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

Fig. 128

Figure 128 represents the same subject; the cuts are grouped iso as to show how the knobbed stick, le báton, becomes converted either into a bent rod, la verge, or a priestly crook, le báton pastoral. There is no doubt that the episcopal crozier is a presentable effigy of a very private and once highly venerated portion of the human frame, which was used in long by-gone days by Etruscan augurs, when they mapped out the sky, prior to noticing the flight of birds. Perhaps we ought to be grateful to Popery for having consecrated to Christ what was so long used in that which divines call the service of the devil.