The Masculine Cross.
by Anonymous.
INTRODUCTORY.
_In the following pages certain things supposed to be of comparatively modern origin have been traced back to the remotest historic ages of the world; as a consequence, it follows that the modern symbolical meaning given to such things is sometimes only one acquired in subsequent times, and not that exactly which was originally intended,--it must not be supposed, therefore, that the interpretation belonging to the epoch in which we are first enabled to trace a definite meaning is to be conclusively regarded as that which gave birth to the form of the symbol.
The original may have been--probably was--very different to what came after; the starting point may have been simplicity and purity, whilst the developments of after years were degrading and vicious. Particularly so was this the case in the Lingam worship of the vast empire of India; originally the adoration of an Almighty Creator of all things, it became, in time, the worship of the regenerative powers of material nature, and then the mere indulgence in the debased pa.s.sions of an abandoned and voluptuous nature._
_With regard to the symbol of the Cross, it may be repugnant to the feelings of some to be told that their recognition of its purely Christian origin is a mistake, and that it was as common in Pagan as in more advanced times; they may find consolation, however, in the fact that its real beginning was further back still in the world"s history, and that with Paganism it was, as it had been with Christianity, simply an adopted favourite._
_Our story is taken up in the middle epoch of the history, and shews the relationship of the things we deal with to prevailing phallic faiths and practices._
THE MASCULINE CROSS.
CHAPTER I.
_Universal prevalence of the Cross--Mistakes--The Cross not of Christian Origin--Christian Veneration of the Cross--The Roman Ritual--The Cross equally honoured by the Gentile and Christian Worlds--Druidical Crosses--The Copt Oak of Charnwood Forest--a.s.syrian Crosses in British Museum--Pectoral Crosses--Egyptian Crosses--Greek Cross--St. Andrew"s Cross--Planetary Signs and Crosses--Monogram of Christ at Serapis--Cross in India--PaG.o.das in form of Crosses--Mariette Bey"s Discovery--Buddhist and Roman Crosses--Chinese Crosses--Kampschatkan Crosses--American Crosses--Cross among the Red Indians--The Royal Commentaries of Peru--Mexican Ideas relative to the Cross--The Spaniards in America--Sign of the Cross--Cross as an Amulet--Hot-cross Buns--Tertullian on the Use of the Cross._
The universal prevalence of the cross as an ornament and symbol during the last eighteen centuries in the Christian church has led to some great, if not grave, mistakes. It has been supposed, and for various obvious reasons very naturally so, to be of exclusively Christian origin, and to represent materially no more than the instrument by which the founder of that religion was put to death; and, spiritually or symbolically, faith in the sacrificial atoning work he then completed. There are not a few people about who, having become imbued with this idea, rush to the hasty conclusion that wherever the cross is found, and upon whatever monuments, it indicates a connection with Christianity, and is therefore of comparatively modern origin. History, in consequence, becomes a strange and unfathomable mystery, especially when it belongs to kingdoms of well-known great antiquity, amongst whose symbols or ornaments the cross is plentiful, and the mind finds itself involved in a confusion from which it cannot readily extricate itself. Never was there a greater blunder perpetrated, or a more ignorant one, than the notion of the figure of the cross owing its origin to the instrument of Christ"s death, and the Christian who finds comfort in pressing it to his lips in the hour of devotion or of trouble must be reminded that the ancient Egyptian did a similar thing.
The fact is, there is great similarity between the cross worship, or veneration if you please, of ancient and modern times. Christians, we know, are apt to repudiate the charge of rendering worship to this symbol, but it is clear from what is printed in some of their books of devotion that some sort of worship is actually rendered, though disguised under other names. As to the veneration thus offered being right or wrong, we here say nothing; the fact only concerns us so far as it relates to the subject we have in hand.
If we open the _Tablet_ (Roman Catholic newspaper) for the 26th of November, 1853, we read:--"Those of our readers who have visited Rome will, doubtless, have remarked, at the foot of the stairs which descend from the square of the Capitol to the square of the Campo Vaccino, under the flight of steps in front of the Church of St. Joseph, and over the door of the Mamertine prison, a very ancient wooden crucifix, before which lamps and wax tapers are constantly burning, and surrounded on all sides with exvotos and testimonies of public thanksgiving. No image of the crucified Saviour is invested with greater veneration.... The worship yielded to the holy crucifix of Campo Vaccino is universal at Rome, and is transmitted from generation to generation. The fathers teach it to the children, and in all the misfortunes and all the trials of life the first idea is almost always to have recourse to the holy crucifix, the object of such general veneration, and the source of so many favours. It is, above all, in sickness that the succour of the holy image is invoked with more confidence and more eagerness.... There are few families in Rome who have not to thank the holy crucifix for some favour and some benefit.... In the interval of the sermons and other public exercises of devotion the holy crucifix, exposed on the high altar in the midst of floods of light, saw incessantly prostrated before it a crowd of adorers and suppliants.... As soon as the holy image of the Saviour had appeared on the Forum, the Holy Father advanced on the exterior flight of steps of the church to receive it, and when the shrine had arrived at the base of the stairs of the Church of San Luca, at some paces from the flight of steps on which the Holy Father stood, in rochet, stole, and pallium of red velvet, he bowed before the holy crucifix and venerated it devoutly."
In harmony with this, the Missal supplies us with prayers and hymns in the service for Good Friday, addressed directly to the cross.
"We adore Thy cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify Thy holy resurrection; for by the wood of the cross the whole world is filled with joy."
"O faithful cross, O n.o.blest tree, In all our woods there is none like thee.
No earthly groves, no shady bowers Produce such leaves, such fruit, such flowers.
Sweet are the nails and sweet the wood, Which bore a weight so sweet and good."
"O lovely tree, whose branches bore The royal purple of His gore, How glorious does thy body shine, Supporting members so divine.
Hail, cross! our hope, on thee we call Who keep this paschal festival; Grant to the just increase of grace, And every sinner"s guilt efface."
There is something unusually remarkable about the popularity of the cross; we can hardly point to a time when, or to a part of the world where, it has not been in favour. It has entered into the const.i.tution of religions of the most opposite character, has been transmitted from one to another, and though originally belonging to the rudest form of pagan idolatry, is now esteemed highly by those who profess to have adopted the loftiest ideal of civilised worship. After mentioning the fact of its popularity in the pagan world, Mr. Maurice remarks: "Let not the piety of the Catholic Christian be offended at the preceding a.s.sertion, that the cross was one of the most usual symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India.
Equally honoured in the Gentile and the Christian world, this emblem of universal nature--of that world to whose four quarters its diverging radii pointed--decorated the hands of most of the sculptured images in the former country, and in the latter stamped its form upon the most majestic shrines of their deities."
Here we may profitably glance at a few different parts of the world and at some of the past ages, in tracing out the possible origin and meaning of this symbol. In Britain there have been found monuments so ancient and with such surroundings that but for certain peculiar marks they would unhesitatingly have been put down as Druidical. They are marked with the cross, and in the estimation of some, as we have already pointed out, that is regarded as conclusive proof of Christian origin. The inference, however, is a false one, the monuments are too old for Christianity, and the cruciform etchings upon them belong to another religious system altogether. It is known that the Druids consecrated the sacred oak by cutting it into the shape of a cross, and so necessary was it regarded to have it in this form, that if the lateral branches were not large enough to construct the figure properly, two others were fixed as arms on either side of the trunk. The cross having been thus constructed, the Arch-Druid ascended and wrote the name of the Deity upon the trunk at the place of intersection, and on the extremities of the arms.
The peculiar interest attached to this idol lies in the fact that it is described by the best authorities as the Gallic or Celtic Tau. "The Tau,"
says Davies in his _Celtic Researches_, "was the symbol of the Druidical Jupiter. It consisted of a huge grand oak deprived of all its branches, except only two large ones which, though cut off and separated, were suspended from the top of its trunk-like suspended arms." The idol, say others, was in reality a cross, the same in form as the linga.
A few years ago, near the hill of Bardon, in the middle of Charnwood forest, in the county of Leicester, there grew and perhaps still grows, a very old tree called the Copt Oak. This tree, there is reason to believe, was more than two thousand years old, and once formed a Celtic Tau. Forty years ago, a writer who knew the tree well, said that its condition then suggested very distinctly the possibility of the truthfulness of the story. It was described as a vast tree, then reduced to a mere sh.e.l.l between two and three inches only in thickness, perforated by several openings, and alive only in about one-fourth of the sh.e.l.l; bearing small branches, but such as could not have grown when the tree was entire; then it must have had branches of a size not less than an oak of ordinary dimensions. This was evident from one of the openings in the upper part of the sh.e.l.l of the trunk, exactly such as a decayed branch would produce.
The tree was evidently of gigantic size in its earlier days, as shown by its measurement at the date we are speaking of. The remains of the trunk were twenty feet high, the height proper for the Tau, and the circ.u.mference at the ground was twenty-four feet; at the height of ten feet the girth was twenty, giving a diameter of nearly seven feet. This tree, we have said, was called the Copt Oak; the epithet copt, or copped, may be derived from the Celtic _cop_--a head, and evidently indicates that the tree had been headed and reduced to the state of a bare trunk. The idol, as already described, was formed by cutting away the branches of the tree, which was always a large one, and affixing a beam, forming a cross with the bare trunk.[1]
From time immemorial the Copt Oak has borne a celebrity that bears out the tradition of its ancient sacredness. Potter, the historian of the forest of Charnwood, writes that it was one of the three places at which Swanimotes were held, always in the open air, for the regulation of rights and claims on the forest; and persons have been known even in late times to have attended such motes. "At this spot," he says, "it may be under this tree, Edric the Forester is said to have harangued his forces against the Norman invasion; and here too, in the Parliamentary troubles of 1642, the Earl of Stamford a.s.sembled the trained bands of the district." "These facts," says Dudley, "mark the Copt Oak extraordinary, and show, that notwithstanding the lapse of two thousand years, the trunk was at that distant period a sacred structure, a Celtic idol; and that it is ill.u.s.trative of antiquarian records."
Still further back in history than the foregoing are we able to trace this singular figure. If we visit the a.s.syrian galleries of the British Museum we shall observe life-size effigies in stone of the kings Samsi-Rammanu, B.C. 825, and a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-Pal, B.C. 880; suspended from the necks of these monarchs and resting upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s are prominently sculptured Maltese crosses about three inches in length and width; they are in a good state of preservation, and will amply repay anyone for the trouble of an inspection, should they be desirous of pursuing this enquiry. In the Roman Catholic dictionaries we find these ornaments described as pectoral crosses--crosses of precious metal worn at the breast by bishops and abbots as a mark of their office, and sometimes also by canons, etc., who have obtained the privilege from Rome. It is stated these pectorals were not generally used by the Roman ecclesiastics till the middle of the sixteenth century; however that may be, it is a fact, as proved by the a.s.syrian sculptures, that they are nearly, if not more than, three thousand years old, and not the least interesting feature distinguishing them is their perfect similarity of design. It is strange that we moderns--the disciples of Christ--should have had supplied to us at that remote period the pattern of an ornament or symbol which we are accustomed to regard as emblematic of essential features of our religion, but it is true.
Look across now to Egypt and we find monuments and tombs literally bedizened with the cross, and that too in a variety of shapes. Long, long before Christ, 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. Here we are in one of the most ancient kingdoms of the world--a kingdom so ancient that its years are lost in obscurity--yet still the cross is found.
Whatever it may have represented in other countries, and whatever may be its meaning here, from the positions in which it is found and from its constant a.s.sociation with ecclesiastical personages and offices, it was evidently one of the most sacred of their symbols. Two forms, among others, are common, one a simple cross of four limbs of equal length, the other that shaped like the letter =X=; the first is generally known as the Greek cross, the second as that of St. Andrew, both however being of the same form and owing their different appearance only to the position in which they are placed.
It is well known, probably, to most of our readers that the astronomical signs of certain of the planets consist of crosses, crescents, circles, and in ancient Egypt these were precisely the same as those now used.
Saturn was represented by a cross surmounting a ram"s horn, Jupiter by a cross beneath a horn, Venus by a cross beneath a circle, the Earth by a cross within a circle, Mercury by a cross surmounted by a circle and crescent, and Mars by a cross above a circle. These may still be seen in almanacs, and on the large coloured bottles in the windows of the druggist. In the hands of Isis, Osiris, and Hermes, corresponding with the Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury of the Greeks, are also found the above signs.
When the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, was destroyed by one of the Christian emperors, it is related by several historians, Socrates and Sozomen, for instance, that beneath the foundation was discovered the monogram of Christ; and that considerable disputing arose in consequence thereof, the Gentiles endeavouring to use it for their own purposes, and the Christians insisting that the cross, being uneasy beneath the weight or dominion of the temple, overthrew it.
If we turn to India we find the cross almost as common as in Egypt and Europe, and not the least interesting feature of the matter is the curious fact that a number of the paG.o.das are actually cruciform in structure.
Jagannath is the name of one of the mouths of the Ganges, upon which was built the great paG.o.da where the Great Brahmin or High Priest resided. We were told years ago, by travellers, that the form of the choir or interior was similar in proportion to all the others, which were built upon the same model, in the form of a cross. The paG.o.da at Benares, also, was in the figure of a cross, having its arms equal. After the above, in importance, was the paG.o.da at Muttra; this likewise was cruciform. One of these temples, that at Chillambrum on the Coromandel coast, is said to be four miles in circ.u.mference. Here there are seven lofty walls one within the other round the central quadrangle, and as many pyramidal gateways in the middle of each side which form the limbs of a vast cross, consisting altogether of twenty-eight pyramids. There are, therefore, fourteen in a row, which extend more than a mile in one continuous line.
What has been called, and perhaps justly so, the oldest religious monument in the world was discovered a few years ago by Mariette Bey, near the Great Pyramid. For ages it had lain there, buried in the sand--how many we cannot tell, but very many we know; enough to carry us back to a very remote past. And this, too, like the Indian temples, was in the shape of a cross. Renan visited it in 1865, and though he found it in many particulars different from those known elsewhere, he described the interior, which much recalled the chamber of the Great Pyramid, as in the form of =T=, the principle aisle being divided in three rows, the transverse aisle in two.
Mr. Fergusson, the architect, also saw it, and, while admiring its simple and chaste grandeur of style, with some astonishment described the form of the princ.i.p.al chamber as that of a CROSS. And this was the plan of both tomb and temple in the earliest ages, testifying to the great veneration paid to this symbol.
There is a remarkable resemblance between the Buddhist crosses of India and those used by the Christian Roman Church. The cross of the Buddhist is represented with leaves and flowers springing from it, and placed upon a Calvary as by the Roman Catholics. It is represented in various ways, but the shaft with the cross-bar and the Calvary remain the same. The tree of life and knowledge, or the jamba tree, in their maps of the world, is always represented in the shape of a cross, eighty-four yoganas, or 423 or 432 miles high, including the three steps of the Calvary.
From India we naturally turn to China, and, though its use there is involved in a deal of mystery, the cross is found among their hieroglyphics, on the walls of their paG.o.das and on the lamps which they used to illuminate their temples.
In Kamschatka, Baron Humboldt found the cross and remains of hieroglyphics similar to those of Egypt.
Pa.s.sing into America, we find that what could only be described as perfect idolatry prevailed with respect to the veneration paid to the cross.
Throughout Mexico and some parts of South America the emblem is constantly found, and in many instances is evidently of great antiquity. Some travellers have explained their presence by attributing them to the Spaniards, but those people found them there when they arrived, and were greatly astonished at the spectacle, not knowing how to account for it. A lieutenant of Cortez pa.s.sed over from the island of Cosumel to the continent, and coasted the peninsula of Yucatan as far as Campeachy.
Everywhere he was struck with the evidences of a higher civilisation, and was astonished at the sight of numerous large stone crosses, evidently objects of worship, which he met with in various places.
At Cozuma an ancient cross is still standing. Here there is a temple of considerable size, with pyramidal towers rising several stories above the rest of the building, facing the cardinal points. In the centre of the quadrangular area within stands a high cross, constructed of stone and lime like the rest of the temple, and ten palms in height. The natives regard is as the emblem of the G.o.d of rain.
The discovery of the cross amongst the Red Indians as an object of worship, by the Spanish missionaries, in the fifteenth century, completely mystified them, and they hardly knew whether to attribute it to a good or an evil origin--whether it was the work of St. Thomas or of the Devil. The symbol was not an occasional spectacle in odd places, as though there by accident, it met them on all sides; it was literally everywhere, and in every variety of form. It mattered not whether the building was old or new, inhabited or ruined and deserted, whether it was a temple or a palace, there was the cross in all shapes and of all materials--of marble, gypsum, wood, emerald, and jasper. What was, perhaps, still more remarkable was the fact that it was a.s.sociated with certain other things common on the Babylonian monuments, such as the bleeding deity, the serpent and the sacred eagle, and that it bore the very same names by which it was known in Roman Catholic countries, "the tree of subsistence,"
"the wood of health," "the emblem of life." In this latter appellation there was a parallel to the name by which it was known in Egypt, and by which the holy Tau of the Buddhists has always been known; thus placing, as has been said, any supposition of accidental coincidence beyond all reasonable debate.
In the Royal Commentaries of Peru, we have some interesting allusions to the cross and to the general sanct.i.ty with which it was surrounded. In the city of Cozco, the Incas had one of white marble, which they called a crystalline jasper, but how long they had had it was unknown. The Inca, Garcilla.s.so de la Vega, said he left in the year 1560, in the cathedral church of that city; it was then hanging upon a nail by a list of black velvet; formerly, when in the hands of the Indians, it had been suspended by a chain of gold and silver. The form is Greek, that is, square; being as broad as it was long, and about three fingers wide. It was previously kept in one of the royal apartments, called Huaca, which signified a consecrated place. The record says that though the Indians did not adore it, yet they held it in great veneration, either for the beauty of it, or for some other reason which they knew not to a.s.sign; and so was observed amongst them, until the Marquess Don Francisco Pizarro entered the valley of Tumpiz, when by reason of some accidents which befel Pedro de Candia they conceived a greater esteem and veneration for it. The historian complains that the Spaniards, after they had taken the imperial city, hung up this cross in the vestry of a church they built, whereas, he says, they ought to have placed a relic of that kind upon the high altar, adorning it with gold and precious stones; by which respect to a thing the Indians esteemed sacred, and by a.s.similating the ordinances of the Christian religion as near as was possible with those which the law of nature had taught this people, the lessons of Christianity would thereby have become more easy and familiar, and not seemed so far estranged from the principles of their own Gentilism.
This cross is again mentioned in another part of the Royal Commentaries, and two travellers are described as being filled with admiration at seeing crosses erected on the top of the high pinnacles of the temples and palaces; the which, it is said, were introduced from the time that Pedro de Candia, being in Tumpiz, charmed or tamed the wild beasts which were let loose to devour him, and which, simply by virtue of the cross which he held in his hand, became gentle and domestic. This was recounted with such admiration by the Indians, who carried the news of the miracle to Cozco, that when the inhabitants of the city understood it they went immediately to the sanctuary where the jasper cross already mentioned stood, and, having brought it forth, they with loud acclamations adored and worshipped it, conceiving that though the sign of the cross had for many ages been conserved by them in high esteem and veneration yet it was not entertained with such devotion as it deserved, because they were not as yet acquainted with its virtues. Believing that the sign of the cross had tamed and shut the mouths of the wild beasts, they imagined that it had a like power to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies.
On both the northern and southern continents of America the cross was believed to possess the power of restraining evil spirits, and was the common symbol of the G.o.d of rain and of health. The people prayed to it when their country needed water, and the Aztec G.o.ddess of rains held one in her hand. At the feast celebrated to her honour in the spring, when the genial shower was needed to promote fertilisation, they were wont to conciliate the favour of Centeotl, the daughter of heaven and G.o.ddess of corn, by nailing a boy or girl to a cross, and after they had been so suspended for awhile piercing them with arrows shot from a bow. The Muyscas, less sanguinary than the Mexicans in sacrificing to the G.o.d of the waters, extended a couple of ropes transversely over some lake or stream, thus forming a gigantic cross, and at the point of intersection threw in their offerings of food, gems, and precious oils.
Quetyalcoatl, G.o.d of the winds, bore as his sign of office a mace like the cross of a bishop; his robe was covered with the symbol, and its adoration was connected throughout with his worship.
There is, of course, no doubt whatever that the Spaniards took the cross with them to America, and scattered it about so much in such varied directions that their own became so intermingled with the native ones as to make it difficult to distinguish one from the other; but the fact remains that what there was of cordiality in the reception they met with from the aborigines, was due in no small degree to their use of the same emblem on their standards; when this became apparent the astonishment was mutual. Many travellers have told us of these ancient crosses, and some of them while expressing doubts as to their antiquity, have yet supplied us with evidence of the same. Mr. Stephens is one of these. In his _Incidents of Travel in Central America_, he supplies us with some wonderful Altar Tablets found at Palenque, the princ.i.p.al subject in one of which is the cross. It is surmounted by a strange bird, and loaded with indescribable ornaments. There are two human figures, one on either side of the cross, evidently of important personages; both are looking towards the cross, and one seems in the act of making an offering. The traveller says:--"All speculations on the subject are of course ent.i.tled to little regard, but perhaps it would not be wrong to ascribe to those personages a sacerdotal character. The hieroglyphics doubtless explain all. Near them are other hieroglyphics which remind us of the Egyptian mode of recording the name, history, office, or character of the persons represented. This tablet of the cross has given rise to more learned speculations than perhaps any others found at Palenque. Dupaix and his commentators, a.s.suming for the building a very remote antiquity, or at least, a period long antecedent to the Christian era, account for the appearance of the cross by the argument that it was known and had a symbolical meaning among ancient nations long before it was established as the emblem of the Christian faith."