The Non-Christian Cross | Page 3

without any cross-bar. And it is as thus signifying a single piece of
wood that the word in question is used throughout the old Greek
classics.[2]
The stauros used as an instrument of execution was (1) a small pointed
pole or stake used for thrusting through the body, so as to pin the latter
to the earth, or otherwise render death inevitable; (2) a similar pole or
stake fixed in the ground point upwards, upon which the condemned
one was forced down till incapable of escaping; (3) a much longer and
stouter pole or stake fixed point upwards, upon which the victim, with
his hands tied behind him, was lodged in such a way that the point
should enter his breast and the weight of the body cause every
movement to hasten the end; and (4) a stout unpointed pole or stake set
upright in the earth, from which the victim was suspended by a rope
round his wrists, which were first tied behind him so that the position
might become an agonising one; or to which the doomed one was
bound, or, as in the case of Jesus, nailed.

That this last named kind of stauros, which was admittedly that to
which Jesus was affixed, had in every case a cross-bar attached, is
untrue; that it had in most cases, is unlikely; that it had in the case of
Jesus, is unproven.
Even as late as the Middle Ages, the word stauros seems to have
primarily signified a straight piece of wood without a cross-bar. For the
famous Greek lexicographer, Suidas, expressly states, "Stauroi; ortha
xula perpegota," and both Eustathius and Hesychius affirm that it
meant a straight stake or pole.
The side light thrown upon the question by Lucian is also worth noting.
This writer, referring to Jesus, alludes to "That sophist of theirs who
was fastened to a _skolops_;" which word signified a single piece of
wood, and not two pieces joined together.
Only a passing notice need be given to the fact that in some of the
Epistles of the New Testament, which seem to have been written before
the Gospels, though, like the other Epistles, misleadingly placed after
the Gospels, Jesus is said to have been hanged upon a tree.[3] For in
the first place the Greek word translated "hanged" did not necessarily
refer to hanging by the neck, and simply meant suspended in some way
or other. And in the second place the word translated "tree," though that
always used in referring to what is translated as the "_Tree of Life_,"
signified not only "tree" but also "wood."
It should be noted, however, that these five references of the Bible to
the execution of Jesus as having been carried out by his suspension
upon either a tree or a piece of timber set in the ground, in no wise
convey the impression that two pieces of wood nailed together in the
form of a cross is what is referred to.
Moreover, there is not, even in the Greek text of the Gospels, a single
intimation in the Bible to the effect that the instrument actually used in
the case of Jesus was cross-shaped.
Had there been any such intimation in the twenty-seven Greek works
referring to Jesus, which our Church selected out of a very large
number and called the "New Testament," the Greek letter _chi_, which
was cross-shaped, would in the ordinary course have been referred to;
and some such term as _Kata chiasmon_, "like a chi," made use of.
It should also be borne in mind that though the Christians of the first
three centuries certainly made use of a transient sign of the cross in the

non-Mosaic initiatory rite of baptism and at other times, it is, as will be
shown in the next two chapters, admitted that they did not use or
venerate it as a representation of the instrument of execution upon
which Jesus died.
Moreover, if in reply to the foregoing it should be argued that as it is
well known that cross-shaped figures of wood, and other lasting
representations of the sign or figure of the cross, were not venerated by
Christians until after the fateful day when Constantine set out at the
head of the soldiers of Gaul in his famous march against Rome; and
that the Christian crosses of the remainder of the fourth century were
representations of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died; a
dozen other objections present themselves if we are honest enough to
face the fact that we have to show that they were so from the first. For
the Gauls, and therefore the soldiers of Gaul, venerated as symbols of
the Sun-God and Giver of Life and Victory the cross of four equal arms,
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