NON-CHRISTIAN CROSS
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AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF
THE SYMBOL EVENTUALLY ADOPTED AS
THAT OF OUR RELIGION
BY
JOHN DENHAM PARSONS
1896
“O CRUX, SPLENDIDIOR CUNCTIS ASTRIS, MUNDO CELEBRIS, HOMINIBUS MULTUM AMABILIS, SANCTIOR UNIVERSIS.”
[BREVIARIUM ROMANUM, Festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross.
The history of the symbol of the cross has had an attraction for the author ever since, as an enquiring youth, he found himself unable to obtain satisfactory answers to four questions concerning the same which presented themselves to his mind.
The first of those questions was why John the Baptist, who was beheaded before Jesus was executed, and so far as we are told never had anything to do with a cross, is represented in our religious pictures as holding a cross.
The second question was whether this curious but perhaps in itself easily explained practice
The third question was why, despite the fact that the instrument of execution to which
The last of the four questions was why many varieties of the cross of four equal arms, which certainly was not a representation of an instrument of execution, were accepted by Christians as symbols of the Christ before any cross which could possibly have been a representation of an instrument of execution was given a place among the symbols of Christianity; while even nowadays one variety of the cross of four equal arms is the favourite symbol of the Greek Church, and both it and the other varieties enter into the ornamentation of our sacred properties and dispute the supremacy with the cross which has one of its arms longer than the other three.
Pursuing these matters for himself, the author eventually found that even before our era the cross was venerated by many as the symbol
He moreover discovered that no one has ever written a complete history of the symbol, showing the possibility that the stauros or post to which Jesus was affixed was not cross-shaped, and the certainty that, in any case, what eventually became the symbol of our faith owed some of its prestige as a Christian symbol of Victory and Life to the position it occupied in pre-Christian days.
The author has therefore, in the hope of drawing attention to the subject, incorporated the results of his researches in the present essay. 14, ST. DUNSTAN'S HILL, LONDON, E.C.
C O N T E N T S .
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
WAS THE STAUROS OF JESUS CROSS-SHAPED? 13
CHAPTER II.
THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX 31
CHAPTER III.
THE EVIDENCE OF THE OTHER FATHERS 41
CHAPTER IV.
CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF IRENÆUS 52
CHAPTER V.
ORIGIN OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS 57
CHAPTER VI.
ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS 65
CHAPTER VII.
THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH 82
CHAPTER VIII.
CROSS AND CRESCENT 92
CHAPTER IX.
THE CORONATION ORB 104
CHAPTER X.
ROMAN COINS BEFORE CONSTANTINE 119
CHAPTER XI.
THE COINS OF CONSTANTINE 133
CHAPTER XII.
ROMAN COINS AFTER CONSTANTINE 142
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST 147
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CROSS OF THE LOGOS 163
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN EUROPE 169
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN ASIA 178
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS IN AFRICA 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVIDENCE OF TROY 187
CHAPTER XIX.
EVIDENCE OF CYPRUS 193
CHAPTER XX.
MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE 204
CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY 214