When the Spanish missionaries first set foot on the soil of Mexico, they were amazed to find that the Aztecs worshiped the cross as an object of supreme veneration. They found it suspended as a sacred symbol and an august emblem from the walls of all the Aztec temples.[36] When they penetrated farther south and entered Peru, they found that the Incas adored a cross made out of a single piece of jasper.[37] "It appears," says "Chambers's Encyclopedia," "that the sign of the cross was in use as an emblem having certain religious and mystic meanings attached to it, long before the Christian era; and the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find it an object of religious veneration among the nations of Central and South America."[38] That the ancient Mexicans should have worshiped the cross and also a crucified Savior, called Quetzalcoatle,[39] is one of the strangest phenomena of sacred history. It is a puzzle which the most eminent theologians have found it impossible to solve. They have generally contented themselves with declaring the whole thing a myth built upon primitive superstition and ignorance. This worship of the cross and Quetzalcoatle was going on before Columbus discovered America, and it seems impossible to establish any historical or geographical connection between it and the Christian worship of the cross and the crucified Jesus. Several writers of eminence have contended that the widespread adoration of the cross, as a sacred symbol, among so many races of mankind, ancient and modern, proves a universal spiritual impulse, culminating in the crucifixion of Jesus as the common Savior of the world. "It is more than a coincidence," says the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, "that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the spirits of the just; that with the cross Thor should smite the head of the great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting to that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust."[40] But it is not with the mythical crucifixions of mythical gods that we have to deal. The real, historical death of Jesus upon the cross with its accompanying incidents of outrageous illegality is the purpose of this treatise; and to the accomplishment of that design we now return. CHAPTER VI ROMAN LAW APPLICABLE TO THE TRIAL OF JESUS