FOOTNOTES: (continued 8)
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
The ancient Etruscans revered the cross as a religious emblem. This sacred sign, accompanied with the heart, is to be seen on their monuments. Fig. No. 27, taken from the work of Gorrio (Tab. xxxv.), shows an ancient tomb with angels and the cross thereon. It would answer perfectly for a Christian cemetery.
The cross was adored by the ancient Greeks and Romans for centuries before the Augustan era. An ancient inscription in Thessaly is accompanied by a Calvary cross (Fig. No. 28); and Greek crosses of equal arms adorn the tomb of Midas (one of the ancient kings), in Phrygia.[344:4]
The adoration of the cross by the Romans is spoken of by the Christian Father Minucius Felix, when denying the charge of idolatry which was made against his sect.
"As for the adoration of cross," (says he to the Romans), "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful. Your victorious trophies not only represent a cross, but a cross with a man upon it."[345:1]
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.[345:2] The cross was used on the roll of the Roman soldiery as the sign of life.[345:3]
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 to the cross to guard, and may be to revive, their loved ones whom they committed to the dust.
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 B. C., the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment.[345:4]
"It is more than a coincidence," (says the Rev. S. Baring-Gould), "that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the spirits of the just; that with the cross Thor 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 to 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."[345:5]
The cross was also found among the ruins of Pompeii.[345:6]
It was a sacred emblem among the ancient Scandinavians.
"It occurs" (says Mr. R. Payne Knight), "on many Runic monuments found in Sweden and Denmark, which are of an age long anterior to the approach of Christianity to those countries, and, probably, to its appearance in the world."[346:1]
Their god Thor, son of the Supreme god Odin, and the goddess Freyga, had the hammer for his symbol. 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. This hammer was a cross.[346:2]
The cross of Thor is still used in Iceland as a magical sign in connection 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, And he drank, and mutter'd his prayers; But the Berserks evermore Made the sign of the hammer of Thor Over theirs."
Actually, they both made the same symbol.
This we are told by Snorro Sturleson, in the Heimskringla (Saga iv. c. 18), 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."[346:3]
The cross was also a sacred emblem among the Laplanders. "In solemn sacrifices, all the Lapland idols were marked with it from the blood of the victims."[346:4]
It was adored by the ancient Druids of Britain, and is to be seen on the so-called "fire towers" of Ireland and Scotland. The "consecrated trees" of the Druids had a cross beam attached to them, making the figure of a cross. On several of the most curious and most ancient monuments of Britain, the cross is to be seen, evidently cut thereon by the Druids. Many large stones throughout Ireland have these Druid crosses cut in them.[346:5]
Cleland observes, in his "Attempt to Revive Celtic Literature," that the Druids taught the doctrine of an overruling providence, and the immortality of the soul: that they had also their Lent, their Purgatory, their Paradise, their Hell, their Sanctuaries, and the similitude of the May-pole in form to the cross.[347:1]
"In the Island of I-com-kill, at the monastery of the Culdees, at the time of the Reformation, there were three hundred and sixty crosses."[347:2] The Caaba at Mecca was surrounded by three hundred and sixty crosses.[347:3] This number has nothing whatever to do with Christianity, but is to be found everywhere among the ancients. It represents the number of days of the ancient year.[347:4]
When the Spanish missionaries first set foot upon the soil of America, in the fifteenth century, they were amazed to find that the cross was as devoutly worshiped by the red Indians as by themselves. The hallowed symbol challenged their attention on every hand, and in almost every variety of form. And, what is still more remarkable, the cross was not only associated with other objects corresponding in every particular with those delineated on Babylonian monuments; but it was also distinguished by the Catholic appellations, "the tree of subsistence," "the wood of health," "the emblem of life," &c.[347:5]
When the Spanish missionaries found that the cross was no new object of veneration to the red men, they were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St. Thomas, whom they thought might have found his way to America, or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central object in the great temple of Cozamel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popogan and Cundinamarca.[347:6]
The ruined city of Palenque is in the depths of the forests of Central America. 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 this ruined city is the palace. 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, one on each side of a cross (Fig. No. 29). The cross is surrounded with rich feather-work, and ornamental chains.[348:1] "The style of scripture," says Mr. Baring-Gould, "and the accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions, leave no room for doubting it to be a heathen representation."[348:2]
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 stand round a Tau cross, upon which is perched the sacred bird.[348:3]
The cross was also used in the north of Mexico. It occurs among 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 St. Ulloa, on its discovery. In the state of Oaxaca, the Spaniards found that wooden crosses were erected as sacred symbols, so also in Aguatoleo, 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 honored a cross made out of a single piece of jasper; it was an emblem belonging to a former civilization.[348:4]
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.[348:5]
The Toltecs said that their national deity Quetzalcoatle—whom we have found to be a virgin-born and crucified Saviour—had introduced the sign and ritual of the cross, and it was called the "Tree of Nutriment," or "Tree of Life."[349:1]
Malcom, in his "Antiquities of Britain," says
"Gomara tells that St. Andrew's cross, which is the same with that of Burgundy, was in great veneration among the Cumas, in South America, and that they fortified themselves with the cross against the incursions of evil spirits, and were in use to put them upon new-born infants; which thing very justly deserves admiration."[349:2]
Felix Cabrara, in his "Description of the Ancient City of Mexico," says:
"The adoration of the cross has been more general in the world, than that of any other emblem. It is to be found in the ruins of the fine city of Mexico, near Palenque, where there are many examples of it among the hieroglyphics on the buildings."[349:3]
In "Chambers's Encyclopædia" we find the following:
"It appears that the sign of the cross was in use as an emblem having certain religious and mystic meanings attached to it, long before the Christian era; and the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find it an object of religious veneration among the nations of Central and South America."[349:4]
Lord Kingsborough, in his "Antiquities of Mexico," speaks of crosses being found in Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan.[349:5] He also informs us that the banner of Montezuma was a cross, and that the historical paintings of the "Codex Vaticanus" represent him carrying a cross as his banner.[349:6]
A very fine and highly polished marble cross which was taken from the Incas, was placed in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Cuzco.[349:7]
Few cases have been more powerful in producing mistakes in ancient history, than the idea, hastily taken by Christians in all ages, that every monument of antiquity marked with a cross, or with any of those symbols which they conceived to be monograms of their god, was of Christian origin. The early Christians did not adopt it as one of their symbols; it was not until Christianity began to be paganized that it became a Christian monogram, and even then it was not the cross as we know it to-day. "It is not until the middle of the fifth century that the pure form of the cross emerges to light."[349:8] The cross of Constantine was nothing more than the , the monogram of Osiris, and afterwards of Christ.[349:9] This is seen from the fact that the "Labarum," or sacred banner of Constantine—on which was placed the sign by which he was to conquer—was inscribed with this sacred monogram. Fig. No. 30 is a representation of the Labarum, taken from Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. The author of "The History of Our Lord in Art" says:
"It would be difficult to prove that the cross of Constantine was of the simple construction as now understood. As regards the Labarum, the coins of the time, in which it is expressly set forth, proves that the so-called cross upon it was nothing else than the same ever-recurring monogram of Christ."[350:1]
Now, this so-called monogram of Christ, like everything else called Christian, is of Pagan origin. It was the monogram of the Egyptian Saviour, Osiris, and also of Jupiter Ammon.[350:2] As M. Basnage remarks in his Hist. de Juif:[350:3]