human being on the cross. Not in any of the paintings on the ancient
catacombs is found a crucified Christ. The earliest cross bearing a
human being is of the eighth century. For a long time a lamb with a
cross, or on a cross, was the Christian symbol, and it is a lamb which
we see entombed in the "holy sepulchre." In more than one mosaic of
early Christian times, it is not Jesus, but a lamb, which is bleeding
for the salvation of the world. How a lamb came to play so important a
role in Christianity is variously explained. The similarity between
the name of the Hindu god, _Agni_ and the meaning of the same word in
Latin, which is a lamb, is one theory. Another is that a ram, one of
the signs of the zodiac, often confounded by the ancients with a lamb,
is the origin of the popular reverence for the lamb as a symbol--a
reverence which all religions based on sun-worship shared. The lamb in
Christianity takes away the sins of the people, just as the paschal
lamb did in the Old Testament, and earlier still, just as it did in
Babylonia.

[Illustration: Used by a Priest of Bacchus, Showing the Cross.]

[Illustration: Engraving of the XI Century.]

[Illustration: Lamb on Cross.]

[Illustration: From a Picture in the Church of Genest. A Lamb Carrying
the Cross.]

[Illustration: The Lamb and the Cross, IX Century.]

To the same effect is the following letter of the bishop of Mende, in
France, bearing date of the year 800 A. D.: "Because the darkness has