THE NONCHRISTIAN CROSSAn Enquiry Into The Origin And History OfThe Symbol Eventually Adopted AsThat Of Our ReligionBYJOHN DENHAM PARSONSLONDON1896O CRUX SPLENDIDIOR CUNCTIS ASTRIS MUNDOCELEBRIS HOMINIBUS MULTUM AMABILIS SANCTIORUNIVERSIS                               _BREVIARIUM ROMANUM_       _Festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross_PREFACEThe history of the symbol of the cross has had an attraction for theauthor ever since as an enquiring youth he found himself unable toobtain satisfactory answers to four questions concerning the same whichpresented themselves to his mindThe first of those questions was why John the Baptist who was beheadedbefore Jesus was executed and so far as we are told never had anythingto do with a cross is represented in our religious pictures as holdinga crossThe second question was whether this curious but perhaps in itselfeasily explained practice had in its inception any connection with thenonMosaic initiatory rite of baptism which Jesus accepted as a matterof course at the hands of his cousin John and in which the sign of thecross has for ages been the allimportant feature And it was thewonder whether there was or was not some association between the factsthat the New Testament writers give no explanation whatever of theorigin of baptism as an initiatory rite that this nonMosaicinitiatory rite was in use among SunGod worshippers long before ourera and that the Fathers admitted that the followers of the Persianconception of the SunGod marked their initiates upon the forehead likethe followers of the Christ which finally induced the author to starta systematic enquiry into the history of the cross as a symbolThe third question was why despite the fact that the instrument ofexecution to which Jesus was affixed can have had but one shape almostany kind of cross is accepted as a symbol of our faithThe last of the four questions was why many varieties of the cross offour equal arms which certainly was not a representation of aninstrument of execution were accepted by Christians as symbols of theChrist before any cross which could possibly have been a representationof an instrument of execution was given a place among the symbols ofChristianity while even nowadays one variety of the cross of fourequal arms is the favourite symbol of the Greek Church and both it andthe other varieties enter into the ornamentation of our sacredproperties and dispute the supremacy with the cross which has one ofits arms longer than the other threePursuing these matters for himself the author eventually found thateven before our era the cross was venerated by many as the symbol ofLife though our works of reference seldom mention this fact and neverdo it justiceHe moreover discovered that no one has ever written a complete historyof the symbol showing the possibility that the _stauros_ or post towhich Jesus was affixed was not crossshaped and the certainty thatin any case what eventually became the symbol of our faith owed someof its prestige as a Christian symbol of Victory and Life to theposition it occupied in preChristian daysThe author has therefore in the hope of drawing attention to thesubject incorporated the results of his researches in the presentessay  14 ST DUNSTANS HILL      LONDON ECC O N T E N T S                                                      PAGECHAPTER I  WAS THE _STAUROS_ OF JESUS CROSSSHAPED             13CHAPTER II  THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX                       31CHAPTER III  THE EVIDENCE OF THE OTHER FATHERS3                   41CHAPTER IV  CURIOUS STATEMENTS OF IRENAEUS                       52CHAPTER V  ORIGIN OF THE PRECHRISTIAN CROSS                    57CHAPTER VI  ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSS                        65CHAPTER VII  THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH                        82CHAPTER VIII  CROSS AND CRESCENT8                                  92CHAPTER IX  THE CORONATION ORB9                                 104CHAPTER X  ROMAN COINS BEFORE CONSTANTINE                      119CHAPTER XI  THE COINS OF CONSTANTINE                            133CHAPTER XII  ROMAN COINS AFTER CONSTANTINE                       142CHAPTER XIII  THE MONOGRAM OF CHRIST