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.
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] Pœd 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 Prœscrip, 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 curâ Ant. Touttée 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.