Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism
by Thomas Inman, M.D. (1874)
Pagan and Christian symbolism

Fig. 82

Figure 82 is from Lajard (Op. Cit.), plate xivb, fig. 3.

The gem is of unknown origin, but is apparently Babylonish; it represents the male and female in conjunction: each appears to be holding the symbol of the triad in much respect, whilst the curious cross suggests a new reading to an ancient symbol.

I have of late heard it asserted, by a man of considerable learning, though of a very narrow mind in everything which bears upon religious subjects, that there is no proof that the sun was commonly regarded as a male, or the moon as a female; and he based his strange assertion solely upon the ground that in German and some other languages the sun was represented by a feminine, and the moon by a masculine noun. The argument is of no value, for [—Greek—] and other Greek and Latin names of the yoni, are masculine nouns, and Virga and Mentula, the Roman words for the Linga, are feminine. In Hindostan, the sun is always represented as a God; the moon is occasionally a male, and sometimes a female deity. In ancient Gaulish and Scandinavian figures, the sun was always a male, and the moon a female. Their identification will be seen in Figure 118—as their conjunction is in the one before us—in the position of the individuals, and in the fleur-de-lys and oval symbol.