In view of these and many similar facts, it is easy to understand how the cross became a permanent and prominent feature in the symbolism of paganized Christianity. The famous vision of Constantine the Great, in which he is said to have seen a cross in the sky, in connection with the sun, is not supported by evidence which places it among facts. It was not unnatural, however, that he, a devout sun-worshipper, and familiar with the cross as the symbol of the lowest form of that worship, should associate the two, as he has been said to have done. The symbol which he adopted on his military standard was not the cross proper, but the two Greek initials of the name of Christ, the “chi-ro.” One of these letters, resembling the English X, gave the standard a similarity to the cross. Under Valens, Emperor of the East, who died in 378 A.D., the cross appears without the letters, and from that time the letters gradually disappear. The Empress Eudocia wore the heathen form of the cross on her head.[217] It was the exact counterpart of that which the moon-goddess, Diana, had worn before. The leading facts concerning the cross may be summed up as follows:
Up to the time of Constantine—early part of the fourth century—the cross remained what it had always been, a pagan symbol, type of its most revolting cultus. It is the same in India to-day. By the opening of the fifth century it had become the symbol of paganized Christianity. The crucifix—a figure of Christ nailed to the cross—appears first about the middle of the fifth century. The following is the general order whereby the transition was accomplished:
1. Constantine adopts the initial letters, giving the chi-ro standard, about 312 A.D.[218]
2. The chi (Χ) was gradually changed to the form of a cross, while the ro, similar to the English P, remained in its original position.
3. The ro was rejected, and the chi (Χ) was changed to the Greek cross of Bacchus.
4. The heathen tau (Τ), as used in India and Egypt, was brought in, probably because of its supposed resemblance to the cross on which Christ was (said to have been) put to death.
5. The tau appears, surmounted by a roundel, evidently the sacred egg of the heathen. This was the emblem of the Goddess of Nature, the productive principle. This brought the original heathen symbol into still greater similarity to what is now known as the Latin cross.
6. The crux ansata, or handled cross. This is the form usually seen in the hands of the gods of India and Egypt. It is the symbol of the sun-god, and is interpreted by modern Egyptologists as the symbol of life. It was primarily a phallic symbol of reproduction. An English writer (Rev. Mourant Brock) has pertinently said:
“And it is high time that Christians should understand a fact of which skeptics have been long talking and writing, that the cross was the central symbol of ancient paganism. What it represents, must remain untold; but it was probably made the medium of our Lord’s death, through the crafty device of the wicked one, into whose hands he was for a while delivered, with a view to the future corruption of Christianity, and the carrying on, under its name, of all the abominations of the heathen.”