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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 203
body therefrom, and returning to us the elixir of life, the
cleansed oxygen.
Between the plant and the human kingdom stands the
animal with the horizontal spine, and in the horizontal
spine the life currents of the animal group spirit play as-
they circle around our globe. Therefore the horizontal limb
of the cross is the symbol of the animal kingdom.
In esotericism the cross was never looked upon as an in-
strument of torture, and it was not until the sixth century
that the crucified Christ was shown in pictures. Previous
to that time the symbol of the Christ was a cross and a
lamb resting at its foot, to convey the idea that at the
time when the Christ was born the sun at the vernal equinox
crossed the equator in the sign Aries, the Lamb. The
symbols of the different religions have always been made
in that way. At the time when the sun by precession
crossed the vernal equinox in the sign Taurus, the Bull, a
religion was founded in Egypt where they worshiped the
Bull Apis in the same sense that we worship the Lamb of
God. At a much earlier date, we hear of the Norse God
Thor driving his twin goats across the sky. That was at
the time when the vernal equinox was in the sign Gemini,
the Twins. At the time of the birth of Christ, the vernal
equinox was in about i degrees of Aries, the Lamb, therefore
our Savior was called the Lamb of God. There was
a dispute in the earlier centuries regarding the propriety
of having the lamb as a symbol of our Savior. Some
claimed that the vernal equinox at His birth was really in
the sign Pisces, the Fishes, and that the symbol of our
Savior should have been a fish. It is in memory of that
dispute that the bishop's mitre still takes the form of the
hoad of a fish.