This Is Appendix 162 From The Companion Bible.
In
the Greek New Testament two words are used for "the cross"
on which the Lord was put to death.
1. The word stauros; which
denotes an upright pole or stake, to which the criminals were nailed
for execution.
2. The xulon, which generally
denotes a piece of a dead log of wood, or timber, for fuel or for any
other purpose. Is is not like dendron, which is used of a
living, or green tree, as in Matthew 21: As this latter word xulon is used for
the former stauros, it shows us that the meaning of each
is exactly the same.
The verb stauroõ means to drive
stakes. Our English word "cross" is
the translation of the Latin crux; but the Greek stauros
no more means a crux than the word "stick"
means a "crutch".
Homer uses the word stauros of an
ordinary pole or stake, or a single piece of timber. It never means two pieces of timber
placed across one another at any angle, but always of one piece alone.
Hence the use of the word xulon (No. 2, above) in
connection with the manner of our Lord's death, and rendered "tree"
in Acts 5: There is nothing in the Greek of the New Testament
even to imply two pieces of timber.
The letter chi, These crosses were used as symbols of the
Babylonian sun-god, On the coins of Constantine the most frequent
symbol is The evidence is the same as to the pre-Christian
(phallic) symbol in Asia, Africa, and Egypt, whether we consult Nineveh
by Sir A. H. L Dr. S Dr. M The Catacombs in Rome bear the same testimony : "Christ"
is never represented there as "hanging on a cross",
and the cross itself is only portrayed in a veiled and hesitating
manner. In the Egyptian churches the cross was a pagan symbol of life,
borrowed by the Christians, and interpreted in the pagan manner. See the
Encycl. Brit., 11th (Camb.) ed., volume 14, page 273.
In his Letter from Rome Dean Burgon
says : "I question whether a cross occurs on any Christian
monument of the first four centuries".
In Mrs. Jameson's famous History of our Lord
as Exemplified in Works of Art, she says (volume ii, page 315) :
"It must be owned that ancient objects of art, as far as
hitherto known, afford no corroboration of the use of the cross in the
simple transverse form familiar to us, at any period preceding, or even
closely succeeding, the time of Chrysostom"; and Chrysostom
wrote half a century after Constantine!
"The Invention of the Cross"
by Helena the mother of Constantine (in 326), though it means her finding
of the cross, may or may not be true; but the "invention"
of it in pre-Christian times, and the "invention"
of its use in later times, are truths of which we need to be reminded in
the present day. The evidence is thus complete, that the Lord was put to
death upon an upright stake, and not on two piece of timber placed at
any angle.
8;
Revelation 7:1,
3;
8:7;
9:4,
etc.
,
the initial of the word Christ 
,
was originally used for His Name; or .
This was superseded by symbols 
and 
,
and even the first of these had four equal arms.
,
and are first seen on a coin of Julius Cęsar, 100 - 44 
;
but the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the
four equal arms vertical and horizontal; and this was the symbol
specially venerated as the "Solar Wheel". It
should be stated that Constantine was a sun-god worshipper, and would
not enter the "Church" till some quarter of a
century after the legend of his having seen such a cross in the heavens
(E
1
There are two compounds of it used : sustauroo = to put
any one thus to death with another (Matthew 27:44.
Mark 15:32.
John 19:32.
Romans 6:6.
Galatians 2:20);
and anastauroo = to rise up and fix upon the stake again
(Hebrews 6:6).
Another word used is equally significant : prospegnumi =
to fix or fasten anything (Acts 2:23).
2
Iliad xxiv. 453. Odyssey xiv. 11.
3
For example, Thucydides iv. 90. Xenophon, Anabasis v. 2.
21.
4
Other coins with this symbol were struck by Augustus, also by Hadrian
and other Roman emperors. See Early Christian Numismatics,
by C. W. King, M.A.