Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/367

 Sozomen, the ecclesiastical historian, says that, on the destruction of the Serapium in Egypt, “there were found sculptured on the stones certain characters regarded as sacred, resembling the sign of the cross. This representation, interpreted by those who knew the meaning, signified ‘The Life to come.’ This was the occasion of a great number of pagans embracing Christianity, the more so because other characters announced that the temple would be destroyed when this character came to light .” Socrates gives further particulars: “Whilst they were demolishing and despoiling the temple of Serapis, they found characters, engraved on the stone, of the kind called hieroglyphics, the which characters had the figure of the cross. When the Christians and the Greeks [i.e. heathen] saw this, they referred the signs to their own religions. The Christians, who regarded the cross as the symbol of the salutary passion of Christ, thought that this character was their own. But the Greeks said it was common to Christ and Serapis; though this cruciform character is, in fact, one thing to the Christians, and another to the Greeks. A controversy having arisen,