The Cross as Religious Symbol

This Yellow Boxfish is the star of our October Calendar.  Col photographed it in the Indian Ocean many years ago.  I hope it had, or indeed is still having, a lovely life.

And its kind of appropriate as I believe that some of the earliest Christians did use the fish as a symbol - as Jesus calls his followers "fishers of men".  But, to return to the question in my previous blog,  is the cross a Christian symbol?  It is certainly a religious one, but is it a Christian one.

In discussing the word stauros which is used to describe the implement on which Jesus was killed, the book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), says: “There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as ‘cross’ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting ‘cross’ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible (London, 1885), Appendix No. 162.

So the implement described in the Christian Greek Scriptures was a stauros, which was a stake, a single piece of wood. Why turn it into a cross?  Does the reason lie in the fact that the cross certainly is a religious symbol, but not of Christianity?

For example:

“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 . . . 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.”—Encyclopædia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.

“The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ.”—An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), W. E. Vine, p. 256.

So is the cross a symbol of the religions that Jehovah commanded his people to keep away from, not to touch?  And his standards have not changed.

And his commands are always always for our own good.  Which gave me a lot to think about.  The cross is the symbol for all of Christendom.  And at John 13:35, Jesus himself told us how we could recognise his true followers when he said:  "By this all will know that you are my disciples - if you have love among yourselves."

Have the warring countries and factions of Christendom shown that love for each other?   

I had a busy weekend - busy for me, these days that is. I was out on the work on Saturday morning - which meant negotiating a fearsome roundabout twice. I prayed a lot about it. And I am deeply grateful that it was clear both times my car and I approached.  I was out with the youngest member of our congregation - a young brother who is all of 5 weeks old.  I watched rather enviously as he was pushed door to door in his pram.

He was as good as gold.

And on Saturday we had a tea party for our field service group, during which I talked to a lovely couple who are studying with us - Filipinos, with two beautiful young daughters.   It took me back to my expat days, when we had so many good friends from the Philippines.  Sunday was the meeting.  And as, unusually, Captain Moth Butterfly was at home, he gave me a lift there and back as it was pouring with rain.

I was very grateful.

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