Christian cross

The Christian cross is a symbol of Christianity, representing the crucifixion of Jesus. It is connected to the crucifix, which includes a three-dimensional representation of Jesus's body, and to the broader family of cross symbols. In modern English and many other Western languages, the term "cross" has become detached from its original, specifically Christian meaning.

Long before the Christian era, a related symbol existed in the form of the ancient Egyptian ankh. In ancient Persia, symbolic designs representing earth, water, fire, and air were linked to Zoroastrian philosophy, and the tombs of Persian kings like Darius the Great, built around five hundred years before Christ, were constructed in this way.

Regarding the instrument of Jesus's execution, John Pearson, Bishop of Chester around 1660, wrote in his commentary on the Apostles' Creed that the Greek word *stauros* originally meant a straight standing stake or palisade. He noted that when transverse parts were added to form a perfect cross, the original name was retained, and declared that the cross on which Jesus suffered was a compounded figure, according to Roman custom, with a straight upright piece fixed in the earth and a transverse beam fastened near the top. Frederick Elworthy claimed that for a few centuries, the emblem of Christ was a headless T-shaped tau cross rather than a Latin cross.

Few examples of the cross exist in 2nd-century Christian iconography. It has been argued that Christians were reluctant to use it because it depicted a painful and gruesome public execution method. A similar symbol, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts like P66, P45, and P75, almost like a *nomen sacrum*. The widespread adoption of the cross as a Christian iconographic symbol began in the 4th century. However, the cross was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as shown in the anti-Christian arguments in Minucius Felix's *Octavius* and by the early 3rd century, when Clement of Alexandria could use the phrase "the Lord's sign" to mean the cross without ambiguity. He repeated the idea from the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas that the number 318 in Genesis 14:14 was a foreshadowing of the cross (T for 300) and Jesus (ΙΗ for 18). His contemporary Tertullian rejected the accusation that Christians were "adorers of the gibbet." In his book *De Corona* (204), Tertullian noted it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads. The crucifix, a cross with an image of Christ, is not known to have been used until the 6th century. The oldest known depiction of Jesus's execution is a second- or early third-century relief on a jasper gemstone amulet in the British Museum, showing a naked bearded man with his arms tied to a T-shaped cross. An inscription invokes the crucified Christ, and a later inscription on the reverse combines magical formulae with Christian terms. A 2007 exhibition catalogue suggested that such images may have been widespread even in the late second or early third century. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that the cross as a Christian symbol came into use at least as early as the second century, and that marking a cross on the forehead and chest was regarded as a talisman against demons. Christian Fathers had to defend themselves against charges of worshiping the cross as early as the second century.

In contemporary Christianity, communicants of the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches are expected to wear a cross necklace at all times, ordinarily given at baptism. Many Christians, such as those in the Church of the East, continue to hang a Christian cross in their homes, often on the east wall. Crosses or crucifixes are frequently the center of a Christian family's home altar. Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, and Oriental Orthodox, along with members of other major branches of Christianity, also use the cross.