One and the same word, then (xúlon, crux), betokens both the gibbet and the pledge of life. Christ himself appears as the true “Tree of Life,” as the original of that miraculous tree the sight of which gave life to the first man in Paradise, which will be the food of the blessed in the world to come, and is represented symbolically by the mystical cross. It was easy to unite the ideas connected with those expressions, to look upon the “seal” of Christ (to semeion tou staurou, signum crucis) as the cross upon which he suffered, and vice-versâ, and to ascribe to the “wood” upon which Jesus is supposed to have died, the shape of the mystic sign, the Tau, or cross. The heathens had been accustomed to regard the stake upon which their Gods were hanged both as the representative of the God in question and the symbol of life and fruitfulness. For example, the stake furnished with four oblique sticks (like a telegraph post), which went by the name of the tatu, tat, dad, or ded and was planted at the feast of Osiris in Egypt, often had a rough picture of the God painted upon it, as also the pine-tree trunk of Attis, in which connection the idea that the seed contained in the cones of the rock-pine from of old had served men as food, while the sap found in them was prepared into an intoxicating drink (Soma), played its part.[42] We are reminded also of the Germanic custom of the planting of the may-tree. This was not only a symbol of the Spring God, but also represented the life bestowed by him. In the same way the cross did not appear to the Christians originally as the form of the gibbet upon which God died, but as “the tree of life,” the symbol of the new birth and redemption. Since, however, the word for the mystical sign was identical with the expression for the gibbet, the double meaning led to the gibbet of Jesus being looked upon as the symbol of life and redemption, and the idea of the gibbet was mingled with that of the cross, the shape of the latter being imagined for the former. As Justin in his conversation with the Jew Trypho informs us, the Jews used to run a spit lengthwise through the whole body of the Paschal lamb and another cross-wise through its breast, upon which the forefeet were fastened, so that the two spits made the shape of a cross. This was to them obviously not a symbol of execution but rather the sign of reconcilement with Jahwe and of the new life thereon depending. For the Christians, however, who compared their Saviour with the Paschal lamb, this may have been an additional cause for the above-mentioned commingling of ideas, and this may have strengthened them in the conception that their God died upon the “cross.” The Phrygians, moreover, according to Firmicus Maternus, at the Spring Feast of Attis, used to fasten a ram or lamb at the foot of the fig-tree trunk on which the image of their God was hung.[43]
In agreement with this view is the fact that the earliest representations of Christ in connection with the cross had for their subject not the suffering and crucified, but the miraculous Saviour triumphing over sickness and death. He appeared as a youthful God with the Book of the Law, the Gospel, in his hand, the lamb at his feet, the cross upon his head or in his right hand, just as the heathen Gods, a Jupiter, or some crowned ruler, used to be depicted with a cross-shaped sceptre. Or Jesus’ head was placed before the cross, and this in the orb of the sun—and exactly at the point of intersection of the arms of the cross, thus at the place where one otherwise finds the lamb. Even the Church, probably with a right feeling of the identity of Agnus and Agni, and in order to remove the connection of ideas therein contained, in the year 692, by the Quinisext Synod (in Trullo), forbade the pictures of the lamb and required the representation to be of the Saviour’s human shape. In spite of this even then they did not represent “the Crucified” in the present-day sense of the word, but portrayed Christ in the form of one standing before the cross praying with outstretched arms. Or he was shown risen from the grave, or standing upon the Gospels at the foot of the cross, out of this arising later the support for the feet in the pictures of him crucified. Here he was represented with open eyes, with his head encircled by the sun’s orb. In all of these different representations accordingly the cross only brought again before the eyes in symbolical form what was at the same time expressed by the figure of Christ standing at the cross, just as at the feasts of Osiris or Attis the God was doubly represented, both in his true shape (as image or puppet) and in the symbolical form of the Jatu or pine-tree trunk. This mode of depicting Christ lasted a long while, even though as early as the fifth or sixth century mention is made of crucifixion, and in arbitrary interpretation of [Psa. xxii. 17] he was depicted with the marks of the nails. For, as has been said, “crux” betokens both the gibbet and the mystical sign, and the marks of the nails served to symbolise the Saviour’s triumph over pain and death. An ivory plate in the British Museum in London, mentioned and copied by Kraus,[44] is considered the oldest representation of a crucifixion in our present sense. It is said to be of fifth-century origin. This assignment of date is, however, just as uncertain as the other, according to which the miniature from the Syrian Gospel manuscript of the monk Rabula of the monastery of Zagba in Mesopotamia, which also has the crucifixion for subject and is to be found in the Bibliotheca Laurenziana at Florence, is assigned to the year 586. In any case, as a general rule until the eleventh century it was not the dead but the living Christ who was depicted before or on the cross. Consequently an illustration in the Bibliotheca Laurenziana of about the date 1060 is considered as the first certain example of a dead crucified Christ.[45]
The conception of Christ being put to death upon the cross is, comparatively speaking, a late one. The connection of Christ with the cross was originally not a reproduction of the manner of his death. It rather symbolises, as in the ancient Mysteries, precisely the reverse—the victory of the Christian Cult-God over death—the idea of resurrection and life. Hence it is obvious that the above-mentioned juxtaposition of the cross and lamb must have expressed the same idea. Here, too, the cross was originally only the symbol of fire and life. The lamb encircled by the sun’s orb refers to the ceremonial burning of the lamb at the spring equinox as an expiatory sacrifice and as a pledge of a new life. It appears the more plainly to be a figure of Agni (Agnus), since it is usually placed exactly at the point of intersection of the two arms—that is, at the place whence the divine spark first issued at the kindling of the fire with the two aranî.[46]
[1] Cf. Jeremias, “Babyl. im N.T.,” 69–80. [↑]
[3] Cf. “The Hymns to Dadhikra,” iv. 38–40. [↑]
[4] Cf. Burnouf, op. cit., 196. The connection between the Fire-God and water is of extreme antiquity. As is well known, in the Edda Loki seeks to escape the pursuit of the Gods in the shape of a salmon; Hephaistos, too, after being cast forth from heaven remains concealed in the sea until Dionysus brings him out; in Rome on the 22nd of August fish from the Tiber used to be sacrificed to Vulcan, being cast living into the fire in representation of the souls of men (Preller, “Röm. Mythol.,” ii. 151). It is uncertain whether or to what degree the relations of the sun to the constellation of the Fishes have influenced these images. As regards Babylon, where astrology underwent the most accurate development, this can indeed be looked upon as certain. Here Ea (Oannes), the God of Water and of Life, the father of the Redeemer God Marduk, was represented under the form of a fish. Again, it was not only to the Philistinian Dagon that fish as well as doves were sacred (above, p. 118), but also to the Syrian Atargatis, the latter having borne, as was said, the “Ichthus,” or fish, and the worship of fish being connected with devotion to her (Robertson Smith, “Religion of the Semites,” 174 sqq.). In Egypt Horus was the “divine fish,” being represented with a fish-tail and holding a cross in the hand. But the Joshua of the Old Testament, in whom we believe we see the Israelite original of the Christian Saviour, was also called a “Son of the Fish” (Nun, Ninus, a form of Marduk, whose spouse or beloved, Semiramis, is also a Fish Divinity and is the same as Derketo (Atargatis), the Syrian Mother Goddess.) The Rabbinists called the Messiah son of Joseph (see above, p. 80 sq.), Dag (Dagon) the Fish, and made him to be born of a fish; that is, they expected his birth under the constellation of the Fishes, on which account the Jews were long accustomed to immolate a fish on expiatory feasts. Finally, the fish is also Vishnu’s symbol, in whose worship baptism of water takes an important place. Again, the God is said in the form of a fish to have come to the rescue of the pious Manu, the only just man of his time, the Indian Noah, and to have steered the Ark through the flood, thus ensuring to mankind its continuation. It is not difficult to suppose that this idea as well influenced the symbols of Christianity through Mandaic (Gnostic) channels. At any rate, it cannot be admitted at all that the symbol of the fish first arose out of a mere play on letters so far as the formula “Jesous Christos Theou Huios Soter” represents in five words the expression of the quintessence of the Christian faith (cf. van den Bergh van Eysinga, “Ztschr. d. Deutchen Morgenländ. Gesellschaft B.,” ix., 1906, 210 sqq.). [↑]
[5] Cf. Iamblichus, “De Symbol. Aegyptiorum,” ii. 7. [↑]
[6] Gunkel, op. cit., 32. sq.; Robertson, “Pagan Christs,” 135 sq. [↑]