Christian cross

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The traditional form of the Western Christian cross, known as the Latin cross.
The traditional form of the Western Christian cross, known as the Latin cross.

The Christian cross is the religious symbol used by a majority of Christians.

Since the cross is associated with the gibbet on which Jesus was executed, the article will consider the probable form of that gibbet, as well as cross symbols used before Christianity, the shapes of Christian depictions of the cross, and the metaphorical use of the word "cross".

Contents

[edit] The cross and the death of Jesus

The New Testament recounts that Jesus died raised up on (Matthew 27:40-42; Mark 15:30-32), not just affixed to, what in Greek is called a σταυρός (stauros). The basic meaning of this word is an "upright pale or stake" or a "pile" driven in to serve as a foundation, but it also, according to the standard lexicographical work of the Greek language, can mean a "cross".[1] Certain scholars have understood the New Testament accounts as referring to a single upright wooden stake without a crossbeam.[2] Most scholars hold that the two-beamed cross may well have been used, as in traditional representations of the crucifixion of Jesus, since it was in use in first-century Palestine.[3]

Acts 5:30 and Act 10:39 speak of Jesus as hanged upon a ξύλον (xylon). This word means wood or timber, whether cut (to form a spoon, a club, a table, a gibbet) or a live tree,[4]and so says nothing of the form of the gibbet on which Jesus died.

Perhaps the best-known group subscribing to the upright pale thesis for the crucifixion of Jesus are, since 1930, Jehovah's Witnesses. This thesis enjoys limited support among Greek scholars. It is not accepted by most Christians, in view not only of certain literary evidence that crucifixion on a cross was in fact used in the first century and earlier,[5] and of archaeological evidence, especially the skeletal remains, discovered in 1968, of a victim of crucifixion of about the time of the siege of Jerusalem (70), but mainly because the earliest descriptions of the cross (σταυρός) in connection with Jesus speak of it as having a transverse beam: the Epistle of Barnabas 9:7-8 likens it to the letter T (the Greek letter tau, which had the numeric value of 300).[6] and Irenaeus speaks of it as having "five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails."[7]

[edit] History of use of the symbol

During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross was rare in Christian iconography as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution. The Ichthys, or fish symbol, was used by early Christians. The Chi-Rho monogram, which was adopted by Constantine I in the fourth century as his banner (see labarum), was another Early Christian symbol of wide use.

However, the cross symbol was associated with Christians already in the second century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next,[8] and by the fact that it had become so common by the early third century that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, speaks of the cross as tou Kuriakou semeiou tupon, i.e. "the symbol of the Lord",[9] and his contemporary Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross".[10]

[edit] Pre-Christian use of the cross symbol

The cross-shaped sign, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly antedates, in both East and West, the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization. It is supposed to have been used not just for its ornamental value, but also with religious significance.[11]

Some have sought to attach to the widespread use of this sign, in particular in its swastika form, a real ethnographic importance. It may have represented the apparatus used in kindling fire, and thus as the symbol of sacred fire (Burnouf, La science des religions) or as a symbol of the sun,[12] denoting its daily rotation. It has also been interpreted as the mystic representation of lightning or of the god of the tempest, and even the emblem of the Aryan pantheon and the primitive Aryan civilization.

Another symbol that has been connected with the cross is the ansated cross (ankh or crux ansata) of the ancient Egyptians, which often appears as a symbolic sign in the hands of the goddess Sekhet, and appears as a hieroglyphic sign of life or of the living.[13] In later times the Egyptian Christians (Copts), attracted by its form, and perhaps by its symbolism, adopted it as the emblem of the cross (Gayet, "Les monuments coptes du Musée de Boulaq" in "Mémoires de le mission française du Caire", VIII, fasc. III, 1889, p. 18, pl. XXXI-XXXII and LXX-LXXI).

In the Bronze Age we meet in different parts of Europe a more accurate representation of the cross, as conceived in Christian art, and in this shape it was soon widely diffused. This more precise characterization coincides with a corresponding general change in customs and beliefs. The cross is now met with, in various forms, on many objects: fibulas, cinctures, earthenware fragments, and on the bottom of drinking vessels. De Mortillet is of opinion that such use of the sign was not merely ornamental, but rather a symbol of consecration, especially in the case of objects pertaining to burial. In the proto-Etruscan cemetery of Golasecca every tomb has a vase with a cross engraved on it. True crosses of more or less artistic design have been found in Tiryns, at Mycenæ, in Crete, and on a fibula from Vulci..

On the basis of these facts alone, some writers have claimed that, in spite of the testimonies of the earliest writers who speak of veneration by Christians, as early as the second century, of the cross as associated with the death of Jesus, Christianity, or rather "an apostate ecclesiastical system" of the middle of the third century, adopted an essentially pagan symbol because they "had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith."[14]

[edit] In contemporary Christianity

In Christendom the cross represents Jesus' victory over death and sin, since it is believed that through His death he conquered death itself. Roman Catholic Christians often make the sign of the cross by moving their right hand so as to draw a cross upon themselves. Orthodox Christians make the sign with their right hand as well. Making the sign of the cross was already a common Christian practice in the time of Augustine. One of the twelve great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, which commemorates the consecration of the basilica on the site where the (allegedly) original cross was discovered in 326 by Helena of Constantinople, mother of Constantine the Great. The Catholic Church celebrates the feast on the same day as the Triumph of the Holy Cross. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican bishops place a cross [+] before the name when signing a document.

[edit] Relics

The Cross was the first of the Instruments of the Passion that came to be venerated in the form of relics. In time, even the "Holy Nails" that were used to nail Christ to the cross would be sought out, discovered, elaborately mounted as relics, and venerated by Christians. A nail, said to be one of these, is mounted in the Iron Crown of Lombardy, preserved in the cathedral of the former Lombard capital, Monza.

Numerous relics are claimed to be pieces of the True Cross. Scepticism was expressed in sixteenth-century writing and in Erasmus's joke that one could build a ship with all that wood. Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain is claimed to hold the biggest piece, though it is little known outside of Spain. Even a large portion of what was claimed to be the cross of the "Good Thief" crucified with Jesus (who came to be given the name Dismas in medieval legend) is reverenced at Rome in the altar of the Chapel of the Relics at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

A medieval legend pictured the wood of which the cross was fashioned as coming from the forbidden tree of Paradise and as having been venerated by the Queen of Sheba, when she visited King Solomon in Jerusalem.

[edit] Forms of the Cross

The cross is often shown in different shapes and sizes, in many different styles. It may be used in personal jewelry, or used on top of church buildings. It is shown both empty, and with the body of Christ (corpus) nailed to it, in which case it is typically called a crucifix, though this word, in its original sense, denotes the body affixed to the cross. Roman Catholic depictions of the cross are often crucifixes, in order to emphasize Jesus' sacrifice. Many Protestant traditions depict the cross without the corpus, interpreting this form as an indication of belief in the resurrection rather than as representing the interval between the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

Crosses are a prominent feature of Christian cemeteries, either carved on gravestones or as sculpted stelas. Because of this death meaning, planting small crosses is sometimes used in countries of Christian culture to mark the site of fatal traffic accidents, or to protest alleged deaths.

Crosses have been erected or carved on pagan sites of worship like mountain tops or menhirs to counter their influences.[citation needed] In Catholic countries, crosses are often erected on the peaks of prominent mountains, such as the Zugspitze or Mount Royal, so as to be visible over the entire surrounding area.

Forms of the Christian cross include:

  • Altar cross. Cross on a flat base to rest upon the altar. Earliest known example is a picture in a manuscript from the 9th century; by the 10th century they were commonly used, but the earliest extant altar cross is from the 12th century located at Great Lavra on Mt. Athos.
  • Andrew cross. Shaped like the letter X, the form of cross Saint Andrew was martyred on. A national symbol of Scotland. Also known as St. Andrew's Cross or crux decussata.
  • Ankh. Shaped like the letter T surmounted by an oval or circle. It is the Egyptian symbol for "life", it was adopted by the Copts (Egyptian Christians), also called a crux ansata, meaning "cross with a handle".
  • Anthony's cross. Shaped like the letter T. Also called the Saint Anthony's cross or Tau cross. Also known as a crux commissa.
  • Archiepiscopal cross. A double cross carried by an archbishop.
  • Basque cross. The lauburu.
  • Calvary cross. A Gothic style, the cross is mounted on a base shaped to resemble Mt. Golgatha (where Christ was crucified), with the Virgin Mary and Saint John on either the base or crossarms.
  • Canterbury cross. A cross with four arms of equal length which widen to a hammer shape at the outside ends. Each arm has a triangular panel inscribed in a triquetra (three-cornered knot) pattern. There is a small square panel in the center of the cross. A symbol of the Anglican and Episcopal Churches.
  • Celtic Cross. Essentially a Latin cross, with a circle enclosing the intersection of the upright and crossbar, as in the standing High crosses;
  • Consecration cross. One of 12 crosses painted on the walls of a church to mark where it had been anointed during its consecration.
  • Crux fourchette. A cross with flared or forked ends (see illustration at Crosses in Heraldry).
  • Crux gemmata. A cross inlaid with gems. Denotes a glorification of the cross, this form was inspired by the cult of the cross that arose after Saint Helena's discovery of the true cross in Jerusalem in 327.
  • Crux hasta. A cross with a long descending arm; a cross-staff.
  • Crux pattée. A Greek cross with flared ends.
  • Double cross. A cross with two crossbars. The upper one is shorter, representing the plaque nailed to Jesus' cross, Also known as a crux gemina. Also called the Cross of Lorraine.
  • Gammadion. A hooked cross or swastika, also known as a crux gammata.
  • Globus cruciger. Globe cross. An orb surmounted by a cross; used in royal regalia.
  • Greek cross. With arms of equal length. One of the most common Christian forms, in common use by the 4th century.
  • Gnostic cross. Cross used by the early Gnostic sects.
  • Latin cross. With a longer descending arm. Along with the Greek cross, it is the most common form, it represents the cross of Jesus' crucifixion.
  • Living cross. One of two possibilities: Either a natural cross made of living vines and branches. Or, a man-made cross with vines or plants planted at its base. In the all-natural version, it refers to the legend that Jesus' cross was made from the Tree of Life. In the man-made cross with plants planted at the base, it contrasts the "new" Tree of Life (the cross) with the Genesis Tree of Life. In both cases it shows Jesus' death (the cross) as a redemption for original sin (Tree of Life).
  • Lorraine cross. See entry for "Double cross".
  • Maltese cross. A Greek cross with arms that taper into the center. The outer ends may be forked.
  • Marian Cross. A term invented to refer to Pope John Paul II's combination of a Latin cross and the letter M, representing the Mary present on Calvary.
  • Occitan cross
  • Patriarchal cross. Like the Double cross, but with a third additional crossbar, each one shorter than the one below. A triple cross. Also called Eastern Orthodox cross or Papal cross.
  • Pectoral cross. A large cross worn around the neck by some clergy.
  • Peter cross. An upside down cross called Cross of St. Peter. In modern times also considered to be a symbol of the Devil and of Satanism.
  • Saltire. Associated with St. Andrew, patron of Scotland; and St. Patrick, patron of Ireland. Also known as crux decussata.
  • Stepped cross. A cross resting on a base with three steps, also called a graded or Calvary cross.
  • Suppedaneum cross. A Russian and Byzantium form with an additional short crossbar, either horizontal or slanted near the base to represent Jesus' footrest (suppedaneum).
  • Tau cross. See Anthony's cross.
  • Three-barred cross: The upper arm represents the inscription over Jesus' head, and the lower slanting arm represents his footrest. Many of these crosses are also found with the lower arm straight, rather than slanted. This cross existed very early in Byzantium, and was adopted by the Russian Orthodox Church and especially popularized in the Slavic countries.

For further information on the forms in which the cross is represented, including its heraldric use, see the article Cross.

The Dagger symbol also represents the Christian cross. In Unicode, it is U+2020(†).

[edit] Theological views on the metaphorical meaning of the word "cross"

A number of Christian Anabaptist theologians including John H. Yoder and Walter Wink suggest an alternative reading of the cross in Jesus's teaching. Instead of seeing Jesus instructions to "take up the cross" as simply a spiritual call to endure suffering, they interpret the phrase as a call to a life of radical Christian discipleship that may end in death at the hands of the state. For these theologians, accepting the possibility of crucifixion (often the penalty for political prisoners in Roman times) means rejecting the use of violence as well. This view would be most prevalent among Mennonites and other Peace churches with a history of martyrdom. This view is for the most part shared by Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologians, with the exception that they do not completely reject the use of violence.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Liddell and Scott: σταυρός
  2. ^ : "There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. ... it is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as 'cross' when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting 'cross' in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape" (John Denham Parsons, The Non-Christian Cross, London, 1896, pp. 23, 24.
    Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "STAUROS denotes, primarily, an upright pole or stake...Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pole, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two-beamed cross. The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name)...By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross piece lowered, was adopted..."
    The 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 14, p. 273, is quoted as saying: "In the Egyptian churches the cross was a pagan symbol of life borrowed by the Christians and interpreted in the pagan manner." This, however, says nothing of the form of the gibbet on which Jesus died, and the 1911 edition expressly states that the form used for the crucifixion of Jesus was that whereby, "after the scourging at the stake, the criminal was made to carry a gibbet, formed of two transverse bars of wood, to the place of execution, and he was then fastened to it by iron nails driven through the outstretched arms and through the ankles."[1]
  3. ^ In his article "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv’at ha-Mivtar" published in the Israel Exploration Journal in 1970, N. Haas of the Department of Anatomy at Hebrew University, writes of the remains of a man crucified around A.D. 70 as showing that the two-beam cross was in use in Palestine in the first century: "The whole of our interpretation concerning the position of the body on the cross may be described briefly as follows: The feet were joined almost parallel, both transfixed by the same nail at the heels, with the legs adjacent; the knees were doubled, the right one overlapping the left; the trunk was contorted; the upper limbs were stretched out, each stabbed by a nail in the forearm." The Anchor Bible Dictionary 1992, Vol. 1, pp. 1208-1209 also says that the upright stake was not the only form of gibbet in use in the first century: "At times the cross was only one vertical stake. Frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached either at the top to give the shape of a 'T' (crux commissa) or just below the top, as in the form most familiar in Christian symbolism (crux immissa). The victims carried the cross or at least a transverse beam (patibulum) to the place of execution, where they were stripped and bound or nailed to the beam, raised up, and seated on a sedile or small wooden peg in the upright beam ... Executioners could vary the form of punishment, as Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC–AD 65) indicates: 'I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the [cross-piece].'" This is corroborated by second-century representations of crucifixion, which take it for granted that the gibbet is the form of a cross, not a stake: "The ... oldest depiction of a crucifixion ... was uncovered by archaeologists more than a century ago on the Palatine Hill in Rome. It is a second-century graffiti scratched into a wall that was part of the imperial palace complex. It includes a caption - not by a Christian, but by someone taunting and deriding Christians and the crucifixions they underwent. It shows crude stick-figures of a boy reverencing his "God," who has the head of a jackass and is up on a cross with arms spread wide and with hands nailed to the crossbeam. Here we have a Roman sketch of a Roman crucifixion, and it is in the traditional cross shape" (Clayton F. Bower, Jr: Cross or Torture Stake?). Some second-century writers took it for granted that a crucified person would have his arms stretched out, not connected to a single stake: Lucian speaks of Prometheus as crucified "above the ravine with his hands outstretched" and explains that the letter "T" (the Greek letter tau) was looked upon as an unlucky letter or sign (similar to the way the number thirteen is looked upon today as an unlucky number) saying that the letter got its "evil significance" because of the "evil instrument" which had that shape, an instrument which tyrants hung men on (ibidem). "Some experts doubt whether the cross became a Christian symbol so early, but the recent discoveries of the cross, the fish, the star, and the plough, all well known from the second century, on ossuaries of the Judaeo-Christian community in Judaea put the possibility beyond all reasonable cavil." (Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, pp. 214-215).
  4. ^ A Greek-English Lexicon
  5. ^ In the Dialogue "To Marcia on Consolation", in Seneca the Younger's Moral Essays, 6.20.3 the writer recounts: "Video istic cruces ne unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas: capite quidam conuersos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt" (I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet - trans. John W. Basore, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946) 2:69)
  6. ^ "The document no doubt belongs to the end of the first or beginning of the second century."[2]
  7. ^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, II, xxiv, 4
  8. ^ Minucius Felix speaks of the cross of Jesus in its familiar form, likening it to objects with a crossbeam or to a man with arms outstretched in prayer (Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapter XXIX).
  9. ^ Stromata, book VI, chapter XI
  10. ^ Apology., chapter xvi. In this chapter and elsewhere in the same book, Tertullian clearly distinguishes between a cross and a stake.
  11. ^ "Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples . . . The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times and among non-Christian peoples may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship" (Encyclopaedia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.
  12. ^ Bertrand, La religion des Gaulois, p. 159; and cf. "These crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god, [See book], and are first seen on a coin of Julius Caear, 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Caear’s heir (Augustus), 20 B.C. On the coins of Constantine the most frequent symbol is [See book]; but the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the four equal arms vertical and horizontal; and this was the symbol specially venerated as the ‘Solar Wheel’. It should be stated that Constantine was a sun-god worshipper, and would not enter the ‘Church’ till some quarter of a century after the legend of his having seen such a cross in the heavens" The Companion Bible, Appendix No. 162
  13. ^ "The cross in the form of the ‘Crux Ansata’ . . . was carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and Pontiff kings as the symbol of their authority as priests of the Sun god and was called ‘the Sign of Life.’"(The Worship of the Dead (London, 1904), by Colonel J. Garnier, p. 226.
  14. ^ "The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ"(An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), by W. E. Vine, p. 256

[edit] See also

The word cross, from Old Norse, supplanted the former word 'rood' in Old English. See: Roodmas Rood screen Rood loft

[edit] External links

[edit] Gallery

Here are some examples of crosses:












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