Three Dog Knot

[TechBear]

I have books on the ancient and current symbols of Christianity, none of which include the swastika (swastica). Do you have something in evidence of this that I could reference?

The swastika as a Christian symbol derived from the solar cross, ie the equal armed cross enclosed by a circle.

The solar cross was used very widely throughout the early Christian to represent both Christ as the Pantokrator ("ruler of all") and the mission of evangelizing the world. As Christianity spread, it came in contact with the similar swastika which was found in many cultures in the Middle and Far East. Missionaries made a practice of adapting Christian symbols to show the "pagans" how their own religions predicted the coming of Christ; thus, the solar cross was "broken" to show that the swastika was really a Christian symbol "in disguise." For some centuries, a swastika with curved "rays" was a Christian symbol used by missionaries and churches from Afghanistan to Japan.

You find similar "adaptation" of "pagan" symbols throughout Christian history. Other examples include the Egyptian ankh (symbol of life which became the "crux ansata" representing eternal life through faith in Christ), the iconography of Mother and Child (found in many different cultures; motherhood is pretty universal), the Irish shamrock (once associated with representations of three seated deities, now a symbol of the Trinity), and the labyrinth (associated with escape from the Underworld, labryrinths were in vogue for several centuries in Europe as symbols of how Christ saves from Hell and eternal death; see Chartre and other gothic Cathedrals.)

[Woodsheal]

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