The Cross in Mexico and Alexandria.—In The Unseen World; Communications with it, real and imaginary, &c., 1850, a work which is attributed to an eminent divine and ecclesiastical historian of the English Church, it is stated that—
"It was a tradition in Mexico, before the arrival of the Spaniards, that when that form (the sign of the cross) should be victorious, the old religion should disappear. The same sign is also said to have been discovered on the destruction of the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, and the same tradition to have been attached to it."—P. 23.
The subject is very curious, and one in which I am much interested. I am anxious to refer to the original authorities for the tradition in both cases. It is known that the Mexicans worshipped the cross as the god of rain. We have the following curious account thereof in The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of West India, now called Newe Spayne, translated out of the Spanish tongue by T. N., anno 1578:
"At the foote of this temple was a plotte like a churchyard, well walled and garnished with proper pinnacles; in the midst whereof stoode a crosse of ten foote long, the which they adored for god of the rayne; for at all times whe they wanted rayne, they would go thither on procession deuoutely, and offered to the crosse quayles sacrificed, for to appease the wrath that the god seemed to have agaynste them: and none was so acceptable a sacrifice, as the bloud of that little birde. They used to burne certaine sweete gume, to perfume that god withall, and to besprinkle it with water; and this done, they belieued assuredly to haue rayne."—P. 41.
Edward Peacock.
Bottesford Moors, Kirton Lindsey.
Passage in St. James.—I hope you will not consider the following Query unsuited to your publication, and in that case I may confidently anticipate the removal of my difficulty.
In reading yesterday Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, I came to this passage (p. 308. Bohn's edition):
"St. James, in his epistle, notes the folly of some men, his contemporaries, who were so impatient of the event of to-morrow, or the accidents of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that they would consult astrologers and witches, oracles and devils, what should befall them the next calends—what should be the event of such a voyage—what God had written in his book concerning the success of battles, the election of emperors, &c.... Against this he opposes his counsel, that we should not search after forbidden records, much less by uncertain significations," &c.
Now my Query is, To what epistle of St. James does the eloquent bishop refer? If to the canonical epistle, to what part? To the words (above quoted) "forbidden records" there is a foot-note, which contains only the well-known passage in Horace, lib. i. od. xi., and two others from Propertius and Catullus.