Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Brenda Martin

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Crispus wrote at 2006-07-25 16:14:25
It is well known that stauros originally meant stake or upright pole but the Romans used more than one type of instrument for execution.



"[Stauros] means properly a stake, and is the tr. [i.e., translation] not merely of the Latin crux (cross), but of palus (stake) as well. As used in NT, however, it refers evidently not to the simple stake used for impaling, of which widespread punishment crucifixion was a refinement, but to the more elaborate cross used by the Romans in the time of Christ."

A Dictionary of Bible, Dealing With Its Language, Literature And Contents, Including The Biblical Theology, 1898, Volume I, T. & T. Clarke: Edinburgh, p. 528.



"The Greek word for cross, (stauros), properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling (fencing in) a piece of ground. But a modification was introduced as the dominion and usages of Rome extended themselves through Greek-speaking countries. Even amongst the Romans, the crux (from which the word cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole, and always remained the more prominent part. But from the time that it began to be used as an instrument of punishment, a traverse piece of wood was commonly added ... about the period of the Gospel Age, crucifixion was usually accomplished by suspending the criminal on a cross piece of wood."

The Imperial Bible Dictionary", by P. Fairbairn, London, 1874, Vol 1 p225  



There are several historical documents that show the Romans used a cross for crucifixion in the first and second century.



"Consider our world and whether there would be any effective administration or community if it were not for this form of the cross. You can only cross the sea when you make use of a sail in the ship. The earth is not plowed without it. This same shape of the cross is in the tools that diggers and mechanics use to do their work. And the human form differs from the animals in being erect with hands extended and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called a nose through which there is respiration for a living creature.



This too shows the form of cross."

Justin Martyr's First Apology, Chapter LV.-Symbols of the Cross.



"For the one beam is placed upright, from which the highest extremity is raised up into a horn, when the other beam is fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both sides as horns joined on to the one horn."

Justin's "Dialogue With Trypho", Chap XC in ANF, p. 245



"And because the cross in the T was to have grace, He saith also three hundred. So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross."

J.B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harmer, Editors, The Apostolic Fathers, "The Epistle of Barnabas" (9:8b), pg. 278



"The Spirit saith to the heart of Moses, that he should make a type of the cross and of Him that was to suffer, that unless, saith he, they shall set their hope on Him, war shall be waged against them for ever. Moses therefore pileth arms one upon another in the midst of the encounter, and standing on higher ground than any he stretched out his hands, and so Israel was again victorious."

Ibid., (12:2) pp. 280-281



"The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in bredth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails."

Irenaeus' "Against Heresies", Chap XXIV in ANF p. 395



"Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat."

Tertullian in "Ad Nationes" Chap XI in ANF, Vol III, p. 122



These writers lived in a period when crucifixions were still carried out, and could see these executions firsthand. Both Justin and Tertullian referred to cases where Christians were crucified (See ANF, Vol I, p. 254; Vol III, p. 28).



In the first century B.C. Dionysius of Halicarnassus described the practice of tying the patibulum across the victims back:



"A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at that time conducting in honour of the god. The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms and fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breast and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips."

(Roman Antiquities, 7.69.1-2)



Seneca lived from 4 B.C. to 65 A.D., was a Roman and wrote the following:



Cum refigere se crucibus conentur, in quas unusquisque vestrum clavos suos ipse adigit, ad supplicium tamen acti stipitibus singulis pendent; hi, qui in se ipsi animum advertunt, quot cupiditatibus tot crucibus distrahuntur. At maledici et in alienam contumeliam venusti sunt. Crederem illis hoc vacare, nisi quidam ex patibulo suo spectatores conspuerent! "Though they strive to release themselves from their crosses---those crosses to which each one of you nails himself with his own hand--yet they, when brought to punishment hang each one on a single stipes; but these others who bring upon themselves their own punishment are stretched upon as many crosses as they had desires. Yet they are slanderous and witty in heaping insult on others. I might believe that they were free to do so, did not some of them spit upon spectators from their own patibulum!" (De Vita Beata, 19.3).



....alium in cruce membra distendere.... "another to have his limbs stretched upon the crux" (De Ira, 1.2.2).



Video istic cruces non unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas: capite quidam conversos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt. "Yonder I see crosses, not indeed of a single kind, but differently contrived by different peoples; some hang their victims with head toward the ground, some impale their private parts, others stretch out their arms on a patibulum" (De Consolatione, 20.3).



Contempissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem....Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum.... Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam? "I should deem him most despicable had he wished to live up to the very time of crucifixion....Is it worth while to weigh down upon one's own wound, and hang impaled upon a patibulum?....Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumours on chest and shoulders, and draw the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? I think he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the crux!" (Epistle, 101.10-14).



Cogita hoc loco carcerem et cruces et eculeos et uncum et adactum per medium hominem, qui per os emergeret, stipitem. "Picture to yourself under this head the prison, the crux, the rack, the hook, and the stake which they drive straight through a man until it protrudes from his throat" (Epistle, 14.5).



....sive extendendae per patibulum manus "....or his hands to be extended on a patibulum" (Fragmenta, 124; cf. Lactantius, Divinis Institutionibus, 6.17).



There is also testimony about the form of the cross by early non-Christian writers. The Greek writer Lukianos (c. 120-180 AD) wrote that the letter T had received its "evil meaning" because of the "evil instrument tyrants put up to hang people upon them. (Lukianos in "Iudicium Vocalium 12", in Crucifixion by Martin Hengel, Fortress Press, 1982, pp. 8,9)



"Being crucified is auspicious for all seafarers. For the stauros, like a ship, is made of wood and nails, and the ship's mast resembles a stauros."

Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, 2:53



In the 1940's Dr. Hermann Modder of Cologne, Germany carried out scientific tests to determine the cause of Christ's death. The results were recorded in the Bible as History by Werner Keller:



"In the case of a person suspended by his two hands the blood sinks very quickly into the lower half of the body. After six to twelve minutes blood pressure has dropped by 50% and the pulse rate has doubled. Too little blood reaches the heart, and fainting ensues. This leads to a speedy orthostatic collapse through insufficient blood circulating to the brain and the heart. Death by crucifixion is therefore [also] due to heart failure.

It is a well authenticated fact that victims of crucifixion did not usually die for two days or even longer. On the vertical beam there was often a small support attached called a "sedile" (seat) or a "cornu" (horn). If the victim hanging there eased his misery from time to time by supporting himself on this, the blood returned to the upper half of his body and the faintness passed. When the torture of the crucified man was finally to be brought to an end, the "crurifragium" was proceeded with: his legs were broken below the knee with blows from a club. That meant that he could no longer ease his weight on the footrests and heart failure quickly followed."

The Bible as History, by Werner Keller. Pages 348-349



Then there's Matthew 27:37 - Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. (NIV)



If Jesus had been crucified on a stake the natural way to state this would have been "Above his hands they placed the written charge..."



Christians that where a cross do so not because they worship the cross but because it's a symbol of the love that Christ has for us. He gave his life for us so that we have peace with God and are not condemned.

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