PREFACE. ING to an educated woman of the ancient meanremarkable origin of the cross, she inquired, the cross of Christ ?" Her unconsciousness that ny other relation than that pertaining to the on of Jesus illustrates a prevailing lack of hisnowledge in most people throughout ChristenThe hope to bring within the reach of the man of letters a chapter of mythological lore as heretofore been confined to the few is one for offering these pages to the public. is no truth but is productive of good. The s of knowledge are impatient of rest and mental Science and historical criticism are opening elds long hid in myth and conjecture. hoped the line of discussion here adopted will some portions of Bible literature which have stood in the attitude of offensive enigma to cultought. Improved taste of modern time must the crudities of former days, and ask the reason Natural forces give direction to usage, and type 8. The same agencies modify and polish them. llowed powers of one era become detritus of a ne; and in still later eons of time those decayed reappear as relics, and show, to our surprise, how PREFACE. held to be original in our age is really the nheritance of a bygone ancestry. They -ly religious ideas were cast in a mold deIdlike apprehension, in conformity with e, and roundly pronounced, with the child's =ss of expression. ligious literature is conspicuous for the Gods held in veneration. We find in but three, or, at most, four. Explanation ty" and the natural origin of those four , all-absorbing Gods are here elucidated and well-nigh scientific bases. As all science trations addressed to the eye, as well as ar mental perception, so, in the treatment of tific theme, over twenty-five illustrations I to aid the text. and Yonijic remains found in California, ages, for the first time, so far as known to troduced to public attention as ancient s belonging to the prehistoric stone age. have perused Inman's "Ancient Faiths," nacalypsis" and his "Celtic Druids," 's "Worship of Priapus," Layard's "Nineof Dr. G. L. Ditson and others relating to ts, know the authentic sources of much of n here briefly uttered. SHA ROCCO. AN FAR past, t A horiz indicate a cross, certain was the on the ot bol of lif decay and cross. The cr in India another re in holding nized from E MASCULINE CROSS AND IENT SEX WORSHIP. I. ORIGIN OF THE CROSS. ck in the twilight of the pictured history of the cross is found on the borders of the river Nile. atal piece of wood fastened to an upright beam the hight of the water in flood. This formed he Nileometer. If the stream failed to rise a ght in its proper season, no crops and no bread esult. From famine on the one hand to plenty her, the cross came to be worshiped as a syme and regeneration, or feared as an image of I death. This is one, so called, origin of the eason. Oss was a symbol of life and regeneration long before this usage on the Nile, and for The most learned antiquarians agree it unquestionable that Egypt was colom India, and crosses migrated with the in"Proofs in adequate confirmation of this point g |
