At 8:30 AM on May 21, 2025, I discovered the TAU cross is the Omega of the Jewish alphabet. The T means “truth” The Alpha is the Creation of Adam, who is God in human form. He is born in the Garden of Eden, disobeys God, and tells Him a lie. He is cast out, and set out to rediscover….THE TRUTH.
I believe John the Baptist may have baptized people in the pools at Quanrum. and when they emerged, he MARKED THEIR FORHEADS, and thus sealing them up – for the coming END TIME which did happened, and John’s religiom was stolen and converted by Saul-Paul.
When President Trump claimed Canada and Greenland, he stepped outside the boundaries of the Constitution. When Trump ended governent funding of Harvard, he did so for….
RELIGIOUS REASONS
I will baptize those who want to be sealed up, in Massachusetts and Nazareth.
The Jews and their Torah goes into the reasons God allowed His Children to be taken into captivity.
(Lev. 25:2-4; 26:33-35) Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the LORD.
“Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”
…12“Behold, I am coming soon, and My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done. 13I amtheAlphaandtheOmega,theFirstandtheLast,theBeginningandtheEnd.” 14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by its gates.…
Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew word emet, which means ‘truth‘. The midrash explains that emet is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph, mem, and tav: אמת). Sheqer (שקר, falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters.
Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In Jewish mythology it was the word emet that was carved into the head of the Golem which ultimately gave it life. But when the letter aleph was erased from the golem’s forehead, what was left was “met“—dead. And so the golem died.
Ezekiel 9:4 depicts a vision in which the tav plays a Passover role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt.[2] In Ezekiel’s vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a tav, “upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”
Why do Franciscans so often wear a Tau cross or use it in their artwork? Also, compared to the crosses we usually see, why doesn’t it have a top part?
Tau is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet and is thought to be the symbol with which Ezekiel marked those chosen by God (Ez 9:4). Pope Innocent III opened the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (which was very important to St. Francis) with a homily on this Scripture passage.
St. Francis of Assisi eventually signed his letters not with his name but with this symbol. Many Franciscans wear such a cross on a piece of leather, and Franciscan pilgrimage programs often begin by giving each participant such a cross. It represents a journey never completed this side of heaven. The Tau reminds us of St. Francis’ saying, “Let us begin again.”
The Jews had disobeyed God’s law of obeying the Sabbath. They had been in the Promised Land for roughly 800 years, and for 490 years, they disobeyed his Sabbath rest. The Sabbath rest was not only every seventh day; it was also every seventh year. The Jews were allowed to work the land for six years, but on the seventh year they had to let the land get a rest. God commanded this because the land needs to recuperate, gaining back its minerals. Also, this was an act of trust and obedience to God. The Jews were trusting God’s provision by not farming for an entire year. Judgment was promised if they disobeyed God’s Sabbath rest:
(Lev. 25:2-4; 26:33-35) Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the LORD. 3‘Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, 4but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard… 33‘You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste. 34‘Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35‘All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it.
(2 Chron. 36:21) To fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete.
God promised the Jews that he would kick them out of the land, if they disobeyed him on this:
(Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10-14) This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12‘Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,’ declares the LORD, ‘for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation… “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. 11‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14‘I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’
In the book of Jeremiah, God told the people that he would exile them from the land for 70 years, because this was the amount of time that the Sabbath rest had been disobeyed (490 years total). Here in Ezra, we see that this 70 year period had elapsed, as Daniel had also anticipated (Dan. 9:1-2). Ezra records that God moved King Cyrus to let the people back into the land. This was truly a supernatural event. Cyrus even returned the gold and silver that Nebuchadnezzar had sacked from the Temple in 600 B.C. (Dan. 1).
Of course, the length of the exile was set because of their disobedience to the Sabbath, but this wasn’t the primary reason for the exile. The Jews committed idolatry, child sacrifice, and ritual prostitution. This was the reason for being removed from the land.
Growing up in the Bay Area, Fleet Week was a big deal for male teenagers. Being in the Navy, Rosemary took her sons, and our two best friends to an event, and we ended up on a submarine. The Theory that James Bond was arrested and spent time on Alcatraz – is blowing my mind! Rena Easton and I spent two nights in a tent in a backyard in Oakland. She would later marry Admiral Ian Easton. The Eastons inspired me to author my James Bond novel ‘The Royal Janitor’ starring Victoria Rosemond Bond the granddaughter of James Bond.
I am kin to Ian Fleming via my cousin, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, who was married to Secretary of the Navy, John Warner. Today I am firmly rooted in all the myths surrounding James Bond and Ian Fleming. Victoria Bond kept having dreams about a Ghost Fleet, and, today there exists a…
I ran for Governor of Oregon and got 170 votes in the Primary. I did not have the money to appear in the voter’s pamphlet. All my extra money goes into publishing my blog-newspaper ‘Royal Rosamond Press
5 As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.
Netanyahu declared Israel is not a “Banana Republic” and he is going to go through with his attack on Rafah – in defiance of my President, the United Nations, the European Union, and South Africa. Does Israel have the backing of…The End Time Christian Nationlists who want the Temple on the Munt rebuilt?……YES!
Do the right-wing rabbis that are for this invasion – believe in the Anti-Christ? Do they believe – IN CHRIST? No, but Muslims do. And they are praying atop the Temple Mount this very day. I wish I was there. I will go there in the World of Artificial Intelligence. I am…The End Time Elijah as prophesized by Herbert Armstrong, whose radio church I inherited.
I know the holocaust happened, and do not condone it in any way. I know Anti-Semitism has been weaponized, and is now a Propaganda Tool to win over Jewish voters, and Christian Voters, and install the Republican Party as Divine Voters and Supporters of Zionist Israel. When I become Republican President, I will launch and investigation of Governor DeSantis who singed a pact with Israel, who used my fellow citizen to LAUNCH a secret plan to take over Palestinian Land.
Netanyahu and his War-rabbis do not want the world to see Israel as helpless victiims that need protection from a more powerful Big Brother. They want to return to the Good Ol Days, when the God of the Jews could summon angels to slaughter fellow Jews – wothout mercy! Then, there are the emenies of THE LORD.! We are at war. War Porpganda is being employed to decide WINNERS! This is a RGHT. Antisemits is being used to STYMY the objection of Peaceful People, who want another way. I represent The Other Way, as the embodiment of John the Bapits ‘The Nazarite’.
I will put together a board of Judges who will hear every complaint of Anti-Semitism. I am calling for all those who molest, or harm Jewish Demonstrators – to be their protectors. I am coming to Jerusalem. I call upon members of the Orange to promote and protect me. I am investigating the disappearance of my close friend whose mother was an O’Niel and descend from Irish King of the Red Hand of Ulster.
I accuse the Rabbis who hate Jesus of using our National Pity to divide us. We are – a merciful People.
On this day, March 15, 2024, I declarer Dual Citizenship – DEAD! Putin drew a line in the sand saying he would nuke tens of millions of Europeans. How about Israel that has a population of nine million. We, the OTHER religious people of the world, and We the People – who don’t believe in the God of Abraham….
HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST!
Demand Israel condemn in writnng Putin’s SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT UN-ARMED PEOPLE!
Biden praises Schumer’s controversial anti-Netanyahu speech slammed as ‘mistake’ by Israeli PM’s rival
President Biden hailed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday for calling on Israel to have a “new election” as soon as possible, with Biden telling reporters the Brooklyn Democrat made a “good speech” — despite Jewish groups and Israeli leaders slamming Schumer’s comments.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for a ground offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, his office said in a statement today. The Israeli military is “preparing for the operational side and for the evacuation of the population,” it said. More than 1 million people are sheltering in the city, many of them displaced after escaping Israeli military offensives in other parts of the enclave.
The statement also discussed the latest cease-fire proposal put forward by Hamas, which it described as “unrealistic.” An Israeli delegation will travel to Qatar to discuss their position. Hamas presented the proposal to mediators and the U.S., according to Reuters, which reported that it includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, including 100 who are serving life sentences.
A private aid ship that has been chugging slowly across the Mediterranean Sea arrived in Gaza today. The Open Arms vessel is towing a barge containing flour, rice and protein to the enclave, where five months of war have left around a quarter of its 2.3 million residents “one step away” from famine, according to the United Nations.
Netanyahu says he will meet with DeSantis in Israel
GABE GUTIERREZ AND JONATHAN ALLEN
Updated
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he’d “of course” meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during a high-profile trade mission as DeSantis weighs a presidential bid.
“Of course,” he said Sunday morning on CBS’s “Face the Nation” when he was asked whether he’d meet with DeSantis. “I’ll meet with everyone. Why not? I meet with Republican governors and Democratic governors. I’m not avoiding the question, and actually I’m rushing right into it. … I think it’s my job, and I think it’s important for Israel’s bipartisan support in the United States. I make a point of it.”
“Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”
When I awoke I heard that I should get rid of the Red Cross and keep the Red Star -but add – The Bridge so that the chosen people may crossover. I turn on CNN and a spokesman for our government says Israel has the right to bomb civilians because Hamas will not put their missiles in the open, away from the dwellings – so the IDF can destroy them with ease! Then came the complaint of those whose family has been taken hostage – and who are trapped in Gaza. Tapper kept asking what the outcome will look like? Will Hamas be eliminated if all of Gaza is leveled to the ground, and a hundred thousands citizens are bombed to smithereens?
I googled Saint Francis and the Crucifixion and found the Tau Cross that is connected to THE ANGEL that was placed above the temple. But -it was removed! Was this angel turned into Satan – who tempted Jesus?
“Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple
I can see the Angelic Lion that is the symbol of the Tribe of Judah that sat atop Solomon’s temple to show Judah’s alliance with Egypt. The Liars of Saul had the real Jesus denounce his Jewish roots, and his linage to King David. This linage may have been marked with the Angelic Tau and spared the slaughter of the innocent.
Each Tau Cross is a column of the Charles Bridge. At the end of The Bridge is the Church of Saint Francis. Above this church – is a Star! CROSS The Bridge! Above The Bridge is a Red Star of Bethlehem! With the discovery of The Third Cherubim, I conclude Jesus did not die on the cross, and was not destined to die on any cross – because he is of Ruth and Boaz -and came to restore the True Linage of David! Jesus was a King of Judah! We are in Revelations! I AM doing Revelations – for you – because it is time! I have raised the Angel of Bethlehem – FROM THE DEAD – and all who were slaughtered long ago – and all who are being slaughtered TODAY. The slaughtering in Gaza must STOP – today – or there will be no New Temple. I am the architect of the House of The Word. I own The Writing Kit!
Study Zionism and the Antichrist – who is Trump! Zionist define who they are by Anti-Semitism, the same way Republicans define who they are by those Opposed to Trump. Evangelical Lawmakers are claiming itis evil to oppose Trump. It is nt evil to be against Zionism – as I will show you.
Tell me, those who have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear – what is the glory of God – that hovered about the Cheruibim
“Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim
On this day, October 29, 2023 – I found the First and The True Sign of the Cross! Above the head of Jesus (who was not crucified) it reads ‘King of Judah’ and not – The Slaughtered Little Lamb!
John ‘The Man in White Linen’
1 Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded.”
As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.
The cross’s use in Franciscanism dates back to St. Francis of Assisi himself, who used it as his signature and personal seal. During the time of Francis and from the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, the Tau was a symbol widely used by the Catholic Church, in general, as a sign of conversion and sign of the cross.
9 Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, “Bring near those who are appointed to execute judgment on the city, each with a weapon in his hand.” 2 And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side 4 and said to him, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”
5 As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.
7 Then he said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city. 8 While they were killing and I was left alone, I fell facedown, crying out, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?”
9 He answered me, “The sin of the people of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. They say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord does not see.’ 10 So I will not look on them with pity or spare them, but I will bring down on their own heads what they have done.”
11 Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded.”
Robert E. Lee and I are in the family tree of this amazing family that is debating about getting its castles back that Hitler took from them, and then, the Soviet Union. This is an incredible story of a real Lost Kingdom that the Rosamond and Wilson family are a part of. So are the Bentons!
My first history book will be titled ‘Gone To Hartwell’ which could be a euphuism for ‘Gone Nuts’. The reason I love doing genealogies, is because 86% percent of the royals are nuts! Flawed and Crazy People have made 99% percent our history.
Thirty years ago I read the Bible for the first time. I was forty-two. What I saw, was John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Disciples had opened the Judaic Religion – to everyone! Saul-Paul closed The First Church, and shut out the Jews. Therefore, I declare the Catholic and Protestant Churches – dead! Only the Moravian Church – survives! This Church is open to everyone!
Alles Erdreich Ist Österreich Untertan, Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universo
(“All the world is subject to Austria” or “Austria is the Empire of the entire world”, usually abbreviated to A.E.I.O.U., the motto of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and of the Habsburg Empire after him)
Geography is the science which studies space and its construction, not only its physical construction but also its social/political one. In other terms geography can be the discipline in quest for meaning of space. And cartography is the science of interpretation of power relations and communicating it via maps. In the light of these tow definitions we exposed, on this site, the rapports between the political centre, space and representation in some famous maps. First we worked on the maps of Heinrich Bunting: Jerusalem and Europe. Then we saw the Dutch Lion of Visscher.
Today our map is the BOHEMIAE ROSA, by Chr. Vetter, Vienna, 1668, a map representing Bohemia as a rose centred on Prague.
FIGURE 1. Rose of Bohemia, by Chr. Vetter, 1668
Bohemia, the heart of the Habsburg’s European system
1526, the catastrophic battle of Mohacs, and Louis II, king of Hungary and Bohemia, falls in the battle. The Turks occupy most of the Pannonian plains of Hungary. The rest of the country, still free from the Ottoman yoke, elected Ferdinand of Habsburg, brother of Emperor Charles V, as king of Hungary (Or king of the Regnum Marianum, a formal name of the country). Then and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown followed and elected him king of Bohemia and ex officio prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus in 1526 a four-century period of Habsburg rule in Hungary and Bohemia began.
Bohemia was already the “crossroads” in the heart of Europe and a cornerstone in the Habsburgs’ policy in the Holy Roman Empire, at the same time an important rear operating base against the advance of the Turks in the heart of Europe.
The Europa Prima of Bunting shows this Habsburger view of Europe and of the European international system of that time: while the “centre-head” is Spain the heart is Bohemia (See FIGURE 2). Keeping Bohemia was expensive for the Habsburgs: we can remember that the Thirty Years’ War began in and because of Bohemia. It was, also, an economic heart of the Habsburg Possessions in Europe: being rich in soil and silver mines, and even a birthplace of the Thaler, the silver coin ancestor of the Dollar.
FIGURE 2. Europa Prima Pars Terrae, 1581, Hanover, by Heinrich Bunting
ROSA BOHEMIAE and the blood
The map shows Bohemia as a rose centred on Prague which forms its style. The Bohemian counties are the petals (mapped in an accurate way) and the adjacent countries are the leaves. The “soil” from which the rose arises is Austria and Vienna is at the origin of the rose’s foot. The motto above reads IVSTITIA ET PIETATE (Justice and Piety), personal motto of Leopold I, then Holy Roman Emperor and head of the House of Habsburg.
Under the rose there is some explanation of the map. The writing in Latin translates:
“In the Hercynian Forest[*] a most graceful Rose grew, with a Lion standing guard next to her. This Rose is not of Venus but grows of the blood of Mars; here the Rosebush, here the Forest, of acknowledgement, this earth was. Be not afraid, O Rose! The Austrians enter the Hercynian gardens; Under the Rose now silent, horrific wars were made. THE ROSE OF BOHEMIA, for centuries bloody, where more than 80 battles were fought, now for the first time drawn.”[1]
The Czech Republican has a pact with the Kurds to come to their military aide. Are they preparing a Army? Is this why Lucifer has brought Russia onto the field. I spoke of the Knights of Blanik Mountain.
I am kin to the Acinent Noble of Bohemia who came to dwell in America. Seven years ago I claimed the Lousiana Purchase in the name of my Fiancé. I talked about granting the Dakotas to the Lakota People. I hereby found the Warrior Nation of the Dakotas. The Kurds will have a Nation in North Dakota, and the Lakota in South Dakota. I bid all those who claim to be Knight Templars to recognize the Dakota Kurdistan and petition their governments to do the same. These Brave People will not die without a Nation …….
So help me God!
The people of North Dakota would welcome the Kurds because their State is dying. It is a boring ghost State. Everyone living their now will own dual citizenship.
‘North Dakota, Home of the Brave’
‘South Dakota, Home of the Braves’
John Presco
Commander of the Knight Templars of the Bohemia and the Czech Republic.
Knights Templar in Czech Kingdom
Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia (Currently the Czech Republic)
Even though in the 12th and 13th century, fame of the Templar order by far exceeded all the other Orders, the Poor Soldiers of Christ came to Bohemia and Moravia later much later, at the beginning of the 30’s. Although the position of Knights Templar in medieval history of our country, operations of this ecclesiastic knightly Order in Bohemia and Moravia illustrates the view on its society and remains us of often unpredictable fates of both individuals and institutions.
1267
Construction of a group of houses at the end of Celetna street called Templ belonging to the Prague Jerusalem Commandery was finished.
1268
Templar Prior for Germany Bohemia and Moravia, Brother Jan, resided in Bohemia.
1269
Bishop Bruno of Schauenburk was solving a dispute between Templar Knights from Cejkovice and Cistercian monastery in Zdar concerning tithes from the village Vrbice. He decided in favour of Templar Order..
1276
Czech Templar Knights, Johanites and Teutonic knights are freed from their duty to pay tithes as aid for Holy Land by pope, because they pay with their own blood.
The tau cross is a T-shaped cross, sometimes with all three ends of the cross expanded.[1] It is called a “tau cross” because it is shaped like the Greek letter tau,[2] which in its upper-case form has the same appearance as Latin letter T.
Another name for the same object is Saint Anthony’s cross[3] or Saint Anthony cross,[4] a name given to it because of its association with Saint Anthony of Egypt.
It is also called a crux commissa,[5] one of the four basic types of iconographic representations of the cross.[6]
The Greek letter tau was used as a numeral for 300. The Epistle of Barnabas (late first century or early second) gives an allegorical interpretation of the number 318 (in Greek numerals τιη’) in the text of Book of Genesis 14:14 as intimating the crucifixion of Jesus by viewing the numerals ιη’ (18) as the initial letters of Ἰησοῦς, Iēsus, and the numeral τ’ (300) as a prefiguration of the cross: “What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus denoted—Ten by Ι, and Eight by Η. You have [the initials of the name of] Jesus. And because the cross was to express the grace [of our redemption] by the letter Τ, he says also, ‘Three Hundred’. He signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one.”[7]
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) gives the same interpretation of the number τιη’ (318), referring to the cross of Christ with the expression “the Lord’s sign”: “They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord’s sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour’s name.”[8]
Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) remarks that the Greek letter τ and the Latin letter T have the same shape as the execution cross: “Ipsa est enim littera Graecorum Tau, nostra autem T, species crucis”.[9]
In the Trial of the Court of the Vowels of non-Christian Lucian (125 – after 180), the Greek letter Sigma (Σ) accuses the letter Tau (Τ) of having provided tyrants with the model for the wooden instrument with which to crucify people and demands that Tau be executed on his own shape: “It was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified. Σταυρός the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape—that shape which he gave to the gibbet named σταυρός after him by men”[10]
The Greek word σταυρός, which in the New Testament refers to the structure on which Jesus died, appears as early as AD 200 in two papyri, Papyrus 66 and Papyrus 75 in a form that includes the use of a cross-like combination of the letters tau and rho.[11][12][13] This tau-rho symbol, the staurogram, appears also in Papyrus 45 (dated 250), again in relation to the crucifixion of Jesus. In 2006 Larry Hurtado noted that the Early Christians probably saw in the staurogram a depiction of Jesus on the cross, with the cross represented (as elsewhere) by the tau and the head by the loop of the rho, as had already been suggested by Robin Jensen, Kurt Aland and Erika Dinkler.[11] In 2008 David L. Balch agreed, adding more papyri containing the staurogram (Papyrus 46, Papyrus 80 and Papyrus 91) and stating: “The staurogram constitutes a Christian artistic emphasis on the cross within the earliest textual tradition”, and “in one of the earliest Christian artifacts we have, text and art are combined to emphasize ‘Christus crucifixus’”.[12] In 2015, Dieter T. Roth found the staurogram in further papyri and in parts of the aforementioned papyri that had escaped the notice of earlier scholars.[13]
In the view of Tertullian[14] and of Origen (184/185 – 253/254)[15] the passage in Ezekiel 9:4 in which an angel וְהִתְוִיתָ תָּו עַל־מִצְחֹות הָאֲנָשִׁים, “set a mark [tav; after the cross-shaped Phoenician and early Hebrew letter] on the forehead of the men” who are saved was a prediction of the Early Christian custom of repeatedly tracing on their own foreheads the sign of the cross.
Through its association with the Antonines, this cross became known as Saint Anthony’s cross, as the disease of ergotism, to whose treatment the Antonines devoted themselves more particularly, became known as Saint Anthony’s fire.
In about 1500 the Antonines still had 370 hospitals, but with the identification of the fungus that caused ergotism, the reduction of epidemics and the competition from the hospitals of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (generally known as the Knights of Malta) their numbers decreased. Their last house in Europe was finally closed in 1803.[16]
Another explanation proposed for the association of the tau cross with Saint Anthony is that the tau cross a stylized representation of the saint’s staff, topped by a horizontal bar, on which he supported himself when old. A staff of that kind is represented in his hand in a painting by the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470 – 1528) on an outer panel of his Isenheim Altarpiece. In this painting the saint remains tranquil in spite of being threatened by a fearsome demon depicted as breaking the panes of the window behind him. The saint is not shown as wearing the emblem of the Antonines.[16]
The Antonines survive in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, as a Maronite Church order with 21 monasteries and many schools and seminaries. They still use the bright blue tau cross on their black habits.[16]
With the disappearance in the Western Church of the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony, the tau cross is now most commonly associated with the Franciscan Order and its founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, who adopted it as his personal sign after hearing Pope Innocent III talk about the Tau symbol.[17] It is now used as a symbol of the Secular Franciscan Order.[18]
The cross’s use in Franciscanism dates back to St. Francis of Assisi himself, who used it as his signature and personal seal. During the time of Francis and from the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, the Tau was a symbol widely used by the Catholic Church, in general, as a sign of conversion and sign of the cross.
In inaugurating that Council, Pope Innocent III preached on Ezekiel 9 and called all Christians to do penance under the sign of the tau, a sign of conversion and the sign of the cross. As Omer Englebert recounts in his “Life of St. Francis of Assisi”, the Pope, after describing the sad situation of the Holy Places trampled by the Saracens, lamented the scandals that discredited the flock of Christ and threatened it with divine punishment if was not amended. He evoked the vision of Ezekiel, when the Lord, patience exhausted, exclaims with a powerful voice: «“Come near, you who watch over the city; come near with the instrument of extermination in your hands’. And behold, six men arrived with two whips in their hands. Among them was a man dressed in linen, with a writing-message around his waist. And Yahweh said to him: ‘Go through Jerusalem, and mark with a tau the foreheads of the righteous who are in it.’ And he said to the other five: ‘Go through the city after him, and mercilessly exterminate as many as you find; but do not touch anyone who is marked with the tau.’ […] Who are” – continued the Pope – “the six men in charge of divine vengeance? Those are you, Council Fathers, who, using all the weapons you have at hand: excommunications, dismissals, suspensions and interdicts, you have to relentlessly punish how many are not marked with the propitiatory tau and are obstinate in dishonoring Christianity.’” […] In his Lateran speech, Innocent III had marked with the tau sign three classes of predestined: those who enlisted in the crusade; those who, prevented from crossing paths, fight against heresy; finally, the sinners who really commit themselves to reforming their lives.» St. Francis of Assisi, who participated in the Council as superior general of an Order approved by the Church, must have taken Innocent III’s invitation very seriously, since, according to his companions and his first biographers, he loved and revered the tau , “because it represents the cross and means true penance”. At the beginning of any activity, he crossed himself with said sign, preferring it to any other sign, and painted it on the walls of the cells. In his conversations and sermons he often recommended it, and drew it as a signature in all his letters and writings, “as if all his concern was to engrave the sign of the tau, according to the prophetic saying, on the foreheads of the men who moan and weep, truly converted to Christ Jesus.” Among St. Francis of Assisi’s autograph manuscripts in which he signs with the tau is his famous “Blessing to Brother Leo”, a relic that is preserved in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
In discussions of Roman execution crosses, the tau cross is called the crux commissa. This term was invented by Justus Lipsius (1547–1606),[19] who used it to distinguish this T-shaped cross from the now more familiar †-shaped cross and the saltire☓-shaped cross.[20]
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