worship
_Serapis_, and devoted to Serapis are those who call
themselves '_Bishops of Christ_.'"[342:3]

The ancient Egyptians were in the habit of putting a cross on their
sacred cakes, just as the Christians of the present day do on Good
Friday.[342:4] The plan of the chamber of some Egyptian sepulchres has
the form of a cross,[342:5] and the cross was worn by Egyptian ladies as
an ornament, in precisely the same manner as Christian ladies wear it at
the present day.[342:6]

The ancient Babylonians honored the cross as a religious symbol. It is
to be found on their oldest monuments. Anu, a deity who stood at the
head of the Babylonian mythology, had a cross for his sign or
symbol.[343:1] It is also the symbol of the Babylonian god Bal.[343:2] A
cross hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal tablet
from Nimroud, now in the British Museum. Another king, from the ruins of
Ninevah, wears a Maltese cross on his bosom. And another, from the hall
of Nisroch, carries an emblematic necklace, to which a Maltese cross is
attached.[343:3] The most common of crosses, the _crux ansata_ (Fig. No.
21) was also a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. It occurs repeatedly
on their cylinders, bricks and gems.[343:4]

The ensigns and standards carried by the Persians during their wars with
Alexander the Great (B. C. 335), were made in the form of a cross--as we
shall presently see was the style of the ancient _Roman_ standards--and
representations of these cross-standards have been handed down to the
present day.

Sir Robert Ker Porter, in his very valuable work entitled: "Travels in
Georgia, Persia, Armenia, and Ancient Babylonia,"[343:5] shows the
representation of a _bas-relief_, of very ancient antiquity, which he
found at Nashi-Roustam, or the Mountain of Sepulchres. It represents a
combat between two horsemen--Baharam-Gour, one of the old Persian kings,
and a Tartar prince. Baharam-Gour is in the act of charging his opponent
with a spear, and behind him, scarcely visible, appears an almost
effaced form, which must have been his standard-bearer, as the _ensign_
is very plainly to be seen. _This ensign is a cross._ There is another
representation of the same subject to be seen in a _bas-relief_, which
shows the standard-bearer and his _cross_ ensign very plainly.[343:6]
This _bas-relief_ belongs to a period when the Arsacedian kings governed
Persia,[343:7] which was within a century after the time of Alexa