The Cross

A tradition of the Church which our fathers have inherited, was the adoption of the words "cross" and
"crucify".

These words are nowhere to be found in the Greek of the New Testament. These words are
mistranslations, a "later rendering", of the Greek words stauros and stauroo. Vine's Expository
Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "STAUROS denotes, primarily, an upright pole or stake ...
Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pole, are originally to be distinguished from
the ecclesiastical form of a two-beamed cross.

The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), and was used as the symbol of the
god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) ... By the middle of the 3rd
century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian
faith.

In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the
churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and
symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross piece lowered, was adopted .

Dr. Bullinger, in the Companion Bible, appx. 162, states, "crosses were used as symbols of the
Babylonian Sun-god ... It should be stated that Constantine was a Sun-god worshipper ... The evidence
is thus complete, that the Lord was put to death upon an upright stake, and not on two pieces of timber
placed at any angle."

Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp. 197-205, frankly calls the cross "this Pagan symbol ...
the Tau, the sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the false Messiah ... the mystic Tau of
the Cladeans (Babylonians) and Egyptians - the true original form of the letter T the initial of the name of
Tammuz ... the Babylonian cross was the recognised emblem of Tammuz."

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. 14, p. 273, we read, "In the Egyption churches the
cross was a pagan symbol of life borrowed by the Christians and interpreted in the pagan manner."
Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, says that the Teutonic (Germanic) tribes had their idol Thor,
symbolised by a hammer, while the Roman Christians had their crux (cross). It was thus somewhat
easier for the Teutons to accept the Roman Cross.

Greek dictionaries, lexicons and other study books also declare the primary meaning of stauros to be an
upright pale, pole or stake. The secondary meaning of "cross" is admitted by them to be a "later"
rendering. At least two of them do not even mention "cross", and only render the meaning as "pole or
stake".

In spite of this strong evidence and proof that the word stauros should have been translated "stake", and
the verb stauroo to have been translated "impale", almost all the common versions of the Scriptures
persist with the Latin Vulgate's crux (cross), a fallacious "later" rendering of the Greek stauros. Why then
was the "cross" (crux) brought into the Faith?

Again, historical evidence points to Constantine as the one who had the major share in uniting
Sun-worship and the Messianic Faith. Constantine's famous vision of "the cross superimposed on the
sun", in the year 312, is usually cited. Writers, ignorant of the fact that the cross was not to be found in

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the New Testament Scriptures, put much emphasis on this vision as the onset of the so-called
"conversion" of Constantine. But, unless Constantine had been misguided by the Gnostic Manichean
half-Christians, who indeed used the cross in their hybrid religion, this vision of the cross superimposed
on the sun could only be the same old cosmic religion, the astrological religion of Babylon. The fact
remains: that which Constantine saw, is nowhere to be found in Scripture.

We read in the book of Johannes Geffcken, The Last Days of Greco-Roman Paganism, p.319, "that
even after 314 A.D. the coins of Constantine show an even-armed cross as a symbol for the Sun-god."
Many scholars have doubted the "conversion" of Constantine because of the wicked deeds that he did
afterwards, and because of the fact that he only requested to be baptized on his death-bed many years
later, in the year 337. So, if the vision of the cross impressed him, and was used as a rallying symbol, it
could not have been in honour of Yahushúa, because Constantine continued paying homage to the
Sun-deity and to one of the Sun-deity's symbols, the cross.

This continuation of Sun-worship by Constantine is of by his persistent use of images of the Sun-deity
on his coins that were issued by him up to the year 323. Secondly, the fact of his motivation to issue his
Sunday-keeping edict in the year 321, which was not done in honour of Yahushúa, but was done
because of the "venerable day of the Sun", as the edict read, is proof of this continued allegiance to Sol
Invictus. We shall expand on this later.

Where did the cross come from, then? J.C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional
Symbols, p. 45, aptly summarises it, "Cross - A universal symbol from the most remote times; it is the
cosmic symbol par excellence." Other authorities also call it a sun-symbol, a Babylonian sun-symbol, an
astrological Babylonian-Assyrian and heathen run-symbol, also in the form of an encircled cross referred
to as a "solar wheel", and many other varieties of crosses. Also, "the cross represents the Tree of Life",
the age-old fertility symbol, combining the vertical male and horizontal female principles, especially in
Egypt, either as an ordinary cross, or better known in the form of the crux ansata, the Egyptian ankh
(sometimes called the Tau cross), which had been carried over into our modern-day symbol of the
female, well known in biology.

As stated above, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the mystic Tau of the Babylonians and Egyptians,
was brought into the Church chiefly because of Constantine, and has since been adored with all the
homage due only to the Most High.

The Protestants have for many years refrained from undue adoration of, or homage to the cross,
especially in England at the time of the Puritans in the 16th - 17th centuries. But lately this un-Scriptural
symbol has been increasingly accepted in Protestantism.

We have previously discussed "the weeping for Tammuz", and the similarity between the Easter
resurrection and the return or rising of Tammuz. Tammuz was the young incarnate Sun, the Sun-divinity
incarnate. This same Sun-deity, known amongst the Babylonians as Tammuz, was identified with the
Greek Adonis and with the Phoenician Adoni,96 all of them Sun-deities, being slain in winter, then being
"wept for", and their return being celebrated by a festivity in spring, while some had it in summer -
according to the myths of pagan idolatry.

The evidence for its pagan origin is so convincing that The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that "the sign
of the cross, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly antedates,
in both East and the West, the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human
civilization." It then continues and revers to the Tau cross of the pagan Egyptians, "In later times the
Egyptian Christians (Copts), attracted by its form, and perhaps by its symbolism, adopted it as the
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emblem of the cross."98 Further proof of its pagan origin is the recorded evidence of the Vestal Virgins
of pagan Rome having the cross hanging on a necklace,99 and the Egyptians doing it too, as early as
the 15th century B.C.E.100 The Buddhists, and

Ancient Egyptian Rot-n-no priests. Note the crosses on the robe, and
hanging from their necks.

Numerous other sects of India, also used the sign of the cross as a mark on their followers' heads. "The
cross thus widely worshipped, or regarded as a 'sacred emblem', was the unequivocal symbol of
Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses. "It
was also the symbol of Jupiter Foederis in Rome.103 Furthermore, we read of the cross on top of the
temple of Serapis,104 the Sun-deity of Alexandria.

This is Tammuz, whom the Greeks called Bacchus, with the crosses on his head-band.

After Constantine had the "vision of the cross", he and his army promoted another variety of the cross,
the Chi-Rho or Labarum or sometimes . This has subsequently been explained as representing the first
letters of the name Christos, the being the Greek for "Ch" and the being the Greek for "r". but again, this
emblem had a pagan origin. The identical symbols were found as inscriptions on a rock, dating from the
year ca. 2 500 B.C., being interpreted as "a combination of two Sun-symbols", as the Ax or
Hammer-symbol of the Sun- or Sky-deity, and the or as the ancient symbol of the Sun, both of these
signs having a sensual or fertility meaning as well.

Another proof of its pagan origin is the identical found on a coin of Ptolemeus
III from the year 247 - 222 B.C. A well-known encyclopaedia describes the
Labarum (Chi-Rho) as, "The labarum was also an emblem of the Chaldean
(Babylonian) sky-god and in Christianity it was adopted..."Emperor
Constantine adopted this Labarum as the imperial ensign and thereby
succeeded in "uniting both divisions of his troops, pagans and Christians, in a
common worship ... according to Suicer the word (labarum) came into use in
the reign of Hadrian, and was probably adopted from one of the nations
conquered by the Romans. "It must be remembered that Hadrian reigned in
the years 76 - 138, that he was a pagan emperor, worshipped the Sun-deity
Serapis when he visited Alexandria, and was vehemently anti-Judaistic, being responsible for the final
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near-destruction of Jerusalem in the year 130.

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Another dictionary relates the following about the Chi-Rho, "However, the symbol was in use long before
Christianity, and X (Chi) probably stood for Great Fire or Sun,and P (Rho) probably stood for Pater or
Patah (Father). The word labarum (labarum) yields everlasting Father Sun."

What is the "mark of the beast" of which we read in Rev 13:16-17, Rev 14:9-11, Rev 15:2, Rev 16:2,
Rev 19:20 and Rev 20:4 - a mark on people's foreheads and on their right hands? Rev 14:11 reveals the
mark to be "the mark of his (the beast's) name." Have we not read about the mystic Tau, the T, the initial
of Tammuz's name, his mark? This same letter T (Tau) was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in the
old Wemitic languages as, representing the CROSS. Different interpretations have been given to the
"mark of the beast", and also the cross has been suggested. There has been some research done on
the strange crosses found on quite a few statues of pagan priests, on their foreheads. However, these
scholars have been unable to come to an agreement. Conclusive evidence may still come (see among
others: Dr. F.J. Dolger, Antike und Christentum, vol. 2, pp. 281-293).

Let us rather use the true rendering of the Scriptural words stauros and stauro, namely "stake" and
"impale" and eliminate the un-Scriptural "cross" and "crucify".

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