Macedonians, and from very early times by the Romans. It has
been thought, too, that crucifixion was also used by the Jews
themselves, and that there is an allusion to it (Deut. xxi. 22,
23) as a punishment to be inflicted.
Two methods were followed in the infliction of the punishment of crucifixion. In both of these the criminal was first of all usually stripped naked, and bound to an upright stake, where he was so cruelly scourged with an implement, formed of strips of leather having pieces of iron, or some other hard material, at their ends, that not merely was the flesh often stripped from the bones, but even the entrails partly protruded, and the anatomy of the body was disclosed. In this pitiable state he was reclothed, and, if able to do so, was made to drag the stake to the place of execution, where he was either fastened to it, or impaled upon it, and left to die. In this method, where a single stake was employed, we have the crux simplex of Lipsius. The other method is that with which we are more familiar, and which is described in the New Testament account of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In such a case, after the scourging at the stake, the criminal was made to carry a gibbet, formed of two transverse bars of wood, to the place of execution, and he was then fastened to it by iron nails driven through the outstretched arms and through the ankles. Sometimes this was done as the cross lay on the ground, and it was then lifted into position. In other cases the criminal was made to ascend by a ladder, and was then fastened to the cross. Probably the feebleness, or state of collapse, from which the criminal must often have suffered, had much to do in deciding this. It is not quite clear which of these two plans was followed in the case of the crucifixion of Christ, but the more general opinion has been that He was nailed to the cross on the ground, and that it was then lifted into position. The contrary opinion, has, however, prevailed to some extent, and there are representations of the crucifixion which depict Him as mounting a ladder placed against the cross. Such representations may, however, have been due to a pious desire, on the part of their authors, to emphasize the voluntary offering of Himself as the Saviour of the World, rather than as being intended for actual pictures of the scene itself. It may be noted, however, that among the “Emblems of the Passion,” as they are called, and which were very favourite devices in the middle ages, the ladder is not infrequently found in conjunction with the crown of thorns, nails, spear, &c.
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| Fig. 1. Fig. 2. |
From its simplicity of form, the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man’s civilization. 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, while numerous instances, dating from the later Stone Age to Christian times, have been found in nearly every part of Europe. 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. Two of the forms of the pre-Christian cross which are perhaps most frequently met with are the tau cross, so named from its resemblance to the Greek capital letter Τ, and the svastika or fylfot [1] 卐, also called “Gammadion” owing to its form being that of four Greek capital letters gamma Γ placed together. The tau cross is a common Egyptian device, and is indeed often called the Egyptian cross. The svastika has a very wide range of distribution, and is found on all kinds of objects. It was used as a religious emblem in India and China at least ten centuries before the Christian era, and is met with on Buddhist coins and inscriptions from various parts of India. A fine sepulchral urn found at Shropham in Norfolk, and now in the British Museum, has three bands of cruciform ornaments round it. The two uppermost of these are plain circles, each of which contains a plain cross; the lowest band is formed of a series of squares, in each of which is a svastika. In the Vatican Museum there is an Etruscan fibula of gold which is marked with the svastika, but it is a device of such common occurrence on objects of pre-Christian origin, that it is hardly necessary to specify individual instances. The cross, as a device in different forms, and often enclosed in a circle, is of frequent occurrence on coins and medals of pre-Christian date in France and elsewhere. Indeed, objects marked with pre-Christian crosses are to be seen in every important museum.
The death of Christ on a cross necessarily conferred a new significance on the figure, which had hitherto been associated with a conception of religion not merely non-Christian, but in its essence often directly opposed to it. The Christians of early times were wont to trace, in things around them, hidden prophetical allusions to the truth of their faith, and such a testimony they seem to have readily recognized in the use of the cross as a religious emblem by those whose employment of it betokened a belief most repugnant to their own. The adoption by them of such forms, for example, as the tau cross and the svastika or fylfot was no doubt influenced by the idea of the occult Christian significance which they thought they recognized in those forms, and which they could use with a special meaning among themselves, without at the same time arousing the ill-feeling or shocking the sentiment of those among whom they lived.
It was not till the time of Constantine that the cross was publicly used as the symbol of the Christian religion. Till then its employment had been restricted, and private among the Christians themselves. Under Constantine it became the acknowledged symbol of Christianity, in the same way in which, long afterwards, the crescent was adopted as the symbol of the Mahommedan religion. Constantine’s action was no doubt influenced by the vision which he believed he saw of the cross in the sky with the accompanying words ἐν τούτῳ νίκα, as well as by the story of the discovery of the true cross by his mother St Helena in the year 326. The legend is that, when visiting the holy places in Palestine, St Helena was guided to the site of the crucifixion by an aged Jew who had inherited traditional knowledge as to its position. After the ground had been dug to a considerable depth, three crosses were found, as well as the superscription placed over the Saviour’s head on the cross, and the nails with which he had been crucified. The cross of the Lord was distinguished from the other two by the working of a miracle on a crippled woman who was stretched upon it. This finding, or “invention,” of the holy cross by St Helena is commemorated by a festival on the 3rd of May, called the “Invention of the Holy Cross.” The legend was widely accepted as true, and is related by writers such as St Ambrose, Rufinus, Sulpicius Severus and others, but it is discounted by the existence of an older legend, according to which the true cross was found in the reign of Tiberius, and while St James the Great was bishop of Jerusalem, by Protonice, the wife of Claudius.
In recent times an attempt has been made to reconcile the two accounts, by attributing to St Helena the rediscovery of the true cross, originally found by Protonice, and which had been buried again on the spot. A change was made in 1895 in the Diario Romano, when the word Ritrovamento was substituted for that of Invenzione, in the name of the festival of the 3rd of May. After St Helena’s discovery a church was built upon the site, and in it she placed the greater portion of the cross. The remaining portion she conveyed to Byzantium, and thence Constantine sent a piece to Rome, where it is said to be still preserved in the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme,
- ↑ The acceptance of this word as the English equivalent for this peculiar form of the cross rests only, according to the New English Dictionary, on a MS. of about 1500 in the Lansdowne collection, which gives details for the erection of a memorial stained-glass window, “... the fylfot in the nedermost pane under ther I knele ...”; in the sketch given with the instructions a cross occupies the space indicated. It is a question, therefore, whether “fylfot” is a name for any device suitable to “fill the foot” of any design, or the name peculiar to this particular form of cross. The word is not, as was formerly accepted, a corruption of the O. Eng. feowerfete, four-footed.
