The reader may refer to the thirty-ninth number of the Classical Journal, for some curious and profound observations on the Crux ansata.
2. The sign of the cross is well known to all Romish Christians, among whom it is yet used in every respect as is described by Justin, who has this passage in his Apology: “And whereas Plato, in his Timæus, philosophizing about the Son of God says, He expressed him upon the universe in the figure of the letter X, he evidently took the hint from Moses; for in the Mosaic writings it is related, that after the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the desert, they were set upon and destroyed by venomous beasts, vipers, asps, and all sorts of serpents; and that Moses thereupon, by particular inspiration from God, took brass and made the sign of the cross, and placed it by the holy tabernacle, and declared, that if the people would look upon that cross, and believe, they should be saved; upon which he writes, that the serpents died, and by this means the people were saved.”
He presently afterward tells us that Plato said, “The next power to the Supreme God was decussated or figured in the shape of a cross on the universe.” These opinions of Plato were taken from the doctrine of Pythagoras relating to numbers, which were extremely mystical, and are certainly not understood. Here we have the Son of God typified by the X, hundreds of years before Christ was born, but this is in keeping with the Platonic Trinity.
It is a certain fact that there is no such passage as that quoted by Justin relating to the cross in the Old or the New Testament. This is merely an example of economical reasoning, of pious fraud, in the first Christian father, not said to be inspired, any of whose entire and undisputed works we possess. The evident object of this fraud was to account for the adoration of the cross, which Justin found practised by his followers, but the cause of which he did not understand.
Tertullian says, that “The Devil signed his soldiers in the forehead, in imitation of the Christians: Mithra signat illic in frontibus milites suos.”[1] And St. Austin says, that “the cross and baptism were never parted: semper enim cruci Baptismus jungitur.”[2]
The cross was a sacred emblem with the Egyptians. 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. It is on most of the Egyptian obelisks, and was used as an amulet. Saturn’s astrological character was a cross and a ram’s-horn. Jupiter also bore a cross, with a horn.
“We have already observed, that the cabalists left these gross symbols to the people, but the learned and the initiated piercing through these objects, pretended to aspire to the knowledge and contemplation of the Deity.”[3] Again, “What hideous darkness must involve the Egyptian history and religion, which were only known by ambiguous signs! It was impossible but they must vary in their explication of these signs, and in a long tract of time forget what the ancients meant by them. And thus every one made his own conjectures: and the priests taking advantage of the obscurity of the signs, and ignorance of the people, made the best of their own learning and fancies. Hence necessarily happened two things—one, that religion often changed; the other, that the cabalists were in great esteem, because necessary men.”[4]
From these quotations it is evident the sign of the cross was a religious symbol common both to Heathens and Christians, and that it was used by the former long before the rise of Christianity.[5] The two principal pagodas of India, viz. at Benares and Mathura, are built in the form of crosses.[6] The cross was also a symbol of the British Druids.[7] Mr. Maurice says, “We
