He then speaks of the difficulty in accounting for this crucifix being found among the Indians of Cozumel, and ends by saying:
"But if it be considered that these Indians believed that the Son of God, whom they called Bacob, had died upon a cross, with his arms stretched out upon it, it cannot appear so difficult a matter to comprehend that they should have formed his image according to the religious creed which they possessed."[201:4]
We shall find, in another chapter, that these virgin-born "Saviours" and "Slain Ones;" Crishna, Osiris, Horus, Attys, Adonis, Bacchus, &c.—whether torn in pieces, killed by a boar, or crucified—will all melt into ONE.
We now come to a very important fact not generally known, namely: There are no early representations of Christ Jesus suffering on the cross.
Rev. J. P. Lundy, speaking of this, says:
"Why should a fact so well known to the heathen as the crucifixion be concealed? And yet its actual realistic representation never once occurs in the monuments of Christianity, for more than six or seven centuries."[202:1]
Mrs. Jameson, in her "History of Our Lord in Art," says:
"The crucifixion is not one of the subjects of early Christianity. The death of our Lord was represented by various types, but never in its actual form.
"The earliest instances of the crucifixion are found in illustrated manuscripts of various countries, and in those ivory and enameled forms which are described in the Introduction. Some of these are ascertained, by historical or by internal evidence, to have been executed in the ninth century, there is one also, of an extraordinary rude and fantastic character, in a MS. in the ancient library of St. Galle, which is ascertained to be of the eighth century. At all events, there seems no just grounds at present for assigning an earlier date."[202:2]
"Early Christian art, such as it appears in the bas-reliefs on sarcophagi, gave but one solitary incident from the story of Our Lord's Passion, and that utterly divested of all circumstances of suffering. Our Lord is represented as young and beautiful, free from bonds, with no 'accursed tree' on his shoulders."[202:3]