Chapter Six
IS THE CROSS A CHRISTAN OR A "SUN WORSHIP" SYMBOL?

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    THE CROSS IS recognized as one of the most important symbols of the Roman Catholic church.  It is displayed on top of roofs and towers.  It is seen on altars, furnishings, and ecclesiastical garments.  The floor plan of the majority of Catholic churches is laid out in the shape of the cross.  Catholic homes, hospitals, and schools have the cross adorning the walls.  Everywhere  the cross is outwardly honored and adored--in hundreds of ways!

    When an infant is sprinkled, the priest makes the sign of the cross upon its forehead saying: "Receive the sign of the cross upon thy forehead."  During confirmation, the candidate is signed with the cross.  On Ash Wednesday, ashes are used to make a cross on the forehead. When Catholics enter in "holy water," touch the forehead, the chest, the left and the right shoulder-thus tracing the figure of the cross.  The same sign is made before eating meals.  During Mass, the priest makes the sign of the cross 16 times and blesses the altar with the cross sign 30 times.

    Protestant churches, for the most part, do not believe in making the sign of the cross with their fingers.  Neither do they bow down before crosses or use them as objects of worship.  They have recognized that these things are unscriptural and superstitious.(More information on Superstitious)  But the use of the cross has been commonly retained on steeples, on pulpits, and in various other ways as a form of decoration.

    The early Christians did not consider the cross on which Jesus died a virtuous symbol, but rather as "the accursed tree," a device of death and "shame" (Heb. 12:2). They did not trust in an old rugged cross.  Instead, their faith was in what was accomplished on the cross; and through this faith, they knew the full and complete forgiveness of sin!  It was in this sense that the apostles preached about the cross and gloried in it (1Cor. 1:17,18). They never spoke of the cross as a piece of wood one might hang from a little chain around his neck or carry in his hand as a protector or charm.  Such use of the cross came later.

    It was not until Christianity began to become like sun worship (or, as some prefer, sun worship was Christianized), that the cross image came to be thought of as a Christian symbol.  It was in 431 A.D. that crosses in churches and chambers were introduced, while the use of crosses on steeples did not come until about 586 A.D.  In the sixth century, the crucifix image was sanctioned by the church of Rome.  It was not until the second Council at Ephesus that private homes were required to possess a cross.

    If the cross is a Christian symbol, it cannot be correctly said that its origin was within Christianity, for in one form or another, it was a sacred symbol long before the Christian era and among many non-Christian people. According to An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, it originated among the Babylonians of ancient Chaldea. "The ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross...had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as a symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the Mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt....In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system, sun worshipers were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their sun worship signs and symbols.  Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adapted to stand for the cross of Christ"!

    In any book on Egypt that shows the old monuments and walls of ancient temples, one can see the use of the Tau cross. The picture to the left shows Amon, the Egyptian god, holding a Tau cross.

    Says a noted historian in reference to Egypt: "Here unchanged for thousands of years, we find among her most sacred hieroglyphics the cross in various forms...but the one known specially as the 'cross of Egypt,' or the Tau cross, is shaped like the letter T, often with a circle or ovoid above it. Yet this mystical symbol was not peculiar to this country, but was reverenced,..among the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Mexicans, and every ancient people in both hemispheres."

    As the cross symbol spread to various nations, its use developed in different ways.   Among the Chinese, "the cross is...acknowledged to be one of the most ancient devices...it is portrayed upon the walls of their pagodas, it is painted upon the lanterns used to illuminate the most sacred recesses of their temples."

    The cross has been a sacred symbol in India for centuries among non-Christian people. It has been used to mark the jars of holy water taken from the Ganges, also as an emblem of disembodied Jaina saints.  In the central part of India, two crude crosses of stone have been discovered which date back centuries before the Christian Era---one over ten feet, the other over eight feet high.  The Buddhists, and numerous other sects of India, marked their followers on the head with the sign of the cross.

    On the continent of Africa, at Susa, natives plunge a cross into the River Gitche. The Kabyle women although Mohammedans, tattoo a cross between their eyes.  In Wanyamwizi walls are decorated with crosses.  The Yaricks, who established a line of kingdoms from the Niger to the Nile, had an image of a cross painted on their shields.

    When the Spaniards first landed in Mexico, "they could not suppress their wonder," says Prescott, "as they beheld the cross, the sacred emblem of their own faith, raised as an object of worship in the temples of Anahuac.  The Spaniards were not aware that the cross was the symbol of worship of the highest antiquity...by sun worship nations on whom the light of

    In Palenque, Mexico, founded by Votan n the ninth century before the Christian Era, is a heathen temple known as "The Temple of the Cross." There inscribed on an altar slab is a central cross six and a half by eleven feet in size .  The Catholic Encyclopedia includes a photograph of this cross, beneath which are the words "Pre-Christian Cross of Palenque."

    In olden times, the Mexicans worshiped a cross as tota (our father).  This practice of addressing a piece of wood with the title "father" is also mentioned in the Bible.  When the Israelites mixed idolatry with their religion, they said to a stock, "Thou art my father" (Jer. 2:27),  But it is contrary to the scriptures to call a piece of wood (or a priest) by the title "father" (Matt. 23:9).


    The Greeks depicted crosses on the headband of their god corresponding to Tammuz of the Babylonians.  Porcelli mentions that Isis was shown with a cross on her forehead.  Her priests carried processional crosses in their worship of her.  The temple of Serapis in Alexandria was surmounted by, a cross.  The temple of the Sphinx when it was unearthed was found to be cruciform in shape, Ensigns in the form of a cross were carried by the Persians during their battles with Alexander the Great (B.C. 335).

    The cross was used as a religious symbol by the aborigines of South America in ancient times.  New born children were placed under its protection against evil spirits.  The Patagonians tattooed their foreheads with crosses.  Ancient pottery in Peru has been found that is marked with the cross as a religious symbol. Monuments show that Assyrian kings wore crosses suspended on their necklaces, as did some of the foreigners that battled against the Egyptians.

    Crosses were also figured on the robes of the Rot-n-no as early as the fifteenth century before the Christian Era.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that "the sign of the cross, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly antedates, in both the East and the West, the introduction of Christianity.  It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization."

    "But since Jesus died on a cross," some question, "does this not make it a Christian symbol?"  It is true that in most minds the cross has now come to be associated with Christ.  But those who know its history and the superstitious ways it has been used-especially in past centuries---can see another side of the coin.  Though it sounds crude, someone has asked: "Suppose Jesus had been killed with a shotgun; would this be any reason to have a shotgun hanging from our necks or on top of the church roof?" It comes down to this: The important thing is not what, but who--who it was that died, not what the instrument of death was. St. Ambrose made a valid point when he said, "Let us adore Christ, our King, who hung upon the wood, not the wood"

    Crucifixion as a method of death "was used in ancient times as a punishment for flagrant crimes in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Palestine, Carthage, Greece, and Rome. . ..Tradition ascribes the invention of the punishment of the cross to a woman, the queen Semiramis"!

    Christ died on one cross--whatever type it was--and yet many kinds of crosses are used in the Catholic religion.  A few of the different types are shown here.  A page in The Catholic Encyclopedia shows forty crosses!  If the Catholic use of the cross began simply with the cross of Christ--and was not influenced by sun worship--why are so many different types of crosses used?  Says a noted writer: "Of the several varieties of the cross still in vogue, as national and ecclesiastical emblems, distinguished by the familiar appellations of St. George, St. Andrew, the Maltese, the Greek, the Latin, etc., there is not one amongst them the existence of which may not be traced to the remotest antiquity"!

    The cross known as the Tau cross was widely used in Egypt.  "In later times the Egyptian Christians (Copts), attracted by its form, and perhaps by its symbolism, adopted it as the emblem of the cross. What is known as the Greek cross was also found on Egyptian monuments. This form of the cross was used in Phrygia where it adorned the tomb of Midas.   Among the ruins of Nineveh, a king is shown wearing a Maltese cross on his chest.  The form of the cross that is today known as the Latin cross was used by the Etruscans, as seen on an ancient sun worship tomb with winged angels to each side of it.

    Among the Cumas in South America, what has been called the St. Andrew's cross, was regarded as a protector against evil spirits.   It appeared on the coins of Alexander Bala in Syria in 146 B.C. and on those of Baktrian kings about 140 to 120 B.C.--long before "St. Andrew" was ever born!  The cross which we show here is today called the Calvary cross, yet this drawing is from an ancient inscription in Thessaly which dates from a period prior to the Christian Era!

    A final question remains. Jesus died on one cross-what shape was it?  Some believe it was simply a torture stake with no cross piece whatsoever. The English word "cross" automatically conveys the meaning that two pieces of wood cross each other at some point or angle. But the Greek word from which "cross" is translated in the New Testament, stauros, does not require this meaning. The word itself simply means an upright stake or post. If the instrument on which Jesus died was no more than this, it was not a "cross" (as such) at all! This would clearly show the folly of many types of crosses being "Christianized."

    On the other hand, the statement of Thomas about the print of nails (plural) in the hands of Jesus (John 20:25) could indicate that a cross piece was included on the stake, for on a single stake his hands would have probably been driven through with one nail. This, coupled with the fact that there was space above his head for the inscription (Luke 23:38), would tend to favor what has been termed the Latin cross. Crosses shaped like a "T" or "X" can be eliminated since these would probably not allow sufficient space above the head for the inscription.

    As to the exact shape of the cross of Christ, we need not be too concerned.  All such arguments fade into insignificance when compared to the real meaning of the cross--not the piece of wood--but the eternal redemption accomplished by the death of Christ on the cross.

In this world it really does not matter what your personal religious beliefs are, but what is happening in the world today has everything to do with Sun(Baal) Worship.  It does not matter if you believe in Sun(Baal) Worship or not, if the people who believe in Roman Catholicism(Sun(Baal) Worship) are in government this will most assuredly affect you.