The male sex did not always have a monopoly of the priesthood, however; and in few if any instances did the priests of old go so far as to teach that the Creator, whom out of compliment to the Deity--or themselves--they naturally spoke of as belonging to the stronger sex, was a male and _only_ a male. Nor did they even assume such a thing. Though the different gods and goddesses were spoken of as belonging to this or that sex, more than one were regarded as in reality androgynous; and the fact that the Creator and Giver of Life must of necessity be so was very generally recognised. As a matter of fact it is by no means certain that the Creator is not represented as being androgynous even in our Bible. For in the account of the Creation which the Jews brought with them from Babylon, the Creator is represented as saying "Let _us_ make man in _our_ image"; and a race which like the Jews solemnly declared that there was but one God, could only, it would seem, have accepted such a declaration as a divine revelation if they conceived the God supposed to be speaking to be androgynous, and addressing the other part of himself. This would account for the emphasis laid upon the statement that man was created "male _and_ female," like, or in the image of, the Creator. In any case it is clear that if God be not female as well as male, Man was _not_ created in the likeness of God. The theory of the ancients that Man himself was created an androgynous being, capable, like the Creator, of creating life in himself, but was afterwards divided into halves, one of which is ever seeking to find the other, need only be mentioned. Suffice it to add that it can scarcely be said to have been altogether progress in the right direction, which has led us mortals to call the Author of all Life "Our Father," to the utter obscuration of the equally important fact that the Deity in whom we live and move and have our being must also be "Our Mother." CHAPTER IX. THE CORONATION ORB. The fact that though we Christians fail to do the matter justice, the ancients upon the contrary recognised that the Creator and the Giver of Life cannot be rightly spoken of as belonging to one sex and one alone, is not the only fact which those who examine relics of antiquity, such as the coins of the Roman Empire, with a view to ascertaining what evidence is derivable from them that bears upon the history of the symbol of the cross, should ever bear in mind. Another point to be kept in view is the evolution of the Christian symbol now known as the Coronation Orb.