places, and almost every collection of antiquities possesses one or more specimens.[125]
Finally, it must be mentioned that the form of the human body is imitated in the cross as of a man with arms outspread. It is remarkable that in early Christian representations Christ is not nailed to the cross, but stands before it with arms outstretched.[126] Maurice[127] gives a striking basis for this interpretation when he says:
"It is a fact not less remarkable than well attested, that the
Druids in their groves were accustomed to select the most stately
and beautiful tree as an emblem of the deity they adored, and
cutting off the side branches, they affixed two of the largest of
them to the highest part of the trunk, in such a manner that those
branches extended on each side like the arms of a man, and together
with the body presented the appearance of a huge cross;
and in the bark in several places was also inscribed the letter T?]
(tau)."[128]
"The tree of knowledge" of the Hindoo Dschaina
sect assumes human form; it was represented as a mighty,
thick trunk in the form of a human head, from the top
of which grew out two longer branches hanging down at
the sides and one short, vertical, uprising branch crowned
by a bud or blossom-like thickening.[129] Robertson in
his "Evangelical Myths" mentions that in the Assyrian
system there exists the representation of the divinity in
the form of a cross, in which the vertical beam corresponds
to a human form and the horizontal beam to a
pair of conventionalized wings. Old Grecian idols such,
for example, as were found in large numbers in Aegina
have a similar character, an immoderately long head and
