and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate
the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man
affixed to it."[9]

This remarkable denunciation of the Cross as a Pagan symbol by a
Christian Father who lived as late as the third century after Christ,
is worthy of special attention; and can scarcely be said to bear out
the orthodox account of the origin of the cross as a Christian symbol.
It is at any rate clear that the cross was not our recognised symbol at
that date; and that it is more likely to have been gradually adopted by
us from Sun-God worshippers, than by the worshippers of Mithras and
other pre-Christian conceptions of the Sun-God from us.

As our era was six or seven centuries old before the crucifix was
introduced, and the earliest pictorial representation of the execution
of Jesus still existing or referred to in any work as having existed
was of even later date, much stress has been laid by us upon what we
allege to be a caricature of the crucifixion of Jesus and of much
earlier date. The drawing in question was discovered in 1856 to be
scrawled upon a wall of the Gelotian House under the Palatine at Rome;
and as no Christian representations of the alleged execution upon a
cross-shaped instrument of even a reasonably early date exist, it would
of course be greatly to our interest to be able to quote this alleged
caricature, which is said to be as old as the third and perhaps even as
old as the second century, as independent evidence of the truth of our
story. But can we fairly do so?

The drawing in question is a very roughly executed representation of a
figure with human arms, legs, and feet; but with an animal's head. The
arms are extended, and two lines, which are said to represent a cross