Freethought Nation

Pre-Christian Gods on Crosses or in Cruciform

Although Christianity claims the cross only took significance with Jesus's placement on it, the fact is that the god-on-the-cross or in cross-shape is a pre-Christian sacred motif. Numerous ancient figures in many parts of the world were depicted on a cross or in cross-shape/cruciform, with arms outstretched. Moreover, crosses as divine beings or gods continue to be prevalent in Mayan areas, a custom that predates Christianity by centuries to millennia.

The cruciform or cross-shape motif is frequently a solar symbol, used in many places globally for thousands of years. Divine crosses conveying protection have been placed, logically enough, in cross-roads, while Egyptian goddesses in cruciform at the corners of coffins likewise conveyed protection and salvation.

The Maya perceived their crosses as the World Tree, as well as the Milky Way. Cross symbols have also been used to denote Venus, as in Mesoamerica.

The most common concept is the sun as the ruler of the four directions. At times it also represents the sun and the solstices and equinoxes. Overall, it's a solar symbol for the most part. Hence, sun gods were placed on it or in cross-shape/cruciform.

Hence, when we say that a god has been "placed on a cross," we are referring not to a person being thrown to the ground and nailed onto a wooden cross but to one of these cruciform artifacts with multiple meanings.

Here's a neat image from Babylon from The Venus of Milo by Paul Carus:



There are many such images on my "Was Horus Crucified?" article:


Human in cruciform with cross around neck from Cyprus, Chalcolithic period (3900-2500 BCE)


Andromeda crucified using chains in a wall painting from Pompeii, c. 79 AD/CE


Winged goddess (Isis) in cruciform on King Tut's sarcophagus.


Horus with arms outstretched in vault of heaven, from Samuel Sharpe's Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum (143). This image was originally on a papyrus and is here and in Christ in Egypt depicted upside down for purposes of more readily illustrating the point.


Osiris as personified djed pillar holding the sun, surrounded by the two sisters Isis and Nephthys - called the Merti - found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ani Papyrus, plate 1, c. 13th-15th cents. BCE.


Christ on the cross, surrounded by the three Marys, per John 19:25

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Tayau - Huichol sun god


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cora_people

_________________

Does the mythological Ixion count?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixion



~Michael~

Prometheus.



Museum Collection: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Catalogue Number: Berlin 1969.9
Beazley Archive Number: N/A
Ware: Apulian Red Figure
Shape: --
Painter: Attr. to the the Suessula Painter
Date: ca 350 BC.
Period: Late Classical

Prometheus being released by Herakles

~Michael~

Here are some more images that I included in my book Suns of God.


Egyptian god Anubis (Lundy)


Minoan "lord of the wild beasts" (Kerenyi) Notice how this figure, like others, is depicted between two others, like the gospel motif of the "two thieves"


"Lady Bird," 4th millennium BCE (Gadon)


"Cypriot Crucifix" (Lundy)


Nubian god in cruciform (O'Brien)


Quetzalcoatl on the cross (Kingsborough)

Here is a 4,000-year-old "bird woman" in a crosslike pose:



Nepalese/Buddhist god in cruciform - according to Christian missionaries, cruciform figures are or were common in Nepalese crossroads:



Another crucified savior is the Aztec god Yiacatechutli, "Lord of the Vanguard":



For more information on the mythical motif of the god on a cross, see Suns of God.

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Here's the "Krishna crucified" image from my "Was Krishna Crucified?" article, which is excerpted from my book Suns of God.



Note that this image not is meant to convey that in the myths Krishna was killed by crucifixion, as in the gospel story. It is apparently one of many such cruciform objects discovered in Asia, including Nepal, Tibet and apparently India.

The image below was also purportedly discovered in India, labeled by one Hindu priest an image of Wittoba, an epithet of Krishna. This "crucifixion in space" is Platonic, not originating with Christianity.



See Rev. Dr. J.P. Lundy's discussion of this "crucifixion in space" image.

Below is a Maya World-Tree cross. When the Spanish arrived in the Yucatan, they found crosses all over the place, including on sacred monuments and graves. These crosses are unquestionably pre-Christian.



Many of the Mesoamerican traditions that were so similar to Christianity must have been in existence long prior to the European invasion. Quetzalcoatl is a solar deity or sun god in significant part, so the motif of him on the cross is likely the same as it was elsewhere: To wit, representing various natural phenomena such as the sun at the equinoxes and so on.

Regarding the Druidic images, I don't know the history of these particular artifacts, so I can't say their age, but I would suspect that they date to several centuries into the common era, so an argument could be made for them having been influenced by Christianity.

What is "pre-Christian?"

Indeed, it is always wise to remember that even though something occurred after the purported or real founding of Christianity does not mean that it has necessarily been influenced by that ideology. Contrary to popular delusion, Christianity did not suddenly spring upon the world and start influencing life everywhere. It was adopted very slowly in many places - and only with great force that utterly destroyed the native culture.

In fact, Christianity was resisted mightily for centuries in many parts of the world. The country of Lithuania was only Christianized in the 14th century - it remained Pagan through great effort until that time. Hence, up to that point Lithuania was pre-Christian.

Thus, even many centuries after Christianity was created there were still places that were pre-Christian. In reality, there remain places in the world where Jesus Christ has never been heard of. These locations continue to be pre-Christian, despite the passing of nearly 2,000 years.

For example, the "Orpheus Bakkikos" crucifix:



This image of Orpheus is evidently "post-Christian" in that it is claimed to date to the third century AD/CE, but we must keep in mind what I said about the illusion of pre- and post-Christian designations. I have read that this artifact was destroyed during one of the World Wars and that it was a forgery in any event. Without doing more research on this particular artifact, I can't say if those contentions are true.

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses in Cruciform

There are many cool images of the Egyptian wind god Shu in cruciform, who represents the air between the earth and sky, among other things. In Christ in Egypt, I go into some detail comparing Shu with Ye-SHU-a, aka Jesus.


Caption from p. 114 of Dr. Erik Hornung's The Ancient Egypt Books of the Afterlife: "64. Book of Nut (Cenotaph of Sethos I). After O. Neugebauer and R.A. Parker, *Egyptian Astronomical Texts*, vol. I (Providence, 1960), p. 40. fig. 21"

From the same book is an image with crosslike properties involving the sun:



Below is another image of Shu holding not only the sky but also many ankhs or sacred crosses.



The goddess Nut is often depicted with wings in cruciform, as are Isis and other goddesses in Egypt.



Isis and Horus in cruciform on the round zodiac at Dendera.




Ankh with arms holding sun, transposed with Christian image.

With all the gods and goddesses in cross shape, going back thousands of years, it is obvious why the mythical motif was adopted into Christianity, which could scarcely have appealed to the masses without it.

Indeed, the ancient Egyptian Christians demonstrate that fact with the following artifact. My friend Re Runninghorse recently took the attached image at Karnak, evidently at the temple of Amun-Re. He says an Egyptian police guard snuck him over to this artifact and told him it was "Horus on the cross." I suspect this is the same image I saw in a video made several years ago that identified it as a Christian reworking of a god in cruciform, possibly the lunar god Khonsu, as part of a triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu, which later became Osiris, Isis and Horus. Obviously, that familial trinity was usurped by God/Joseph, Mary and Jesus. Horus and Khonsu were confounded, and Khonsu or Khons evidently lent his name to Pascha or Easter, as in Pa-Khonsu.

What this image demonstrates is that the imagery of the the Trinity was patently obvious to the Egyptian Christians and that they identified the child god Horus-Khonsu with Jesus. Apparently they destroyed the other two figures on either side in order to turn this ancient Egyptian god into a worshippable figure on a cross.

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Thanks. Is it likely that Roman crucifixion evolved out of human sacrifice on a cruciform?

It seems that way doesn't it. The cruciform predates the Roman empire so you'd think that they simply incorporated it into their capital punishment practices.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Pre-date? What date do you set for the christian appearance of the symbol?

I am not sure if written translation adaptation starts with KJV.but here is a part from the Textus Receptus (latin, "Received Text") Greek text compiled by Erasmus around 1516, and manuscript KJV is translated from.

John 19:16

Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.

τότε οὖν παρέδωκεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς ἵνα σταυρωθῇ Παρέλαβον δὲ τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἀπήγαγον


σταυρωθῇ - Transliteration = staurōthē

Stauros being a pole or stake if you will, originally. Strangely and with no comparison the Norse word for pole or stake is staurr, and have same definition today.


In regards to pre-dating it is therefore somewhat confusing to what symbols or texts are compared to. We can see here that the Bible get God on cross about 1600 AD, but I am not sure about symbols. Constantin did not start with that symbol, but instead used this:

http://artsymbol.files.wordpress.com/20 ... mon-bw.jpg

For further information about that symbol and its connection to astronomy, solar worshiping and the anima mundi you can go to Plato`s - Timaeus

_________________
Eyvitar firna - er maðr annan skal, þess er um margan gengr guma; heimska ór horskum - gerir hölða sonu - sá inn máttki munr.

Never place blame on man, because it happens to all. No matter how wise, a fool he becomes, when love steals his powers.

Hávamál

The ancient sun disk of Alaca Höyük

This image is technically not a cruciform or obvious depiction of a god on a cross. However, it does represent a very astonishing early depiction of several important mythical and astrotheological motifs.



This object comes from the Hittite site of Alaca Höyük or Alacahöyük in Turkey, which dates to around 3,400 years ago. The Hittites were Indo-Europeans, the same as their neighbors of the time the Mitanni, who worshipped Indian gods. It is possible that this disk represents a sort of "trimurti" - Indian for "three forms" or "three faces" - referring to the divine Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. This triad might be represented by the three solar symbols with the crosses in the center, representing the sun, of course. As I demonstrate in Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled, this Indian trinity very much constitute solar deities or sun gods, so this imagery would be quite appropriate.

The Indian trimurti represent the Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer, which would be a logical trinity for other cultures as well, especially those that engaged in solar symbolism, mythology and religion, as these characteristics are likewise phases or qualities of the sun and the divinity behind it.

The rays or sprouts around the edges of the disk appear to have been originally 12 in number, which is only surprising in that such a development would demonstrate a pleasantly early instance of a symbolic depiction of "the Twelve" motif, which generally represents the months, hours of day and night, or signs of the zodiac. It seems that one of the rays on the bottom right has broken off.

In any event, what we have here is a fascinating artifact of significant antiquity that evidently presents important solar and astrotheological imagery.

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Here's another nifty image of a deity in cruciform: The Mesopotamian winged sun god Shamash.



"Mesopotamian Sun God Shamash; Assyrian Relief, North-West Palace of Nimrud (room B, panel 23); 865–860 BC."

The two hands is an interesting motif as well, as it reminds me of the theme of the two "thieves," present not only in the Christ myth but also in that of Mithra. I address this particular theme in detail in Suns of God and Christ in Egypt.

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

And this fellow is also not in cruciform, but it's nonetheless an interesting astrotheological image.

Here we find the god Aion, the "god of eternity," inside what looks like a mobius strip - the "celestial sphere" - surrounded by the 12 signs of the zodiac.



This image is from a "floor mosaic from a Roman villa in Sentinum (today Sassoferrato in Umbria), ca. 200–250 CE."

_________________
Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Thanks for all the answers. Acharya, I think you posted this on facebook.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... holar.html

I think they are conflating the Gnostic Christ with Yeishu Ha Notzri from the tosefta.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=YLT

Acts 10:38-40 (Young's Literal Translation)
38Jesus who [is] from Nazareth -- how God did anoint him with the Holy Spirit and power; who went through, doing good, and healing all those oppressed by the devil, because God was with him;
39and we -- we are witnesses of all things that he did, both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem, -- whom they did slay, having hanged upon a tree.
40`This one God did raise up the third day, and gave him to become manifest,

Could a book length treatment be done for this topic?

Other topics that would make for book length treatment could be the following:

1.Dying and Rising gods

2.Baptism across ancient cultures

3.Mother and Child motif

4.Godmen and disciples

etc..