of renewal, as is the scarabæus, a symbol of the sun, of whom it is said that he, being of masculine sex only, reproduces himself.
The name Chnum (another name for Tum, always meaning "the sun-god") comes from the verb [Greek: ch]num, which means "to bind together, to unite."[137] Chnum appears chiefly as the potter, the moulder of his egg. The cross seems, therefore, to be an extraordinarily condensed symbol; its supreme meaning is that of the tree of life, and, therefore, is a symbol of the mother. The symbolization in a human form is, therefore, intelligible. The phallic forms of the Crux Ansata belong to the abstract meaning of "life" and "fertility," as well as to the meaning of "union," which we can now very properly interpret as cohabitation with the mother for the purpose of renewal.[138] It is, therefore, not only a very touching but also a very significant naïve symbolism when Mary, in an Old English lament of the Virgin,[139] accuses the cross of being a false tree, which unjustly and without reason destroyed "the pure fruit of her body, her gentle birdling," with a poisonous draught, the draught of death, which is destined only for the guilty descendants of the sinner Adam. Her son was not a sharer in that guilt. (Compare with this the cunning of Isis with the fatal draught of love.) Mary laments:
"Cross, thou art the evil stepmother of my son, so high hast
thou hung him that I cannot even kiss his feet! Cross, thou art
my mortal enemy, thou hast slain my little blue bird!"
The holy cross answers:
