Various other pronouncements to a similar effect are to be found in the writings of other Christian Fathers, and such passages are often quoted as conclusive evidence of the Christian origin of what is now our symbol. In reality, however, it is somewhat doubtful if we can fairly claim them as such; for the question arises whether, if the writers in their hearts believed their cross to be a representation of the instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, they would have omitted, as they did in every instance, to mention that as the right and proper and all-sufficient reason for venerating the figure of the cross. Moreover it is quite clear that while, as will be shown hereafter, the symbol of the cross had for ages been a Pagan symbol of Life, it can, as already stated, scarcely be said to have become a Christian _symbol_ before the days of Constantine. No cross-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 centuries, 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 _tau_ 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 explain this away by stating that this was done in imitation of the then despised Christians![8] 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."[9]