I just finished a book that suggests that the Egyptian Ankh was the original source of the Christian cross. Does anyone know if that is that true? I have previously read that the symbol has multiple meanings. One being "life," one being the Sun's (not the Son's ) path, and another being the merging of the male (phallic) and the female (womb). I know that there was an Ankh (or Coptic Cross) used in early Christianity.

Anybody around here an Ankhiologist?

It's true that the cross did not originate with Christianity. In fact, the Christian scriptures don't actually say that Jesus died on a cross. The word(s) translated as cross are more accurately translated as stake, wood or tree.

It's certainly not popular with many Christian historians and theologians, but I believe the idea proposed by some, that the early church adopted the cross as the symbol of Jesus death for the same reason they adopted Dec 25 as his birthday: a way to incorporate pagans into the church without asking them to give up too many of their symbols.

That is not a condemnation, however. Unlike many Christians (JW's for example), I see no need to "remove paganism" from Christianity, nor do I think it desirable to do so. The symbols adopted by Christianity are universal or perennial and archetypal. I just wish more Christians knew this and that they were not afraid of it.

The ankh is a symbol of everlasting life. Christianity views the cross as a way to everlasting life. The cross is a representation of a tree. The Tree of Life in Genesis is a way to everlasting life. The ToL is probably a representation of the axis mundi, a mythological symbol for connecting heaven and earth.

The correlations are too numerous to be ignored, imo.


"From its simplicity of form, the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man's civilization.

Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples, while numerous instances, dating from the later Stone Age to Christian times, have been found in nearly every part of Europe.

The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times, and among non-Christian peoples, may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship."

(The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1910, volume 7, page 506)

Wasn't one of the lines in the gospel about Jesus hanging from a "tree". It also makes some sense of the incident where Jesus condemns the tree that isn't bearing fruit somewhat near the crucifixation. It is unlike the Romans used fruit bearing trees for this activity.
Otherwise, the incidence makes no sense, because it wasn't even in season.

I am also not afraid of the pagan symbolism-- there is Jewish symbolism, which makes sense, but to appeal to non-Jews there would have needed to be pagan symbolism.


--des

The cross used by the early Gnostic Christians was a little different from the Ankh. The Crux Ansata has a circle purched on a T. The Ankh cross is an oval purched on a T. The Ankh is Egyptian and the Crux Ansata is Gnostic. It appears on the pages of the rediscovered gospel of Judas. The circle represents the circle of everlasting life with the T being two Is. One is horizontal to represent creation and the other is verticle to show Me supporting creation forever. It has nothing whatever to do with the traditional cross. The traditional cross signifies the death and resurrection of Christ. The Crux Ansata is the symbol of everlasting life. It tells us that nobody dies. The physical body that eventually turns to dust is not what we really are. What man is, can be compared to a rainbow. All we see are are the colours from infra red to ultaviolet. The rainbow is made up of much more than that. It has radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays and a host of other wavelengths that we cannot see. Man is made the same way. Our body is not the real us. The real us consists of a body, a spirit, a soul and a personality. After the body is gone, the spirit, soul and personality live on in thought form.

To say that Jesus is the first to conquer death on the cross is a worthless statement. We already have everlasting life. We always have and we always will have. This is the meaning of the symbolism of the Crux Ansata.

BobD - Gnostic enthusiast.