Having in the foregoing chapters demonstrated that it is possible, if not indeed probable, that the instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed was otherwise than cross-shaped; and having also shown that it was not mainly, if indeed even partially, that the early Christians signified that instrument by the sign of the cross; it is now desirable that, as a preliminary to an enquiry into the circumstances under which the cross became the symbol of Christianity, we should enquire into the origin of the _pre_-Christian cross. That there was a pre-Christian cross, and that it was, like ours, a Symbol of Life, is generally admitted. The authorities upon such subjects, however, unfortunately differ as to the reason why the Cross came to be selected by the ancients as the Symbol of Life. And not one of their suggestions seems to go to the root of the matter. Let us therefore in thought go back tens of thousands of years, and conceive the genus Homo as a race gradually awakening to reason but as yet unfettered by inherited traditions and creeds. Let us imagine Man ere he began to make gods in his own image. Let us remember that what would strike him as the greatest of all marvels would of necessity be Life itself, and that far and away the next greatest marvel must have been the glorious Sun; the obvious source of earth life, and Lord of the Hosts of Heaven. Let us bear in mind, too, that though the Nature Worship of our remote ancestors had other striking features, the facts mentioned would lead to the predominance of the phallic idea, and to its association with Sun-God worship. And as Life, the greatest marvel of all, must have had a symbol allotted to it at a very early date, let us ask ourselves what the untutored mind of Man would be most likely to select as its symbol. To this question there is, so far as the author can see, but one reasonable answer:--the figure of the cross. And the author conceives this to be the real solution of the difficulty for this reason:--because the figure of the cross is the simplest possible representation of that union of two bodies or two sexes or two powers or two principles, which alone produces life. For the ancients cannot fail to have perceived that all life more immediately proceeds from the _union_ of _two_ principles; and the first, readiest, simplest, and most natural symbol of Life, was consequently one straight line superimposed upon another at such an angle that both could be seen; in other words, a cross of some description or other.