However varied the explanations offered may be, and whatever the mystery said to surround this object, the feature always remains,—its symbolisation of life and regeneration. From this, its phallic character was very easily inferred—its derivation from the lingam-yoni symbol, said Barlow, seemed a very natural process. The junction of the yoni with the cross, in Dr. Inman’s judgment, sufficiently proved that it had a phallic or male signification; a conclusion which certain unequivocal Etruscan remains fully confirmed. “We conclude, therefore,” says this writer, “that the ancient cross was an emblem of the belief in a male creator, and the method by which creation was initiated.”
Not the least remarkable exemplification of the universal prevalence of the cross both as to time and country, is found amongst coins and medals: here as in other things it is ever prominent. Take the ancient Gaulish coins, for instance, and the fylfot and ordinary Greek cross abound; take the ancient British coins of the age long prior to Christianity, and the same thing occurs. “On Scandinavian coins, as well as those of Gaul, the fylfot cross appears, as it also does on those of Syracuse, Corinth, and Chalcedon. On the coins of Byblos, Astarte is represented holding a long staff, surmounted by a cross, and resting her foot on the prow of a galley. On the coins of Asia Minor, the cross is also to be found. It occurs as the reverse of a silver coin, supposed to be of Cyprus, on several Cilician coins; it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of Tarsus, on a Phœnician coin of that time, bearing the legend ‘Baal Tharz.’ A medal possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phœnician characters, has the cross occupying the entire field of the reverse side. Several, with inscriptions in unknown characters, have a ram on one side and the cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred bull, accompanied by this symbol; others have a lion’s head on obverse, and a cross and circle on the reverse.”[6]
Strangely enough, even Jewish money is marked with this emblem, the shekel bearing on one side what is usually called a triple lily or hyacinth; the same forming a pretty floral cross.
On Roman coins the cross was of very frequent occurrence, and illustrations of good examples may be seen in the pages of the Art Journal for the year 1874. An engraving of the quincunx, or piece of five unciæ, is given, bearing on one side a cross, a V, and five pellets; and on the other a cross only. This is an example of the earlier periods; of course when we come to the later periods the emblem is still more frequent. These coins are often found in ancient graves and sarcophagi, and these latter again supply examples of various familiar forms of crosses of very remote antiquity,—not simply the adornment of coffin and gravecloths, but the actual construction of the tomb or grave-mound in that form. Fine specimens of these have been discovered at Stoney-Littleton, at New Grange, at Banwell, Somerset, at Adisham, at Hereford, at Helperthorpe, and in the Isle of Lewis.
“Before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains of northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name, but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the laws of civilisation, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. Throughout Emilia are found remains of these people; these remains form quarries whence manure is dug by the peasants of the present day. These quarries go by the name of terramares. They are vast accumulations of cinders, charcoal, bones, fragments of pottery, and other remains of human industry. As this earth is very rich in phosphates it is much appreciated by agriculturists as a dressing for their land. In these terramares there are no human bones. The fragments of earthenware belong to articles of domestic use; with them are found querns, moulds for metal, portions of cabin floors, and great quantities of kitchen refuse. They are deposits analogous to those which have been discovered in Denmark and Switzerland. The metal discovered in the majority of these terramares is bronze; the remains belong to three distinct ages. In the first none of the fictile ware was turned on the wheel or fire-baked. Sometimes these deposits exhibit an advance of civilisation. Iron came into use, and with it the potter’s wheel was discovered, and the earthenware was put in the furnace. When in the same quarry these two epochs are found, the remains of the second age are always superposed over those of the bronze age. A third period is occasionally met with, but only occasionally; a period when a rude art introduced itself, and representatives of animals or human beings adorned the pottery. Among the remains of this period is found the first trace of money, rude little bronze fragments without shape.
“Among other remains in these lake-dwellings, pottery has been in many cases found, and these vessels bear, on the bottom, crosses of various forms, as well also curious solid double cones. That which characterises the cemeteries of Golasecca, says M. de Mortillet, and gives them their highest interest, is this:—first, the entire absence of all organic representations; we only found three and they were exceptional, in tombs not belonging to the plateau; secondly, the almost invariable presence of the cross under the vases in the tombs. When we reversed the ossuaries, the saucer-lids, or the accessory vases, we saw almost always, if in good preservation, a cross traced thereon ... the examination of the tombs of Golasecca proves, in a most convincing, positive, and precise manner, that which the terramares of Emilia had only indicated, but which had been confirmed by the cemetery of Villanova; that above a thousand years before Christ, the cross was already a religious emblem of frequent employment.”[7]
“There is every reason to suppose that the cross was a symbol of more import in the early patriarchal ages than is generally imagined. It was not only the first letter, but it was also the emblem, of Taut, the Mercury, the word, the messenger of the gods, the angel, as we may say, of his presence, himself a god among the Egyptians and the Britons, whose god Teutates was analagous both in name and nature; a winged messenger. M. Le Clerc, one of the ablest mythologists who ever wrote, has shown that the Teutates of the Gauls, the Hermes of the Greeks, the Mercury of the Romans, were all one and the same.
The Ethiopic letter Taui, or Taw, says Lowth, still retains the form of a cross, X; and the Samaritan T, which the Ethiopians are said to have borrowed from the Samaritans, was in the form of a X cross. In several Samaritan coins, says Montfaucon, to be found in the collections of medallists, the letter Tau is engraved in the form of a cross, or Greek Chi, and he gives as his authority Origen and Jerome.
The Jewish High-priest, we are informed by the Rabbis, was anointed on his investiture, while he who anointed him drew on his forehead with his finger the figure of the Greek letter Chi, X.”[8]