Christian cross

A Greek cross
A Latin cross
Latin cross from the 6th-century mosaic in the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna

The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity.[1] It is related to the crucifix (a cross that includes a usually three-dimensional representation of Jesus' body) and to the more general family of cross symbols.

The basic forms of the cross are the Latin cross (✝) and the Greek cross (✚), with numerous variants used in heraldry and in various confessional contexts.

History of use

Pre-Christian

The cross-shaped sign, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly predates the introduction of Christianity, in both East and West. 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.[2] It may have represented the apparatus used in kindling fire, and thus as the symbol of sacred fire or as a symbol of the sun, denoting its daily rotation. It has also been interpreted as the mystic representation of lightning or of the god of the tempest, or the emblem of the Aryan pantheon and the primitive Aryan civilization.[2]

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Ankh

Another associated symbol is the ansated cross (ankh or crux ansata) used in ancient Egypt. It was often depicted in the hands of the goddess Sekhmet, and as a hieroglyphic sign of life or of the living. Egyptian Christians (Copts) adopted it as the emblem of the cross.[2] In his book, The Worship of the Dead, Colonel J. Garnier wrote: "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'."[3]

Aa27
  
F35

Ndj & nfr

Another Egyptian symbol is the Ndj (Cross-ndj (hieroglyph)) - Uses for the hieroglyph: 1— "to protect, guard, avenge", and "protector, advocate, avenger" 2— "homage to thee", (a form of salutation to gods) 3— "discuss a matter with someone", "to converse", "to take counsel". Yet another Egyptian symbol is the nfr - meaning: beauty or perfect.

In the Bronze Age a representation of the cross as conceived in Christian art appeared, and the form was popularised. The more precise characterization coincided with a corresponding general change in customs and beliefs. The cross then came into use in various forms on many objects: fibulas, cinctures, earthenware fragments, and on the bottom of drinking vessels. De Mortillet believed 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.[2]

According to Swami Vivekananda the Christian cross is the Shivalinga converted into a cross.[4][5]

According to W. E. Vine, the cross was used by worshipers of Tammuz, an Ancient Near East deity of Babylonian origin who had the cross-shaped taw (tau) as his symbol.[6]

Instrument of torture

John Pearson, Bishop of Chester (c. 1660) wrote in his commentary on the Apostles' Creed that the Greek word stauros originally signified "a straight standing Stake, Pale, or Palisador", but that, "when other transverse or prominent parts were added in a perfect Cross, it retained still the Original Name", and he declared: "The Form then of the Cross on which our Saviour suffered was not a simple, but a compounded, Figure, according to the Custom of the Romans, by whose Procurator he was condemned to die. In which there was not only a straight and erected piece of Wood fixed in the Earth, but also a transverse Beam fastned unto that towards the top thereof".[7]

Early Christian

The Alexamenos graffito
The Sinai icon of Christ Pantocrator (6th century), showing Christ with a cruciform halo and holding a book adorned with a crux gemmata

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 and Christians were reluctant to use it.[1] A symbol similar to the cross, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, almost like a nomen sacrum (nomina sacra).[8] The extensive adoption of the cross as Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century.[9]

The earliest depiction of the Christian Cross may be the Herculaneum Cross which was found in the city of Herculaneum, which was entombed in pyroclastic material along with Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Another early depictions of the cross as a Christian symbol is the Alexamenos graffito.

However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius[10] of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next,[11] and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase τὸ κυριακὸν σημεῖον (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross, when he repeated the idea, current as early as the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, that the number 318 (in Greek numerals, ΤΙΗ) in Genesis 14:14 was interpreted as a foreshadowing (a "type") of the cross (T, an upright with crossbar, standing for 300) and of Jesus (ΙΗ, the first two letter of his name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, standing for 18),[12] and his contemporary Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross".[13] In his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross.[14] The crucifix, a cross upon which an image of Christ is present, is not known to have been used until the 6th century AD.[15]

The Jewish Encyclopedia says:[16]

The cross as a Christian symbol or "seal" came into use at least as early as the second century (see "Apost. Const." iii. 17; Epistle of Barnabas, xi.-xii.; Justin, "Apologia," i. 55-60; "Dial. cum Tryph." 85-97); and the marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest was regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons (Tertullian, "De Corona," iii.; Cyprian, "Testimonies," xi. 21–22; Lactantius, "Divinæ Institutiones," iv. 27, and elsewhere). Accordingly the Christian Fathers had to defend themselves, as early as the second century, against the charge of being worshipers of the cross, as may be learned from Tertullian, "Apologia," xii., xvii., and Minucius Felix, "Octavius," xxix. Christians used to swear by the power of the cross

In contemporary Christianity

A crucifix on the wall of a church

In contemporary Christianity, the cross is a symbol of the atonement and reminds Christians of God's love in sacrificing his own son for humanity. It represents Jesus' victory over sin and death, since it is believed that through his death and resurrection he conquered death itself. See Colossians 2:15, "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Christian crosses at a joint service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, members of the major branches of Christianity with other adherents as Lutheranism, some Anglicans, and others often make the Sign of the Cross upon themselves. This was already a common Christian practice in the time of Tertullian.[17]

The Feast of the Cross is an important Christian feast. One of the twelve Great Feasts in Eastern Orthodoxy is the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, which commemorates the consecration of the basilica on the site where the original cross of Jesus was reportedly discovered in 326 by Helena of Constantinople, mother of Constantine the Great. The Catholic Church celebrates the feast on the same day and under the same name (In Exaltatione Sanctae Crucis), though in English it has been called the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican bishops place a cross [+] before their name when signing a document. The dagger symbol (†) placed after the name of a dead person (often with the date of death) is sometimes taken to be a Christian cross.[18]

Exclusion

Death on a stake, one of the many forms presented in Justus Lipsius's De Cruce

Although Christians accepted that the cross was the gallows on which Jesus died,[19] they had already begun in the 2nd century to use it as a Christian symbol.[20] During the first three centuries of the Christian era the cross was "a symbol of minor importance" when compared to the prominence given to it later,[21] but by the second century it was nonetheless so closely associated with Christians that Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross".[22] and it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross.[23] Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation retained the cross and crucifix in the Lutheran Church. Luther wrote: "The cross alone is our theology." He believed one knows God not through works but through suffering, the cross, and faith.[24]

The crucifixion of Jesus as presented in Justus Lipsius's De Cruce

The Protestant Reformation spurred a revival of iconoclasm, a wave of rejecting sacred images, which in some localities (such as England) included polemics against using the cross in worship. For example, during the 16th century, a minority of theologians in the Anglican and Reformed traditions Nicholas Ridley,[25] James Calfhill,[26] and Theodore Beza,[27] rejected practices that they described as cross worship. Considering it a form of idolatry, there was a dispute in 16th century England over the baptismal use of the sign of the cross and even the public use of crosses.[28] There were more active reactions to religious items that were thought as 'relics of Papacy', as happened for example in September 1641, when Sir Robert Harley, pulled down and destroyed the cross at Wigmore.[29] Writers during the 19th century indicating a pagan origin of the cross included Henry Dana Ward,[30] Mourant Brock,[31] and John Denham Parsons.[32] David Williams, writing of medieval images of monsters, says: "The disembodied phallus is also formed into a cross, which, before it became for Christianity the symbol of salvation, was a pagan symbol of fertility."[33] The study, Gods, Heroes & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain states: "Before the fourth century CE, the cross was not widely embraced as a sign of Christianity, symbolizing as it did the gallows of a criminal."[34]

Jehovah's Witnesses do not use the symbol of the cross in their worship, which they believe constitutes idolatry.[35] They believe that Jesus died on a single upright torture stake rather than a two-beam cross, arguing that the Greek term stauros indicated a single upright pole.[36] Although early Watch Tower Society publications associated with the Bible Student movement taught that Christ was executed on a cross, it no longer appeared on Watch Tower Society publications after the name Jehovah's witnesses was adopted in 1931,[37] and use of the cross was officially abandoned in 1936.[38]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Jesus died on a cross, however, their prophet Gordon B. Hinckley stated that "for us the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ." When asked what was the symbol of his religion, Hinckley replied "the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship."[39][40] Prophet Howard W. Hunter encouraged Latter-day Saints "to look to the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of your membership."[41] Images of LDS temples and the Angel Moroni (who is found in statue on most temples) are commonly used to symbolize the LDS faith.[42]

Notable individual crosses

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crosses.

References

  1. 1 2 Christianity: an introduction by Alister E. McGrath 2006 ISBN 1-4051-0901-7 pages 321-323
  2. 1 2 3 4 Marucchi, Orazio. "Archeology of the Cross and Crucifix." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908 Retrieved 13 February 2010. Cf. "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" (Encyclopædia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.
  3. ↑ John Garnier (1904). The worship of the Dead. p. 226. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  4. ↑ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_6/Notes_Of_Class_Talks_And_Lectures/Notes_Taken_Down_In_Madras,_1892–93
  5. ↑ http://www.advaitaashrama.org/cw/volume_6/notes_of_class_talks_and_lectures/notes_taken_down_in_madras.htm
  6. ↑ Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, "Cross, Crucify". See, also, Abram Herbert Lewis, Paganism surviving in Christianity, G.P. Putnam's sons, 1892, pp 237, 238.
  7. ↑ John Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed (London 1715, 5th edition), p. 203
  8. ↑ Hutado, Larry (2006). "The staurogram in early Christian manuscripts: the earliest visual reference to the crucified Jesus?". In Kraus, Thomas. New Testament Manuscripts. Leiden: Brill. pp. 207–26. ISBN 978-90-04-14945-8.
  9. ↑ Stranger, James (2007). "Archeological evidence of Jewish believers?". In Skarsaune, Oskar. Jewish Believers in Jesus The Early Centuries. City: Baker Academic. p. 715. ISBN 9780801047688.
  10. ↑ "''Octavius''". Ccel.org. 2005-06-01. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  11. ↑ 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).
  12. ↑ "Stromata, book VI, chapter XI". Earlychristianwritings.com. 2006-02-02. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  13. ↑ Apology., chapter xvi. In this chapter and elsewhere in the same book, Tertullian clearly distinguishes between a cross and a stake.
  14. ↑ "At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign" (De Corona, chapter 3)
  15. ↑ Stott, John (2006). The Cross of Christ (20th Anniversary ed.). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-8308-3320-X.
  16. ↑ "Jewish Encyclopedia". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2011-12-10., (see Apocalypse of Mary, viii., in James, "Texts and Studies," iii. 118).
  17. ↑ De Corona, chapter 3, written in 204.
  18. ↑ Keith Houston, Shady Characters (W. W. Norton & Company 2013 ISBN 978-0-39306442-1), pp. 97 and 106
  19. ↑ The perhaps 1st-century Epistle of Barnabas sees the letter T as indicating the cross of Christ (Chapter 9, 7)
  20. ↑ The Jewish Encyclopedia states: "The cross as a Christian symbol or 'seal' came into use at least as early as the 2nd century (see 'Apost. Const.' iii. 17; Epistle of Barnabas, xi.-xii.; Justin, 'Apologia,' i. 55-60; 'Dial. cum Tryph.' 85-97); and the marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest was regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons (Tertullian, 'De Corona,' iii.; Cyprian, 'Testimonies,' xi. 21-22; Lactantius, 'Divinæ Institutiones,' iv. 27, and elsewhere). Accordingly the Christian Fathers had to defend themselves, as early as the 2nd century, against the charge of being worshipers of the cross, as may be learned from Tertullian, 'Apologia,' xii., xvii., and Minucius Felix, 'Octavius,' xxix" 9 (Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Cross").
  21. ↑ Jan Willem Drijvers, Helena Augusta: The mother of Constantine the Great and the legend of her finding of the True Cross, Brill 1992, p. 81.
  22. ↑ Tertullian, Apology., chapter xvi.
  23. ↑ "At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign" (Tertullian, De Corona, chapter 3)
  24. ↑ Martin Luther: Catholic Critical Analysis and Praise
  25. ↑ Nicholas Ridley, A Treatise on the Worship of Images, written before 1555.
  26. ↑ James Calfhill, An aunsvvere to the Treatise of the crosse (An answer to John Martiall's Treatise of the cross) at 1565.
  27. ↑ Theodore Beza, in his Answer to the Colloquium of Montheliard at 1588, according to Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 4, University of Chicago Press 1985, p. 217.
  28. ↑ Peter Blickle, Macht und Ohnmacht der Bilder.: Reformatorischer Bildersturm im Kontext der europäischen Geschichte, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2002, pp. 253-272.
  29. ↑ Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Tyacke, Boydell & Brewer, 2006, p. 26.
  30. ↑ Henry Dana Ward, History of the cross, the pagan origin, and idolatrous adoption and worship of the image, at 1871.
  31. ↑ Mourant Brock, The cross, heathen and Christian: A fragmentary notice of its early pagan existence and subsequent Christian adoption, London 1879.
  32. ↑ John Denham Parsons, The non-Christian cross; an enquiry into the origin and history of the symbol eventually adopted as that of our religion, at 1896.
  33. ↑ David Williams, Deformed Discourse: The function of the Monster in Mediaeval thought and literature, McGill-Queen's Press 1999, p. 161.
  34. ↑ Christopher R. Fee & David Adams Leeming, Gods, Heroes & Kings: The battle for mythic Britain, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 113.
  35. ↑ What Does the Bible Really Teach?. Watch Tower Society. pp. 204–205.
  36. ↑ New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, appendix 5C, page 1577
  37. ↑ Franz 2007, p. 150
  38. ↑ Riches, by J.F. Rutherford, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, 1936, page 27.
  39. ↑ Hinckley, Gordon B (May 1975). "The Symbol of Christ". Ensign.
  40. ↑ Hinckley, Gordon B (April 2005). "The Symbol of Our Faith". Ensign.
  41. ↑ Hunter, Howard W. (November 1994). "Exceeding Great and Precious Promises". Ensign.
  42. ↑ McKeever, Bill. "Why No Crosses?". Mormonism Research Ministry. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
Wikisource has the text of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article Archæology of the Cross and Crucifix.
Wikisource has the text of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article The Cross and Crucifix in Liturgy.
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