The Non-Christian Cross | Page 6

For, as will be shown, it is clear that it was because
Constantine caused the figure of the cross to become a recognized
symbol of his catholic empire, that it became recognized as a symbol of
the catholic faith.
Not till after Constantine and his Gaulish warriors planted what
Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea and other Christians of the century in
question describe as a cross, within the walls of the Eternal City as the
symbol of their victory, did Christians ever set on high a cross-shaped
trophy of any description.
Moreover, but for the fact that, as it happened, the triumph of
Constantine resulted in that of the Christian Church, we should
probably have deemed the cross, if to our minds a representation of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, as anything but the
symbol of Victory we now deem it.
This is evident from the fact that the so-called cross of Jesus admittedly
fulfilled the purpose for which it was erected at the request of those
who sought the death of Jesus. And even according to our Gospels the
darkness of defeat o'ershadowed the scene at Calvary.
To put the matter plainly, the victory of Jesus was not a victory over
the cross; for He did not come down from the cross. Nor was it a
victory over His enemies; for what they sought was to get rid of a man
whom they deemed an agitator, and their wish was gratified, inasmuch
as, thanks to the cross, He troubled them no more.
In other words the victory which we ascribe to Jesus did not occur
during the gloom which hung like a pall over his native land at the time
of His execution, but upon the then approaching Sun-day of the Vernal
Equinox, at the coming of the glory of the dawn.

For the victory in question, from whatever point of view we may look
at it, was not the avoidance of defeat, but its retrieval. And its story is
an illustration of the old-world promise, hoary with antiquity and
founded upon the coming, ushered in every year by the Pass-over or
cross-over of the equator by the sun at the Vernal Equinox, of the
bounteous harvests of summer after the dearth of devastating winter;
bidding us ever hope, not indeed for the avoidance of death and
therefore of defeat, but for such victory as may happen to lay in
survival or resurrection.
It is therefore clear that even if we could prove that the instrument of
execution to which Jesus was affixed was cross-shaped, it would not
necessarily follow that it was as the representation of the cause of His
death which we now deem it, that the figure of the cross became our
symbol of Life and Victory.
In any case honesty demands that we should no longer translate as
"cross" a word which at the time our Gospels were written did not
necessarily signify something cross-shaped. And it is equally
incumbent upon us, from a moral point of view, that we should cease to
render as "crucify" or "crucified" words which never bore any such
meaning.

CHAPTER II
.
THE EVIDENCE OF MINUCIUS FELIX.
The Fathers who wrote in Latin, used the word crux as a translation of
the Greek word stauros. It is therefore noteworthy that even this Latin
word "crux," from which we derive our words "cross" and "crucify,"
did not in ancient days necessarily mean something cross-shaped, and
seems to have had quite another signification as its original meaning.
A reference, for instance, to the writings of Livy, will show that in his
time the word crux, whatever else it may have meant, signified a single
piece of wood or timber; he using it in that sense.[6]
This however is a curious rather than an important point, for even the
assumption that the word crux always and invariably meant something
cross-shaped, would not affect the demonstration already made that the
word stauros did not.

As our Scriptures were written in Greek and were written in the first
century A.C., the vital question is what the word stauros then meant,
when used, as in the New Testament, without any qualifying expression
or hint that other than an ordinary stauros was signified. What the
Fathers chose to consider the meaning of that word to be, or chose to
give as its Latin translation, would, even if they had written the same
century, in no wise affect that issue. And, as a matter of fact, even the
earliest of the Fathers whose undisputed works have come down to us,
did not write till the middle of the second century.
Granting, however, as all must, that most if not all of the earlier of the
Fathers, and certainly all the later ones, rightly or