The commonest of all the Egyptian crosses, the CRUX ANSATA (Fig. No. 23) was adopted by the Christians. Thus, beside one of the Christian inscriptions at Phile (a celebrated island lying in the midst of the Nile) is seen both a Maltese cross and a crux ansata.[341:6] In a painting covering the end of a church in the cemetery of El Khargeh, in the Great Oasis, are three of these crosses round the principal subject, which seems to have been a figure of a saint.[341:7] In an inscription in a Christian church to the east of the Nile, in the desert, these crosses are also to be seen. Beside, or in the hand of, the Egyptian gods, this symbol is generally to be seen. When the Saviour Osiris is represented holding out the crux ansata to a mortal, it signifies that the person to whom he presents it has put off mortality, and entered on the life to come.[341:8]
The Greek cross, and the cross of St. Anthony, are also found on Egyptian monuments. A figure of a Shari (Fig. No. 24), from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's book, has a necklace round his throat, from which depends a pectoral cross. A third Egyptian cross is that represented in Fig. No. 25, which is apparently intended for a Latin cross rising out of a heart, like the mediæval emblem of "Cor in Cruce, Crux in Corde:" it is the hieroglyph of goodness.[342:1]
It is related by the ecclesiastical historians Socrates and Sozomon, that when the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, in Egypt, was demolished by one of the Christian emperors, beneath the foundation was discovered a cross. The words of Socrates are as follows:
"In the temple of Serapis, now overthrown and rifled throughout, there were found engraven in the stones certain letters . . . resembling the form of the cross. The which when both Christians and Ethnics beheld, every one applied to his proper religion. The Christians affirmed that the cross was a sign or token of the passion of Christ, and the proper cognizance of their profession. The Ethnics avouched that therein was contained something in common, belonging as well to Serapis as to Christ."[342:2]