22 
acumen of jadgment which results 
from correctly-disciplined erudition; 
and it must be confessed, that there is 
great ingenuity in his application of 
the text—‘‘The key of the house of 
David will I lay upon his shoulder.” 
But I believe there is no-instance of 
the Crua Ausaia being so placed, al- 
though there are repeated instances 
of such a position conferred on the 
flail and the pastoral cloak, which are 
known Scriptural emblems of the 
gathering and separation of judgment. 
But the allusion to the keys of death 
and hell, in the Revelation, are of 
Mythratic or Egyptian original, there 
ean scarcely be a doubt. Montfaucon 
(vol. i. p. 232.) exhibits a plate of 
Mythra’s mediator holding two keys, 
like St. Peter, and which are of the 
common kind: but it does not foilow 
that the Crux Ansata is a key of this 
description. I am not aware that 
there are any keys extant among 
Roman or other antiquities of a similar 
construction; and certainly those ge- 
nerally scen in the hands of Diana 
Triformis ave of a form approximating 
to the modern. 
In reality, there appears to be as 
little foundation for this opinion as for 
another, supported by the Bishop of 
Clogher, that it is merely a drill, or 
sowing instrument; a supposition 
which, at least, has this advantage— 
that religious mysticism was closely 
connected with the agricultural pur- 
suits of the Egyptians, and the act of 
sowing itself is highly calculated for 
an emblematic allusion. “‘ Zou fool, 
(says St. Paul,) that which thou sowest 
is not quickened except it die.” But an 
examination of the instrument will 
Jeave little room for either of the 
abuve-mentioned conclusions. One 
circumstance goes to refute them en- 
tirely, and it has never been previously 
remarked: the 7azu in the hands of the 
seated lion-headed sphynxes, at the 
British Museum, could neither have 
performed the operation of sowing nor 
that of opening a lock. Those figures 
grasp in their hands a ring, to which 
a square plate is attached ; and in that, 
in slight relief, appears the Tuu,. or 
Crux Ansata. 
The safest way, perhaps, to arrive 
at a reasonable conclusion, is to go 
back to tradition. It appears that 
the Egyptian priests, when called upon 
to explain it, merely affirmed that the 
Tau was a “divine mystery.” One 
opinion of several ancient writers 
On the Egyptian Tau, or Crux Ansata. 
[Aug. }, 
(Ruffinus, Nicephorus, Origen, &c.) 
is, that it was the type of a “resurrec- 
tion, or hope of a future life.” Clemens 
Alexandrinus affirms that it signifies 
“unity.” But the most general opi- 
nion among the fathers was, that it 
pre-shadowed the “mystery of the 
Christian atonement.” 
The proposition which I mean to 
support is in some degree connected 
with them all; viz. that it was the type 
of Plorus mediator, the Dyadic deity 
of the Platonists; and that it pre-sha- 
dowed some great regenerative bless- 
ing, traditionally anticipated from that 
divinity. There seems litile reason 
for considering the symbol to be a 
Lingam or Phallus, as some modern 
writers have done, apparently biassed 
by Indian researches... The figure in 
question is pure, and it may be called 
geometrical. . 
That an ancient tradition, such as I 
have hinted, did exist, is by no means 
improbable. I shall not go over the 
usually beaten track to prove it. For 
this purpose, Bryant, Warburton, 
Cumberland, Kircher, and _ others, 
may be consulted. There would be 
more improbability in supposing that 
Ham, and the immediate descendants 
of Noah, did not preserve some graven 
memento of the ‘‘ promised seed” than 
that they did. Nor will it excite wonder 
if the first pure stream of tradition 
was subsequently muddied by super- 
stition and corruption. 
I proceed therefore, without delay, 
to the proofs; which, in fact, are of a 
nature rather to disarrange that order 
which the abstruse nature of the sub- 
ject requires, by their multiplicity, 
than to weaken it by their paucity; 
they grow around me on all sides. 
The first and most striking evidence, 
that the Tau was a religious memento, 
like the Christian cross, is apparent 
from this singular fact, that the form 
enters into the grand plan of a great 
proportion of the Egyptian temples ; 
that mary of the Ethiopian selvi were 
modelled after this figure; and, lastly, 
that the general arrangement of the 
sepuichral chambers (those at Lyco- 
polis, for example,) implies an esta- 
blished architectural rule in copying 
or combining it. That keys, and other 
instruments of a mixed chzracter, that 
is to say, partly typical and partly in- 
strumental, may have been constructed 
from veneration of the archetypal cha- 
racter, is not unlikely. But to argue 
that they originated the figure, and 
Vere- 
