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| The Charge of Worshipping a Cross. The Heathens Themselves Made Much of Crosses in Sacred Things; Nay, Their Very Idols Were Formed on a Crucial Frame.
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Chapter XII.654
| 654 Comp. The
Apology, c. xvi. | —The Charge of Worshipping a Cross. The
Heathens Themselves Made Much of Crosses in Sacred Things; Nay, Their
Very Idols Were Formed on a Crucial Frame.
As for him who affirms that we are “the
priesthood of a
cross,”655
we shall claim
him656
as our co-religionist.657
A cross is, in its material, a sign of wood; amongst yourselves also
the object of worship is a wooden figure. Only, whilst with you the
figure is a human one, with us the wood is its own figure. Never
mind658
for the present what is the shape, provided
the material is the same: the form, too, is of no importance,659
if so be it be the actual body of a
god. If, however, there arises a question of difference on this
point what, (let me ask,) is the difference between the Athenian
Pallas, or the Pharian Ceres, and wood formed into a cross,660
when each is represented by a rough stock,
without form, and by the merest rudiment of a statue661
| 661 Solo staticulo. The use
of wood in the construction of an idol is mentioned afterward. |
of unformed wood? Every piece of timber662
which
is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and
indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is
attributed to us, with its transverse beam,663
| 663 Antemna. See our
Anti-Marcion, p. 156. Ed. Edinburgh. | of
course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the less to excuse you,
for you dedicate to religion only a mutilated imperfect piece of wood,
while others consecrate to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The
truth, however, after all is, that your religion is all cross,
as I shall show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin
have proceeded from this hated cross.664
Now, every
image, whether carved out of wood or stone, or molten in metal, or
produced out of any other richer material, must needs have had plastic
hands engaged in its formation. Well, then, this modeller,665
before he did anything else,666
hit upon the form of a wooden cross, because
even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and
concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards, and the
back takes a straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally,
if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched, you
will make the general outline of a cross. Starting, then, from this
rudimental form and prop,667
as it were, he
applies a covering of clay, and so gradually completes the limbs, and
forms the body, and covers the cross within with the shape which he
meant to impress upon the clay; then from this design, with the help of
compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready for his image which
is to be brought out into marble, or clay, or whatever the material be
of which he has determined to make his god. (This, then, is the
process:) after the cross-shaped frame, the clay; after the clay, the
god. In a well-understood routine, the cross passes into a god
through the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it
the consecrated (deity) begins to derive his origin.668
| 668 Comp. The
Apology, c. xii.: “Every image of a god has been first
constructed on a cross and stake, and plastered with cement. The body
of your god is first dedicated upon a gibbet.” |
By way of example, let us take the case of a tree which grows up into a
system of branches and foliage, and is a reproduction of its own kind,
whether it springs from the kernel of an olive, or the stone of a
peach, or a grain of pepper which has been duly tempered under ground.
Now, if you transplant it, or take a cutting off its branches for
another plant, to what will you attribute what is produced by the
propagation? Will it not be to the grain, or the stone, or the
kernel? Because, as the third stage is attributable to the second, and
the second in like manner to the first, so the third will have to be
referred to the first, through the second as the mean. We need not stay
any longer in the discussion of this point, since by a natural law
every kind of produce throughout nature refers back its growth to its
original source; and just as the product is comprised in its primal
cause, so does that cause agree in character with the thing produced.
Since, then, in the production of your gods, you worship the cross
which originates them, here will be the original kernel and grain, from
which are propagated the wooden materials of your idolatrous images.
Examples are not far to seek. Your victories you celebrate with
religious ceremony669
as deities; and they
are the more august in proportion to the joy they bring you. The frames
on which you hang up your trophies must be crosses: these are, as it
were, the very core of your pageants.670
| 670 Tropæum, for
“tropæorum.” We have given the sense rather than the
words of this awkward sentence. | Thus, in your
victories, the religion of your camp makes even crosses objects of
worship; your standards it adores, your standards are the sanction of
its oaths; your standards it prefers before Jupiter himself. But all
that parade671
of images, and that
display of pure gold, are (as so many) necklaces of the crosses. In
like manner also, in the banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard
with no less sacred care, you have the streamers (and) vestments of
your crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and
simple crosses.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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