The Non-Christian Cross / An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion

by John Denham Parsons

or

and

or

in order that what his Gaulish army venerated as triumphal tokens might be accepted as symbols of victory by his Christian supporters also.

That this Gaulish monarch did so alter, and for the reason named, the symbol or symbols venerated by his troops, is admitted by, amongst others, that well known writer the Reverend S. Baring Gould, M.A. For, referring to the solar wheel as a symbol of the Sun-God venerated by the ancient Gauls, this author tells us that Constantine
"Adopted and adapted the sign for his standards, and the Labarum of Constantine became a common Christian symbol. That there was policy in his conduct we can hardly doubt; the symbol he set up gratified the Christians in his army on one side and the Gauls on the other. For the former it was a sign compounded of the initial letters of Christ, to the latter it was the token of the favour of the solar deity."[⁵³]

As the fact that both the