It was a statue of the Sun-God Apollo; or, as some explain it, a statue of himself adorned with the attributes of the Sun-God.
In fact, taking the career of Constantine as a whole, there is nothing inconsistent with the supposition that he was a Christian only in so far as, out of policy or conviction, he acted as if he considered the Christ to be one of many conceptions of the Sun-God. For although, as has been mentioned and will be shown in a later chapter, Constantine, upon the many varieties of coins he issued, repeatedly acclaimed the
Sun-God as his companion and the author of his triumphs, he never once, except in so far as he may have considered the God we Christians worship to be the Sun-God, so attributed his victories to the Christ.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
CROSS AND CRESCENT.
Before passing in review the evidence regarding the symbol of the cross derivable from Roman coins and other relics of antiquity, a few introductory remarks are necessary regarding the too often forgotten fact that the ancients naturally looked upon the Giver of Life as bi-sexual; no life being known to them which was not a result of the conjunction of the Male and Female Principles.
The necessarily bi-sexual character of the creator of both the Male and Female Principles, was, it should be remembered, borne in mind by the thinkers of old all the while they accommodatingly spoke of the Sun-God or Giver of Life as being a personification of the Male Principle and gave him a Bride or Virgin Mother to represent the Female Principle.
Moreover, just as the disc of the Sun, or the star-like form which the ancients often used to signify the radiate or impregnating Sun, naturally came to be recognised as the symbol of the Male Principle, so the Crescent, as signifying the increasing Moon and the lesser of the two great lights of heaven, in like manner came to be adopted as the natural symbol of the Female Principle.
In this connection it will not be amiss to draw attention to the symbol of the conquerors of the city founded by Constantine. For though misleadingly called "the Crescent," that symbol is, as the reader cannot very well fail to be aware, not a mere crescent; but one which has within its horns what we consider to be a star-like form and therefore call a star. And though it is possible that it was not knowingly adopted as such by the Moslems, this dual symbol was a combination of the ancient symbols of the Male and Female Principles.
An erroneous account of the origin of this symbol as a Moslem symbol is given in all our works of reference which deal with the matter, as if their compilers copied one from another without troubling to consider the evidence for themselves.