The Non-Christian Cross | Page 7

wrongly interpreted
the word stauros as meaning something cross-shaped, let us,
remembering that this does not dispose of the question whether they
rightly or wrongly so interpreted it, in this and the next two chapters
pass in review the references to the cross made by the Fathers who
lived before Constantine's march upon Rome at the head of his Gaulish
army.
Commencing, on account of its importance, with the evidence of
Minucius Felix, we find that this Father wrote
"We assuredly see the sign of a cross naturally, in the ship when it is
carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded
oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up it is the sign of a cross;
and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with arms outstretched.
Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason or your
own religion is formed with respect to it."[7]
Various other pronouncements to a similar effect are to be found in the
writings of other Christian Fathers, and such passages are often quoted
as conclusive evidence of the Christian origin of what is now our
symbol. In reality, however, it is somewhat doubtful if we can fairly
claim them as such; for the question arises whether, if the writers in
their hearts believed their cross to be a representation of the instrument
of execution to which Jesus was affixed, they would have omitted, as
they did in every instance, to mention that as the right and proper and
all-sufficient reason for venerating the figure of the cross.
Moreover it is quite clear that while, as will be shown hereafter, the
symbol of the cross had for ages been a Pagan symbol of Life, it can, as
already stated, scarcely be said to have become a Christian symbol

before the days of Constantine. No cross-shaped symbol of wood or of
any other material had any part in the Christianity of the second and
third centuries; and the only cross which had any part in the
Christianity of those days was the immaterial one traced upon the
forehead in the non-Mosaic and originally Pagan initiatory rite of
Baptism, and at other times also according to some of the Fathers,
apparently as a charm against the machinations of evil spirits.
This "sign" or "signal" rather than "symbol" of the cross, referred to as
theirs by the Christian writers of the second and third centuries, is said
to have had a place before our era in the rites of those who worshipped
Mithras, if not also of those who worshipped certain other conceptions
of the Sun-God; and it should be noted that the Fathers insist upon it
that a similar mark is what the prophet Ezekiel referred to as that to be
placed upon the foreheads of certain men as a sign of life and salvation;
the original Hebrew reading "Set a tau upon the foreheads of the men"
(Ezek. ix. 4), and the tau having been in the days of the prophet in
question--as we know from relics of the past--the figure of a cross. Nor
should it be forgotten that Tertullian admits that those admitted into the
rites of the Sun-God Mithras were so marked, trying to explain this
away by stating that this was done in imitation of the then despised
Christians![8]
That it was this immaterial sign or signal, rather than any material
symbol of the cross, which Minucius Felix considered Christian, is
demonstrated by the fact that the passage already quoted is
accompanied by the remark that
"Crosses, moreover, we Christians neither venerate nor wish for. You
indeed who consecrate gods of wood venerate wooden crosses, perhaps
as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners,
and flags of your camps, what are they but crosses gilded and adorned?
Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple
cross, but also that of a man affixed to it."[9]
This remarkable denunciation of the Cross as a Pagan symbol by a
Christian Father who lived as late as the third century after Christ, is
worthy of special attention; and can scarcely be said to bear out the
orthodox account of the origin of the cross as a Christian symbol. It is
at any rate clear that the cross was not our recognised symbol at that
date; and that it is more likely to have been gradually adopted by us

from Sun-God worshippers, than by the worshippers of Mithras and
other pre-Christian conceptions of the Sun-God from us.
As our era was six or seven centuries old before the crucifix was
introduced, and the earliest pictorial representation of the execution of
Jesus still existing or referred to in any work as having existed was of
even later date,