The Cross and the Crescent as Standards in War

Front matter

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Chapter I. — ^The Cross as an Instrament of Punishment . 13

Chapteb II. — Oa the Respect due to Sacied Things. — ^Desecration of Holy Places . . . . .22

Chapteb III. — ^The Connection between the Tau, the Crescent, and the Labarum. — The War Cross sprang out of them . • • . . . .30

Chapter IY. — The Military and Ecclesiastical History of the War Cross • . . . . .45

Chapter Y. — Description of the Standard of the Cross displayed by Constantino . . . . .59

Chapter YI. — The Examination of the Alleged Yision of the Cross by Constantino . . . . .65

SECTION II. An Historical Sketch op the Wabs under the Cboss

and the Cbescert.

Chapteb I. — Definition of a Cbusade . . .75

Chapteb II. — The first Crusade by Constantino. — Second under Heraclius — The Appearance of Mahomet. — An Anachronism in the Display of the Crescent . 79

Chapteb III.— Continuation of the Wars under the Cross and the Crescent. — Progress of the Crescent . 96

•

CONTENTS. IX

SECTION V.

Os THE Papal Standabd of the Cross Keys, and on the

EXTRATAOANT PRETENSIONS OF THE BiSHOPS OF RoMB.

Chapter I. — The Pretensions of the Papistical Power are Stimulants to Intellect, and Challenges to Private Judgment. — The Challenge accepted. — The Scriptures Examined . . . . . .216

Chapter II. — The Standard of the Cross Keys brought to the Test of Chiyalric Heraldry. — Turns out a Banner of Pretence and Falsehood ..... 235

Chapter III. — The Symbolism of the Cross Keys further examined. — Compared with the Keys of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. — The Bishops of Rome do not, and never did, hold the Keys of the Holy Sepulchre . 245

Chapter IV. — The Abuse of the Material Cross by the Bishops of Rome and their Emissaries • . . 250

Chapter Y. — ^The Distinction between the Religionists of the Breviary and those of the Bible . . . 262

Chapter YI. — ^The Falsity of the Claims of the Bishops of Rome to be the Successors of Saint Peter, proved from the greedy Exaction and organised Impostures of the Roman Bishops. — The Abuse of the Name of Peter, and the Abuse of the Cross, in the Sale of Indulgences . 266

SECTION YI.

The Fallibility of the Bishops and Conclaves of Roke,

PROVED FROM GeOORAPHICAL DISCOVERIES AND

Astronomical Calculations.

Chapter I. — The Question of the Infallibility of the Bishops and Councils of Rome stated and examined . . 281

Chapter II. — The Mind is stimulated to Activity by the Contemplation of the Astral Universe. — ^The Description and relative Position of the Astral Cross. — It stands to the South Pole as the Ursa Major stands to the North Pole 285

Chapter III. — The Era of the Southern Astral Cross. — ^The Oceanic Discoveries of the Columbian Navigators. — They test the Fallibility of the Bishops of Rome. — ^The Associations of the Southern Astral Cross. — ^Deep Interest connected with it. — The Ancient Peruvians worshipped the Stars ....... 298 l^ffrMn^l^^MrS'litfition of the

^'^lEv.tt.MfSvvtWE^ examined

■Rlill|rl%:

Introduction

On Man as a Subjective and an Objective Being. — ^Definition of the terms. — ^The influence on Men, of Siqnb and Standards as the representatives of great ideas, principles, and passions.

Man^ in the individual and in the mass, is a compound being, made up of many qualities of an opposite nature; and although the laws of his constitution, physical, mental, and psychological, are as fixed and determined by his Creator as the laws of any other parts of the universe, and present the same phenomena in all times and places, he nevertheless acts under so many influences, and is moved by so many forces, and assumes so many appearances, as to be an object of wonder to himself.

Man in the mass is, like the atmosphere in its great periodical movements and progressive changes, measured and certain ; but in the individual is, also like the atmosphere, variable and capricious, exposed to many impressions, and driven to and fro as an impulse is given.

In connection with the subject of this work, we have first to consider man as a subjective and an objective being ; and in case that there should be any mistake in the application of these terms, we shall define the meaning we attach to them. It is foreign to our purpose to enter into the metaphysics of this subject, and all that we intend to do is to clear the

way for our future speculations on the consequences which have followed from the use of the Standards of the Cross and the Crescent in terrible and protracted wars.

We define man in his subjective qualities as an intellectual being, and the originator of thought, and the worker out of his mental conceptions so as to influence and control external objects. By the operation of his intellectual and moral powers, he subjects men and nature to his wiD, within the limits to his capacity marked out by God. Man, in his objective nature, is acted on and moved by external things; he is passive and open to receive impressions, and may be led almost unconsciously into a course of action induced by exciting causes. Man as an objective being, under certain circumstances, receives involuntarily very deep impressions. In this case his feelings and the emotions of his mind are roused by the activity of his sensorial organs, especially those of sight and hearing. The contemplation of the astral universe and the aspect and the sounds of nature, as he traverses the earth and ocean, produce sensations which he cannot help receiving, and whatever may have been his previous emotions he finds himself irresistibly under the influence of outward objects. A pure source of delight is thus secured to man both as a subjective and an objective being, and, "mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet strengthening influence on the wearied spirit, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths. Everywhere, in every region of the globe, in every stage of intellectual culture, the same sources of enjoyment are alike vouchsafed to man." " The spontaneous impressions of the untutored mind, lead, like the laborious deductions of cultivated intellect, to the same intimate persuasion, that one sole and indissoluble chain binds together all nature."*

Humboldt, in his Cosmos, has established the fact that the grandeur, variety, and beauty of the physical universe, celestial and terrestrial, have impressed man as an objective being in all his generations, and, by stimulating and rousing his subjective powers, have made him reflect and investigate, and have led him to the discovery of the various divisions of the globe by land and sea. The beauty and vastness of nature thus act on the intellect of man, and cause it to have a perpetual motion to harmonise with the movements of all things. But whilst man is the inhabitant of earth, and the recipient of the impressions made on him by the various objects around him, he is also the member of society, and feels himself affected by the beautiful and the good of human existence, and passively listens to its harmonious or discordant sounds. In the present imperfect sketch it is not to be understood that men living in society are divided into two classes — one of whom is possessed of subjective qualities, and the other more numerous, of the objective alone. Every individual has both : — but all individuals not in the same proportions, education and age changing and affecting the original bias of the mind. The mind of the highest subjective powers may have also the objective qualities in proportional development. Shakspeare had a subjective mind of the highest order, and at the same time he must have been in a trance whenever he was exposed to the influence of the great and beautiful objects of nature or social life. " His poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; and, as imagination bodies forth the forms

* Humboldt's ** Cosmos," Introduction.

B 2 of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation, and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, that, if it would but apprehend some joy, it comprehends some bringer of that joy, or in the night, imagining some fear, how easy is a bush supposed a bear." * Or in his nightly meditation he sees and hears ** how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ; here will we sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night become the touches of sweet harmony." " There is not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, but in his motion like an angel sings still quiring to the young eyed cherubims." f These are the genuine and natural pleasures from the objective quality of the mind. But this quality may be abused to the damage of the possessor exposed to the power of strong subjective minds. One may find in Shakspeare some light on every passage of human life, and he illustrates his subject by reference to a musical pipe. "Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make me. You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass, and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ?" J

Mankind, as objective beings, are played on in war, and in false religions and in corrupted forms of Christianity by military governments and priesthood, to an extent that would be incredible without the evidence of the sternest facts standing at this day prominent in every country of the world. Before the Christian era the normal condition of heathen nations was war and slavery ; and the condition of Christendom in the middle

* A Mid. N. Dream, t Merchant of Venice. J Hamlet.

of the nineteen hundredth period since the advent of Christ is little better, for although the prisoners who surrender their arms on the fields of battle are not made slaves for life, this clemency would appear to be the result of economical calculation and of improve* ment of machinery and not of religious principles. Faith in the destiny of man would sink under the contemplation of such a state of things, were it not for the hope of the dawn of a new epoch breaking through the darkness of the world. We hold ourselves free to take advantage of any fact or circumstance which may serve to illustrate our proposition. The inhabitants of Great Britain are accustomed to boast of a dynastic revolution in the year 1689 as the era of their civil and religious liberties ; but between that date and the present, five generations have lived and died, and as a proof of how objective they were in receiving the impressions of war, the existing generation in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are annually paying the amount of more than forty-three millions of pounds, representing a capital of about twelve hundred millions, as the balance of former war expenditure, together with existing military establishments.

With these preliminary remarks let us inquire into the nature of the mental qualities necessary for civil and political government, for war, and for false or corrupted religion. In the first place, there are two parties or classes of persons employed or affected in each of those systems : first, the planners, schemers, and managers ; second, the great masses employed as agents or instruments. The first act subjectively, and the second almost entirely passively or objectively.

The individuals who carry on the business of the government of a country in its legislative and executive branches have to labour intellectually, and have to apply a vast amount of knowledge to the proper management of pubUc affairs.

The art of war is reduced, or ought to be reduced, to effect the greatest amount of destruction in the least space of time, and at the least expense.

The promulgators, supporters, and priests of a false or corrupted religion are to be considered strictly subjective in the publication and dissemination of their system. The converse of these definitions will be — that the subjects of a government, the soldiers of an army, and the worshippers of a false religion, are objective beings, influenced and moved by external things, impressing their sensorial organs, and thence inflaming their imagination. This explains the rationale of the parade and ceremonial of the public proceedings of governments, of the pomp and circumstance of annies, of the splendour of ritual, gorgeous decorations of temples and churches, of sacerdotal garments, and of imposing processions of priests to strike with awe the prostrate crowds of spirit- stricken worshippers. It is the nature of men and women, as objective beings, to have something to look at, and something to listen to, and their vacant passive minds are taken and led by what appears the most gaudy, or what makes the most agreeable noise. These are very important matters, and the thoughts of the gravest and most learned men in England have been lately occupied in controversies on the use or disuse of certain clerical garments and church ornaments ; and parties in the church have ranged themselves on the respective sides of white and black, and — " though honesty be no Puritan, yet it will do no hurt ; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart." * Some years ago, in Scotland, the question of the use

* All 's WeU that Ends Well.

of the gown in the pulpit was agitated among Dissenters. The gown carried the day. This question of black gowns and white muslin bands is of considerable importance as a branch of objective science. Sacerdotal garments and ornaments are matters of significance. We submit it to the investigation of evangelical archaeologists to ascertain whether the long black gowns worn by Protestant clergymen in the pulpits be models or antitypes of the togae of the Epicureans and Stoics^ or of the pallium worn by Paul, when he told the Athenians on Mars-hill, that they were too idolatrous, or of the cloak of the monks of the dark ages.

It may be said without much risk of error, that war is carried on entirely by men as objective beings — meaning the masses of men who compose the ranks and perform the slaughter. It may also be affirmed that the community at home, in quietness and security, have their sentiments, in regard to war, of an objective character. The sight of soldiers parading in the pomp and circumstance of arms and banners, and the hearing of the marshal music, and the reading of the gazette account of battles, cause an impression which is hardly to be resisted. Long-robed and other men of learning and of peaceful professions, will, in public assemblies, or private societies, talk of war and its carnage and cruelties in a very light manner; and it is extraordinary to what an extent the imagery of war, and allusions to it, enter into speeches delivered by clerical men from the platform of public meetings. It appears from these remarks that men of high subjective powers, as shown in their intellectual labours, become objective as soon as they are exposed to warlike influences.

It may be supposed that soldiers, yihile under arms in the field, are in a state of excited action, and therefore

O INTRODUCTION.

lose their objective qualities in the control over external objects ; but not so, for the change is one only from a negative to a positive state.

Standards, banners, and military ensigns of various descriptions, are articles which produce wonderful effects in war. Some of the most exciting and picturesque incidents in wars and revolutions are connected with the standards of the contending parties. The fiercest struggles on the field of battle are those in defence of the standard. When the Roman cohort, or legion, was hard pressed in the battle, the order was sometimes given to throw the eagles into the ranks of the enemy, which meant, that the soldiers must recover them, or leave their bodies where they fought. Standards and ensigns of war are for two purposes — the first, to serve as rallying points in battle, and to direct broken or defeated troops to find their way back to their respective stations. This is a mere mechanical function, and any object temporarily agreed on would answer the purpose. Sir Charles Napier, that able and eccentric officer, thus sums up the whole duty of the soldier in battle : — first, " not to Jlre without orders ; " next, '* when he does Jire^ to level low so as to make sure of striking down an enemy ; " thirdly, '^ to keejp his ranks, and dress upon his colours, ^^

But a national standard or ensign displayed, either in battle or on any public occasion, has a much higher object and duty to perform than to mark the precise spot where it may happen to be fixed. It is the embodiment of a great idea, or the representative of a principle, or the symbol of a country. Now, here we enter at once into the philosophy of standards and banners, and we perceive the origin and the nature of that mysterious influence which favourite or national standards have, in all ages and among all people, exercised over communities and masses of men. Patriotism, home, religion, freedom, honour, loyalty, a great principle of government, or some master passion, may be symbolized or typified by a particular banner. This banner shall be the known and the acknowledged SIGN of the feeling, sentiment, or principle that is working in the minds and influencing millions, and, as soon as it is upreared and seen by multitudes, an instantaneous impression is communicated to them, and the social world may be moved therefrom far and wide. This explanation may account for those scenes which history describes of extraordinary excitement and enthusiasm in a people, not for a day or a year, but for generations.* The banner is the visible embodiment of an idea ; and, striking the senses of men as objective beings, it is handed down, by father to son, the emblem of undying nationality. We thus perceive the source of the mysterious power of national or warlike symbols over the minds of men, and by carrying forward this reasoning, as it were conversely, to an opposite or hostile symbol, we behold armies and nations in terrible and destructive conflict. This is quite manifest — for if the sign of a people's nationality, or religion, or liberty, be in the presence of, and approaching to, the sign or symbol held up by another people with hostile pretensions, there results an increased mutual excitement which can only be quenched in blood, or extinguished by the subjugation of one by the other. Hence we also perceive the principle upon which the sacredness of a

* " In all ages it has been seen how great is the power of any predominant idea to work upon the inert mass of mankind, to rouse the spirit of a nation, and to urge its votaries, by thousands if need be, into the field of battle and the very jaws of death." — D^Attbigni^s HiMory of the BeformcUion, voL ii. p. 209.

B 3 banner rests, and the dishonour of allowing it to fall into the hands of an enemy* A military standard-bearer professionally is bound to save his ensign at the expense of his life : — ^he takes his oath to it, and he is paid for it ; but, apart from soldiery duty, there is a higher motive which ought to nerve the soldier's arm in holding up the colours of his country against any enemy whatever. This reasoning is borne out by the practice of almost all people in times of imminent danger. There is generally some sacred banner which is reserved for occasions of public extremity, and brought out and unfurled to confirm the hearts and strengthen the hands of the people in presence of eminent danger. The old Oriflamme of France, and the green Standard of Mahomet, are examples ; and every country may produce, if need be, some sacred ensign.

Our space here does not allow of illustrations of this subject from general history ; all that we can do, is simply to mention the sanguinary factions under the white, red, green, and blue colours that disturbed Constantinople in the fifth and sixth centuries.* The very sight of the colours appeared to have the same effect on men objectively, as the red fiag has in inflaming the bull in the Spanish Amphitheatre. Men under the *^blue" slew men apparently only because they were under the *' green."

In English history, during the fifteenth century, we find an extraordinary manifestation of the opposite symbols of the banners of the white and the red roses. We cannot easily perceive, from the common histories of the political and military events of England, the real ideas symbolized in those banners respectively. The general notion is, that they merely represented the pretensions of two families competing for the

* See Gibbon, for an account of these factions, chap. xl.

sovereign power of the nation. There is no douht of the ostensible fact of those banners of ^^ white** and ^^red** colours having been carried by the houses of York and Lancaster ; but there was a meaning in them which lay deep in the popular sympathies and the national traditions of that age.

It would take too much space to bring together here facts, from Thierry's " History of the Norman Conquest of England," to show, that in all the convuU sions of that country, there were the under movements of the native population against the foreign race introduced at and after the Conquest. As the races became in time more and more amalgamated, their distinct movements became less perceptible ; but it would not be difficult to prove that the final struggle for ascendancy, which ended in the enthronement of Henry Tudor, of Welsh extraction, may be considered as the triumph of genuine British power over foreign pretensions. In the choice of the symbols or colours which represented the great idea of nationality, there appeared to have been some confusion, and the result was a curious and almost a capricious display of the old red standard of Cambria, or Wales, over the ancient white flag of the Anglo-Saxons. There appears to us something very striking, and even solemn, in this view of the nationality of England being symbolized, after so many invasions and dynastic revolutions, by the red standard of the old race that first took possession of the island, and gave its name of Prydain.* The design of this Section is to describe man as an objective being, and accessible to impressions from external things — and hence we perceive the immediate connection between a sign and an idea. Henry Tudor, afterwards Henry VII. of England, on his

* Thieny's "History of the Nonnan Conquest," book i.

landing in Wales from France, where he had lived for some time, '* displayed a red flag, the old banner of the Cambrians, as if his design had been to excite that nation to take up arips, and to render it independent of the English. That enthusiastic nation, over which the power of signs was always very great, without examining whether the dispute between Henry Tudor and Richard III. was not foreign to itself, rallied, by a sort of instinct, around its old standard. The red dragon was planted on the mountain of Snowdon as the rallying point for the Welsh who had promised to arm in his cause." *

A volume might be written on the mysterious power of signs as the representatives of great ideas in the minds of a people — and these, after all, not airy nothings. Who can read without emotion the accounts of the struggles in Scotland for religious and civil liberty under the old Blue Banner of the Covenant ! — and the living generation may be assured that should the people of that country ever have to resist despotic spiritual pretensions, the blue standard set up in the land will again rally the people to defend their rights.

We have in unhappy Ireland, objectively under the influence of foreign and native priests, cases of almost daily disturbance and danger from the display of signs ; and the power of the imperial government is required to keep out of sight the fatal Orange banner, which, if upreared by one party, would serve, like the old fiery and blood-stained cross of the Scottish Highlands, to rouse the Irish population to deeds of violence throughout the length and breadth of the land ; and the struggle would, in all probability, soon assume the dignity of a national war under the Green standard of independence.

* Thierry's "Norman Conquest.**

THE HISTORY

OF THE OBIQIN AKD FBOGBEBB OT

THE CEOSS AND THE CRESCENT,

AS STANDARDS IN WAR.

CHAPTER i.

The source of the respect and reverence for the figure of the Cross. — No evidence that the early Christians preserved the Cross on which the Saviour suffered. — ^Frequency of the use of the Cross as an instrument of punishment. — Numbers of , persons recorded as having suffered crucifixion. — In the fourth century the real Cross of Christ was said to have been discovered. — ^The wood made merchandize of. — ^The necessity for true believers in the nineteenth century to analyse relics said to be of the Cross, and apply the materials to the test of botanical chemistry.

The great doctrine of the cross, in the redemption of man by Christ crucified, has given to the figure of an instrument of torture and death a sacredness and a dignity in the estimation of Christians. The resurrection was the victory achieved by the Redeemer over death and the grave ; and we may describe the feelings with which Christians regard the figure of the cross, as mixed with deep gratitude and affection towards Him who gave his life a ransom for many.

The apostles and friends of the Great Sufferer, who were the eye-witnesses and historians of his crucifixion and resurrection, were too deeply affected by the saving truths which those two events embodied, to turn their thoughts and attention to the material instrument of death. This silence and indifference on the subject of the cross, on which the death actually took place, were quite natural to men in their situation. The death by the cross was not invented as a special cruelty to Christ; but it was the common mode of execution among the Romans, and almost every people at that period. Indeed, it was the mode of punishment which had always prevailed in the world, and must have had its origin in that primeval state of society, when the trunk and the branch of a tree were the only instruments of the public executioner. And we learn from various allusions, that a tree was used for that purpose in ancient times ; and the very historians of the Cross point to the fact, in the expression — "they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre."* But among the Jews themselves, hanging on a tree, and not crucifixion, was the mode of punishment. It was under the Roman law that Christ was crucified. The punishment of the cross was considered so degrading, that freemen would not even touch the instrument. Hence, the sufferer was compelled to bear his own cross to the place of execution ; and if he was unable to carry it, slaves were generally employed for the purpose ; but, in the case of Jesus, one Simon, a person who happened to be passing, was seized hold of as the cross-bearer. The frequency of the punishment of death by the cross, and the numbers of victims as described in ancient history, are horrible to the modem Christian. History relates some appalling cases of military execution by that

* Acts xiii. 29.

instrument of torture ; and those axe referred to here, for reasons which will afterwards be mentioned.

Among the calamities that befell Tyre, with its merchant princes, was the crucifixion of two thousand of its inhabitants bj Alexander the Macedonian, when he carried by storm that great commercial city — "a sad spectacle even to the conquerors themselves," who arrayed the crucified men along the sea-coast.*

In the domestic wars of the Jews, eighty-six years before the advent of Christ, there occurred a terrible execution of eight hundred men who had fallen prisoners into the hands of Alexander Janneus, who caused them to be crucified altogether in one day ; and while the tortured men were hanging on the crosses, their wives and children were put to death before their faces. This took place in the city of Jerusalem.-j-

In the New Testament history there are very few allusions to the convulsed and almost anarchical state of society in Judea, just preceding, or about, the advent of Christ. That history had transactions of more transcendent importance to relate than the military operations of the Roman armies, or the political revolutions of nations at that time. But woful were the calamities which were then falling on the country of Judea, and the cup of misery was fast filling to the brim. Social convulsions, and the inroads of large bands of robbers, led to severe military execution by the Roman generals in command of the armies. In the interval between the death of Herod, who slew the children in Bethlehem, and the return of his son Archelaus from Rome to take possession of the government of Judea, there occurred some extraordinary