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 wrongly interpreted the word stauros as meaning something cross-shaped, let us, remembering that this does not dispose of the question whether they rightly or wrongly so interpreted it, in this and the next two chapters pass in review the references to the cross made by the Fathers who lived before Constantine's march upon Rome at the head of his Gaulish army.

Commencing, on account of its importance, with the evidence of Minucius Felix, we find that this Father wrote
"We assuredly see the sign of a cross naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with arms outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason or your own religion is formed with respect to it."⁷

Various other pronouncements to a similar effect are to be found in the writings of other Christian Fathers, and such passages are often quoted as conclusive evidence of the Christian origin of what is now our symbol. In reality, however, it is somewhat doubtful if we can fairly claim them as such; for the question arises whether, if the writers in their hearts believed their cross to be a representation of the instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed, they would have omitted, as they did in every instance, to mention that as the right and proper and all-sufficient reason for venerating the figure of the cross.

Moreover it is quite clear that while, as will be shown hereafter, the symbol of the cross had for ages been a Pagan symbol of Life, it can, as already stated, scarcely be said to have become a Christian symbol before the days of Constantine. No cross-shaped symbol of wood or of any other material had any part in the Christianity of the second and third centuries; and the only cross which had any part in the Christianity of those days was the immaterial one traced upon the forehead in the non-Mosaic and originally Pagan initiatory rite of Baptism, and at other times also according to some of the Fathers, apparently as a charm against the machinations of evil spirits.

This "sign" or "signal" rather than "symbol" of the cross, referred to as theirs by the Christian writers of the second and third centuries, is said to have had a place before our era in the rites of those who worshipped Mithras, if not also of those who worshipped certain other conceptions of the Sun-God; and it should be noted that the Fathers insist upon it that a similar mark is what the prophet Ezekiel referred to as that to be placed upon the foreheads of certain men as a sign of life and salvation; the original Hebrew reading "Set a tau upon the foreheads of the men" (Ezek. ix. 4), and the tau having been in the days of the prophet in question—as we know from relics of the past—the figure of a cross. Nor should it be forgotten that Tertullian admits that those admitted into the rites of the Sun-God Mithras were so marked, trying to explain this away by stating that this was done in imitation of the then despised Christians!⁸

That it was this immaterial sign or signal, rather than any material symbol of the cross, which Minucius Felix considered Christian, is demonstrated by the fact that the passage already quoted is accompanied by the remark that
"Crosses, moreover, we Christians neither venerate nor wish for. You indeed who consecrate gods of wood venerate wooden crosses, perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners, and flags of your camps, what are they but crosses gilded and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it."⁹

This remarkable denunciation of the Cross as a Pagan symbol by a Christian Father who lived as late as the third century after Christ, is worthy of special attention; and can scarcely be said to bear out the orthodox account of the origin of the cross as a Christian symbol. It is at any rate clear that the cross was not our recognised symbol at that date; and that it is more likely to have been gradually adopted by us from Sun-God worshippers, than by the worshippers of Mithras and other pre-Christian conceptions of the Sun-God from us.

As our era was six or seven centuries old before the crucifix was introduced, and the earliest pictorial representation of the execution of Jesus still existing or referred to in any work as having existed was of even later date, much stress has been laid by us upon what we allege to be a caricature of the crucifixion of Jesus and of much earlier date. The drawing in question was discovered in 1856 to be scrawled upon a wall of the Gelotian House under the Palatine at Rome; and as no Christian representations of the alleged execution upon a cross-shaped instrument of even a reasonably early date exist, it would of course be greatly to our interest to be able to quote this alleged caricature, which is said to be as old as the third and perhaps even as old as the second century, as independent evidence of the truth of our story. But can we fairly do so?

The drawing in question is a very roughly executed representation of a figure with human arms, legs, and feet; but with an animal's head. The arms are extended, and two lines, which are said to represent a cross but appear in front of the figure instead of behind it, traverse the arms and trunk. In the foreground is a man looking at this grotesque figure; and an accompanying inscription is to the effect that "Alexamenos adores his God."

Tertullian relates that a certain Jew "carried about in public a caricature of us with this label, An ass of a priest. This figure had an ass's ears, and was dressed in a toga with a book; having a hoof on one of his feet."¹⁰

It is upon the strength of this passage and the two lines traversing the figure, that we, ignoring the fact that the figure is standing, claim this much-quoted graffito as conclusive evidence of the historical accuracy of our story. But it may be pointed out that even if this was a caricature of the execution of Jesus made at the date mentioned, a caricature, made certainly not less than two hundred years after the event, is not altogether trustworthy evidence as to the details.

And, was it a caricature of the execution of Jesus? It would appear not.

To commence with, the two lines or scratches—for they are little more—which we call a cross, need not necessarily have formed a part of the original graffito; and, even if they did, of themselves prove nothing. There is no reference to a cross in the inscription, nor is there anything to show that an execution of any kind is what is illustrated. Moreover, the hoof upon one foot, mentioned by Tertullian, is not to be seen; a remark which also applies to the toga and the book he mentions. And even what Tertullian referred to was not a caricature of the execution of Jesus.

It should also be noted that the head of the figure in this famous graffito, is more like that of a jackal than that of an ass; and appears to have been a representation of the Egyptian god Anubis, who is so often to be seen upon relics of the past as a figure with a jackal's head, with human arms extended, and with human legs and feet, as in this drawing.

Upon all points, therefore, our claim concerning the graffito is an ill-founded one; and it cannot be considered evidence regarding either cross or crucifixion.

There thus being no opposing evidence of any weight, it is quite clear from the fact that as late as the third century after Christ we find a Christian Father who venerated the sign or figure of the cross denouncing it as a symbol, that no material representations of that sign or figure were recognised as Christian till an even later date. And such a conclusion is borne out by the striking fact that when Clement of Alexandria at the beginning of the third century made out a list of the symbols which Christians were permitted to use, he mentioned the Fish and the Dove but said nothing regarding the Cross.¹¹

As to the sign or figure of the cross referred to by the Fathers of the second and third centuries, even so high an authority as the Dean of Canterbury admits, as we shall see in the next chapter, that it was not "mainly" as reminding them of the death of Jesus that the Christians of the second and third centuries venerated it. If, therefore, not in the main, and, it would follow, not originally as a representation of the instrument of execution upon which Jesus died, what more likely than that the early Christians venerated the sign and figure of the cross as the age-old and widely accepted symbol of Life and of the Sun-God we know it to have been?

Anyway Minucius Felix may be said to stand alone in denouncing the symbol of the cross as non-Christian. And as even he expresses veneration for the figure of the cross, and must have approved of the sign of the cross in the initiatory rite of baptism, that denunciation evidently applied only to material representations of the cross.

Moreover the denunciation in question was clearly due to the fear that such objects might degenerate amongst Christians, as they afterwards did, into little better than idols. And if the sign or figure of the cross did not mainly remind the early Christians of the death of Jesus, it must have mainly reminded them of something else.