The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion by John Denham Parsons
page 73 of 159 (45%)
page 73 of 159 (45%)
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any writing of purely Jewish origin, has not only been amply proved by
recent discoveries, but might indeed have been guessed from its reference to the Tower of Babel or Babylon. Nor is this all, for among the age-old relics discovered in Western Asia is a pictorial representation of the allegorical Temptation and Fall. Upon this noteworthy piece of evidence the Tree of Knowledge or Life, with which the figure of the cross was identified by the early Christians; the Serpent, which in all countries and every age has been more or less identified with the sexual powers; the Man; the Woman; and the Apple; are all represented. And it is important to note that, according to the cuneiform inscription upon another time-worn relic in the British Museum, the Babylonians of old, at a time when the descendants of Jacob or Israel were without scriptures of their own, had a tradition to the effect that the fate of our first parents--who, thanks to a wicked Serpent of Darkness, tasted of the forbidden fruit which grew in the "Garden of the Gods"--was placed in the hands of "their Redeemer." It should also be pointed out that this voice from the dim and distant past distinctly states that the Redeemer in question was--the Sun-God. In ancient days the so-called forbidden fruit or apple seems to have borne somewhat the same symbolic meaning that the egg did. But while the apple not only represented Life, but also, and primarily, that union between two sexes or principles which produces life, the egg more or less lacked the latter meaning, and, on the other hand, signified Existence in a wider sense than the apple did. |
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