,
Supporting members so divine.
Hail, cross! our hope, on thee we call
Who keep this paschal festival;
Grant to the just increase of grace,
And every sinner's guilt efface."
There is something unusually remarkable about the popularity of the cross;
we can hardly point to a time when, or to a part of the world where, it
has not been in favour. It has entered into the constitution of religions
of the most opposite character, has been transmitted from one to another,
and though originally belonging to the rudest form of pagan idolatry, is
now esteemed highly by those who profess to have adopted the loftiest
ideal of civilised worship. After mentioning the fact of its popularity in
the pagan world, Mr. Maurice remarks: "Let not the piety of the Catholic
Christian be offended at the preceding assertion, that the cross was one
of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India.
Equally honoured in the Gentile and the Christian world, this emblem of
universal nature--of that world to whose four quarters its diverging radii
pointed--decorated the hands of most of the sculptured images in the
former country, and in the latter stamped its form upon the most majestic
shrines of their deities."
Here we may profitably glance at a few different parts of the world and at
some of the past ages, in tracing out the possible origin and meaning of
this symbol. In Britain there have been found monuments so ancient and
with such surroundings that but for certain peculiar marks they would
unhesitatingly have been put down as Druidical. They are marked with the
cross, and in the estimation of some, as we have already pointed out, that
is regarded as conclusive proof of Christian origin. The inference,
however, is a false one, the monuments are too old for Christianity, and
the cruciform etchings upon them belong to another religious system
altogether. It is known that the Druids consecrated the sacred oak by
cutting it into the shape of a cross, and so necessary was it regarded to
have it in this form, that if the lateral branches were not large enough
to construct the figure properly, two others were fixed as arms on either
side of the trunk. The cross having been thus constructed, the Arch-Druid
ascended and wrote the name of the Deity upon the trunk at the place of
intersection, and on the extremities of the arms.
The peculiar interest attached to this idol lies in the fact that it is
described by the best authorities as the Gallic or Celtic Tau. "The Tau,"
says Davies in his _Celtic Researches_, "was the symbol of the Druidical
Jupiter. It consisted of a huge grand oak deprived of all its branches,
except only two large ones which, though cut off and separated, were
suspended from the top of its trunk-like suspended arms." The idol, say
others, was in reality a cross, the same in form as the linga.
A few years ago, near the hill of Bardon, in the middle of Charnwood
forest, in the county of Leicester, there grew and perhaps still grows, a
very old tree called the Copt Oak. This tree, there is reason to believe,
was more than two thousand years old, and once formed a Celtic Tau. Forty
years ago, a writer who knew the tree well, said that its condition then
suggested very distinctly the possibility of the truthfulness of the
story. It was described as a vast tree, then reduced to a mere shell
between two and three inches only in thickness, perforated by several
openings, and alive only in about one-fourth of the shell; bearing small
branches, but such as could not have grown when the tree was entire; then
it must have had branches of a size not less than an oak of ordinary
dimensions. This was evident from one of the openings in the upper part of
the shell of the trunk, exactly such as a decayed branch would produce.
The tree was evidently of gigantic size in its earlier days, as shown by
its measurement at the date we are speaking of. The remains of the trunk
were twenty feet high, the height proper for the Tau, and the
circumference at the ground was twenty-four feet; at the height of ten
feet the girth was twenty, giving a diameter of nearly seven feet. This
tree, we have said, was called the Copt Oak; the epithet copt, or copped,
may be derived from the Celtic _cop_--a head, and evidently indicates that
the tree had been headed and reduced to the state of a bare trunk. The
idol, as already described, was formed by cutting away the branches of the
tree, which was always a large one, and affixing a beam, forming a cross
with the bare trunk.[1]
From time immemorial the Copt Oak has borne a celebrity that bears out the
tradition of its ancient sacredness. Potter, the historian of the forest
of Charnwood, writes that it was one of the three places at which
Swanimotes were held, always in the open air, for the regulation of rights
and claims on the forest; and persons have been known even in late times
to have attended such motes. "At this spot," he says, "it may be under
this tree, Edric the Forester is said to have harangued his forces against
the Norman invasion; and here too, in the Parliamentary troubles of 1642,
the Earl of Stamford assembled the trained bands of the district." "These
facts," says Dudley, "mark the Copt Oak extraordinary, and show, that
notwithstanding the lapse of two thousand years, the trunk was at that
distant period a sacred structure, a Celtic idol; and that it is
illustrative of antiquarian records."
Still further back in history than the foregoing are we able to trace this
singular figure. If we visit the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum
we shall observe life-size effigies in stone of the kings Samsi-Rammanu,
B.C. 825, and Assur-Nazir-Pal, B.C. 880; suspended from the necks of these
monarchs and resting upon their breasts are prominently sculptured Maltese
crosses about three inches in length and width; they are in a good state
of preservation, and will amply repay anyone for the trouble of an
inspection, should they be desirous of pursuing this enquiry. In the Roman
Catholic dictionaries we find these ornaments described as pectoral
crosses--crosses of precious metal worn at the breast by bishops and
abbots as a mark of their office, and sometimes also by canons, etc., who
have obtained the privilege from Rome. It is stated these pectorals were
not generally used by the Roman ecclesiastics till the middle of the
sixteenth century; however that may be, it is a fact, as proved by the
Assyrian sculptures, that they are nearly, if not more than, three
thousand years old, and not the least interesting feature distinguishing
them is their perfect similarity of design. It is strange that we
moderns--the disciples of Christ--should have had supplied to us at that
remote period the pattern of an ornament or symbol which we are accustomed
to regard as emblematic of essential features of our religion, but it is
true.
Look across now to Egypt and we find monuments and tombs literally
bedizened with the cross, and that too in a variety of shapes. Long, long
before Christ, the Ibis was represented with human hands and feet, holding
the staff of Isis in one hand, and a globe and cross in the other. Here we
are in one of the most ancient kingdoms of the world--a kingdom so ancient
that its years are lost in obscurity--yet still the cross is found.
Whatever it may have represented in other countries, and whatever may be
its meaning here, from the positions in which it is found and from its
constant association with ecclesiastical personages and offices, it was
evidently one of the most sacred of their symbols. Two forms, among
others, are common, one a simple cross of four limbs of equal length, the
other that shaped like the letter =X=; the first is generally known as the
Greek cross, the second as that of St. Andrew, both however being of the
same form and owing their different appearance only to the position in
which they are placed.
It is well known, probably, to most of our readers that the astronomical
signs of certain of the planets consist of crosses, crescents, circles,
and in ancient Egypt these were precisely the same as those now used.
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, the Earth by a
cross within a circle, Mercury by a cross surmounted by a circle and
crescent, and Mars by a cross above a circle. These may still be seen in
almanacs, and on the large coloured bottles in the windows of the
druggist. In the hands of Isis, Osiris, and Hermes, corresponding with the
Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury of the Greeks, are also found the above signs.
When the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, was destroyed by one of the
Christian emperors, it is related by several historians, Socrates and
Sozomen, for instance, that beneath the foundation was discovered the
monogram of Christ; and that considerable disputing arose in consequence
thereof, the Gentiles endeavouring to use it for their own purposes, and
the Christians insisting that the cross, being uneasy beneath the weight
or dominion of the temple, overthrew it.
If we turn to India we find the cross almost as common as in Egypt and
Europe, and not the least interesting feature of the matter is the curious
fact that a number of the pagodas are actually cruciform in structure.
Jagannath is the name of one of the mouths of the Ganges, upon which was
built the great pagoda where the Great Brahmin or High Priest resided. We
were told years ago, by travellers, that the form of the choir or interior
was similar in proportion to all the others, which were built upon the
same model, in the form of a cross. The pagoda at Benares, also, was in
the figure of a cross, having its arms equal. After the above, in
importance, was the pagoda at Muttra; this likewise was cruciform. One of
these temples, that at Chillambrum on the Coromandel coast, is said to be
four miles in circumference. Here there are seven lofty walls one within
the other round the central quadrangle, and as many pyramidal gateways in
the middle of each side which form the limbs of a vast cross, consisting
altogether of twenty-eight pyramids. There are, therefore, fourteen in a
row, which extend more than a mile in one continuous line.
What has been called, and perhaps justly so, the oldest religious monument
in the world was discovered a few years ago by Mariette Bey, near the
Great Pyramid. For ages it had lain there, buried in the sand--how many we
cannot tell, but very many we know; enough to carry us back to a very
remote past. And this, too, like the Indian temples, was in the shape of a
cross. Renan visited it in 1865, and though he found it in many
particulars different from those known elsewhere, he described the
interior, which much recalled the chamber of the Great Pyramid, as in the
form of =T=, the principle aisle being divided in three rows, the
transverse aisle in two.
Mr. Fergusson, the architect, also saw it, and, while admiring its simple
and chaste grandeur of style, with some astonishment described the form of
the principal chamber as that of a CROSS. And this was the plan of both
tomb and temple in the earliest ages, testifying to the great veneration
paid to this symbol.
There is a remarkable resemblance between the Buddhist crosses of India
and those used by the Christian Roman Church. The cross of the Buddhist is
represented with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a
Calvary as by the Roman Catholics. It is represented in various ways, but
the shaft with the cross-bar and the Calvary remain the same. The tree of
life and knowledge, or the jamba tree, in their maps of the world, is
always represented in the shape of a cross, eighty-four yoganas, or 423 or
432 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary.
From India we naturally turn to China, and, though its use there is
involved in a deal of mystery, the cross is found among their
hieroglyphics, on the walls of their pagodas and on the lamps which they
used to illuminate their temples.
In Kamschatka, Baron Humboldt found the cross and remains of hieroglyphics
similar to those of Egypt.
Passing into America, we find that what could only be described as perfect
idolatry prevailed with respect to the veneration paid to the cross.
Throughout Mexico and some parts of South America the emblem is constantly
found, and in many instances is evidently of great antiquity. Some
travellers have explained their presence by attributing them to the
Spaniards, but those people found them there when they arrived, and were
greatly astonished at the spectacle, not knowing how to account for it. A
lieutenant of Cortez passed over from the island of Cosumel to the
continent, and coasted the peninsula of Yucatan as far as Campeachy.
Everywhere he was struck with the evidences of a higher civilisation, and
was astonished at the sight of numerous large stone crosses, evidently
objects of worship, which he met with in various places.
At Cozuma an ancient cross is still standing. Here there is a temple of
considerable size, with pyramidal towers rising several stories above the
rest of the building, facing the cardinal points. In the centre of the
quadrangular area within stands a high cross, constructed of stone and
lime like the rest of the temple, and ten palms in height. The natives
regard is as the emblem of the god of rain.
The discovery of the cross amongst the Red Indians as an object of
worship, by the Spanish missionaries, in the fifteenth century, completely
mystified them, and they hardly knew whether to attribute it to a good or
an evil origin--whether it was the work of St. Thomas or of the Devil. The
symbol was not an occasional spectacle in odd places, as though there by
accident, it met them on all sides; it was literally everywhere, and in
every variety of form. It mattered not whether the building was old or
new, inhabited or ruined and deserted, whether it was a temple or a
palace, there was the cross in all shapes and of all materials--of marble,
gypsum, wood, emerald, and jasper. What was, perhaps, still more
remarkable was the fact that it was associated with certain other things
common on the Babylonian monuments, such as the bleeding deity, the
serpent and the sacred eagle, and that it bore the very same names by
which it was known in Roman Catholic countries, "the tree of subsistence,"
"the wood of health," "the emblem of life." In this latter appellation
there was a parallel to the name by which it was known in Egypt, and by
which the holy Tau of the Buddhists has always been known; thus placing,
as has been said, any supposition of accidental coincidence beyond all
reasonable debate.
In the Royal Commentaries of Peru, we have some interesting allusions to
the cross and to the general sanctity with which it was surrounded. In the
city of Cozco, the Incas had one of white marble, which they called a
crystalline jasper, but how long they had had it was unknown. The Inca,
Garcillasso de la Vega, said he left in the year 1560, in the cathedral
church of that city; it was then hanging upon a nail by a list of black
velvet; formerly, when in the hands of the Indians, it had been suspended
by a chain of gold and silver. The form is Greek, that is, square; being
as broad as it was long, and about three fingers wide. It was previously
kept in one of the royal apartments, called Huaca, which signified a
consecrated place. The record says that though the Indians did not adore
it, yet they held it in great veneration, either for the beauty of it, or
for some other reason which they knew not to assign; and so was observed
amongst them, until the Marquess Don Francisco Pizarro entered the valley
of Tumpiz, when by reason of some accidents which befel Pedro de Candia
they conceived a greater esteem and veneration for it. The historian
complains that the Spaniards, after they had taken the imperial city, hung
up this cross in the vestry of a church they built, whereas, he says, they
ought to have placed a relic of that kind upon the high altar, adorning it
with gold and precious stones; by which respect to a thing the Indians
esteemed sacred, and by assimilating the ordinances of the Christian
religion as near as was possible with those which the law of nature had
taught this people, the lessons of Christianity would thereby have become
more easy and familiar, and not seemed so far estranged from the
principles of their own Gentilism.
This cross is again mentioned in another part of the Royal Commentaries,
and two travellers are described as being filled with admiration at seeing
crosses erected on the top of the high pinnacles of the temples and
palaces; the which, it is said, were introduced from the time that Pedro
de Candia, being in Tumpiz, charmed or tamed the wild beasts which were
let loose to devour him, and which, simply by virtue of the cross which he
held in his hand, became gentle and domestic. This was recounted with such
admiration by the Indians, who carried the news of the miracle to Cozco,
that when the inhabitants of the city understood it they went immediately
to the sanctuary where the jasper cross already mentioned stood, and,
having brought it forth, they with loud acclamations adored and worshipped
it, conceiving that though the sign of the cross had for many ages been
conserved by them in high esteem and veneration yet it was not entertained
with such devotion as it deserved, because they were not as yet acquainted
with its virtues. Believing that the sign of the cross had tamed and shut
the mouths of the wild beasts, they imagined that it had a like power to
deliver them out of the hands of their enemies.
On both the northern and southern continents of America the cross was
believed to possess the power of restraining evil spirits, and was the
common symbol of the god of rain and of health. The people prayed to it
when their country needed water, and the Aztec goddess of rains held one
in her hand. At the feast celebrated to her honour in the spring, when the
genial shower was needed to promote fertilisation, they were wont to
conciliate the favour of Centeotl, the daughter of heaven and goddess of
corn, by nailing a boy or girl to a cross, and after they had been so
suspended for awhile piercing them with arrows shot from a bow. The
Muyscas, less sanguinary than the Mexicans in sacrificing to the god of
the waters, extended a couple of ropes transversely over some lake or
stream, thus forming a gigantic cross, and at the point of intersection
threw in their offerings of food, gems, and precious oils.
Quetyalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office a mace like the
cross of a bishop; his robe was covered with the symbol, and its adoration
was connected throughout with his worship.
There is, of course, no doubt whatever that the Spaniards took the cross
with them to America, and scattered it about so much in such varied
directions that their own became so intermingled with the native ones as
to make it difficult to distinguish one from the other; but the fact
remains that what there was of cordiality in the reception they met with
from the aborigines, was due in no small degree to their use of the same
emblem on their standards; when this became apparent the astonishment was
mutual. Many travellers have told us of these ancient crosses, and some of
them while expressing doubts as to their antiquity, have yet supplied us
with evidence of the same. Mr. Stephens is one of these. In his _Incidents
of Travel in Central America_, he supplies us with some wonderful Altar
Tablets found at Palenque, the principal subject in one of which is the
cross. It is surmounted by a strange bird, and loaded with indescribable
ornaments. There are two human figures, one on either side of the cross,
evidently of important personages; both are looking towards the cross, and
one seems in the act of making an offering. The traveller says:--"All
speculations on the subject are of course entitled to little regard, but
perhaps it would not be wrong to ascribe to those personages a sacerdotal
character. The hieroglyphics doubtless explain all. Near them are other
hieroglyphics which remind us of the Egyptian mode of recording the name,
history, office, or character of the persons represented. This tablet of
the cross has given rise to more learned speculations than perhaps any
others found at Palenque. Dupaix and his commentators, assuming for the
building a very remote antiquity, or at least, a period long antecedent to
the Christian era, account for the appearance of the cross by the argument
that it was known and had a symbolical meaning among ancient nations long
before it was established as the emblem of the Christian faith."
Near Miztla, "the city of the moon," is a cavern temple excavated from the
solid rock in the form of a cross, 123 feet in length and breadth, the
limbs being about 25 feet in width.
Other relics have been found in abundance in the same part of the world,
proving how well known this emblem was before the advent of Christianity.
In the Mexican Tribute Tables, we were told a few years ago by a writer in
the _Historical Magazine_, small pouches or bags frequently occur.
Appendages to dress, they are tastefully formed and ornamented with fringe
and tassels. A cross of the Maltese or more ordinary form (Greek or Latin)
is conspicuously woven or painted on each. They appear to have been in
great demand, a thousand bundles being the usual Pueblo tax.
The practice of marking the cross on their persons and wearing it in their
garments was once common with some if not with all the occupants of the
Southern Continent. The Abipones of Paraguay tatooed themselves by
pricking the skin with a thorn. They all wore the form of a cross
impressed on their foreheads, and two small lines at the corner of each
eye, extending towards the ears, besides four transverse lines at the root
of the nose, between the eyebrows, as national marks. What these figures
signified no one was able to tell. The people only knew this, that the
custom had been handed down to them by their ancestors. Not only were
crosses marked on their foreheads, but woven in the red woollen garments
of many of them. This was long before they knew anything of the Christian
religion.
The "hot cross bun," eaten in this country on Good Friday, is supposed by
many to be exclusively Christian in its origin; whereas it is no more than
a reproduction of a cake marked with a cross which was duly offered in the
heathen temples to such living idols as the serpent and the bull. It was
made of flour, honey and milk, or oil, and at certain times was eaten with
much ceremony by both priests and people.
There was also used in the Pagan times the monogram of a cross upon a
heart, the meaning of which was according to Egyptologists, "goodness."
"This figure," says Sir G. Wilkinson, "enclosed in a parallelogram, in
which form it would signify 'the abode of good,' was depicted or
sculptured upon the front of several houses in Memphis and Thebes."
A very ancient Phoenician medal was found many years ago in the ruins of
Citium, on which were inscribed the cross, the rosary, and the lamb. An
engraving of this may be seen in Higgins' _Celtic Druids_ and in Dr.
Clark's _Travels_.
The connection of the cross with Paganism originally, and its ultimate
assumption by the Christian church, is curiously and strikingly brought
out by Tertullian in his _Apologeticus_ and _Ad Nationes_. These
treatises, we may observe, are so much alike that the former has sometimes
been regarded as a first draft of the latter, which is nearly double the
length. Probably, however, they are entirely different productions, one
being addressed to the general public and the other to the rulers and
magistrates.
Charged with worshipping a cross, he says:--"As for him who affirms that
we are the priesthood of a cross, we shall claim him as our
co-religionist. A cross is in its material a sign of wood; amongst
yourselves also the object of worship is a wooden figure. Only, whilst
with you the figure is a human one, with us the wood is its own figure.
Never mind for the present what is the shape, provided the material is the
same; the form, too, is of no importance, if so be it be the actual body
of a god. If, however, there arises a question of difference on this
point, what, let me ask, is the difference between the Athenian Pallas or
the Pharia Ceres, and wood formed into a cross, when each is represented
by a rough stock without form, and by the merest rudiment of a statue of
unformed wood? Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an
erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its
mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam,
of course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the less to excuse you,
for you dedicate to religion only a mutilated imperfect piece of wood,
while others consecrate to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The
truth however, after all, is that your religion is all cross, as I shall
show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin have proceeded
from this hated cross. Now every image, whether carved out of wood or
stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer material,
must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation. Well then,
this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden
cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the
latent and concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards and
the back takes a straight direction and the shoulders project laterally,
if you simply place a man with his arms and hands out-stretched, you will
make the general outline of a cross. Starting then from this rudimental
form and prop, as it were, he applies a covering of clay, and so gradually
completes the limbs and forms the body, and covers the cross within with
the shape which he meant to impress upon the clay; then from this design,
with the help of compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready for his
image which is to be brought out into marble, or clay, or metal, or
whatever the material be of which he has determined to make his god. This
then is the process: after the cross-shaped frame the clay; after the clay
the god. In a well-understood routine the cross passes into a god through
the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it the
consecrated deity begins to derive its origin. By way of example let us
take the case of a tree which grows up into a system of branches and
foliage, and is a reproduction of its own kind, whether it springs from
the kernel of an olive, or the stone of a peach, or a grain of pepper
which has been duly tempered under ground. Now if you transplant it or
take a cutting off its branches for another plant, to what will you
attribute what is produced by the propagation? Will it not be to the
grain, or the stone, or the kernel? Because as the third stage is
attributable to the second, and the second in like manner to the first, so
the third will have to be referred to the first, through the second as the
mean. We need not stay any longer in the discussion of this point, since
by a natural law every kind of produce throughout nature refers back its
growth to its original source; and just as the product is comprised in its
primal cause, so does that cause agree in character with the thing
produced. Since then, in the production of your gods, you worship the
cross which originates them, here will be the original kernel and grain
from which are propagated the wooden materials of your idolatrous images.
Examples are not far to seek. Your victories you celebrate with religious
ceremony as deities, and they are more august in proportion to the joy
they bring you. The frames on which you hang up your crosses--these are as
it were the very core of your pageants. Thus in your victories the
religion of your camp makes even crosses objects of worship; your
standards it adores, your standards are the sanction of its oaths, your
standards it prefers before Jupiter himself. But all that parade of images
and that display of pure gold, are as so many necklaces of the crosses. In
like manner also in the banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard
with no less sacred care, you have the streamers and vestments of your
crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and simple
crosses."
We give this passage at length because it emphasises what we are urging in
connection with this subject, viz., that the cross is common to both
Christianity and Paganism, that the latter possessed it ages before the
former, and is therefore more likely to have originated it. We speak with
some reserve on this latter point for want of proper and full evidence. It
may of course be possible that in a purer and more enlightened age the
cross was known and used; we shall probably, however, find our researches
stop short in Pagan times, in which we shall have to look for the
generally recognised meaning of the symbol.
It is remarkable in the quotation just made, that Tertullian never
attempts to refute the charge brought by the Pagans against the Christians
of his time of worshipping the cross; he merely retaliates by asserting
that they did the very same thing in a somewhat different manner. "As for
him," he says, "who affirms that we are the priesthood of a cross, we
shall claim him as our co-religionist.... What, let me ask, is the
difference between the Athenian Pallas or the Pharian Ceres, and wood
formed into a cross?"
He further identifies himself and his religion with the Pagans in this
particular by saying:--"In all our movements, our travels, our going out
and coming in, putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in
lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down: whatever employment
occupies us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross." How much
all this reminds us of the universality of the symbol in pre-Christian
times. We can scarcely point to an age or to a century in which it did not
in some way enter into its history, its theology, its social and domestic
life. Again and again have monuments been discovered which put the date of
its use further back than had been imagined, and some have been brought to
light which carry the story back into very remote antiquity indeed. In the
wilds of Central India, for instance, a little over twenty years back, the
late Mr. Mulheran, C.E., discovered two of the oldest crosses ever met
with. They were granite monoliths, perfect in structure, and very much
like those to be found here and there in the western parts of Cornwall.
One was ten feet nine inches in height, and the other eight feet six
inches; each being in the midst of a group of cairns and cromlechs or
dolmens, which Colonel Taylor describes as similar in character to some
which he formerly surveyed near the village of Rajunkolloor, within the
Principality of Shorapoor, in the Deccan. Their extreme antiquity is
inferred from the fact, as stated by the European officer who first
discovered them, that the vicinity of the groups of cromlechs and crosses
had, at some remote period, been cultivated; that parts of the hills had
been cut into terraces, and supported by large stone banks or walls; but
that the country for miles in every direction was, and had been for
centuries and centuries, entirely uninhabited, and was grown over with
dense forests. It has been estimated that, as this elevated and
long-neglected region has been the possession of the low castes, or
non-Aryan helots, from time immemorial, we may confidently assume that the
monoliths in question were erected by the aboriginal population of the
soil--a population which was driven, not improbably three thousand years,
at the least, before the advent of Christ, from the richer plains below by
the first Aryan invader who had crossed the five streams, and found a
temporary refuge in the nearest range of hills to the west of Chandar,
until another foe--the Mogul--appeared upon the scene, and finally subdued
both the conqueror and his victims. "Here then," says a reviewer, "amongst
these now fragmentary people from the debris of a widely-spread primeval
race (to borrow a phrase from a recent writer on the non-Aryan languages
of the Continent), we find the symbol of the cross, not only expressing
the same mystery as in all other parts of the world, but its erection,
doubtless, dating from one of the very earliest migrations of our
species." It is impossible to adduce any clearer or stronger proof of its
primitive antiquity than this.
It has been suggested by some writers, who, for some reason or other,
objected to the recognition of the cross as an emblem of great antiquity,
that the stone structures which were erected in the British Islands by the
Druids, Saxons, and Danes, owed their cruciform character to the
necessities of the situation rather than to any other cause; that the
stones were placed across each other as a matter of mere convenience, and
not with the view of forming a cross, and that these monuments, which
served as instruments of Druidical superstition before the implanting of
the Gospel in Britain, were afterwards appropriated to the use of
Christian memorials by being formed in the figure of a cross or marked
with this emblem. It is admitted, of course, that those cruciform
structures were thus appropriated, but of what use will it be to repudiate
the antiquity of examples whose age has been far surpassed in other parts
of the world. The crosses of India, just alluded to, remain to be
accounted for, and even when they have been as summarily disposed of as
the British ones, there are the crosses suspended from the necks of the
Assyrian kings, whose existence cannot possibly be accounted for by the
above hypothesis. It was not necessity or convenience that designed a
Maltese cross, a thousand years before the Christian era, of precisely the
same form as that which is worn by men and women in this nineteenth
century, nor probably was it a merely ornamental taste; we are rather
disposed to believe that the secret lies in the symbolical meaning, which
has ever been attached to the form.
The universality of the cross as a religious symbol is certainly a most
astounding fact, and the more so because it has evidently always
represented the same fundamental idea in connection with the theological
systems, in all ages, of the Old and New Worlds. If but one of these
mythologies possessed it, there might be little difficulty in tracing out
the significance of the coincidence between its existence there and in
Christian theology, but prevailing as it does universally, and destined as
it is to retain its connection with the religion of man, it excites
feelings of the most profound wonderment and surprise. Lipsius and other
early writers, in reference to this matter, declared their sincere belief
that the numerous cruciform figures to be found on the monuments of
antiquity were of a typical character, and expressed a sentiment which
looked forward to the cross of Christ; a few others doubted this, and
suggested difficulties, while Gibbon ridiculed the whole matter, as it
thus stood, from beginning to end. The belief, however, that the cross in
Pagan lands was in some incomprehensible manner connected with the same
object or idea as in the Christian church was not easily got rid of, and
was considerably deepened by the testimony of missionaries to the New
World that amongst people of apparently different origin and of altogether
different attributes, the cross was common as an object of worship and
veneration. So universal has the presence of this symbol and its attendant
worship been found that it has been said to form a complete zone about the
habitable globe, extending as it does from Assyria into Egypt, and India,
and Anahuac, in their ruined temples; to the pyramidal structures of East
and West, and to those in Polynesia, especially the islands of Tonga,
Viti, and Easter; "as it appears upon numberless vases, medals, and coins
of the earliest known types, centuries anterior to the introduction of
Christianity; and as its teaching is expressed in the concordant customs,
rites, and traditions of former nations and communities, who were widely
separated from, and for the most part ignorant of, the existence of each
other, and who possessed, so far as we are aware, no other emblematical
figure in common." Egypt, Assyria, Britain, India, China, Scandinavia, the
two Americas--all were alike its home, and in all of them was there
analogy in the teaching respecting its meaning.