The existence of the “cross,” and its worship, anterior to the Christian era, being no longer liable to dispute, it remains only that we investigate the cause which it commemorates.[330]
Our first aid in this research will be the notice of its accompaniments; and when we find that it goes ever in the train of a particular divinity, are we not compelled to connect that divinity with the idea of a crucifixion?
Taut, amongst the Egyptians, is emblemised by three crosses.[331] The Scandinavians represent their Teutates by a cross. And a cross is the device by which the Irish Tuath is perpetuated.
But these are all one and the same name, varied by the genius of the different countries. The centre from which they diverge, as well as the focus to which they return, I have shown to be Budh: and as this symbol of his worship is universally recognised, does not the crucifixion thus implied identify his fate with that of the “Lamb slain from the beginning of the world”?[332]
The Pythonic allegory which the Greeks have so obscured, in reality originated in this religious transaction. For what is their fable? Is it not that Apollo slew with his arrow the serpent Python? And as Apollo means son of the Sun, is not the substance of the whole, that the offspring of a virgin’s womb—that is, an emanation of the Sun, or Budh—overcame by his own death—typified by an arrow—sin and sensuality, of which the serpent, i.e. pith, is the symbol?
We are now prepared for the reception of that chronicle, transmitted through the Puranas, and noticed already at p. 221, viz. that a “giant, named Sancha-mucha-naga, in the shape of a snake, with a mouth like a shell, and whose abode was in a shell, having two countenances, was killed by Christnah.”
The very name of this allegoric “giant” indicates the mysterious snake—his being in the form of a snake is but the personification of sensuality; his having a mouth like a shell alludes to the concha Veneris, or the Pith; his having his abode in that shell denotes its being the seat of temptation; his having two countenances implies the disguise which sin assumes; and his being slain by Christnah denotes that the Son of God, by mortification and self-denial, and the most rigid abstinence from all worldly pleasures, verified in His own person the promise made in Paradise, and for the minor disquietudes which guilt entails—expressed by the “heel” being “bruised” by the “serpent,”—inflicted a blow, which laid low his empire, and stamped the signal of victory over his “head.”[333]
“Ye search the Scriptures,” says our Saviour “for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.”[334]
Testification can be made only in the case of a past occurrence. It is never used in the way of prophecy. And in conformity with its true import, you will find, from Genesis to Revelation, the concurrent tenor of the Sacred Volume giving proof to the fact of Christ’s former appearance upon the earth as man!
But suppose me for a moment to descend from this position, and view those previous manifestations as ordinary subjects of history, then hear an outline of what is transmitted to us respecting one of them.