. The Open court. ecting lines was used as areligious symbol in pre-Christian times; it was preserved in suchmodernised religions of imperial Rome as the Serapis cult, and wecan fairly assume that it was a sacred symbol with almost all Gnos-tic sects, gaining a rapid recognition among the Christians whoat once identified it with the martyr instrument, on which Jesusdied. Now when the victorious Christians destroyed the last rem-nant of Paganism, they were astonished to find that the symbol oftheir own faith had served similar purposes in the old Pagan re-ligions. If they had been familiar with
. The Open court. ecting lines was used as areligious symbol in pre-Christian times; it was preserved in suchmodernised religions of imperial Rome as the Serapis cult, and wecan fairly assume that it was a sacred symbol with almost all Gnos-tic sects, gaining a rapid recognition among the Christians whoat once identified it with the martyr instrument, on which Jesusdied. Now when the victorious Christians destroyed the last rem-nant of Paganism, they were astonished to find that the symbol oftheir own faith had served similar purposes in the old Pagan re-ligions. If they had been familiar with the institutions and doctrines ofthe Serapis cult, they would have discovered that many typicallyChristian ideas, such as the sonship of God, God the Son as theSaviour, the death of God and his resurrection, God the Son as theDivine Word, the divinity of the Mother of the Saviour, and also STAUROLA■l•R^■ 557 celibacy, monkhood, tonsure, rosaries, sacraments, etc., find theirprototypes in Pagan Coin of Constantine. The Emperor is represented as holding in his hand the ball of empire, still without the cross. The historian must bear in mind that the Christianit\ of Jesuswas different from the Christianity of the State Church of Constan-
Size: 2270px × 1101px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887
