Curious Myths of the Middle Ages/The Legend of the Cross

by Sabine Baring-Gould

Ὦ ξύλον, ᾧ μακαριστὸν, ἐΦ̓ ᾧ Θεὸς ἐξετανύσθη

Sibyll. vi. 26.

IN the year 1850 chance led me to the discovery of a Gallo-Roman palace at Pont d’Oli (Pons Aulæ), near Pau, in the south of France. I was able to exhume the whole of the ruins, and to bring to light one of the most extensive series of mosaic pavements extant.

The remains consisted of a mansion two hundred feet long, paved throughout with mosaic: it was divided into summer and winter apartments; the latter heated by means of hypocausts, and of small size; the former very large, and opening on to a corridor above the river, once adorned with white marble pillars, having capitals of the Corinthian order. One of the first portions of the palace to be examined was the atrium, out of which, on the west, opened the tablinum, a. semi-circular chamber panelled with alabaster and painted.

The atrium contained a large quadrangular tank or impluvium, the dwarf walls of which were encased in variegated Pyrenean marbles. On the west side of the impluvium, below the step of the tablinum, the pavement represented five rows of squares. The squares in the first, third, and fifth rows were filled with a graceful pattern composed of curves. In the second and fourth rows, however, every fourth square contained a distinctly characterized red cross on white ground, with a delicate white spine down the middle (Fig. 2). Some few of these crosses had a black floriation in the angles, much resembling that met with in Gothic crosses (Fig. 4). Immediately in front of the tablinum, on the dwarf wall of the impluvium, stood the altar to the Penates, which was found. The corresponding pavement on the east of the impluvium was similar in design to the other, but the S. George’s crosses were replaced by those of S. Andrew, each limb terminating either in a heart-shaped leaf or a trefoil (Figs., 1, 5). The design on the north and south was different, and contained no crosses. The excavations to the north led to the summer apartment. The most northerly chamber measured 26 feet by 22 feet; it was not only the largest, but evidently the principal room of the mansion, for the pavement was the most elaborate and beautiful. It was bordered by an exquisite running pattern of vines and grape bunches, springing from four drinking vessels in the centres of the north, south, east, and west sides. The pattern within this border was of circles, containing conventional roses alternately folded and expanded. This design was, however, rudely interrupted by a monstrous cross,

measuring 19 feet 8 inches by 13 feet, with its head towards the south, and its foot at the head of a flight of marble steps descending into what we were unable to decide whether it was a bath or a vestibule. The ground of the cross was white; the limbs were filled with cuttle, lobsters, eels, oysters, and fish, swimming as though in their natural element; but the centre, where the arms intersected, was occupied by a gigantic bust of Neptune with his trident. The flesh was represented red; the hair, and beard, and trident were a blue-black. The arms of the figure did not show: a line joining the lower edge of the transverse limbs of the cross cut the figure at the breast, leaving the head and shoulders above. The resemblance to a crucifix was sufficiently remarkable to make the labourers exclaim, as they uncovered it, “C’est le bon Dieu, c’est Jésus!” and they regarded the trident as the centurion’s spear. A neighbouring curé satisfied himself that the pavement was laid down in conscious prophecy of Christianity, and he pointed to the chalices and grapes as symbolizing the holy Eucharist, and the great cross, at the head of what we believed to be a circular bath, as typical of Christian baptism. With regard to the cross, the following laws seem to have governed its representation in the Gallo-Roman villa:—

The S. George’s cross occupied the place of honour in the chief room, and at the head of this room, not in the middle, but near the bath or porch. Again, in the atrium this cross was repeated twenty times in the principal place before the tablinum and altar of the household divinities, and again in connexion with water. Its colour was always red or white.

Six varieties of crosses occurred in the villa (Figs. 1—5): the S. George’s cross plain; the same with foliations in the angles; the same inhabited by fish, and bust of Neptune: the Maltese cross: the S. Andrew’s cross with trefoiled ends; the same with heart-shaped ends.

On the discovery of the villa, several theories were propounded to explain the prominence given to the cross in the mosaics.

It was conjectured by some that the Neptune crucifix was a satire upon the Christians. To this it was objected that the figure was too large and solemn, and was made too prominent, to be so taken; that to the cross was assigned the place of honour; and that, independently of the bust of the sea-god, it was connected by the artists with the presence of water.

It was supposed by others that the villa had belonged to a Christian, and that the execution of

his design in the pavement had been entrusted to pagans, who, through ignorance, had substituted the head of Neptune for that of the Saviour.

Such a solution, though possible, is barely probable.

My own belief is, that the cross was a sacred sign among the Gaulish Kelts, and that the villa at Pau had belonged to a Gallo-Roman, who introduced into it the symbol of the water-god of his national religion, and combined it with the representation of the marine deity of the conquerors’ creed.

My reasons for believing the cross to have been a Gaulish sign are these:—

The most ancient coins of the Gauls were circular, with a cross in the middle; little wheels, as it were, with four large perforations (Figs. 6, 7, 8). 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 gold and silver Greek pieces circulating at Marseilles were the cause of the abandonment of the primitive type; and rude copies of the Greek coins were made by the Keltic inhabitants of Gaul. In copying the foreign pieces, they retained their own symbolic cross.

The reverse of the coins of the Volcæ Tectosages, who inhabited the greater portion of Languedoc, was impressed with crosses, their angles filled with pellets, 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. One of their pieces has been figured by M. de Saulcy^[1]. It represents a circle containing a cross, the angles between the arms occupied by a chevron. Some of the crosses have bezants, or pearls, forming a ring about them, or occupying the spaces between their limbs. 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, and 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 incremation was practised. This cross with pellets, a characteristic of Gaulish coins, became in time the recognized reverse of early French pieces, and introduced itself into England with the Anglo-Norman kings.

We unfortunately know too little of the iconography of the Gauls, to be able to decide whether the cross was with them the symbol of a water deity; but I think it probable, and for this reason, that it is the sign of gods connected, more or less remotely, with water in other religions. That it was symbolic among the Irish and British Kelts is more than probable. The temple in the tumulus of Newgrange is in the shape of a cross with rounded arms (Fig. 9). Curiously enough, the so-called Phoenician ruin of Giganteia, in Gozzo, resembles it in shape. The shamrock of Ireland derives its sacredness from its affecting the same form. In the mysticism of the Druids the stalk or long arm of the cross represented the way of life, and the three lobes of the clover-leaf, or the short arms of the cross, symbolized the three conditions of the spirit-world, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell.

Let us turn to the Scandinavians. Their god Thorr was the thunder, and the hammer was his symbol. It was with this hammer that Thorr 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. This hammer was a cross.

Just as the S. George’s cross appears on the Gaulish coins, so does the cross pattée, or Thorr’s hammer (Fig. 11), appear on the Scandinavian moneys.

In ploughing a field near Bornholm, in Fyen, in 1835, a discovery was made of several gold coins and ornaments belonging to ancient Danish civilization. The collection consisted of personal ornaments, such as brooches, fibulæ, and torques, and also of pieces of money, to which were fastened rings in order that they might be strung on a necklace. Among these were two rude copies of coins of the successors of Constantine; but the others were of a class very common in the North. They were impressed with a four-footed horned beast, girthed, and mounted by a monstrous human head, intended, in barbarous fashion, to represent the rider. In front of the head was the sign of Thorr’s hammer, a cross pattée. Four of the specimens bearing this symbol exhibited likewise the name of Thorr in runes. A still ruder coin, discovered with the others, was deficient in the cross, whose place was occupied by a four-point star^[2].

Among the flint weapons discovered in Denmark are stone cruciform hammers, with a hole at the intersection of the arms for the insertion of the haft (Fig. 10). As the lateral limbs could have been of little or no use, it is probable that these cruciform hammers were those used in consecrating victims in Thorr’s worship.

The cross of Thorr is still used in Iceland as a magical sign in connexion with storms of wind and rain.

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 mutter’d his prayers;
 But the Berserks evermore
 Made the sign of the Hammer of Thorr
                       Over theirs.”

Actually they both made the same symbol.

This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the Heimskringla^[3], 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 Thorr, by making the sign of his hammer over it before he drinks it.’”

Bells were rung in the Middle Ages to drive away thunder. Among the German peasantry the sign of the cross is used to dispel a thunder-storm. The cross is used because it resembles Thorr’s hammer, and Thorr is the Thunderer: for the same reason bells were often marked with the “fylfot,” or cross of Thorr (Fig. 11), especially where the Norse settled, as in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Thorr’s cross is on the bells of Appleby, and Scotherne, Waddingham, Bishop’s Norton, and West Barkwith, in Lincolnshire, on those of Hathersage in Derbyshire, Mexborough in Yorkshire, and many more.

The fylfot is curiously enough the sacred Swaslika of the Buddhist; and the symbol of Buddha 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 curiously enough appears on the dress of a fossor, as a sort of badge of his office, on one of the paintings in the Roman catacombs.

But, leaving the cross pattée, let us examine some other crosses.

Sozomen, the ecclesiastical historian, says that, on the destruction of the Serapium in Egypt, “there were found sculptured on the stones certain characters regarded as sacred, resembling the sign of the cross. This representation, interpreted by those who knew the meaning, signified ‘The Life to come.’ This was the occasion of a great number of pagans embracing Christianity, the more so because other characters announced that the temple would be destroyed when this character came to light^[4].” Socrates gives further particulars: “Whilst they were demolishing and despoiling the temple of Serapis, they found characters, engraved on the stone, of the kind called hieroglyphics, the which characters had the figure of the cross. When the Christians and the Greeks [i.e. heathen] saw this, they referred the signs to their own religions. The Christians, who regarded the cross as the symbol of the salutary passion of Christ, thought that this character was their own. But the Greeks said it was common to Christ and Serapis; though this cruciform character is, in fact, one thing to the Christians, and another to the Greeks. A controversy having arisen, some of the Greeks [heathen] converted to Christianity, who understood the hieroglyphics, interpreted this cross-like figure to signify ‘The Life to come.’ The Christians, seizing on this as in favour of their religion, gathered boldness and assurance; and as it was shown by other sacred characters that the temple of Serapis was to have an end when was brought to light this cruciform character, signifying ‘The Life to come,’ a great number were converted and were baptized, confessing their sins^[5].”

Rufinus, who tells the story also, says that this took place at the destruction of the Serapium at Canopus^[6]; but Socrates and Sozomen probably followed Sophronius, who wrote a book on the destruction of the Serapium, and locate the event in Alexandria^[7].

Rufinus says, “The Egyptians are said to have the sign of the Lord’s cross among those letters which are called sacerdotal—of which letter or figure this, they say, is the interpretation: ‘The Life to come.’”

There is some slight difficulty as to fixing the date of the destruction of the Serapium. Marcellinus refers it to the year 389, but some chronologists have moved it to 391. It was certainly overthrown in the reign of Theodosius I.

There can be little doubt that the cross in the Serapium was the Crux ansata (Fig. 12), the S. Anthony’s cross, or Tau with a handle. The antiquaries of last century supposed it to be a Nile key or a phallus, significations purely hypothetical and false, as were all those they attributed to Egyptian hieroglyphs. As Sir Gardner Wilkinson remarks, it is precisely the god Nilus who is least often represented with this symbol in his hand^[8], and the Nile key is an ascertained figure of different shape. Now it is known for certain that the symbol is that of life. Among other indications, we have only to cite the Rosetta stone, on which it is employed to translate the title αίωνόβιος given to Ptolemy Epiphanius.

The Christians of Egypt gladly accepted this witness to the cross, and reproduced it in their churches and elsewhere, making it precede, follow, or accompany their inscriptions. Thus, beside one of the Christian inscriptions at Phile is seen both a Maltese cross and a crux ansata. In a painting covering the end of a church in the cemetery of El-Khargeh, in the Great Oasis, are three handled crosses around the principal subject, which seems to have been a figure of a saint^[9].

Not less manifest is the intention in an inscription in a Christian church to the east of the Nile in the desert. It is this:—

Beside, or in the hand of, the Egyptian gods, this symbol is generally to be seen: it is held in the right hand, by the loop, and indicates the Eternity of Life which is the attribute of divinity. When Osiris is represented holding out the crux ansata to a mortal, it means that the person to whom he presents it has put off mortality, and entered on the life to come.

Several theories have been started to account for the shape. The Phallic theory is monstrous, and devoid of evidence. It has also been suggested that the Tau (Τ) represents a table or altar, and that the loop symbolizes a vase^[10] or an egg^[11] upon that altar.

These explanations are untenable when brought into contact with the monuments of Egypt. The ovoid form of the upper member is certainly a handle, and is so used (Fig. 13). No one knows, and probably no one ever will know, what originated the use of this sign, and gave it such significance.

The Greek cross is also found on Egyptian monuments, but less frequently than the cross of S. Anthony. A figure of a Shari (Fig. 14), from Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s book, has a necklace round his throat, from which depends a pectoral cross. A similar ornament hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal tablet from Nimroud, now in the British Museum (Fig. 15). Another king from the ruins of Nineveh wears a Maltese cross on his bosom. And another, from the hall of Nisroch, carries an emblematic necklace, consisting of the sun surrounded by a ring, the moon, a Maltese cross likewise in a ring, a three-horned cap, an symbol like two horns^[12].

A third Egyptian cross is that represented Fig. 16, which apparently is intended for a Latin cross rising out of a heart, like the mediæval emblem of “Cor in Cruce, Crux in Corde:” it is the hieroglyph of goodness^[13].

The handled cross was certainly a sacred symbo among the Babylonians. It occurs repeatedly on their cylinders, bricks, and gems.

On a cylinder in the Paris Cabinet of Antiquities, published by Münter^[14], are four figures, the first winged, the second armed with what seems to be thunderbolts. Beside him is the crux ansata, with a hawk sitting on the oval handle. The other figures are a woman and a child. This cross is half the height of the deity.

Another cylinder in the same Cabinet represents three personages. Between two with tiaras is the same symbol. A third in the same collection bears the same three principal figures as the first. The winged deity holds a spear; the central god is armed with a bundle of thunderbolts and a dart, and is accompanied by the cross; the third, a female, bears a flower. On another and still more curious cylinder is a monarch or god, behind whom stands a servant holding up the symbol (Fig. 17). The god is between two handled crosses, and behind the servant is a Maltese cross. Some way above is a bird with expanded wings. Again, on another the winged figure is accompanied by the cross. A remarkable specimen, from which I have copied the principal figure (Fig. 18), represents a god holding the sacred sign by the long arm, whilst a priest offers him a gazelle.

An oval seal, of white chalcedony, engraved in the Mémoires de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (vol. xvi.), has as subject a standing figure between two stars, beneath which are handled crosses. Above the head of the deity is the triangle, or symbol of the Trinity.

This seal is of uncertain origin: it is supposed not to be Babylonish, but Phœnician. The Phœnicians also regarded the cross as a sacred sign. The goddess Astarte, the moon, the presiding divinity over the watery element, 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, and not unlike the familiar figures of Faith on the Christian Knowledge Society books.

The cyclopean temple at Gozzo, the island adjacent to Malta, has been supposed to be a shrine of the Phœnicians to Mylitta or Astarte. It is of a cruciform shape (Fig. 9). A superb medal of Cilicia, bearing a Phœnician 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 (Figs. 19, 20) 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 Phœnician coin of that town, bearing the legend תרז בעל (Baal Tharz). A medal, possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phœnician 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 Sicilian medal of Camarina bears a swan and altar, and beneath the altar is one of these crosses with a ring attached to it^[15].

As in Phœnician iconography this cross generally accompanies a deity, in the same manner as the handled cross is associated with the Persepolitan, Babylonish, and Egyptian gods, we may conclude that it had with the Phœnicians the same signification of life eternal. That it also symbolized regeneration through water, I also believe. 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 Tammüz. Nesr, or Nisroch, is certainly the rain-cloud. In Greek iconography Zeus, the heaven, is accompanied by the eagle to symbolize the cloud. On several Phœnician or uncertain coins of Asia Minor the eagle and the cross go together. Therefore I think that the cross may symbolize life restored by rain.

An inscription in Thessaly, ΕΡΜΑΩ ΧΘΟΝΙΟΥ, is accompanied by a Calvary cross (Fig. 21); and Greek crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas, in Phrygia. Crosses of different shapes, chiefly like Figs. 2 and 11, are common on ancient cinerary urns in Italy. These two forms occur on sepulchral vessels found under a bed of volcanic tufa on the Alban mount, and of remote antiquity.

It is curious that the Τ should have been used on the roll of the Roman soldiery as the sign of life, whilst the Θ designated death^[16].

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. Throughout Emilia are found remains of these people; these remains form quarries whence manure is dug by the peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the name of terramares. They are vast accumulations of cinders, charcoal, bones, fragments of pottery, and other remains of human industry. As this earth is very rich in phosphates, it is much appreciated by the agriculturists as a dressing for their land. In these terramares there are no human bones. The fragments of earthenware belong to articles of domestic use; with them are found querns, moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors and walls, and great quantities of kitchen refuse. They are deposits analogous to those which have been discovered in Denmark and in Switzerland. The metal discovered in the majority of these terramares is bronze. The remains belong to three distinct ages. In the first none of the fictile ware was turned on the wheel or fire-baked. Sometimes these deposits exhibit an advance of civilization. Iron came into use, and with it the potter’s wheel was discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace.

When in the same quarry these two epochs are found, the remains of the second age are always superposed over those of the bronze age.

A third period is occasionally met with, but only occasionally. A period when a rude art introduced itself, and representations of animals or human beings adorned the pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the first trace of money, the æs rude, little bronze fragments without shape.

According to the calculations of M. Des Vergers, the great development of Etruscan civilization took place about 290 years before the foundation of Rome, more than 1040 years before our era. The age of the terramares must be long antecedent to the time of Etruscan civilization. The remote antiquity of these remains may be gathered from the amount of accumulation over them. A section of the deposit in Parma, where was one of these lacustrine villages is as follows :

	ft.	in.
Romans and later remains a depth of	4	1
Midden of ancient inhabitants, three deposits separated by thin layers or red earth or ashes	6	8
Latest bed of lake containing piles	7	0
Secondary bed containing piles	3	3
Original bed of lake containing piles	21	0

Twice had the accumulation risen so as to necessitate the re-driving of piles, and over the last, the deposits had reached the height of 6 feet 8 inches. Since the age when these people vanished, earth has accumulated to the depth of 4 feet.

At Castione, not far from the station of Borgo S. Donino, on the line between Parma and Placenza, is a convent built on a mound. Where that mound rises there was originally a lake, and the foundations of the building are laid in the ruins of an ancient population which filled the lake, and converted it into a hill of refuse.

From the broken bones in the middens, we learn that the roebuck, the stag, the wild boar, then ranged the forests, that cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and dogs were domesticated; that these people had two kinds of horses, one a powerful animal, the other small-boned, and that horseflesh was eaten by the inhabitants of the terramares.

Wheat, barley, millet, and beans have been found about the piles, together with the stones of wild plums, sloes, and cherries, also crab-apple pips.

A bronze dagger was found at Castione, a spear-head of the same metal in the deposit of Bargone di Salso. A hatchet came from the terramare of Noceto; quantities of little wheels, of unknown use, have been discovered, also hair-pins and combs. One, for a lady’s back-hair, ornamented, and of stag’s horn, came from the terramare of Fodico di Poviglio. The pottery found is mostly in fragments. Sometimes the bottoms of the vessels were rudely engraved with crosses (Figs. 22, 23, 24). Caselle, near Bologna, has been discovered a cemetery of this ancient people. The graves cover a space measuring about 73 yards by 36 yards. One hundred and thirty-three tombs have been examined. They were constructed of great boulders, rectangular, somewhat cylindrical, and slightly conical. Earth had accumulated over them, and they were buried. They were about four feet deep. The cist was floored with slabs of freestone, the sides were built up of boulders; other cists were constructed of slabs, and cubical in shape. A hundred and seventy-nine of the bodies had been burnt. Each tomb contained a cinerary urn containing the calcined human remains. The urns were of a peculiar shape, and appeared to have been made for the purpose. They resembled a dice-box, and consisted of a couple of inverted cones with a partition at their bases, where they were united. Half-melted remains of ornaments were found with some of the human ashes. In one vessel was a charred fragment of a horse’s rib. Therefore it is likely that the favourite horse was sacrificed and consumed with his master.

The mouth of the urn which contained the ashes of the deceased was closed with a little vessel or saucer. Near the remains of the dead were found curious solid double cones with rounded ends; these ends were elaborately engraved with crosses (Figs. 23. 25. 27). In the ossuaries made of double cones, around the diaphragm ran a line of circles containing crosses (Fig. 26).

Another cemetery ol the same people exists at Golasecca, on the plateau of Somma, at the extremity of the Lago Maggiore. A vast number of sepulchres have there been opened. They belong to the same period as those of Villanova, the age of lacustrine habitations.

“That which characterizes the sepulchres of Golasecca, and gives them their highest interest,” says M. de Mortillet, who investigated them, “is this,—first, the entire absence of all organic representations; we only found three, and they were exceptional, in tombs not belonging to the plateau;— secondly, the almost invariable presence of the cross under the vases in the tombs. When one reverses the ossuaries, the saucer-lids, or the accessory vases, one saw almost always, if in good preservation, a cross traced thereon. . . . The examination of the tombs of Golasecca proves in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner, that which the terramares of Emilia had only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova; that above a thousand years before Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment^[17].”

It may be objected to this, that the cross is a sign so easily made, that it was naturally the first attempted by a rude people. There are, however, so many varieties of crosses among the urns of Golasecca, and ingenuity seems to have been so largely exercised in diversifying this one sign, without recurring to others, that I cannot but believe the sign itself had a religious signification.

On the other side of the Alps, at the same period, lived a people in a similar state of civilization, whose palustrine habitations and remains have been carefully explored. Among the Swiss potteries, however, the cross is very rarely found.

In the depths of the forests of Central America, is a ruined city. It was not inhabited at the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. They discovered the temples and palaces of Chiapa, but of Palenque they knew nothing. According to tradition it was founded by Votan in the ninth century before the Christian era. The principal building in Palenque is the palace, 228 feet long, by 180 feet, and 40 feet high. The Eastern façade 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 (Fig. 28), 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^[18].

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, as we saw the eagle 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 Fejérváry, at the end of which is a colossal cross, in the midst of which is represented a bleeding deity, and figures stand round a Tau cross, upon which is perched the sacred bird^[19].

The cross was also used in the north of Mexico. It occurs amongst the Mixtecas and in Queredaro. Siguenza speaks of 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 S. Ulloa, on its discovery. In the state of Oaxaca, 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. In Peru the Incas honoured a cross made out of a single piece of jasper, it was an emblem belonging to a former civilization.

Among the Muyscas at Cumana the cross was regarded with devotion, and was believed to be endued with power to drive away evil spirits; consequently new-born children were placed under the sign^[20].

Probably all these crosses, certainly those of Central America, were symbols of the Rain-god. This we are told by the conquerors, of the crosses on the island of Cozumel. The cross was not an original symbol of the Azteks and Tolteks, but of the Maya race, who inhabited Mexico, Guatemala, and Yucatan. The Mayas were subdivided into the tribes of Totonacs, Othomi, Huasteks, Tzendales, &c., and were conquered by a Nahual race from the North, called Azteks and Tolteks, who founded the great Mexican empire with which Cortez and his Spaniards were brought in collision^[21]. This Maya stock was said to have been highly civilized, and the conquered to have influenced their conquerors.

The Maya race invaded Central America, coming from the Antilles, when the country was peopled by the Quinamies, to whom the Cyclopean erections still extant are attributed. They were overthrown by Votan, B.C. 800. The cross was adopted by the Azteks, from the conquered Mayas. It was the emblem of Quiateot, the god of Rain. In order to obtain rain little boys and girls were sacrificed to him, and their flesh was devoured at a sacred banquet by the chiefs. Among the Mexicans, the showery month Quiahuitl received its name from him. In Cibola, water as the generator was honoured under this symbol; in Cozumel, the sacred cross in the temples was of wood or stone, ten palms high, and to it were offered incense and quails. To obtain showers, the people bore it in procession.

The Tolteks said that their national deity Quetzalcoatl had introduced the sign and ritual of the cross, and it was their God of Rain and Health, and was called the Tree of Nutriment, or Tree of Life. On this account also was the mantle of the Toltek atmospheric god covered with red crosses.

The cross was again a symbol of mysterious significance in Brahminical iconography. In the Cave of Elephanta, in India, over the head of a figure engaged in massacring infants, is to be seen the cross. It is placed by Müller, in his “Glauben, Wissen, und Kunst der alten Hindus,” in the hands of Seva, Brahma, Vishnu, Tvashtri (Fig. 29). This cross has a wheel in the centre, and is called Kiakra or Tschakra. When held by Vishnu, the world-sustaining principle, it signifies his power to penetrate heaven and earth, and bring to naught the of powers evil. It symbolizes the eternal governance of the world, and to it the worshipper of Vishnu attributes as many virtues as does the devout Catholic to the Christian cross. Fra Paolino tells us it was used by the ancient kings of India as a sceptre.

In a curious Indian painting reproduced by Müller (Tab. i., fig. 2), Brahma is represented crowned with clouds, with lilies for eyes, with four hands—one holding the necklace of creation; another the Veda; a third, the chalice of the source of life; the fourth, the fiery cross. Another painting (Tab. i., fig. 78) represents Krishna in the centre of the world as its sustaining principle, with six arms, three of which hold the cross, one a sceptre of dominion, another a flute, a third a sword. Another (Tab. 11., fig. 61) gives Jama, the judge of the nether world, with spear, sword, scales, torch, and cross. Tab. 11., fig. 140, gives Brawani, the female earth principle, holding a lily, a flame, a sword, and a cross. The list of representations might be greatly extended.

It was only natural that the early and mediæval Christians, finding the cross a symbol of life among the nations of antiquity, should look curiously into the Old Testament, to see whether there were not foreshadowings in it of “the wood whereby righteousness cometh.”

They found it in the blood struck on the lintel and the door-posts of the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. They supposed the rod of Moses to have been headed with the Egyptian Crux ansata, in which case its employment in producing the storm of rain and hail, in dividing the Red Sea, in bringing streams of water from the rock, testify to its symbolic character with reference to water. They saw it in Moses with arms expanded on the Mount, in the pole with transverse bar upon which which was wreathed the brazen serpent, and in the two sticks gathered by the Widow of Sarepta. But especially was it seen in the passage of Ezekiel (ix. 4. 6), “The Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.” In the Vulgate, it stands: “Et signa Thau super frontes vivorum gementium.” There is some doubt as to whether the sign Thau should be inserted or not. The Septuagint does not give it. It simply says δὸς σημειôν S. Jerome testifies that the versions of Aquila and Symmachus, written, the one under Adrian, the other under Marcus Aurelius, were without it, and that it was only in the version of Theodotion, made under Septimius Severus, that the Τ was inserted. Nevertheless S. Jerome adopted it in his translation.

On the other hand Tertullian saw the cross in this passage^[22]. The Thau was the old Hebrew character, which the Samaritan resembled, and which was shaped like a cross. S. Jerome probably did not adopt his rendering without foundation, for he was well skilled in Hebrew, and he refers again and again to this passage of Ezekiel^[23]. The Epistle of S. Barnabas seems to allude to it^[24]; so do S. Cyprian, S. Augustine, Origen, and S. Isidore^[25]. Bishop Lowth was disposed to accept the Thau, so was Dr. Münter, the Protestant bishop of Zeeland. But, indeed, there need be little doubt as to the passage. The word for sign used by the prophet is תּנ Tau, meaning, as Gesenius says in his Lexicon, signum cruciforme; and he adds, “The Hebrews on their coins adopted the most ancient cruciform sign +.”

The Mediævals went further still, they desired to see the cross still stronger characterized in the history of the Jewish Church, and as the records of the Old Covenant were deficient on that point, they supplemented them with fable.

That fable is the romance or Legend of the Cross, a legend of immense popularity in the Middle Ages, if we may judge by the numerous representations of its leading incidents, which meet us in stained glass and fresco.

In the churches of Troyes alone, it appears on the windows of S. Martin-ès-Vignes, of S. Pantaléon, S. Madeleine, and S. Nizier^[26].

It is frescoed along the walls of the choir of the church of S. Croce at Florence, by the hand of Agnolo Gaddi. Pietro della Francesca also dedicated his pencil to the history of the Cross in a series of frescoes in the Chapel of the Bacci, in the church of S. Francesco at Arezzo. It occurs as a predella painting among the specimens of early art in the Academia delle Belle Arti at Venice, and is the subject of a picture by Beham in the Munich Gallery^[27]. The legend is told in full in the Vita Christi, printed at Troyes in 1517, in the Legenda Aurea of Jacques de Voragine, in an old Dutch work, “Gerschiedenis van det heylighe Cruys,” in a French MS. of the thirteenth century in the British Museum. Gervase of Tilbury relates a portion of it in his Otia Imperalia^[28], quoting from Comestor; it appears also in the Speculum Historiale, in Gottfried von Viterbo, in the Chronicon Engelhusii, and elsewhere.

Gottfried introduces a Hiontus in the place of Seth in the following story; Hiontus is corrupted from lonicus or lonithus.

The story is as follows :

When our first father was banished Paradise, he lived in penitence, striving to recompense for the past by prayer and toil. When he reached a great age and felt death approach, he summoned Seth to his side, and said, “Go, my son, to the terrestrial Paradise, and ask the Archangel who keeps the gate to give me a balsam which will save me from death. You will easily find the way, because my footprints scorched the soil as I left Paradise. Follow my blackened traces, and they will conduct you to the gate whence I was expelled.” Seth hastened to Paradise. The way was barren, vegetation was scanty and of sombre colours; over all lay the black prints of his father’s and mother’s feet. Presently the walls surrounding Paradise appeared. Around them nature revived, the earth was covered with verdure and dappled with flowers. The air vibrated with exquisite music. Seth was dazzled with the beauty which surrounded him, and he walked on forgetful of his mission. Suddenly there flashed before him a wavering line of fire, upright, like a serpent of light continuously quivering. It was the flaming sword in the hand of the Cherub who guarded the gate. As Seth drew nigh, he saw that the angel’s wings were expanded so as to block the door. He prostrated himself before the Cherub, unable to utter a word. But the celestial being read in his soul, better than a mortal can read a book, the words which were there impressed, and he said, “The time of pardon is not yet come. Four thousand years must roll away ere the Redeemer shall open the gate to Adam, closed by his disobedience. But as a token of future pardon, the wood whereon redemption shall be won shall grow from the tomb of thy father. Behold what he lost by his transgression!”

At these words the angel swung open the great portal of gold and fire, and Seth looked in.

He beheld a fountain, clear as crystal, sparkling like silver dust, playing in the midst of the garden, and gushing forth in four living streams. Before this mystic fountain grew a mighty tree, with a trunk of vast bulk, and thickly branched, but destitute of bark and foliage. Around the bole was wreathed a frightful serpent or caterpillar, which had scorched the bark and devoured the leaves. Beneath the tree was a precipice. Seth beheld the roots of the tree in Hell. There Cain was endeavouring to grasp the roots, and clamber up them into Paradise; but they laced themselves around the body and limbs of the fratricide, as the threads of a spider’s web entangle a fly, and the fibres of the tree penetrated the body of Cain as though they were endued with life.

Horror-struck at this appalling spectacle, Seth raised his eyes to the summit of the tree. Now all was changed. The tree had grown till its branches reached heaven. The boughs were covered with leaves, flowers, and fruit. But the faires fruit was a little babe, a living sun, who seemed to be listening to the songs of seven white doves who circled round his head. A woman, more lovely than the moon, bore the child in her arms.

Then the Cherub shut the door, and said, “I give thee now three seeds taken from that tree. When Adam is dead, place these three seeds in thy father’s mouth, and bury him.”

So Seth took the seeds and returned to his father. Adam was glad to hear what his son told him, and he praised God. On the third day after the return of Seth he died. Then his son buried him in the skins of beasts which God had given him for a covering, and his sepulchre was on Golgotha. In course of time three trees grew from the seeds brought from Paradise: one was a cedar, another a cypress, and the third a pine. They grew with prodigious force, thrusting their boughs to right and left. It was with one of these boughs that Moses performed his miracles in Egypt, brought water out of the rock, and healed those whom the serpents slew in the desert.

After a while the three trees touched one another, then began to incorporate and confound their several natures in a single trunk. It was beneath this tree that David sat when he bewailed his sins.

In the time of Solomon, this was the noblest of the trees of Lebanon; it surpassed all in the forests of King Hiram, as a monarch surpasses those who crouch at his feet. Now, when the son of David erected his palace, he cut down this tree to convert it into the main pillar supporting his roof. But all in vain. The column refused to answer the purpose: it was at one time too long, at another too short. Surprised at this resistance, Solomon lowered the walls of his palace, to suit the beam, but at once it shot up and pierced the roof, like an arrow driven through a piece of canvas, or a bird recovering its liberty. Solomon, enraged, cast the tree over Cedron, that all might trample on it as they crossed the brook.

There the Queen of Sheba found it, and she, recognizing its virtue, had it raised. Solomon then buried it. Some while after, the king dug the pool of Bethesda on the spot. This pond at once acquired miraculous properties, and healed the sick who flocked to it. The water owed its virtues to the beam which lay beneath it.

When the time of the Crucifixion of Christ drew nigh, this wood rose to the surface, and was brought out of the water. The executioners, when seeking a suitable beam to serve for the cross, found it, and of it made the instrument of the death of the Saviour. After the Crucifixion it was buried on Calvary, but it was found by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, deep in the ground with two others, May 3, 328; Christ’s was distinguished from those of the thieves by a sick woman being cured by touching it. This same event is, however, ascribed by a Syriac MS. in the British Museum, unquestionably of the 5th century, to Protonice, wife of the Emperor Claudius. It was carried away by Chosroes, king of Persia, on the plundering of Jerusalem; but was recovered by Heraclius,who defeated him in battle, Sept. 14, 615; a day that has ever since been commemorated as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Such is the Legend of the Cross, one of the wildest of mediæval fancies. It is founded, though unconsciously, on this truth, that the Cross was a sacred sign long before Christ died upon it.

And how account for this?

For my own part, I see no difficulty in believing that it formed a portion of the primæval religion, traces of which exist over the whole world, among every people; that trust in the Cross was a part of the ancient faith which taught men to believe in a Trinity, in a War in Heaven, a Paradise from which man fell, a Flood, and a Babel; a faith which was deeply impressed with a conviction that a Virgin should conceive and bear a son, that the Dragon’s head should be bruised, and that through Shedding of blood should come Remission. The use of the cross, as a symbol of life and regeneration through water, is as widely spread over the world as the belief in the ark of Noah. May be, the shadow of the Cross was cast further back into the night of ages, and fell on a wider range of country, than we are aware of.

It is more than a coincidence that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the Spirits of the Just; that with the cross Thorr should smite the head of the Great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting by that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust^[29].

Original footnotes

1. Revue de Numismatique, 1836.
2. Transactions of the Society of Northern Antiquaries for 1836.
3. Heimskringla, Saga iv., c. 18.
4. Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. vii., c. 14.
5. Socrat. Hist. Eccles. v., c. 17.
6. Rufin. Hist. Eccles. ii., c. 29
7. “Sophronius, vir apprime eruditus, laudes Bethleem adhuc puer, et nuper de subversione Serapis insignem librum composuit.”—Hieronym. Vit. Illust.
8. Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, iv., p. 341.
9. Hoskins, Visit to the Great Oasis, Lond. 1837, plate xii.
10. “Hieroglyphica ejusdem (vocis) figura formam exhibet mensæ sacræ fulcro innixæ cui vas quoddam religionis indicium superpositum est.”—P. Ungarelli, Interpretat. Obeliscorum Urbis, p. 5.
11. Dogné e, Les Symboles Antiques, L’Œuf. Bruxelles, 1865.
12. Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces, pp. 303, 333, 414.
13. H. W. Westrop, in Gentleman’s Magazine, N. S., vol xv., p. 80.
14. Münter, Religion d. Babylonier, Taf. i.
15. These medals are engraved to accompany the article of M. Raoul-Rochette on the Croix anéee, in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscr. et Belles Lettres, tom. xvi.
16. Isidor. Origin, i., c. 23. “T nota in capite versiculi supposita superstitem designat.” Persius, Sat. iv. 13. Rufin. in Hieronym. ap. Casaubon ad Pers.
17. De Mortillet, Le signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme. Paris, 1866. The title of this book is deceptive. The subject is the excavations of pre-historic remains in Northern Italy, and pre-Christian crosses are only casually and cursorily dealt with.
18. Stephens, Central America. London, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 346.
19. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, v. 142, 143.
20. See list of authorities in Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen. Basel, 1855, pp. 371. 421. 498, 499.
21. It is exceedingly difficult to classify these races, and arrive at any exact conclusions with regard to their history. The Tzendales were probably never conquered.
22. Adv. Marcion. iii. 22: “Est enim littera, Græcorum Thau, nostra autem Τ, species crucis quam portendebant futuram in frontibus nostris apud veram et catholicam Hierusalem.”
23. In Ezech. ix. 4. Epistol. ad Fabiol. In Isaia c. Ixvi.
24. Epist. ch. ix.: Σταυρὸς ἐν τῷ Τ ἔμελλεν ἔχειν τὴν χάριν.
25. Cypr. Testimon. adv. Jud. ii. c. 27. August. de Alterc. Synag. et Eccles.
26. Curiosités de la Champagne. Paris, 1860
27. Lady Eastlake’s History of our Lord. Lond. 1865, ii. p. 390.
28. Tertia Decisio, c. liv.; ed. Liebrecht, p. 25.
29. Appendix C