Crispus with early Christian reference?

This is a very attractive interpretation.

Some people may object by saying that Mars or Sol are from a different religion, why should they appear together with a cross or why should they even help to symbolise a transition to Christianity.

I think that we have to bear in mind is that Iovi, Mars and Hercules-worship or cults were regarded as ancient, static, traditional and formalistic by the early 4th century. I believe that these deities had morphed into symbols of the Empire and of Roman tradition with little spiritual appeal.

Other much more dynamic, monotheistic types of cults from the east, with concepts like sin and redemption had long been popular among large parts of Roman society. So I think that the combination of Mars or Sol with a cross would not have seem odd to Romans of late antiquity. Mars or Sol turning towards the cross would indeed be read as Roman society and tradition turning towards a new Christian cult

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Thanks for posting the picture above. I think three observations are relevant:
1. the ankh sign was adopted by Christians (we possibly see this sign on some coins, cf. the Constantius II follis above)
2. A cross does not need to have serifs to be interpreted as a cross
3. The symbol of cross with four pellets seem to be of some Christian significance, which could support the view that the symbols on the OP coin were intended or interpreted as Christian symbols.

 

@Tejas, bouncing directly off of your comments on @Heliodromus' posts, another dynamic, more continuous with the earlier phases of the empire, is the remarkable level of pluralism the empire wound up with, not only demographically, but --big surprise-- culturally, religion emphatically included. Right, there's a mural of the Isis cult at Pompeii.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/daily_life_gallery_04.shtml
The coidentification of the Hellenic and Roman pantheons, deity by deity, is well known; that of the Persian /Zoroastrian Mithra (very big with Constantine, and the contemporaneous Roman army) with Sol only slightly less so. Maybe Constantine was merely trying to cover as many bases as he could.
Your observation about the combination of the cross with pellets is something that never occurred to me. I have no idea how to interpret that, especially in reference to the 4th and 5th centuries. But crosses with four pellets are conspicuous in medieval coins from western Europe, c. 10th-13th centuries. --Conspicuous, Not commonplace. And ranging from early Norman issues to ecclesiastical ones of, for instance, Vienne, in southeastern France. ...The lack of cohesion between the minting authorities isn't helping here. But it's a cool correspondence for someone with the time and resources to investigate.

 

I read in a biography of Constantine that one should not dismiss the seriousness of his conversion to Christianity. However, he had his own interpretation, which included him being some kind of new Christ and he had his own political motives. The latter included in particular the wish to install a cult that would unify the empire, in the sense of one God, one empire, one emperor.

Hence, Constantine was very irritated and annoyed by the various Christian heresies that sprung up during his reign. And rightly so, heresy (Arians, Donatists, Monophysites etc.) would be a defining hallmark of late antiquity and a key factor that weakened the empire to the point that large parts would fall to Islam in the 7th century.

 

... and (just for fun) on 3rd-century pagan altars.

 

I read somewhere that the pellets that filled the empty spaces around the cross were the result of "horror vacui", i.e. the fear of emptiness (which the devil would fill). Horror vacui explains why medieval churches and manuscripts were often fully decorated without any empty spaces.

 

Nice reminder not to get carried away with Christian interpretations. However, interpretations can change over time. What was perhaps decoration in one period can take on a new meaning in another period.

An example of this could be the "gaze to heaven" posture. It can be found on pagan coins, but with the rise of Christianity it is reasonable to assume that people re-interpreted this image in a Christian way. Hence, the fact that a symbol appears on a pagan coin does not disqualify it for a later Christian interpretation.

Just the opportunity to show my favourite Constantius II siliqua (again):




However, I would agree that it is safer to assume that the symbols on the OP coins were intended as decorations, even if some Christians interpreted them differently.

 

This symbol (or decoration) with a cross and four pellets also appears on Constantine's helmet. Here I'm even more inclined to think that it is mere decoration, even though it is placed prominently in a space that shows the Chi Rho symbol on some rare coins.

 

That piece is from the Victoria & Albert museum in London. They suggest a date range of 400-600AD for it.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O119197/textile-fragment-unknown/

The "equilateral cross with dot in each quadrant" symbol, as seen on Tejas' Rome vota coin, and on that textile fragment, is interesting, but I don't think it's really a religious symbol - neither pagan or Christian. I believe this is a symbol representing the cosmos, the same as seen on the globe held by the emperor on some coins, or on the globe the phoenix stands on on one of FEL TEMP types, as well as in many other contexts.

We also see this symbol in what can be taken as a Christian context as one of a handful of alternate symbols on the standard held by the emperor on the FEL TEMP "emperor + captives" type, but it doesn't appear to really have been adopted as a Christian symbol - too generic perhaps. I suppose in any context, pagan or Christian, it was essentially meant as a claim to a universal dominion of power.

The orientation of the symbol doesn't appear to be significant; sometimes it's seen orientated as "+", othertimes as "x".

Here it is on the FEL TEMP standard. This symbol was only used at Antioch, where we see the biggest variety of symbols used.

 

That is an interesting and plausible interpretation.

 

I suppose part of the discussion of the wreaths on the OP coin and subsequent Constantinian examples ought to be Constantine’s vision of a wreath-offering deity ca. August 310. Peter Weiss argues that it is this vision that is given a Christian re-interpretation on the eve of the Milvian Bridge battle and that Constantine did not have a separate vision immediately prior to Battle, as Eusebius seems to imply. The 310 panegyrist states:

“For on the day after that news had been received and you had undertaken the labor of double stages on your journey, you learnt that all the waves had subsided, and that the all-pervading calm which you had left behind had been restored. Fortune herself so ordered this matter that the happy outcome of your affairs prompted you to convey to the immortal gods what you had vowed at the very spot where you had turned aside toward the most beautiful temple in the whole world, or rather, to the deity made manifest, as you saw. For you saw, I believe, O Constantine, your Apollo, accompanied by Victory, offering you laurel wreaths, each one of which carries a portent of thirty years. For this is the number of human ages which are owed to you without fail—beyond the old age of a Nestor. And—now why do I say “I believe”?—you saw, and recognized yourself in the likeness of him to whom the divine songs of the bards had prophesied that rule over the whole world was due. And this I think has now happened, since you are, O Emperor, like he, youthful, joyful, a bringer of health and very handsome. Rightly, therefore, have you honored those most venerable shrines with such great treasures that they do not miss their old ones, any longer. Now may all the temples be seen to beckon you to them, and particularly our Apollo, whose boiling waters punish perjuries which ought to be especially hateful to you.” (6.21.3-7)

I’d like to think there are three wreaths in the vision for a nice Trinitarian parallel, but the panegyrist doesn’t say.

 

(Just getting up here) Lots of really, impressively incisive comments here --I think that can include the ones on the speculative side. Thanks in particular, @Heliodromus, for the enlightenment and link about the Coptic textile.
More broadly, it's worth remembering what a profound period of religious flux this was. In any great movement, whether Christianity, or jazz, or European painting from around 1900, a lot of dynamics tend to be going on simultaneously, with widely varying degrees of synergy, never mind direct causal effect, between them. Transfer that principle to something as innately fluid as symbiotics, and it's easy to imagine a range of contrasting but simultaneous interpretations going on. @Heliodromus' point about broader cosmological connotations, rather than explicitly religious ones, is very a propos here. Back to the Copts and the Ankh cross, the Ankh was a generalized symbol of life, for one. Easy enough to tweak along Coptic Christian lines.
It makes sense to me that the motifs on Roman coins of the period might even have been intended to attract multiple interpretations, depending on the mint and the attendant demographic(s). ...There could even be precedent for this, in earlier Roman and Hellenistic coins. ...?