The Non-Christian Cross | Page 5

our
Bibles is translated as "crucify" or "crucified?" Does not that mean "fix
to a cross" or "fixed to a cross?" And what is this but the strongest
possible corroboration of our assertion as Christians that Jesus was
executed upon a cross-shaped instrument?
The answer is that no less than four different Greek words are
translated in our Bibles as meaning "crucify" or "crucified," and that
not one of the four meant "crucify" or "crucified."
The four words in question are the words _prospegnumi, anastauroo,
sustauroo_, and stauroo.
The word prospegnumi, though translated in our Bibles as "crucify" or
"crucified," meant to "fix" to or upon, and meant that only. It had no
special reference to the affixing of condemned persons either to a stake,
pale, or post, or to a tree, or to a cross; and had no more reference to a
cross than the English word "fix" has.
The word anastauroo was never used by the old Greek writers as
meaning other than to impale upon or with a single piece of timber.[4]
The word sustauroo does not occur in pre-Christian writings, and only
five times in the Bible against the forty-four times of the word next to
be dealt with. Being obviously derived in part from the word stauros,
which primarily signified a stake or pale which was a single piece of
wood and had no cross-bar, sustauroo evidently meant affixion to such
a stake or pale. Anyhow there is nothing whatever either in the

derivation of the word, or in the context in either of the five instances
in which it occurs, to show that what is referred to is affixion to
something that was cross-shaped.
The word stauroo occurs, as has been said, forty-four times; and of the
four words in question by far the most frequently. The meaning of this
word is therefore of special importance. It is consequently most
significant to find, as we do upon due investigation, that wherever it
occurs in the pre-Christian classics it is used as meaning to impalisade,
or stake, or affix to a pale or stake; and has reference, not to crosses,
but to single pieces of wood.[5]
It therefore seems tolerably clear (1) that the sacred writings forming
the New Testament, to the statements of which--as translated for us--we
bow down in reverence, do not tell us that Jesus was affixed to a
cross-shaped instrument of execution; (2) that the balance of evidence
is against the truth of our statements to the effect that the instrument in
question was cross-shaped, and our sacred symbol originally a
representation of the same; and (3) that we Christians have in bygone
days acted, and, alas! still act, anything but ingenuously in regard to the
symbol of the cross.
This is not all, however. For if the unfortunate fact that we have in our
zeal almost manufactured evidence in favour of the theory that our
cross or crosses had its or their origin in the shape of the instrument of
execution to which Jesus was affixed proves anything at all, it proves
the need for a work which, like the present one, sets in array the
evidence available regarding both the pre-Christian cross and the
adoption in later times of a similar symbol as that of the catholic faith.
Nor should it be forgotten that the triumph of Christianity was due to
the fact that it was a "catholic" faith, and not, like the other faiths
followed by the subjects of Rome, and like what Jesus seems to have
intended the results of His mission to have been inasmuch as He
solemnly declared that he was sent to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel and to them alone, the monopoly of a single nation or race.
For if Paul, taking his and other visions of Jesus as the long-needed
proofs of a future life, had not disregarded the very plain intimations of
Jesus to the effect that His mission was to the descendants of Jacob or
Israel, and to them alone; if Paul had not withstood Christ's
representative, Peter, to the face, and, with unsurpassed zeal, carried

out his grand project of proclaiming a non-national and universal
religion founded upon appearances of the spirit-form of Jesus, what we
call Christianity would not have come into existence.
The fact that but for Paul there would have been no catholic faith with
followers in every land ruled by Constantine when sole emperor, for
that astute monarch to establish as the State Religion of his loosely knit
empire, because, on account of its catholicity, that best fitted to hold
power as the official faith of a government with world-wide dominions,
is worthy of a lasting place in our memory.
Nor is the noteworthy fact last mentioned unconnected with the symbol
of the cross.