If we also keep before us the fact that the Golden Apple whether held by the Sun-God or his complement the Goddess of Love, was at times surmounted by the figure of Victory for which Christian Emperors gradually and only gradually substituted the figure of the cross, it is curious to note that in early Christian representations of the Christ he is often to be seen with the Apple or forbidden fruit of the Tree of Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.
When the Christ is in such cases depicted as a youth, the phallic apple is usually to be seen lying near him; but when the Christ is represented as a man, it is placed in his hand.
For instance a good example of the Christ holding the fruit of the Tree of Life is reproduced for us in the well known work on the likeness of Jesus by the late Thomas Heaphy.[47] Here we see, in a picture which occurs upon a
glass ornament found in the Catacombs of Rome in the tomb of a Christian named Eutychia, an illustration of the Christ standing by the side of the Tree of Life. The rays of the Sun surround the head of the Christ, and in his hand is the phallic Apple.
It will have been remarked that the round object to be seen upon innumerable Roman coins in the hand of this or that ruler or deity, and popularly supposed to have always represented the round world upon which we dwell although it is at the same time believed that the world was not then considered to be round, frequently occurs in the hand of a female figure representing Eternity. It is self-evident that a representation of the world we live on is less likely to have been so placed than a symbol of Life.
A still more striking fact, which cannot fail to have been noticed by the reader of the evidence from the coins of ancient Rome quoted in the earlier part of this chapter, is that in several instances a Phœnix and not a Victory surmounts the so-called orb. For the story of the Phœnix was derived from the Egyptian City of the Sun.[48] And the fabulous bird in question was,
according to Tacitus as well as Herodotus, specially connected with the temple of the Sun-God at Heliopolis.
Upon this point it may be added that the famous story of the Phœnix seems to have been known to the writer of Job; the Septuagint version of Job xxix. 18, being "I shall die in my nest and shall multiply my days as the Phœnix" according to some of the best authorities.
The various ages allotted to this allegorical bird had reference to the calendar; as indeed we learn from Pliny, who tells us that
"The revolution of the Great Year in which the seasons and stars return to their former places, agrees with the life of this bird."[49]
This is borne out by the periods spoken of as the lifetime of the Phœnix; as among them are one of 600 years, the Great Year referred to by Josephus and others, and one of 1,461 years, which was the Sothic period of the Egyptians.