gilt and beautiful_. Your victorious trophies not only
represent a simple cross, _but a cross with a man upon
it_."[197:3]

The existence, in the writings of Minucius Felix, of this passage, is
probably owing to an oversight of the destroyers of all evidences
against the Christian religion that could be had. The practice of the
Romans, here alluded to, of carrying _a cross with a man on it_, or, in
other words, a _crucifix_, has evidently been concealed from us by the
careful destruction of such of their works as alluded to it. The priests
had everything their own way for centuries, and to destroy what was
evidence against their claims was a very simple matter.

It is very evident that this celebrated Christian Father alludes to some
Gentile mystery, of which the prudence of his successors has deprived
us. When we compare this with the fact that for centuries after the time
assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus, he was not represented as a man
on a cross, and that the Christians did not have such a thing as a
_crucifix_, we are inclined to think that the effigies of a black or
_dark-skinned crucified man_, which were to be seen in many places in
Italy even during the last century, may have had something to do with
it.[197:4]

While speaking of "_a cross with a man on it_" as being carried by the
Pagan Romans as a _standard_, we might mention the fact, related by
Arrian the historian,[198:1] that the troops of Porus, in their war with
Alexander the Great, carried on their standards _the figure of a
man_.[198:2] Here is evidently the _crucifix standard_ again.

"This must have been (says Mr. Higgins) a Staurobates or
Salivahana, and looks very like the figure of a man carried on
their standards by the Romans. This was similar to the dove
carried on the standards of the Assyrians. This must have been
the crucifix of Nepaul."[198:3]

Tertullian, a Christian Father of the second and third centuries,
writing to the Pagans, says:

"The origin of _your_ gods is derived from _figures moulded on
a cross_. All those rows of _images on your standards_ are the
appendages of crosses; those hangings on your standards and
banners are the robes of crosses."[198:4]

We have it then, on the authority of a Christian Father, as late as A.
D. 211, that the Christians "_neither adored crosses nor desired them_,"
but that the _Pagans_ "adored crosses," and not that alone, b