Elsewhere in the Cross book by Parson the following is said. [The text below and that quoted in my prior post are from https://archive.org/stream/nonchristiancros00pars/nonchristiancros00pars_djvu.txt . That source has some minor typos due to the computerized scanning transcription process (let the reader use discernment, or read the book from the PDF source instead).]
'No ross-shaped symbol of wood or of any other material had any part in the Christianity of the second and third centuries ; and the only cross which had any part in the Christianity of those days was the immaterial one traced upon the forehead in the non-Mosaic and originally Pagan initiatory rite of Baptism, and at other times also according to some of the Fathers, apparently as a charm against the machinations of evil spirits.
This " sign " or " signal " rather than " symbol " of the cross, referred to as theirs by the Christian writers of the second and third cen- turies, is said to have had a place before our era in the rites of those who worshipped Mithras, if not also of those who worshipped certain other conceptions of the Sun-God ; and it should be noted that the Fathers insist upon it that a similar mark is what the prophet Ezekiel referred to as that to be placed upon the foreheads of certain men as a sign of life and salvation ; the original Hebrew reading " Set a tail upon the foreheads of the men " {Ezek. ix. 4), and the tau having been in the days of the prophet in question — as we know from relics of the past — the figure of a cross. Nor should it be forgotten that Tertullian admits that those admitted into the rites of the Sun-God Mithras were so marked, trying to V explain this away by stating that this was done in imitation of the then despised Christians ! ^
That it was this immaterial sign or signal, rather than any material symbol of the cross, which Minucius Felix considered Christian, is demonstrated by the fact that the passage already quoted is accompanied by the remark that
" Crosses, moreover, we Christians neither venerate nor wish for. You indeed who consecrate gods of wood venerate wooden crosses, perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners, and flags of your camps, what are they but crosses gilded and adorned ? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it.""
^ De Praescrip. xl. - Oct. xxix.
This remarkable denunciation of the Cross as a Pagan symbol by a Christian Father who lived as late as the third century after Christ, is worthy of special attention ; and can scarcely be said to bear out the orthodox account of the origin of the cross as a Christian symbol. It is at any rate clear that the cross was not our recognised symbol at that date ; and that it is more likely to have been gradually adopted by us from Sun-God worshippers, than by the worshippers of Mithras and other pre-Christian conceptions of the Sun-God from us.
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There thus being no opposing evidence of any weight, it is quite clear from the fact that as late as the third century after Christ we find a Christian Father who venerated the sign or figure of the cross denouncing it as a symbol, that no material representations of that sign or figure were recognised as Christian till an even later date. And such a conclusion is borne out by the striking fact that when Clement of Alexan- dria at the beginning of the third century made out a list of the symbols which Christians were permitted to use, he mentioned the Fish and the Dove but said nothing regarding the Cross. ^
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Peed. iii. II, 59-
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The other passage in the writings of Irenseus which deserves our notice, is neither more nor less than an emphatic declaration, by Irenaeus himself, that Jesus was not executed when a little over thirty years of age, but lived to be an old man. Explain it away how we will, the fact remains ; and it certainly ought not to be ignored.
At first sight this statement of Irenaeus would decidedly seem to support the theory advanced by some, that, as the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate admittedly did not want to carry out the extreme penalty in the case of Jesus, though he reluctantly consented to do so in order to pacify the Jews and allowed Jesus to be fixed to a stauros and suspended in public view, he took care to manage things so that Jesus should only appear to die. The idea of course is that if Pilate wished to preserve the life of Jesus he could easily have had him taken down while in a drueeed condition, have had the farce of burial carried out at the earliest possible moment, and then have had him resuscitated and removed to some region where he could dwell in safety. What Irenaeus says concerning Jesus is that
"He passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants. ... So likewise he was an old man for old men, that he might be a perfect Master for all, not merely as regards the setting forth of the truth but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, he came on to death itself .... From the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while he still fulfilled the office of a Teacher ; even as the Gospel and all the elders testify, those who were conversant in Asia with John the disciple of the Lord affirming that John con- veyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the times of Trajan. Some of them moreover saw not only John but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account from them, and bear testimony as to the statement. Whom, then, should we rather believe ? Whether such men as these, or Ptole- maeus, who never saw the apostles and who never even in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an apostle ? " '
The reader must decide for himself or her- self whether Irenaeus believed that Jesus was never executed ; or that he was executed but
^ Against Heresies, IL, xxii. 4-5.
survived ; or that he was born when we suppose, but executed thirty years or so later than we suppose ; or that, though executed when we suppose, he was then an old man, and was born, not at the commencement or middle or end of the year A.C. i, or B.C. 4, or whenever the orthodox date is, but thirty years or more before what we call our era began. An3^how he men- tions neither cross nor execution, and here seems to assume that Jesus died a natural death. And in any case the fact remains that, however mis- taken he may have been, Irenaeus stated that Jesus lived to be an old man ; and stated so emphatically.
Even granting that Irenaeus must have been mistaken, his evidence none the less affects one of the most important points debated in this work. For it is clear that if even he knew so little about the execution of Jesus, the details of that execution cannot have been particularly well known ; and the affirmation that the stauros to which Jesus was affixed had a transverse bar attached may have had no foundation in fact, and may have arisen from a wish to connect Jesus with that well-known and widely-venerated Symbol of Life, the pre-Christian cross. '
Notice that some of the things mentioned in Parson's book agree with what was said in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus, A Simcha Jacobovici Film"!! Is it mere coincidence that a book I learned of by researching the author of a quote in a WT publication contains some of the same ideas that Jacobovici later proclaimed? I don't think so.
