[426] Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium Romanorum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus.—Cicero, pro Rabirio.
[427] Crudelissimum et teterrimum ... arbor infelix, infame lignum.—Cic., pro Rabirio.
[428] Now in the Museum of the Collegio Romano.
[429] Τὸν ἀνεσκολοπισμένον ἐκεῖνον σοφιστήν.—De Morte Peregr.
Tertullian mentions as a common heathen delusion the idea that the God of the Christians had an ass’s head. He also speaks of a heathen picture of a figure having the ears of an ass, hoofed in one foot, carrying a book and wearing a toga, to which was affixed the inscription, “The God of the Christians, born of an ass.”—Apol., c. 16.
Probably such caricatures were common. On a slab recently discovered in the Vigna Nussiner is a representation of an ass with the inscription, “Hic est Deus Hadriani,” apparently a satirical allusion to that emperor’s favourable disposition to Christianity.
[430] Eph. iii, 18.
[431] Ipsa species crucis quid est nisi forma quadrata mundi?... Aves quando volant in æthera, formam crucis assumunt; homo natans per aquas, vel orans, forma crucis vehitur. Navis per maria antenna cruci similata sufflatur.—Hieronym. in Mark xv.
[432] Apol., i, 72. See also Minuc. Felix, cap. 29.
[433] Ego Christianus ... et vexillum crucis in mea fronte portans.—Hieron., Ep. 113.