1823.] 
block in the way of those who consider 
it to be an implement. 
Indeed, wherever the symbol ex- 
tended, there is a remarkable unifor- 
mity in the interpretation attached to 
it; and in all cases it appears to be de- 
voted. to the same divinity as that 
which-the Egyptians call Taut. The 
termini of Mercury were modelled 
from it; and the Scandinavian Mer- 
eury, as it has been remarked, was 
represented under that form. With 
regard to the last supposition, there 
are several curious circumstances, 
which certainly imply a glimmering 
and confused notion of the great pro- 
mise to the ‘“‘seed” of Adam; for to 
the Cruciform Tree in question human 
sacrifices were devoted, and the god 
Thor himself, of which it was the type, 
and whose name, perhaps, was derived 
from it (Thaw, Hebrew), is represented 
in the Edda as descending into hell, 
and as bruising the head of the great 
serpent with his hammer. It is curious, 
too, that, according to oriental tradi- 
tion, the cross of Calvary, and that set 
up by Moses in the Wilderness, are 
supposed to be mutually constructed 
from the tree of life; and that Adam, 
moreover, received a portion of this 
tree as a kind of talisman against dan- 
gers, and transmitted it to the poste- 
rity of Seth. From an idea of the 
latter kind blending itself with some 
indistinct notion of an expected atone- 
ment, it may have occurred that the 
Egyptians attached to the Crux An- 
sata the idea of a resurrection, and of 
a future hope. 
That they considered the Tau both 
in the light of a sacred symbol and a 
talisman, there can scarcely remain a 
doubt. But the fact is supported by 
strong piciorial proof, that they attach- 
ed to it ideas far more correspondent 
with the tenor of scriptural history and 
prophecy than has been hitherto ad- 
mitted or implied; and, among other 
remarkable evidences, this is one, that 
an actual Christian cross, with the 
lower limb prolonged, so as in size 
and form to resemble those which are 
assigned to palmers and bishops, is 
ofien secn in the band of Horus Me- 
diator (the second person of the Egyp- 
tian trinity, and called the Logos by 
the Platonic philosophers,) surmount- 
ed by the head of a Hoopoe. Now 
the Hoopoe, according to Horus 
Apullo, implied a flow of wine, and 
ibis in scriptural metaplior is used to 
On the Egyptian Tau, or Crux Ansata. 
303 
express an atonement by blood. I shall 
not, for the sake of corroborative 
illustration, dilate upon the character 
of Horus, bis birth.of Virgo, his thou- 
sand years’ reign, his three days’ se- 
pulchre, his regeneration, his triamph 
over the Egyptian devil. ‘The subject 
would furnish a treatise of itself. Let 
it suffice to remark, that it was custo- 
mary to hang the heads of devoted 
victims upon trees, to produce a revi. 
vifieation of the vegetable kingdom ; 
that there are extant, representations 
of the head of Apis so suspended, and 
sometimes of the dismembered Horus. 
A seal, representing a human victim, 
fastened to a stake, with a knife at his 
throat, was put upon the sacrificed 
bulls, as an emblem of atonement. 
There are, indeed, among Egyptian 
sculptures, instances of humaa vic- 
tims, on the point of being sacrificed, 
attached to cruciformstakes ; and there 
is one example, amidst Denon’s collec- 
tion, of two kneeling figures, ligatured 
back to back, and attached to the two 
arms of the Cruz Ansata. 
But, leaving these and all other de- 
ductions and coincidences out of the 
question, a survey of the symbol in a 
mathematical point of view will, I 
think, carry this. conviction to the 
mind,—that it involved a deep and 
venerable mystery, and that it was so 
intended by the inventor. 
The figure consists of two lines 
united, which, as Horus Apollo affirms, 
implied unity; but its extremities are 
three, and they are arranged into the 
formofatiiangle, It thus involves in 
itself the monad, the dyad, and the 
triad; and who that has perused the 
voluminous mathematical mysteries of 
Proclus and the Platonists can fail to 
discern in this figure a portion of their 
source? 
“« Ante omnia, (says the creed of the 
Rosyerucians, who, like the freema- 
sons, considered Thoth as their foun- 
der,) ante omnia punctum extetit non 
mathematicum sed diffusivum. Monas 
erit explicite, implicite myrias. Com- 
movit se Monas in Dyadem § per 
Triadem egresse sunt facies lumimis 
secundi.” 
The Cabalists, a branch of the same 
sect, who endeavoured to blend the 
mathematical arcana of Plato, and the 
numerical reveries of Pythagoras, with 
the mysicrics of Christianity, imputed 
similar abstractions to the Zau, and 
reverepced it in common with the 
triangle. 
