SUMMARY.
At the commencement of this work it was shown that, as the Greek text
of the writings forming the New Testament testifies, not one of the
Apostles or Evangelists ever stated that Jesus was executed upon a
cross-shaped instrument of execution. The circumstances under which the
figure of the cross became the symbol of our religion, were then made
clear. And, having since demonstrated the existence in pre-Christian
ages of a widespread veneration of the figure of the cross as the
symbol of Life and of the Sun-God, which may have given rise to the
desire to associate Jesus therewith, little remains for the author to
do save draw the notice of the reader to the admissions of other
writers concerning the rise of the cross as the symbol of Christianity;
for the sake of brevity more or less confining his attention to two
well known works upon the history of religious art.
It should first however be pointed out that though we Christians affirm
that crucifixion was a form of capital punishment made use of in days
of old, and abolished the fourth century after Christ by Constantine
because Jesus was so executed, we cannot exactly prove that the
_staurosis_ thus abolished was crucifixion, or even that it included
crucifixion. For various as are the different forms of 'death by the
stauros' of which descriptions have come down to us from pre-Christian
ages and the first three centuries of our era, no relic of that date
bears a representation of an instrument of execution such as we cause
to appear in our sacred pictures, and even if, regardless of the more
exact meaning of the word stauros, we suppose the term staurosis to
have included every form of carrying out the extreme penalty by means
of affixion or suspension, we meet with no description of such an
instrument of execution as we picture. Therefore even if we were to
exclude from the staurosis abolished by Constantine all forms of
transfixion by a stauros, we could not, upon the evidence before us,
fairly say that what that astute Emperor abolished was what is usually
understood by the term crucifixion.
It will not be necessary to quote again the admission of the Reverend
S. Baring-Gould, M.A., to the effect that the so-called Cross of
Constantine or monogram of Christ was but the symbol of the Sun-God of
the Gauls with a loop added by their crafty leader to please the
Christians, but it may be pointed out that this fact is also admitted
in _Chambers's Encyclopaedia_; where we read that
"The so-called cross of Constantine was not really a
cross but a circle containing the X P I, the first three
letters of the name of Christ in Greek; and was merely
an adaptation of a symbol of a Gaulish solar deity."
And it may be added that the fact that the Monogram of Christ and the
ordinary cross so frequently used as symbols by Constantine upon his
coins and elsewhere, and thus made symbols of the Roman Empire in the
first half of the fourth century, were at first Pagan rather than
Christian symbols, also seems to be borne out by Dean Burgon in his
_Letters from Rome_, where he states
"I question whether a cross occurs on any Christian
monument of the first four centuries."[70]
Passing on however to the representative works on Christian Art already
referred to, we first come to Mrs. Jameson's famous _History of Our
Lord as exemplified in works of art_.
Upon page 315 of Volume II. the gifted authoress, after confessing that
the cross was venerated by the heathen as a symbol of Life before the
period of Christianity and referring to St. Chrysostom, who flourished
half a century after Constantine, admits that
"It must be owned that ancient objects of Art, as
far as hitherto known, afford no corroboration of the use
of the cross in the simple transverse form familiar to
us at any period preceding or even closely succeeding
the words of St. Chrysostom."
That is to say, although Constantine introduced the Monogram of Christ
and the cross of four equal arms before St. Chrysostom was born, and,
making them symbols of the Roman Empire, would, whether a Sun-God
worshipper or a Christian, in any case have imposed them upon what he
established as his State Religion, it was not till after these solar
symbols of the Gauls were accepted as Christian that such a cross as
could possibly have been a representation of an instrument of execution
was introduced.
As to the crucifix, we are told that though this is said by some to be
referred to in the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa--a Bishop of Tours who
lived in the sixth century, and also in the injunctions of the often
quoted council of Greek bishops A.C. 692 called the "Quini-sextum" or
"in Trullo," the evidence is
"Insufficient to convince most modern archaeologists
that a crucifix in any sense now accepted was meant."
In other words, not only is it clear that the cross as a representation
of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died was not introduced
till after the days of Constantine, but it is also evident that the
crucifix, the earliest known representation of that execution, was not
introduced till centuries later.
Other noteworthy admissions are made in the work above quoted from, but
we must pass on to the Dean of Canterbury's comparatively recent work
upon the same subject.
Dean Farrar states upon page 11 of his _Life of Christ as represented
in Art_ that "Of all early Christian symbols the _Fish_ was the most
frequent and the favourite."
The Fish; and not the Cross.
Moreover the Dean significantly adds upon the next page, that the Fish
"Continued to be a common symbol down to the
days of Constantine."
And the significance lies in the fact that the introduction by
Constantine of the solar symbols venerated by the Gauls, may account
for the displacement of the symbol of the Fish from favour.
Upon page 19 Dr. Farrar goes on to say that
"Two symbols continued for ages to be especially common,
of which I have not yet spoken. They were not generally
adopted, even if they appeared at all, until after the
Peace of the Church at the beginning of the fourth
century. I mean the cross and the monogram of Christ."
Here again, it will be seen, the Dean admits that the cross, as the
symbol of our religion, came in with Constantine.
Directly after the passage last quoted Dean Farrar very misleadingly
remarks: "It must be remembered that the cross was in itself an object
of utter horror even to the Pagans." For the exact reverse is the
truth, inasmuch as in almost every land a cross of some description had
been for ages venerated as a symbol of Life.
The fact of course is that the Dean here and elsewhere, like other
Christian writers, does not take the trouble to distinguish between the
symbol of the cross and the death caused by execution upon a stauros;
which instrument, by the way, was, as has been shown, not necessarily
in the shape of a cross, and appears to have been in most cases a stake
without a transverse rail. What the Pagans held in utter horror was the
awful death caused by transfixion by or affixion to a stauros, whatever
its shape; the symbol of the cross was, upon the contrary, an object of
veneration among them from time immemorial.
On page 23 Dr. Farrar, alluding to the use of the transient sign of the
cross by the Christians of early days, makes the admission
"That it did _not_ remind them of the Crucifixion only
or even mainly is proved alike by their literature and
other relics."
Exactly so: for the non-material sign traced by them (and by us) upon
the forehead in the _non-Mosaic_ initiatory rite of baptism and perhaps
also upon the breast or in the air at other times, seems to have been
the survival of a Pagan and pre-Christian custom.
Upon page 24 Dean Farrar admits that
"The cross was only introduced among the Christian
symbols tentatively and timidly. It may be doubted
whether it once occurs till after the vision of
Constantine in 312 and his accession to the Empire of
the East and West in 324."
Further on upon the same page the Dean of Canterbury, passing without
notice from symbols to instruments of execution and making no
distinction whatever, states that
"Crosses were of two kinds. The _Crux Simplex_, 'of
one single piece without transom,' was a mere stake,
used sometimes to impale, sometimes to hang the victim
by the hands."
Exactly so.
But, to bring this work to a conclusion with what is the crux of the
whole matter, is it not disingenuous in the extreme upon the part of
those of us Christians who know better, to hide the fact that it may
have been upon some such cross as the Dean here refers to, that is,
upon no cross at all, that Jesus was executed? Is it not dishonest of
us to place before the masses Bibles and Lexicons wherein we ever
carefully translate as "cross" a word which at the time the ancient
classics and our sacred writings were penned did not necessarily, if
indeed ever, signify something cross-shaped? Is it not gross disloyalty
to Truth to insist, as we do in our versions of the Christian
Scriptures, upon translating as "crucify" or "crucified" four different
words, not one of which referred to anything necessarily in the shape
of a cross?
Another point which should be mentioned, though such matters cannot be
discussed here, is that the questions whether Jesus did not prophesy
that the final Day of judgment would come before those whom he
addressed should die, and did not solemnly declare that his mission was
to the descendants of Jacob or Israel and to them alone, undoubtedly
affect our story.
As to the Gospel of the Cross, have not we Christians by, in our
imaginations, limiting its saving effects to the few who are able to
believe in it, all the centuries that we have re-echoed the cry "the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" _forced_ upon the same the unutterably
selfish meaning that the kingdom at hand for the many who simply cannot
believe is that of Hell? Was _that_ what Jesus meant, and all that the
so-called cross effected?
Moreover, whether the message of Jesus which we proclaim and variously
interpret was or was not a gospel--that is, "glad tidings "--to all
men, and from an unselfish point of view, what possible good purpose
can be served by insisting upon supplementing the simple story of his
stressful life, his magnificent love for the afflicted and suffering,
his equally magnificent hatred of qualities not altogether dissimilar
from that which enables some of us to claim to be not only admirers but
also genuine followers of a Communist who declared that those who would
follow him must first sell all their possessions and give the proceeds
to the poor;--what good purpose can be served by supplementing this,
and the account of the final conflict of Jesus with the officials of
his native land and his subsequent execution upon a stauros or stake
not stated to have had a cross-bar attached, by the adoption and
culture of a partisan and misleading fiction regarding the origin and
history of the symbol of the cross?
THE END.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] _e.g._, _Iliad_, xxiv. 453; _Odyssey_, xiv. 11
[2] _e.g._, Thuc. iv. 90; Xen. _An._ v. 2, 21.
[3] _Gal._ iii. 13; I _Pet._ ii. 24; _Acts_ v. 30; _Acts_ x. 39;
_Acts_ xiii. 29.
[4] _e.g._, Hdt. iii. 125.
[5] _e.g._, Thuc. vii. 25.
[6] Livy, xxviii. 29.
[7] Minucius Felix, _Oct._ xxix.
[8] _De Praescrip_. xl.
[9] _Oct._ xxix.
[10] _Ad Nationes_, xiv.
[11] Poed iii. II, 59.
[12] _Nicodemus_ i.
[13] _Nicodemus_ vii.
[14] _Nicodemus_ viii.
[15] _Apol_, i. 55.
[16] _Dial. cum Trypho_, lxxxvi.
[17] _Dial. cum Trypho_, xcvii.
[18] _Against Marcion_, iv. 20.
[19] _Against Marcion_, iii. 18.
[20] _Scorpiace_, i.
[21] _De Corolla_, iii.
[22] _De Proescrip_, xl.
[23] _Apologiticus_, xvi.
[24] _Ad Nationes_, xii.
[25] xxxvi.
[26] _Testimonies against the Jews_, ii. 21.
[27] _Testimonies against the Jews_, ii. 22.
[28] _Apud Gretserum_, ii.
[29] _Epist. ad Romanos_, Lib. vi.
[30] _Christ in Art_, p. 23.
[31] _Against Heresies_, i. xxiv.
[32] _Against Heresies_, II., xxii. 4-5.
[33] _Vit. Const. I._
[34] _Vit. Const. I._, 28, 29, 30.
[35] _Vit. Const. I._, 29.
[36] _De Mart. Pers._, c. 44.
[37] _Vit. Const. I._, 31.
[38] _Vit. Const. I._, 37.
[39] _Vit. Const. I._, 40.
[40] _Vit. Const. II._ 7-9.
[41] _Vit. Const. III._ 3.
[42] _Vit. Const. III._ 49.
[43] _Opera S. Cyrilli_ cura Ant. Touttee 351 Menaeum Graecum
ad diem 7 Maii.
[44] zosimus ii.
[45] Both Zonaras and Cedrenus bear testimony to this effect.
[46] _Early Christian Numismatics_.
[47] _The Likeness of Christ_, p. 20.
[48] Herodotus II., 73.
[49] Pliny, x., 2.
[ ] 2 Tacitus, _Annal_. Vi., 28. Editorial note: There is no reference
in the text to this footnote #2 at the bottom of page 130
[50] An engraving of the coin can be seen in Duruy's _Histoire
des Romains_, Torn. vii.
[51] Bockh, C.I.G. n. 4713 b.
[52] Berlin Collection 428.
[53] _Strange Survivals_, 286.
[54] _e.g._, Arist. _Mundi_.
[55] Bar. _Ann_. A.C. 312.
[56] Basnage, iii., 23.
[57] Eusebius, _Vit. Const._ iv.
[58] Martianus Capella.
[59] _e.g._ Philo, _De Somniis_, i.
[60] _Timaeus_, 34-36.
[61] _Theol. Plat._
[62] _Apol._
[63] _Apol._
[64] _Report on the Old Records of the India Office_, London,
1891, x., xi.
[65] _Nineveh_, ii. 213.
[66] _e.g._, C. W. King, M.A. _Early Christian Numismatics_;
Professor Rawlinson; &c., &c.
[67] C. W. King, M.A.
[68] _First Annual Report U. S. Bureau of Ethnology._
[69] Ol. Varelli, _Scandage Runic;_ Ans. Rudbeckins, _Atlant.:
e.g._ an altar discovered ac Rudchester, Northumberland: Sheffer,
_Lapponic_.
[70] _Letters from Rome_, 1862, p. 210.
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