images and pictures of Isis. At the same time it is a little odd that the Virgin Mary copies most honored should not only be Black, but have a decided Isis cast of feature." The shrine now known as that of the " Virgin in Amadon,” in France, was formerly an old Black Venus." "To this we may add," (says Dr. Inman), “that at the Abbey of Einsiedelen, on Lake Zurich, the object of adoration is an old black doll, dressed in gold brocade, and glittering with jewels. She is called, apparently, the Virgin of the Swiss Mountains. My friend, Mr. Newton, also tells me that he saw, over a church door at Ivrea, in Italy, twenty-nine miles from Turin, the fresco of a Black Virgin and child, the former bearing a triple crown.' This triple crown is to be seen on the heads of Pagan gods and goddesses, especially those of the Hindoos. Dr. Barlow says: "The doctrine of the Mother of God was of Egyptian origin. It was brought in along with the worship of the Madonna by Cyril (Bishop of Alexandria, and the Cyril of Hypatia) and the monks of Alexandria, in the fifth century. The earliest representations of the Madonna have quite a Greco-Egyptian character, and there can be little doubt that Isis nursing Horus was the origin of them all." And Arthur Murphy tells us that: "The superstition and religious ceremonies of the Egyptians were diffused over Asia, Greece, and the rest of Europe. Brotier says, that inscriptions of Isis and Serapis (Horus ?) have been frequently found in Germany. . . . The missionaries who went in the eighth and ninth centuries to propagate the Christian religion in those parts, saw many images and statues of these gods." These "many images and statues of these gods" were evidently baptized anew, given other names, and allowed to remain where they were. In many parts of Italy are to be seen pictures of the Virgin with her infant in her arms, inscribed with the words: "Deo Soli." This betrays their Pagan origin. CHAPTER XXXIII. CHRISTIAN SYMBOLS. A THOROUGH investigation of this subject would require a volume, therefore, as we can devote but a chapter to it, it must necessarily be treated somewhat slightingly. The first of the Christian Symbols which we shall notice is the CROSS. Overwhelming historical facts show that the cross was used, as a religious emblem, many centuries before the Christian era, by every nation in the world. Bishop Colenso, speaking on this subject, says: "From the dawn of organized Paganism in the Eastern world, to the final establishment of Christianity in the West, the cross was undoubtedly one of the commonest and most sacred of symbolical monuments. Apart from any distinctions of social or intellectual superiority, of caste, color, nationality, or location in either hemisphere, it appears to have been the aboriginal possession of every people in antiquity. "Diversified forms of the symbol are delineated more or less artistically, according to the progress achieved in civilization at the period, on the ruined walls of temples and palaces, on natural rocks and sepulchral galleries, on the hoariest monoliths and the rudest statuary; on coins, medals, and vases of every description; and in not a few instances, are preserved in the architectural proportions of subterranean as well as superterranean structures of tumuli, as well as fanes. "Populations of essentially different culture, tastes, and pursuits-the highlycivilized and the semi-civilized, the settled and the nomadic-vied with each other in their superstitious adoration of it, and in their efforts to extend the knowledge of its exceptional import and virtue amongst their latest posterities. "Of the several varieties of the cross still in vogue, as national and ecclesiastical emblems, and distinguished by the familiar appellations of St. George, St. Andrew, the Maltese, the Greek, the Latin, &c., &c., there is not one amongst them the existence of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity. They were the common property of the Eastern nations. "That each known variety has been derived from a common source, and is emblematical of one and the same truth may be inferred from the fact of forms identically the same, whether simple or complex, cropping out in contrary directions, in the Western as well as the Eastern hemisphere."1 1 The Pentateuch Examined, vol. vi. p. 113. The cross has been adored in India from time immemorial, and was a symbol of mysterious significance in Brahmanical iconography. It was the symbol of the Hindoo god Agni, the "Light of the World." In the Cave of Elephanta, over the head of the figure represented as destroying the infants, whence the story of Herod and the infants of Bethlehem (which was unknown to all the Jewish, Roman, and Grecian historians) took its origin, may be seen the Mitre, the Crosier, and the Cross." It is placed by Muller in Crishna, Tvashtri and Jama. the hand of Siva, Brahma, Vishnu, To it the worshipers of Vishnu attribute as many virtues as does the devout Catholic to the Christian cross. Fra Paolino tells us it was used by the ancient kings of India as a sceptre.* Two of the principal pagodas of India-Benares and Mathurawere erected in the forms of vast crosses. The pagoda at Mathura was sacred to the memory of the Virgin-born and crucified Saviour Crishna. The cross has been an object of profound veneration among the Buddhists from the earliest times. One is the sacred Swastica (Fig. No. 21). It is seen in the old Buddhist Zodiacs, and is one of the symbols in the Asoka inscriptions. It resemblance between the ancient religion of Thibet and that of the Christians has been noticed by many European trav ellers and missionaries, among whom may be mentioned Pere Grebillon, Pere Grueber, Horace de la Paon, D'Orville, and M. L'Abbé Huc. The Buddhists, and indeed all the sects of India, marked their followers on the head with the sign of the cross.' This was undoubtedly practiced by almost all heathen nations, as we have seen in the chapter on the Eucharist that the initiates into the Heathen mysteries were marked in that manner. The ancient Egyptians adored the cross with the profoundest veneration. This sacred symbol is to be found on many of their ancient monuments, some of which may be seen at the present day in the British Museum. In the museum of the London University, a cross upon a Calvary is to be seen upon the breast of one of the Egyptian mummies. Many of the Egyptian images hold a cross in their hand. There is one now extant of the Egyptian Saviour Horus holding a cross in his hand, and he is represented as an infant sitting on his mother's knee, with a cross on the back of the seat they occupy." In a The commonest of all the Egyptian crosses, the CRUX ANSATA (Fig. No. 23) was adopted by the Christians. Thus, beside one of the Christian inscriptions at Phile (a celebrated island lying in the midst of the Nile) is seen both a Maltese cross and a crux ansata. painting covering the end of a church in the cemetery of El Khargeh, in the Great Oasis, are three of these crosses round the principal subject, which seems to have been a figure of a saint.' In an inscription in a Christian church to the east of the Nile, in the desert, these crosses are also to be seen. Beside, or in the hand of, the Egyptian gods, this symbol is generally to be seen. When the Saviour Osiris is represented holding out the crux ansata to a mortal, it signifies that the person to whom he presents it has put off mortality, and entered on the life to come." The Greek cross, and the cross of St. Anthony, are also found 1 See Ibid. 2 See Celtic Druids, p. 126; Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 217, and Bonwick's Egyptian Belief, pp. 216, 217 and 219. Anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 217. Knight: Anct. Art and Mytho., p. 58. See Inman's "Symbolism," and Lundy's Monu. Christianity, Fig. 92. Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 285. "Hoskins' Visit to the great Oasts, pl. xii. in Curious Myths, p. 286. Curious Myths, p. 286. on Egyptian monuments. A figure of a Shari (Fig. No. 24), from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's book, has a necklace round his throat, from which depends a pectoral cross. A third Egyptian cross is FIG NO 24 that represented in Fig. No. 25, which is ap- It is related by the eccles- FION!ES Sozomon, that when the temple of Serapis, The at Alexandria, in Egypt, was demolished by one of the Christian emperors, beneath the foundation was discovered a cross. words of Socrates are as follows: cross. "In the temple of Serapis, now overthrown and rifled throughout, there were found engraven in the stones certain letters . . . resembling the form of the The which when both Christians and Ethnics beheld, every one applied to his proper religion. The Christians affirmed that the cross was a sign or token of the passion of Christ, and the proper cognizance of their profession. The Ethnics avouched that therein was contained something in common, belonging as well to Serapis as to Christ."2 It should be remembered, in connection with this, that the Emperor Hadrian saw no difference between the worshipers of Serapis and the worshipers of Christ Jesus. In a letter to the Consul Servanus he says: "There are there (in Egypt) Christians who worship Serapis, and devoted to Serapis are those who call themselves 'Bishops of Christ.'"'s The ancient Egyptians were in the habit of putting a cross on their sacred cakes, just as the Christians of the present day do on Good Friday. The plan of the chamber of some Egyptian sepulchres has the form of a cross, and the cross was worn by Egyptian ladies as an ornament, in precisely the same manner as Christian ladies wear it at the present day." The ancient Babylonians honored the cross as a religious symbol. It is to be found on their oldest monuments. Anu, a deity who stood at the head of the Babylonian mythology, had a cross for his 1 Curious Myths, p. 287. Socrates: Eccl. Hist., lib. v. ch. xvii. Quoted by Rev. Dr. Giles: Hebrew and Christian Records, vol. ii. p. 86, and Rev. Robert Taylor Diegesis, p. 202. 4 See Colenso's Pentateuch Examined vol. vi. p. 115. • Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 12. • Ibid. p. 219. |