As John the Baptist was an Asiatic and to some extent a pre-Christian Asiatic, we can here, without wandering very far from the matter in hand, pause to consider the question why we Christians represent John the Baptist, who had nothing to do with a cross, as holding a cross; if it be not that while Jesus was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual ascension, John was supposed to represent the Sun in its annual declension? What other rational explanation have we of the facts, (1) that John is represented as saying that he baptised with water but that Jesus would baptise with _fire_ (where the rains of winter and the heat of summer may be referred to); and (2) that the Christian Church in framing its calendar fixed upon what we call Midsummer day as the birthday of John the Baptist, and upon the clay which bears the same relation to the other solstice as the birthday of Christ, as if wishing to illustrate that other remarkable pronouncement of John, thus placed at the point where the days begin to shorten, concerning Jesus, thus placed where the days begin to lengthen, "He must increase but I must decrease"? The probability that to its original signification of Life, that of Salvation was added to the cross as a recognition of the fact that the salvation of Earth-Life in general and of Mankind in particular is due to the fact that at the Vernal Equinox the Sun-God "crosses" to save, summer and the fruits of the earth and therefore salvation and increase being due to the fact that the Sun then crosses the Equator, is supported by evidence from all quarters. And if we refuse to admit that Christianity is permeated with the ideas of Sun-God worship, we not only have no rational explanation to offer of the prophecies put by the Evangelists in the mouth of John the Baptist to the effect that Jesus would baptise with _fire_ and would _increase_, but also none to offer of many another prominent feature of our religion; such as, for instance, the fact that while pretending to reverence all the Ten Commandments we deliberately make a point of breaking one of them in order to keep as a day of rest not the seventh day but the first, the day which from time immemorial was held sacred throughout the Roman Empire as _Dies Solis_, the Day of the Sun. For to aver as we do that Jesus was not made the subject of a Sun-God allegory, but purposely rose from the underworld on the Day of the Sun, at the time of the Vernal Equinox, in order to annul a commandment previously laid down by God and substitute a new one in silence, is only to make ourselves ridiculous. Returning however to the matter more particularly in hand, it should be pointed out that the crux ansata mentioned by Layard is not the only kind of cross to be found upon the relics of ancient Babylonia and Assyria. For the cross of four equal arms and the solar wheel are also to be met with.