Leaving the Book of Plates and turning to the illustrations given with the Text of the valuable work we are considering, we discover upon page 62 a cut showing the impression of a chalcedony cylinder from the collection of the Due de Luynes, where the Sun is represented by a Cross of four equal arms.
Upon page 85 we have in figure 117 an illustration of an inscribed cylinder, now belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale of France, in which, as Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter remarks, the priest or king represented is raising his arm
"In adoration in the direction of the Cross suspended in the air before him, a holy object we often meet on Assyrian and Babylonian monuments."
This cross, like that last named, is more like a Greek cross than a Maltese cross.
On page 148 we have in figure 150 an illustration of a coloured image of Aphrodite or Astarte discovered in an early Græco-Phœnician tomb at Kurion. This representation of the Goddess of Love and Bride of the Sun-God is marked with several Svastika crosses, and is yet further evidence of the phallic and solar character of that symbol.
Such is the evidence of the phallic worship and Sun-God worship of the Phœnicians and their neighbours, of the close relationship between such phallic worship and Sun-God worship, and of the part played in connection with the same by the pre-Christian cross, borne by a work of research so free from bias against the views of the Christian Church that it has prefixed to it a letter of warm commendation from that veteran statesman and theologian, the author of the ultra-orthodox "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture."
[CHAPTER XX.]
MISCELLANEOUS EVIDENCE.
The most noteworthy features of the available evidence illustrative of the real origin and history of the symbol of the cross have now been placed before the reader, but a number of more or less miscellaneous facts directly or indirectly throwing additional light upon the subject have still to be drawn attention to.
For instance, no mention has yet been made of the Hermæ of bygone ages. And although their origin may have had no connection with the symbol in question, it is noteworthy that some at least of the early Christians discovered in the more or less cruciform outline of the Hermæ a reason or excuse for paying them homage, while very similar figures are to be seen illustrated upon Christian antiquities, such
as the mosaic of which the great cross of the Lateran forms the principal feature.