The same author reports the discovery of the relics of Zechariah the prophet. Calemerus, a serf, was directed in a dream to dig at a certain place in a garden, being assured that he would find two coffins, the inner one of wood, the other of lead; “beside the coffins you will see a glass vessel full of water, and two serpents of moderate size, but tame and perfectly innoxious, so that they seem to be used to being handled.” Calemerus followed the directions, and found the body of Zechariah, “clad in a white stole,” with a royal child lying at his feet; and “although the prophet had lain under the earth for so many generations, he appeared sound; his hair was closely shorn, his nose was straight; his beard moderately grown, his head quite short, his eyes rather sunken, and concealed by the eyebrows.”[210] In a similar style,[211] Sozomen relates how the head of John the Baptist was discovered in the suburbs of Constantinople. That such ridiculous myths could be written down as a part of genuine Church history, shows how fully the pagan falsehoods corrupted the best currents of Christian life.
Comparatively few readers realize that the cross was of heathen origin, and a religious symbol of the lowest order, and that it was not adopted as a symbol of Christianity until the Church was well paganized. Its origin lies in the shadows of the prehistoric period. It was a religious symbol in the Asiatic, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Druidic, and Central American heathenism. It originated in the lowest department of sun-worship _cultus_. Ishtar, the Assyrian Venus, was represented as holding a staff, the upper end of which was in the form of a Latin cross. The worship of Ishtar was one of the darkest features of the Babylonian religion. It was conducted with lascivious rites which may not be named. It corrupted the Hebrews on every side. We find it, with other forms of sun-worship, polluting the temple itself, and sharply condemned by the prophet of Jehovah.[212]
Tammuz was the young and beautiful sun-god, the bridegroom of Ishtar who bore the cross-crowned sceptre; and this mourning for him was associated with gross obscenity.
Another form of this same worship is condemned by Jeremiah, thus: