forehead in the non-Mosaic and originally Pagan initiatory rite of
Baptism, and at other times also according to some of the Fathers,
apparently as a charm against the machinations of evil spirits.

This "sign" or "signal" rather than "symbol" of the cross, referred to
as theirs by the Christian writers of the second and third centuries,
is said to have had a place before our era in the rites of those who
worshipped Mithras, if not also of those who worshipped certain other
conceptions of the Sun-God; and it should be noted that the Fathers
insist upon it that a similar mark is what the prophet Ezekiel referred
to as that to be placed upon the foreheads of certain men as a sign of
life and salvation; the original Hebrew reading "Set a _tau_ upon the
foreheads of the men" (_Ezek_. ix. 4), and the tau having been in the
days of the prophet in question--as we know from relics of the
past--the figure of a cross. Nor should it be forgotten that Tertullian
admits that those admitted into the rites of the Sun-God Mithras were
so marked, trying to explain this away by stating that this was done in
imitation of the then despised Christians![8]

That it was this immaterial sign or signal, rather than any material
symbol of the cross, which Minucius Felix considered Christian, is
demonstrated by the fact that the passage already quoted is accompanied
by the remark that


"Crosses, moreover, we Christians neither venerate nor
wish for. You indeed who consecrate gods of wood
venerate wooden crosses, perhaps as parts of your gods.
For your very standards, as well as your banners, and
flags of your camps, what are they but crosses gilded