world, and nothing but the world.

Such is, of course, the popular assumption; based upon what we are
taught in school books and in standard works of reference. But, as a
matter of fact, in many cases the round object admittedly signified an
apple; the Golden Apple of the Hesperides: a well known phallic symbol.
Whenever a round object unsurmounted by anything is to be seen in the
hand of either the Sun-God Hercules or Venus the Goddess of Love, it
admittedly may have been, for it admittedly often was, a
representation, not of the world, but of the Golden Apple. And not only
does it so occur upon a very large number of coins, but in some
instances we see the Victory surmounting it; recalling to our minds the
fact that victory, as signifying the triumph of Life over Death, had a
phallic as well as a martial meaning, and is achieved every time that a
man is born into the world as a result of the tasting of the fruit of
the Tree of Life or of the knowledge of good and evil.

Moreover, though the fact is now for some reason or other ignored, the
so-called Coronation Orb of Christian Monarchs was itself once known as
the Golden Apple. It is so referred to in important Latin documents of
the Middle Ages; for instance in the famous Bull of Charles IV.
regarding the Imperial elections, wherein we read of the right of the
Counts Palatine of the Rhine to carry the symbol in question at the
coronation of their Emperor. And to this very day the so-called
Coronation Orb is known throughout Germany and Austria as
_Reichsapfel_, the Imperial Apple.

It is therefore by no means certain that the round portion of the
Coronation Orb which thus caused the name of "the Golden Apple" to be
given to this compound Christian symbol, is not, like the cross above