This brings to mind the doctrine of certain Christian heretics (so called),
who maintained that Jesus Christ was crucified in the heavens.
The crucified lao (" Divine Love " personified) is the crucified Adonis,
orTammuz (the Jewish Adonai), the Sun, who was put to death by the wild boar of
Aries, one of the twelve signs in the zodiac. The crucifixion of *' Divine
Love " is often found among the Greeks. Hera or Juno, according to the Iliad,
was bound with fetters and suspended in space, between heaven and earth.
Ixion, Prometheus, and Apollo of Miletus were all crucified.^
The story of the crucifixion of Prometheus was allegorical j for Prometheus
was only a title of the sun, expressing providence or foresight, wherefore his
being crucified in the extremities of the earth signified originally no more
than the restriction of the power of the sun during the winter months.^
A great number of the solar heroes, or sun-gods, are forced to endure being
bound, which indicates the tied-up power of the sun in winter.^
Achilleus and Meleagros represent alike the shortlived sun, whose course is
one of toil for others, ending in an early death, after a series of wonderful
victories, alternating with periods of darkness and gloom.^ In the tales of the
Trojan war it is related of Achilleus that he expires at the Skaian, or
western gates of evening. He is slain by Paris, who here appears as the Pani,
or dark power, who blots out the sun from the heaven.
We have the Crucified Rose, which is illustrated in the jewel of the
Rosicrucians. This jewel is formed of a transparent red stone, with a red cross
on one side, and a red rose on the other ; thus it is a crucified rose. " The
Rossi, or Rosi-crucians, idea concerning this emblematic red cross," says Har
grave Jennings, in his History of the Rosicrucians^ "probably came from the
fable of Adonis being changed into a red rose by Venus." ^
The emblem of the Templars is a red rose on a cross. When it can be done, it is
surrounded with a glory and placed on a calvary. This is the Naurutz, Natsir,
or Rose of Isuren, of Tamul, or Sharon, or the Water Rose, the Lily Padma,
Pena, Lotus, crucified in the heavens for the salvation of man.^
The principal silver coin among the Romans, called the denarius, had on one
side a personification of Rome as a warrior with a helmet, and on the reverse a
chariot drawn by four horses. The driver had a cross-standard in one hand. This
is a representation of a denarius of the earliest kind, which was first coined
296 b. c.-^ The cross was used on the roll of the Roman soldiery as the sign of
life. The labarum of Constantine was the X and P in combination, which was the
monogram of the Egyptian Saviour Osiris, of Jupiter Ammon, and afterwards of
Christ.^ The monogram of Mercury was a cross. ^ The monogram of the Egyptian
Taut was formed by three crosses.* The monogram of Saturn was a cross and a
ram's horn ; it was also a monogram of Jupiter.^ The monogram of Venus was a
cross and a circle.® The Phoenician Astarte, the Babylonian Bal, Freya, Holder,
and Aphrodite, all had the same monogram.'
An oval seal of white chalcedony engraved in the Memoires de V Academic royale
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (vol. xvi.), has as subject a standing
figure between two stars, beneath which are handled crosses. About the head of
the deity is the triangle, or symbol of the Trinity. This seal is supposed to
be Phoenician. The Phoenicians also regarded the cross as a sacred sign. The
goddess Astarte, the moon, the presiding divinity over the watery ele
ment, is represented on the coins of Byblos holding a long staff surmounted by
a cross, and resting her foot on the prow of a galley. The cyclopean temple at
Gozzo, the island adjacent to Malta, has been supposed to be a shrine of the
Phoenicians to Mylitta or Astarte. It is of cruciform shape. A superb medal of
Cilicia, bearing a Phoenician legend, and struck under the Persian domination,
has on one side a figure of this goddess with a crux ansata by her side, the
lower member split.
Another form of the cross is repeated frequently and prominently on coins of
Asia Minor. It occurs as the reverse of a silver coin, supposed to be of
Cyprus, on several Cilician coins; it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of
Tarsus, on a Phoenician coin of that town, bearing the legend, translated, "
Baal Tharz." A medal with partially obliterated characters has the cross
occupying the entire field of the reverse side ; several, with inscriptions in
unknown characters, have a ram on one side, and the cross and ring on the
other ; another has the sacred bull, accompanied by this symbol ; others have a
lion's head on obverse, and the cross and circle on the reverse.
A beautiful Cicilian medal of Camarina bears a swan and altar, and beneath the
altar is one of these crosses with a ring attached to it.^
As in Phoenician iconography this cross generally accompanies the deity, in the
same manner as the handled cross is associated with the Persepolitan,
Babylonish, and Egyptian gods, it is supposed that it had the same
signification of " Life Eternal." It is also thought that it symbolized
regeneration through water. On Babylonish cylinders it is generally employed
in conjunction with the hawk or eagle, either seated on it or flying above it.
This eagle is Nisroch, whose eyes are always flowing with tears for the death
of Tammuz. In Greek iconography Zeus
the heaven is accompanied by the eagle to symbolize the cloud. On several
Phoenician or uncertain coins of Asia Minor the eagle and the cross go
together. Therefore it is thought that the cross may symbolize life restored by
rain.^
An inscription in Thessaly is accompanied by a calvary cross, and Greek crosses
of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas. Crosses of dififerent shapes are common
on ancient cinerary urns in Italy. These forms occur under a bed of volcanic
tufa on the Albion Mount, and are of remote antiquity.
But long before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the
plains of Northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the
sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest,
a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name, but of whom
antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the arts
of civilization, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and
that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive, their loved ones
whom they committed to the dust.^
The ancient cemeteries of Villanova, near Bologna, and Golaseca, on the plateau
of Somma, at the extremity of Lake Maggiore, show conclusively that above a
thousand years before Christ the cross was already a religious emblem of
frequent employment.^
The most ancient coins of the Gauls were circular, with a cross in the middle,
like little wheels, as it were, with four large perforations. That these
rouelles were not designed to represent wheels is apparent from there being
only four spokes, placed at right angles. Moreover, when the coins of the Greek
type took their place the cross was continued as the ornamentation of the
coin.^
The reverse of the coins of the Volcse Tectosages, who inhabited the greater
portion of Languedoc, was impressed with crosses, their angles filled with pel
lets, so like those on the silver coins of the Edwards that, were it not for
the quality of the metal, one would take these Gaulish coins to be the
production of the Middle Ages. The Leuci, who inhabited the country round the
modern Toul, had similar coins.
Near Paris, at Choisy-le-Roy, was discovered a Gaulish coin representing a
head, in barbarous imitation of that on a Greek medal, and the reverse occupied
by a serpent coiled round the circumference, enclosing two birds. Between
these birds is a cross, with pellets at the end of each limb, and a pellet in
each angle.^
A similar coin has been found in numbers near Arthenay, in Loiret, as well as
others of analogous type. Other Gaulish coins bear the cross on both obverse
and reverse. About two hundred pieces of this description were found in 1835 in
the village of Cremiat-sur-Yen, near Quimper, in a brown earthen urn, with
ashes and charcoal, in a rude kistvaen of stone blocks, proving that the
cross was used on the coins in Armorica at the time when incineration was
practised.^
Just as the Saint George's cross appears on the Gaulish coins, so does the
cross cramponn^e, or Thor's hammer, appear on the Scandinavian moneys.
In ploughing a field near Bornholm, in Fyen, in 1835, ^ discovery was made of
several gold coins and ornaments belonging to ancient Danish civilization.
They were impressed with a four-footed horned beast, girthed and mounted by a
monstrous human head, intended in barbaric fashion to represent the rider. In
front of the head was the sign of Thor's hammer. Some of these specimens ex
hibited likewise the name of Thor in Runes.
King Olaf, Longfellow tells us, when keeping Christmas at Drontheim :
O'er his drinking-horn, the sign He made of the Cross Divine,
As he drank and muttered his prayers ; But the Berserks evermore Made the sign
of the Hammer of Thor, Over theirs.
They both made the same symbol. This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the
Heimskringla,^ when he describes the sacrifice at Lade, at which King Hakon,
Athelstan's foster-son, was present.
Now when the first full goblet was filled, Earl Sigurd spoke some words over
it, and blessed it in Odin's name, and drank to the king out of the horn ; and
the king then took it and made the sign of the cross over it. Then said Kaare
of Greyting, " What does the king mean by doing so? will he not sacrifice ?
'^ But Earl Sigurd replied, " The king is doing what all of you do who trust in
your power and strength ; for he is blessing the full goblet in the name of
Thor, by making the sign of his hammer over it before he drinks it."
It was with this hammer that Thor crushed the head of the great Mitgard serpent
; that he destroyed the giants ; that he restored the dead goats to life which
drew his car ; that he consecrated the pyre of Baldur. The cross of Thor is
still used in Iceland as a magical sign in connection with storms of wind and
rain. The German peasantry use the sign of the cross to dispel a thunder-storm,
the cross being used because it resembles Thor's hammer, Thor being the
Thunderer. For the same reason bells were often marked with the "fylfot,'^ or
cross of Thor, especially where the Norse settled, as in Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire. Thor's cross is on the bells of Appleby, Scothern, Waddingham,
Bishop's Norton, and Barkwith, also those of Hathersage in Derbyshire,
Mexborough in Yorkshire, and many more.
The fylfot is the sacred swastica of the Buddhists, and the symbol of Buddha.
The early Aryan nations called the cross arani. Its two arms were named
pramatha and swastica. They were merely two pieces of wood with handles, and by
rubbing together they kindled the sacred fire agni.
From pramatha comes the Grecian myth of Prometheus, who stole the fire of
heaven from Zeus in a hollow staff and kindled the divine spark of life in man
formed of clay. Hence in worshipping the cross, the Aryans were but worshipping
the element fire.i
On the reverse of a coin found at Ugain is a cross of equal arms, with a circle
at the extremity of each, and the fylfot in each circle.
The same peculiar figure occurs on coins of Syracuse, Corinth, and Chalcedon,
and is frequently employed on Etruscan cinerary urns. It appears on the dress
of a fossor, as a sort of badge of his office, on one of the paintings in the
Roman Catacombs.'^ The cross was found among the ruins of Pompeii.^ In the
depths of the forests of Central America is a ruined city, Palenque, founded,
according to tradition, by Votan, in the ninth century before the Christian
era. The principal building in Palenque is the palace. The eastern fagade has
fourteen doors opening on a terrace, with bas-reliefs between them. A noble
tower rises above the courtyard in the centre. In this building are several
small temples or chapels, with altars standing. At the back of one of these
altars is a slab of gypsum, on which are sculptured two figures standing one on
each side of a cross, to which one is extending his hands with an offering of a
baby or a monkey. The cross is surrounded with rich feather-work and
ornamental chains. The style of sculpture and the accompanying hieroglyphic
inscriptions leave no room for doubting it to be a heathen representation.
Above the cross is a bird of peculiar character, perched like the eagle of
Nisroch on a cross upon a Babylonish cylinder. The same cross is represented on
old pre-Mexican MSS., as in the Dresden Codex, and that in the possession of
Herr Fejervary, at the end of which is a colossal cross, in the midst of which
is represented a bleeding deity, and figures standing round a Tau cross, upon
which is perched the sacred bird.^
A very fine and highly polished cross which was taken from the Incas was placed
in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Cusco.^
The cross was used in the north of Mexico. It occurs amongst the Mixtecas and
in Queredaro. Siguenza mentions an Indian cross which was found in the cave of
Mixteca Baja. Among the ruins on the island of Zaputero in Lake Nicaragua were
also found old crosses reverenced by the Indians. White marble crosses were
found on the island of St. Ulloa, on its discovery. In the State of Ooxaca, the
Spaniards found that wooden crosses were erected as sacred symbols, so also in
Aguatolco, and among the Zapatecas. The cross was venerated as far as Florida
on one side, and Cibola on the other. In South America the same sign was
considered symbolical and sacred. It was revered in Paraguay. Among the
Muyscas at Cumana the cross was regarded with devotion and was believed to be
endowed with power to drive away evil spirits ; consequently new-born
children were placed under the sign.3
The cross was the central object in the great temple Cogames.
Lord Kingsborough speaks of crosses being found in Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan.^
He also informs us that the banner of Montezuma was a cross. The historical
paintings of the Codex Vaticanus represent him carrying a banner with a cross
on it.^
When the Spanish missionaries found that the cross was no new object to the red
men, they were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of
Saint Thomas, whom they thought might have found his way to America, or to the
subtleties of Satan.
The Toltecs asserted that their national deity introduced the sign and ritual
of the cross.
Besides the cross, the Buddhist symbols of the elephant and the cobra were
f(5und in Mexico, also the figure of Buddha. Mr. Lillie, in his Buddha and
Early Buddhism^ gives considerable evidence from Chinese records showing that
the missionaries of Buddha evangelized America in the fifth century a. d., and
persuaded King Quetzal Coatl to abolish the sacrifice of blood.
