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You will probably find this next piece of information amazing. The holy Father Minucius Felix, in his Octavius, written as late as 211 A.D., indignantly resents the supposition that the sign of the cross should be considered exclusively as a Christian symbol, and represents his advocate of the Christian government as retorting on an infidel opponent. His words are: "As for the adoration of crosses which you (Pagans) object against us (Christians), I must tell you, that we neither adore crosses nor desire them; you it is, ye Pagans…..who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses…for what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards , but crosses gilt and beautiful. Your (speaking of the Pagans) victorious trophies not only represent a simple cross, but a cross with a man upon it" (Octavius, c. xxix).
In this Christian's defense of his faith and theological doctrines he admits that the Pagans also have crucified saviors on crosses. When I first ran across such admissions by early Church fathers I was puzzled and disturbed to my very core. I had to find out why Pagans had the same religious belief system that my Christian forefathers did.
Answer for yourself: How could Christianity be the truth for the world when the world already had the Christian crucified Savior? Where did the Pagans get the same ideas which were held sacred by Gentile Christians let alone get them hundreds and thousands of years before the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth?
I was to discover through many tears that my whole Christian religious belief system could be traced to Sun Worship and it's many variegated forms. The next years of my study were both insightful but the hardest years of my life. The results of my inquiries yielded tons of insurmountable proofs and facts to substantiate the plagiarism of Sun Worship by the Gentile Christian Church. To make matters worse it would be these Gentile Christians which would craft the document called the New Testament which is filled with Sun Worship as masqueraded through the events of the life of Yeshua. These "sun myths" literally became personified in the personage of Jesus of Nazareth. Later such "sun myths," because they were connected with the life of Yeshua, became religious "dogmas" and "doctrines." We now look more deeply into such myths as seen in the veneration of crosses by the Christian Church over the ages.
The above declaration in the writings of Father M. Felix is a miracle. It is a miracle that it was not destroyed by Rome in the early ages of the Christian movement. Its existence is probably owing to an oversight of the destroyers of all evidences against the Gentile Christian religion that could be had. The practice of the Romans, here alluded to, of carrying a cross with a man on it, or, in other words, a crucifix, has evidently been concealed from us by the careful destruction of such of their works as alluded to it. The priests had everything their own way for centuries, and to destroy what was evidence against their claims was a very simple matter.
It is very evident that this celebrated Christian Father alludes to some Gentile mystery, of which the prudence of his successors has deprived us. When we compare this with the fact that for centuries after the time assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus, he was not represented as a man on a cross, and that the Christians did not have such a thing as a crucifix, we are inclined to think that the effigies of a black or dark-skinned crucified man, which were to be seen in many places in Italy even during the last century, may have had something to do with it (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 110).
While speaking of a "cross with a man on it" as being carried by the Pagan Romans as a standard, we might mention the fact related by Ariian the historian, that the troops of Porus, in their war with Alexander the Great, carried on their standards the figure of a man on a cross (Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 118). Here is evidently the crucifix standard again.
Tertullian, a Christian Father of the second and third centuries, writing to the Pagans, says: "The origin of your (Pagans) god is derived from figures moulded on a cross. All those rows of images on your standards are the appendages of crosses; those hangings on your standards and banners are the robes of crosses" (Apol. C. 16; Ad Nationes, c. xii.).
We have it then, on the authority of a Christian Father, as late as 211 A.D., that the Christians "neither adored crosses nor desired them," but that the Pagans "adored crosses," and not that alone, but "a cross with a man upon it." Jesus, in those days, nor for centuries after, was NOT represented as a man on a cross. He was represented as a lamb, and the adoration of the crucifix, by the Christians, was a later addition to their religion.
Answer for yourself: Who did the crucifix represent?
If you have read these articles you now know. It was "the Savior crucified for the salvation of mankind," long before the Christian Era, whose effigies were to be seen in many places all over Italy and the world. These Pagan crucifixes were either destroyed, corrupted, or adopted; the latter was the case with many ancient paintings of the Bambino (the baby in his mother's arms named differently in almost every culture world-wide). Christians called the mother with child "Mary and baby Jesus." In Babylon it was called "Semiramis and Tammuz." You get the picture. On these paintings we often find the words "Deo Soli." Now, these two words can never apply to Christ Jesus. He was not Deus Solus, in any sense, according to the idiom of the Latin language, and the Romish faith. Whether we construe the words "the only God," or "God alone," they are equally heretical. No priest, in any age of the church, would have thought of putting them there; but finding them there, they tolerated them.
In the "Celtic Druids," Mr. Higgins describes a crucifix, a lamb, and an elephant, which was cut upon the "fire tower," so called at Brechin, a town of Forfarshire, in Scotland. Although they appeared to be of very ancient date, he supposed, at that time, that they were modern, and most likely belonged to Christianity. He would later change his mind and write: "I now date the modern date of the tower, for we have, over and over again, seen the crucified man before Christ. We have also found "The Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world,: among the Carnutes of Gaul, before the time of Christ; and when I contemplate these…I am induced to doubt my former conclusions. All these superstitions must have come from India."
On one of the Irish " round towers" is to be seen a crucifix of unmistakable Asiatic Origin (Lundy, Monumental Christianity, pp. 253, 254, 255).
Answer for yourself: As you contemplate what is being shown to you, and as God watches the uncovering of lies before your face, are you now more determined than ever to study your faith in detail and then compare it with Biblical Judaism, the faith of Yeshua of Nazareth? What is truth? Now do you think as a Christian you have it?
In the next article we will examine the same influences and how they impacted the Americas. Shalom.