The so-called "Monogram of Christ "—a term which has at one time or another been applied to each of the symbols Solar Wheel 1 or asterisk, Monogram of Christ 1 or Monogram of Christ 3, and Monogram of Christ 2 or Monogram of Christ 4, as but variations of one and the same symbol—deserves a chapter to itself.

Though not first placed upon the coins of the Roman Empire by Constantine any more than was the right-angled cross of four equal arms or the so-called St. Andrew's cross, the symbol Monogram of Christ 3 was, like the X cross and the many varieties of right-angled crosses of four equal arms, first brought into prominence as a Roman symbol by the Emperor in question.

From the evidence at our disposal it would appear that Decius was the first Roman ruler to make use of this form of the so-called Monogram of Christ. Anyhow, as has already been remarked, this symbol Monogram of Christ 3 occurs upon a coin of the Emperor Decius struck at MÆonia about A.C. 250; and therefore more than half a century before the days of Constantine. And it is noteworthy that it was as a Pagan symbol that the Monogram of Christ 3 thus first appeared upon the Roman coinage.

The coin in question is a bronze one, and the "Monogram of Christ" occurs in the centre of a Greek inscription surrounding a representation of the Sun-God Bacchus; and, apparently, as an amalgamation or contraction of the two Greek letters equivalent to our R and CH, viz.: the Greek letters Ρ and Χ.⁵⁰

Why these particular letters should have been contracted, is, however, uncertain; and the question arises as to whether the Monogram of Christ 3 first arose as a contraction of such Greek letters, or as an amalgamation of the Roman letters Ρ and Χ, or as the cross X plus the Greek Ρ (our R) as the initial letter of the Greek name for Rome.

Moreover if it be decided that the symbol first arose as a contraction of certain letters, yet further questions arise; viz.; in what order those letters were first read, and what word they first represented.

Before going into such matters as these, however, it is important that we should fully realise how certain it is that the so-called Monogram of Christ was originally a Pagan symbol. For even if this be not considered demonstrated by its occurrence upon a Roman coin long before, according to our Church, the Christ caused Constantine to use it as the military standard of the Gauls, it is clearly shown by its occurrence upon many relics of pre-Christian date.

The so-called "Monogram of Christ" can be seen, for instance, upon a monument of Isis, the Virgin Mother of the Sun-God, which dates from the second century before our era.⁵¹ Also upon the coins of Ptolemaeus; on one of which is a head of Zeus Ammon upon one side, and an eagle bearing the Monogram of Christ 3 in its claws upon the other.⁵² The symbol in question also appears upon Greek money struck long before the birth of Jesus; for instance upon certain varieties of the Attic tetradrachma. And the Monogram of Christ 4 occurs upon many different coins of the first Herod, struck thirty years or more B.C.

Whether the Pagan Monogram of Christ 3 and the Pagan Monogram of Christ 4 originally had the same signification or not, is uncertain.

Almost equally uncertain is the date at which we Christians first adopted these Pagan symbols as Christian symbols because they could be interpreted as formed of the two first letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, Christos, Christ.

The probability is that Christians had at least drawn attention to this possible interpretation of the symbols in question before the days of Constantine. But this scarcely renders less noteworthy the fact, shown further on, that the favourite symbol of the Gaulish warriors, the solar wheel Solar Wheel 1 or Solar Wheel 2, was sooner or later altered by their leader into Monogram of Christ 1 or Monogram of Christ 2 to please the Christians; while the symbols Monogram of Christ 3 and Monogram of Christ 4 were also made use of by Constantine.

Which form of solar wheel, monogram, or cross, was that actually carried by the Gauls in triumph within the walls of Rome and set up by their leader in the heart of the Eternal City, is not quite certain. But it is clear that as both the Monogram of Christ 3 and the Monogram of Christ 4 appeared upon coins struck before our era, Constantine cannot very well have been ignorant of the fact that these were originally Pagan symbols, when he favoured the addition of a loop to the top of the vertical bar of the Gaulish solar symbols Solar Wheel 1 or asterisk and Solar Wheel 2 or Plus in order that what his Gaulish army venerated as triumphal tokens might be accepted as symbols of victory by his Christian supporters also.

That this Gaulish monarch did so alter, and for the reason named, the symbol or symbols venerated by his troops, is admitted by, amongst others, that well known writer the Reverend S. Baring Gould, M.A. For, referring to the solar wheel as a symbol of the Sun-God venerated by the ancient Gauls, this author tells us that Constantine
"Adopted and adapted the sign for his standards, and the Labarum of Constantine became a common Christian symbol. That there was policy in his conduct we can hardly doubt; the symbol he set up gratified the Christians in his army on one side and the Gauls on the other. For the former it was a sign compounded of the initial letters of Christ, to the latter it was the token of the favour of the solar deity."⁵³

As the fact that both the Monogram of Christ 3 and Monogram of Christ 4 were in use as symbols before the commencement of our era thoroughly disposes of our contention as Christians that the so-called "Monogram of Christ" had its origin in the formation of a monogram out of the two first letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (Christos, Christ), it is clear that these symbols must have had some other origin.

Assuming that the symbols Monogram of Christ 3 and Monogram of Christ 4 had the same origin, and the same signification, and that if the Monogram of Christ 4 was a combination of two letters the Greek or Latin T (instead of X) was not one of them; or rather, as these would be very considerable assumptions, more or less confining our attention to the Monogram of Christ 3 as the more likely of the two to have arisen as a combination of the Greek letters P and X; let us in passing briefly enquire into the origin of the so-called Monogram of Christ as a Pagan symbol.

If we seek for that origin as a combination of the first two letters of some other Greek word than Christos, Christ, and for the moment assume the letters Ρ and Χ to have occurred in the same order as in that word, we see at once that the monogram may have been derived either from the word Chrestos, Good, or the word Chronos, Time, or the word Chrusos, Gold.

There is, by the way, another curious connection between the three Greek words in question. For the name of the famous god Kronos or Cronos was often spelt ΧΡΟΝΟΣ i.e., Chronos.⁵⁴ And this god Chronos—the father of Zeus; and more or less a personification of Time, the Old Father from whom we are all descended—was identical with Saturn, while the Saturnian Age was, as in Virgil's fourth eclogue, ever that spoken of as the Golden age when the ancients were referring to what they pictured as the good old times.

It will not do, however, to assume that if the symbol we are considering first arose as a combination of the Greek letters Ρ and Χ, they were of necessity taken from, and representative of, a word in which they occur in the same order as in Christos. And the fact that in the Monogram of Christ 4, if not also in the Monogram of Christ 3, the Ρ is the leading feature, gives emphasis to the point in question.

If we suppose that the so-called monogram arose as a combination of the Greek letters in question occurring in the order Ρ Χ, the student of such matters can scarcely fail to note that the letters in question occur in that order as the centre both of the word ΑΡΧΗ, the Head, Chief, or First; and also as the centre of the kindred word ΑΡΧΩ, to be first, the only remaining letters of which, and therefore the first and the last of this word as of the old Greek alphabet, are, as will be seen, Alpha and Omega, the letters so continually placed on either side of the symbol Monogram of Christ 3 in Christian times.

In this connection it should be pointed out that according to some of the best authorities the first Monogram of Christ 3 which occurs upon any Roman coin, coming as it does after the letter alpha in a Greek inscription, should be taken with that letter as forming the ΡΧ of ΑΡΧ, the latter being an abbreviation of some form or other of the title Archon. This title was that given to the dignitary who was at one and the same time the chief magistrate of the state and its chief priest, and it may be worth remark that as Bacchus was the deity worshipped in Lydia, the Archon in question would therefore have been the chief priest of the Sun-God.

Several writers have, in their zeal for our religion, outrun their discretion, and gone so far as to assume that the existence of the so-called monogram of Christ upon this coin of the Emperor Decius is due to some Christian having been employed in turning out the coin in question, and having in his zeal surreptitiously introduced a symbol of his faith. But though gravely supported by more than one great authority, this is obviously an absurd position to take up. And in any case the facts remain that it was in this instance placed over a representation of the Sun-God, and had for centuries been in use as a Pagan symbol.

Passing on, however, we have next to note that, as before hinted, even if the symbol Monogram of Christ 3 arose as a combination of two letters, though we know that symbol to have been often used as a contraction of the Greek letters Ρ and Χ (our R and CH), there is no proof that it arose as a combination of two Greek letters; and the symbol may have arisen as a combination of the Roman letters P and X.

It should therefore be pointed out that in the inscriptions which have come down to us from the Gaulish Christians of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries after Christ, the symbols Monogram of Christ 3 and Monogram of Christ 4 are continually used as contractions of the Latin word PAX, Peace. For though the fact that the Monogram was often so interpreted by Christians centuries A.C. can by no means be considered evidence that it was thus that it first arose as a Pagan symbol centuries B.C., such a possibility should be kept before us.

But did the so-called Monogram of Christ first come into being as a combination of two letters; Greek, Roman, or otherwise?

Even this is not certain, for this pre-Christian symbol may originally have been a cross, as a symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, plus the Greek letter Ρ as the initial character of the word "Rome" in what may be called the court language of the time.

Such an explanation would more or less account for the variations Monogram of Christ 3 and Monogram of Christ 4; these being obviously the natural ways of adding the letter Ρ, signifying Rome, to the crosses X and Plus respectively.

All the foregoing references to the origin of the so-called monogram as a Pagan symbol of pre-Christian date, are but speculations however. Its origin cannot be ascertained for certain.

The revival of this pre-Christian symbol, and the prominence given to it upon the coins of the Roman Empire, are, however, traceable. And, as has been shown, they are traceable to Constantine; who induced the Christians to accept as the Monogram of the Christ, and therefore as a Christian as well as a Gaulish symbol of victory, the Solar Wheel venerated by the Gaulish conquerors of Rome.

Nowadays the so-called Monogram of Christ is almost always reproduced for us as Monogram of Christ 3 or Monogram of Christ 4; but the fact that Constantine sometimes so used it should not blind us to the facts that it was at first usually the centre of a circle, like the spokes of a wheel; and that the undisguised solar wheel Solar Wheel 1 appears upon not a few of the coins issued by the Christian successors of Constantine, while since his reign the solar wheel Solar Wheel 2 and many an artistic variation of the same have been Christian symbols, and when in our ornamentation of ecclesiastical properties we omit the circle we as often as not make the cross itself wheel-like by rounding the extremities and widening them till they nearly meet.

Moreover it should not be forgotten that it was evidently one form or other of the solar wheel of the Gauls, plus the politic loop to one of its spokes, which Constantine and his Gaulish warriors are said to have seen above the meridian sun, with the divinely written legend ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΚΑ, By this conquer, attached. For though that miraculous symbol is referred to as a "cross," the Monogram itself was so referred to; and Eusebius, after telling us that the Christ appeared to Constantine and commanded him to make a military standard for the Sun-God worshipping Gauls, "With the same sign which he had seen in the heavens," expressly describes this as composed of "Two letters indicating the name of the Christ, the letter P being intersected with X at the centre." And on this particular Labarum of Constantine, as on the majority of the Labara represented upon his coins, the Monogram of Christ 3 was the centre of a circle or circular wreath, like the spokes of a wheel.⁵⁵

In any case the fact that the symbol Monogram of Christ 3 was a Pagan one centuries before the Christ is said to have made it a Christian one for the Sun-God worshipping Gauls to follow on to victory, coupled with the facts that they are said to have seen it above the mid-day sun, and that it was admittedly a politic adaptation of the Solar Wheel, show us how much Eusebius and other Christian chroniclers both invented and suppressed, and also how largely the influence of Sun-God worship permeated and moulded our religion.

In this connection it may be noted, as a curious fact rather than as evidence, that according to some authorities the so-called Monograms of Christ were in earlier ages Monograms of the Sun-God Osiris.⁵⁶ Also that both Socrates and Sozomen tell us that when the temple of the Sun-God Serapis at Alexandria was pulled down, the symbol of the Christ was discovered upon its foundations and the Christians made many converts in consequence a somewhat significant statement.

Moreover we are told that upon every Dies Solis, or in other words upon that day of the week which throughout the Roman Empire was held sacred to the Sun-God and throughout Christendom is called Sun-day, Constantine made his troops, assembled under what was admittedly a solar symbol, recite at a given time, which was probably dawn or mid-day, a prayer commencing "We acknowledge thee to be God alone, and own that our victories are due to thy favour."⁵⁷ Who could this God have been but the Sun-God, seeing that it was to the Sun-God that Constantine upon his coins ever attributed his victories? And what is more likely than that, wishing to take a friendly view of the deity worshipped by their supporters the Christians, it was as conceiving the Christ to be but the latest addition to the many conceptions of the Sun-God, that Constantine altered the solar symbols of his troops into the so-called Monograms of Christ, and that his troops accepted the alterations?

And, passing from the symbol to the deity represented, let us remember that it is recorded that various Christian paintings of ancient times bore upon them the dedicatory words DEO SOLI. For this remarkable legend means both "To God alone" and "To the Sun-God," both "To the Sole God" and "To the God Sol;" and forcibly reminds us, not only of the prayer which Constantine caused his troops to repeat, but also of that fine address to the "universally adored" Sun-God commencing
"Latium calls thee Sol because in honour thou
art Solitary,
After the Father."⁵⁸

Now, as will be shown further on, a cross of some description or other was in every land accepted as the symbol of the universally adored Sun-God. And while not a single one of the many books forming the New Testament states that Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped instrument, and the first crosses Christians used as signs or symbols bore every form but that which a cross-shaped instrument of execution would have borne, the Christians of the fourth century, as we have seen, went out of their way to claim even the so-called Monogram of Christ as a cross; Eusebius so carefully speaking of it as such even where he relates that Constantine and his soldiers saw it above the meridian sun, that one might not unreasonably imagine him to be claiming it as Christian because it was more or less cruciform and therefore more or less like the world-wide symbol of the Sun-God.