Ixion, the pre-Christian son of God on a crossThe Greek demigod Ixion is depicted as "king of the lapiths," a Thessalian tribe of pre-Hellenic "relatives" of Centaurs. Ixion is portrayed as the son of Ares, Zeus - whose name means "God" - or other figure. Because of various transgressions, he is punished by Zeus by being bound on a "fiery, solar wheel" in cruciform for all eternity. Ixion is thus a pre-Christian divine figure depicted in cruciform or on a cross.
In this regard,
Christianity and Mythology, John M. Robertson discusses the Indian sacred scriptures the Vedas, as well as the fire-god Agni, who share many characteristics in common with Christ, including the symbolism of the cross:
Quote:
...In the Vedas, Agni, the Fire-God, is perpetually figured as a divine child born of the two aranis; and to represent the God as being generated by the friction of the crossed sticks would be to figure him on the cross. And this is the probable origin of various symbolic combinations of the cross with the sun: as the figuring of the Deity in the Assyrian system as a cross, of which the upright is a human figure and the transverse beam a conventionalized pair of wings, a type of which in Eastern Mithraic remains becomes a crucified figure... And in the Mihr Yasht ritual, in the Zendavesta, Mithra, the Sun-God, drives in his chariot across the heavens "with his arms lifted up towards immortality." It is a perfectly intelligible variation of the same idea which appears in the myth of Ixion, crucified on his "four-spoked fetter," as Pindar calls it. Ixion was himself, undoubtedly, in some mythology, at some time, the actual Sun-God, and would as such be figured outstretched at once on the fire-cross and on the sun-wheel.
For the "four-spoked fetter" crucifixion of Ixion mentioned by Pindar, Robertson cites
Pythians, ii, 74. Pindar, it should be, noted long predated the Christian era, living about 522 to 443 BCE.
Quote:
...Ixion, by the commands of the gods, ever whirled round on the winged wheel... soon did the man in suffering the just deserts of his crime, receive especial woe... And he wrought for himself the four-spoked bond, his own destruction; and having been thrown into inevitable fetters, he took upon himself the message destined for all...
Here is what appears to be the original of the above image:
The caption reads:
Quote:
Kampanische Amphora mit Ixion
4. Jh. v. Chr., Inv. F 3023
© SMB, Antikensammlung; Foto: Johannes Laurentius
This image dates to the fourth century BCE. There is also a bronze mirror with an image of Ixion on the back which dates from the mid 5th century BCE.
In these images - and in Pindar - we possess a pre-Christian story and image of a divine figure who was punished by being crucified and depicted in cruciform. In Ixion we have a pre-Christian, suffering son of God punished on a "four-spoked bond" of his own creation, whence "he took upon himself the message destined for all." Compare to Jesus Christ, the "Suffering Servant" who carried his own cross, ostensibly as a punishment, at which point he takes upon himself the message of the salvation of all mankind.
Wilson's Almanac author writes:
Quote:
Ixion...may be seen as representing the eternally moving sun. In some parts of Europe in ancient times, a blazing, revolving wheel was carried through fields that needed the heat of the sun; perhaps the Ixion legend evolved to explain the Vitruvius Mancustom and was subsequently adopted by the Greeks.
The myth of Ixion is told by Diodorus, Pindar, Virgil in Georgics and Aeneid, and by Ovid in Metamorphoses.
Pindar is five to six centuries before the common era, and Diodorus writes in the first century BCE, as did Virgil (70-19 BCE), while Ovid lived from 43 BCE to 17 or 18 AD/CE. Hence, in these four authors, we possess evidence of this pre-Christian parallel from several centuries before the Christian era right into the time of Christ's alleged advent - in the writings of some of the most well-known writers of the ancient world. Thus, this myth was not obscure or long forgotten by the time Jesus supposedly suffered a similar fate.
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), which in the ancient Egyptian iconography denoted goodness of heart or saintliness. We can now furnish a picture of the entrance to an institution of charity, which exhibits over the door this symbol covered with an enclosure, denoting a building of any kind. Thus the inscription means "house of goodness."
