Jesus by the sea of Galilee, has given a Christian turn to a pagan usage. The Good Shepherd may have evolved from the pagan figure of a shepherd, in rustic costume, bearing a sheep; and this again may have evolved from the Hermes Kriophoros, who, naked except for a cloak at his back, carries a ram across his shoulders.* Perhaps solar mythology, that fruitful mother of so many religious fancies, may have produced the legend of the crown of thorns, for the crown may represent the circle of rays round the head of the sungod. Much obscurity still rests on the subject of the Cross, or Tree, on which the divine man died. The cross is one of the first signs a child learns to draw; it is a world-wide symbol; it has borne many significations; and it has assumed a great variety of forms, many of which were preChristian. The cross figures on domestic pottery dug up by antiquarians in the plains of Italy, and belonging to a period which ante-dated the rise of Rome. The fire-god Agni, to whom the Vedas sing, was a child which sprang from the friction of two crossed sticks. In the temples of Mexico the conquering Spaniards viewed with astonishment crosses which the natives held sacred, and which appear to have represented the directions of the four winds. Other crosses betokened the sun giving out rays towards the four points of the compass. Solar crosses meet us in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, in old Indian coins, among the ruins of Troy, as a sceptre in the hand of Apollo, in Mithraic sculptures, on ancient coins in Gaul. The "Tau," or T-shaped cross, occurs in Palestine, Gaul, Germany, the Catacombs, and America. The prophet Ezekiel (ix. 4) saw God's messenger go through Jerusalem and make the sign of the Tau on the foreheads of the Just. Egypt invented the "Crux Ansata "-i.e., the handled cross, a T-shape surmounted by a circle or oval. Many conjectures as to its meaning have been essayed, such as, the Key of the

* Northcote and Brownlow's "Roma Sotteranea," part ii., appendix, note C. Farrar's "Life of Christ as Represented in Art' gives pictures of the "Good Shepherd" from the Catacombs, but, without warrant, describes these and other pagan designs as Christian.

+ Ansault, in his “Culte de la Croix avant Jésus-Christ,” says that

number of illustrations.

G. de Mortillet's "Le Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme."

In

Nile, a phallus combined with a female emblem, etc. any case, the device served as a hieroglyph of Life. The use of the Key of Life spread through Phoenicia, Sardinia, the North African coast, Cyprus, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Early Buddhist carvings show similar crosses, capped by triangles instead of ovals.* Plato threw out a fancy that God had impressed the soul-mark on the world in the form of a X (Chi). The Chrism, popularly known as the Monogram of Christ, existed before the birth of Christianity. This pattern may be described as a wheel with six spokes, to the head of the upper middle spoke being attached a loop; or in Greek letters, the monogram is a P (Greek Rho-R), with a X (Greek Chi-Ch) lying across the stem of the Rho. Christian artists employed this emblem as if it denoted Chr, the first letters of "Christ." In the beginning this figure may have stood for a solar wheel. It was looked upon by the Gauls as an important amulet. It has also been suggested that the monogram may have been the mark written in the margin of manuscripts by readers who desired to express their opinion of any passage as Chrestos good.‡ The Tree, which is three times named in the book of Acts in place of the "cross of Jesus, served in the ancient religions as the centre of many a divine tragedy. For example, in the spring season, when the shepherds and peasants of Phrygia symbolised the death and resurrection of nature, they cut down a fir-tree, sacred to Attis, clothed it with violets, dragged it to the temple of Cybele, the Great Earth-goddess, and, with shouts and sobs, pretended to seek the lost god among the hills and woods, and then, with joy, to find him again.§ Nor should we omit the astronomical feature in the myth of the cross, which supplied a very natural emblem for the passing of the sun over the equator at Easter-tide.

The darkness which cast a gloom over the earth when Jesus died would not seem incredible to an age that believed in darkness accompanying the murder of Julius

* Goblet's "Migration of Symbols," chapters i. to y.

+ Ibid, chapter v.

J. B. Mitchell's "Chrestos."

§ For the worship of the Tree spirit, see vol. i. of this “History," section 18.

་

Cæsar and the death of Augustus.* The death and resur-
rection of the divine Saviour were commonplaces in the
religious faith of the ancient world before the Christian
system appeared. Osiris, Attis, Adonis, Mithra-these sun-
gods suffered the pangs of death, and rose again; and their
worshippers were wont to show, in solemn miracle-play,
how the god lay in his tomb, and how he emerged. The
myth of the descent into hell easily followed on the legends
of Osiris, god and judge of the under-world; Herakles,
who fetched the three-headed Cerberus from the region of
the shades; Persephone, the seed-maiden, whom Pluto
kept as his prisoner and bride in his sombre kingdom; and
Orpheus, the master of music. Orphic legends and mysteries
came to Greece through Thrace and the East, and con-
nected themselves with the worship of Dionysus or Saba-
zius. These mysteries had much to reveal to eager crowds
concerning the future world. In picture and dramatic
scene they were shown the divine Orpheus descending to
Hades, and there, with his spell-working lyre, reducing to
tameness the wild beasts of the under-world.
The repre-
sentation of Orpheus thus engaged often occurs in the
paintings of the Catacombs. For the Ascension, also,
Pagan mythology could offer precedents. The Sun-god
Herakles raised a funeral-pile for himself on Mount Eta;
but, while the flames raged, a cloud descended from heaven,
and then, amid peals of thunder, bore the hero to the
sublime peak of Olympus, where he lived immortal.
Dionysus penetrated the dusky recesses of Hades, brought
thence the shade of his mother Semele, and mother and
son rose together to Olympus. Esculapius, as an infant,
narrowly escaped death; when a boy, he shone transfigured
with an unearthly lustre ; as a man, he healed the sick and
raised the dead; and, after being killed by lightning, he
was allotted by Zeus a place among the stars.

A note in this place may be given in explanation of the

*Strauss's "New Life," section 94.

Mr. J. M. Robertson makes the very fertile suggestion that the gospel stories of the disciples looking into the sepulchre for the body of Jesus simply followed the pagan dramatic rituals in which the popular mind took delight.

Article by Percy Gardner in the Contemporary Review, March, 1895.

letters IHS, which often figure on altar-covers, and are commonly supposed to stand, in Latin, for Jesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus, Saviour of Men). The letters, however, are Greek, and originally appeared as 'YHZ, or, in English, HUES, the E being sounded long. This name, Hues, which signified "moist or watery," was a title of the sungod and vine-god Dionysus.

66

The history of religion contains no more difficult problem than the collection, from doubtful materials, of the probabilities as to the date, character, and career of Jesus. So difficult, indeed, that, in support of the thesis that no such person, human or non-human, existed at the time usually assigned to him in the first century, extreme critics can advance arguments which tax our ingenuity to answer. On the other hand, the great religious movement at the opening of the Christian era requires a starting-point, a stimulus, a preacher, a leader. Paul, and the Christian Church, and the New Testament writings direct us, confusedly enough, but still with a certain emphasis and conviction, back to a strong personality. The reader will perhaps allow that, in the view of the character and teachings of Jesus just given, there are no improbable elements; for it is a very common thing in history to meet with earnest religious reformers who win loyalty, devotion, and an admiration which almost rises to worship. And this is all that is here claimed in the case of Jesus. The intellectual conditions of the age rendered the growth of legend about his memory both inevitable and luxuriant; and the process would be so much the more easy if, as seems reasonable to conclude, Jesus was known to only a small circle, and his missionary labour was untimely cut short.

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10. The Earliest Christians." After I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee." So, according to "Mark," Jesus had spoken to his disciples. And " Matthew," after showing us eleven disciples gathered at a mountain in Galilee where they saw Jesus, and some doubted," closes his gospel. We can readily imagine that, on the execution of the poor Preaching Friar, whom they had hailed as Son of God, the little group that remained faithful to his memory would hurry to the rustic quietude of their native

Galilee. There the doubters would remain, glad enough, after their brief adventure in Jerusalem, to return to their fishing or tax-farming. Those who dreamed of, and then hoped for, and then declared their belief in, the release of Jesus from the grave found their way back to Jerusalem, eager to meet with others who, like themselves, were convinced that a New Age had broken. Unfortunately, our only guide to the doings of the earliest Christians-the Book of the Acts of the Apostles-lies under the most fatal suspicion on account of its conflict with the witness of Paul. But, even in the case of Paul, while the writer fits his incidents into a special theory of the unity of the Christian Church (which we shall examine later), we may admit that he has preserved a certain rude outline of the great propagandist's life and labour. It is possible that, in the remaining chapters of the "Acts," he has sketched a series of events which bear a rough and distant resemblance to fact.

The humble Zealots, who believed that the New Kingdom had been founded by Jesus, held their conventicles in upper rooms. There they prayed together, and expressed the surging enthusiasm of faith and hope in wild cries, or "tongues," such as Paul afterwards gravely endeavoured to restrain among the labourers and slaves who formed the Corinthian Church. By degrees the New People ventured to press their gospel more openly upon the citizens, attracting groups of listeners by their rapt descriptions of a Day of Judgment, their call to repentance and to the purifying plunge of baptism, their exposition of the simple Essenian ethics of Jesus. Their appeals were liberally garnished with quotations from the Torah, the Psalms, and the Prophets. Jesus, they insisted, had come to fulfil the Law, to place the headstone on the building of God's revelation. Still few in numbers, the Jerusalem Saints found no difficulty, at least for a time, in joining their spare property in a common fund. Having eaten the fraternal meal, they would sally out to the Temple, and pray together in Solomon's porch. Some of the bolder spirits essayed to cast out devils and heal the sick. Even priests enrolled themselves in the new sect. But trouble arose both within and without the society. The communism of the table and the purse led to jealousy and quarrel. The Sanhedrim took police