Cross

For the figure of Christ on the Cross, see Crucifix

A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally.

A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is also termed a saltire in heraldic terminology.

Name

The word cross is recorded in 10th-century Old English as cros, exclusively for the instrument of Christ's crucifixion, replacing the native Old English word rood. The word's history is complicated; it appears to have entered English from Old Irish, possibly via Old Norse, ultimately from the Latin crux (or its accusative crucem and its genitive crucis), "stake, cross". The English verb to cross arises from the noun c. 1200, first in the sense "to make the sign of the cross"; the generic meaning "to intersect" develops in the 15th century. The Latin word was, however, influenced by popular etymology by a native Germanic word reconstructed as *krukjo (English crook, Old English crycce, Old Norse krokr, Old High German krucka). This word, by conflation with Latin crux, gave rise to Old French crocier (modern French crosse), the term for a shepherd's crook, adopted in English as crosier.

Latin crux referred to the gibbet where criminals were executed, a stake or pole, but not necessarily to intersecting or "cruciform" beams. The Latin word derived from the verb crucio "to torture" (cf. English excruciate). Latin crux originally referred to the tree or stake on which criminals were crucified in the pre-imperial period. This was later specified as crux acuta or crux simplex. The method of execution may have been adopted from the Phoenicians. The addition of a transverse bar, to which the criminal would be fastened with nails or cords, dates to a later period. The Latin name of the diagonal cross is crux decussata (as it were "ten-like cross", after the Roman numeral); the heraldic term saltire (meaning "stirrup") is introduced only towards the end of the medieval period.

The Greek equivalent of Latin crux "stake, gibbet" is σταυρός stauros "stake, pole". The letter Tau (T) was associated with the stauros or crux, while the notion of "cruciform" shapes, i.e. intersecting lines, was associated with the letter Chi (X). The Greek term for "crossing" ("intersection") was χίασμα chiasma, from a verb χιάζω chiázō "to shape like the letter Chi". Latin had the comparable decussatus "shaped like the numeral ten" (cf. English decussate).

Pre-Christian

Due to the simplicity of the design (two intersecting lines), cross-shaped incisions make their appearance from deep prehistory; as petroglyphs in European cult caves, dating back to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, and throughout prehistory to the Iron Age. Also of prehistoric age are numerous variants of the simple cross mark, including the crux gammata with curving or angular lines, and the Egyptian crux ansata with a loop.

Speculation has associated the cross symbol - even in the prehistoric period - with astronomical or cosmological symbology involving "four elements" (Chevalier, 1997) or the cardinal points, or the unity of a vertical axis mundi or celestial pole with the horizontal world (Koch, 1955). Speculation of this kind became especially popular in the mid- to late-19th century in the context of comparative mythology seeking to tie Christian mythology to ancient cosmological myths. Influential works in this vein included G. de Mortillet (1866), L. Müller (1865), W. W. Blake (1888), Ansault (1891), etc.

In the European Bronze Age the cross symbol appeared to carry a religious meaning, perhaps as a symbol of consecration, especially pertaining to burial.

The cross sign occurs trivially in tally marks, and develops into a number symbol independently in the Roman numerals ( "ten"), the Chinese rod numerals (十 "ten") and the Brahmi numerals ("four", whence the numeral 4).

In the Phoenician alphabet and derived scripts, the cross symbol represented the phoneme /t/, i.e. the letter taw, which is the historical predecessor of Latin T. The letter name taw means "mark", presumably continuing the Egyptian hieroglyph "two crossed sticks" (Gardiner Z9). According to W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, worshippers of Tammuz in Chaldea and thereabouts used the cross as symbol of that god.

Christian cross

The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix (a cross that includes a usually three-dimensional representation of Jesus' body) and to the more general family of cross symbols.

The basic forms of the cross are the Latin cross (✝) and the Greek cross (✚), with numerous variants used in text, visual art, heraldry, and in various confessional contexts.

Van Helsing using the cross to frighten Count Dracula

Instrument of torture

John Pearson, Bishop of Chester (c. 1660) wrote in his commentary on the Apostles' Creed that the Greek word stauros originally signified "a straight standing Stake, Pale, or Palisador", but that, "when other transverse or prominent parts were added in a perfect Cross, it retained still the Original Name", and he declared: "The Form then of the Cross on which our Saviour suffered was not a simple, but a compounded, Figure, according to the Custom of the Romans, by whose Procurator he was condemned to die. In which there was not only a straight and erected piece of Wood fixed in the Earth, but also a transverse Beam fastned unto that towards the top thereof".

Early Christian

During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross was rare in Christian iconography, as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution and Christians were reluctant to use it. A symbol similar to the cross, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, almost like a nomen sacrum (nomina sacra). The extensive adoption of the cross as Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century.

The earliest depiction of the Christian Cross may be the Herculaneum Cross which was found in the city of Herculaneum, which was entombed in pyroclastic material along with Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Another early depictions of the cross as a Christian symbol is the Alexamenos graffito.

However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next, and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross, when he repeated the idea, current as early as the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, that the number 318 (in Greek numerals, ΤΙΗ) in was interpreted as a foreshadowing (a "type") of the cross (T, an upright with crossbar, standing for 300) and of Jesus (ΙΗ, the first two letter of his name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, standing for 18), and his contemporary Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross". In his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross. The crucifix, a cross upon which an image of Christ is present, is not known to have been used until the 6th century AD.

The Jewish Encyclopedia says:

" The cross as a Christian symbol or "seal" came into use at least as early as the second century (see "Apost. Const." iii. 17; Epistle of Barnabas, xi.-xii.; Justin, "Apologia," i. 55-60; "Dial. cum Tryph." 85-97); and the marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest was regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons (Tertullian, "De Corona," iii.; Cyprian, "Testimonies," xi. 21–22; Lactantius, "Divinæ Institutiones," iv. 27, and elsewhere). Accordingly the Christian Fathers had to defend themselves, as early as the second century, against the charge of being worshipers of the cross, as may be learned from Tertullian, "Apologia," xii., xvii., and Minucius Felix, "Octavius," xxix. Christians used to swear by the power of the cross "

―

In contemporary Christianity

In contemporary Christianity, the cross is a symbol of the atonement and reminds Christians of God's love in sacrificing his own son for humanity. It represents Jesus' victory over sin and death, since it is believed that through his death and resurrection he conquered death itself. "Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, members of the major branches of Christianity with other adherents as Lutheranism, some Anglicans, and others often make the Sign of the Cross upon themselves. This was already a common Christian practice in the time of Tertullian.

The Feast of the Cross is an important Christian feast. One of the twelve Great Feasts in Eastern Orthodoxy is the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, which commemorates the consecration of the basilica on the site where the original cross of Jesus was reportedly discovered in 326 by Helena of Constantinople, mother of Constantine the Great. The Catholic Church celebrates the feast on the same day and under the same name (In Exaltatione Sanctae Crucis), though in English it has been called the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican bishops place a cross [+] before their name when signing a document. The dagger symbol (†) placed after the name of a dead person (often with the date of death) is sometimes taken to be a Christian cross.

Exclusion

Although Christians accepted that the cross was the gallows on which Jesus died, they had already begun in the 2nd century to use it as a Christian symbol. During the first three centuries of the Christian era the cross was "a symbol of minor importance" when compared to the prominence given to it later, but by the second century it was nonetheless so closely associated with Christians that Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross". and it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross. Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation retained the cross and crucifix in the Lutheran Church. Luther wrote: "The cross alone is our theology." He believed one knows God not through works but through suffering, the cross, and faith.

The Protestant Reformation spurred a revival of iconoclasm, a wave of rejecting sacred images, which in some localities (such as England) included polemics against using the cross in worship. For example, during the 16th century, a minority of theologians in the Anglican and Reformed traditions Nicholas Ridley, James Calfhill, and Theodore Beza, rejected practices that they described as cross worship. Considering it a form of idolatry, there was a dispute in 16th century England over the baptismal use of the sign of the cross and even the public use of crosses. There were more active reactions to religious items that were thought as 'relics of Papacy', as happened for example in September 1641, when Sir Robert Harley, pulled down and destroyed the cross at Wigmore. Writers during the 19th century indicating a pagan origin of the cross included Henry Dana Ward, Mourant Brock, and John Denham Parsons. David Williams, writing of medieval images of monsters, says: "The disembodied phallus is also formed into a cross, which, before it became for Christianity the symbol of salvation, was a pagan symbol of fertility." The study, Gods, Heroes & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain states: "Before the fourth century CE, the cross was not widely embraced as a sign of Christianity, symbolizing as it did the gallows of a criminal."

Jehovah's Witnesses do not use the symbol of the cross in their worship, which they believe constitutes idolatry. They believe that Jesus died on a single upright torture stake rather than a two-beam cross, arguing that the Greek term stauros indicated a single upright pole. Although early Watch Tower Society publications associated with the Bible Student movement taught that Christ was executed on a cross, it no longer appeared on Watch Tower Society publications after the name Jehovah's witnesses was adopted in 1931, and use of the cross was officially abandoned in 1936.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Jesus died on a cross, however, their prophet Gordon B. Hinckley stated that "for us the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ." When asked what was the symbol of his religion, Hinckley replied "the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship." Prophet Howard W. Hunter encouraged Latter-day Saints "to look to the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of your membership." Images of LDS temples and the Angel Moroni (who is found in statue on most temples) are commonly used to symbolize the LDS faith.

Cross-like marks and graphemes

The cross mark is used to mark a position, or as a check mark, but also to mark deletion. Derived from Greek Chi are the Latin letter X, Cyrillic Kha and possibly runic Gyfu.

Egyptian hieroglyphs involving cross shapes include ankh "life", ndj "protect" and nfr "good; pleasant, beautiful".

Sumerian cuneiform had a simple cross-shaped character, consisting of a horizontal and a vertical wedge (𒈦), read as maš "tax, yield, interest"; the superposition of two diagonal wedges results in a decussate cross (𒉽), read as pap "first, pre-eminent" (the superposition of these two types of crosses results in the eight-pointed star used as the sign for "sky" or "deity" (𒀭), DINGIR). The cuneiform script has other, more complex, cruciform characters, consisting of an arrangement of boxes or the fourfold arrangement of other characters, including the archaic cuneiform characters LAK-210, LAK-276, LAK-278, LAK-617 and the classical sign EZEN (𒂡).

Phoenician tāw is still cross-shaped in Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and in some Old Italic scripts (Raetic and Lepontic), and its descendant T becomes again cross-shaped in the Latin minuscule t. The plus sign (+) is derived from Latin t via a simplification of a ligature for et "and" (introduced by Johannes Widmann in the late 15th century).

The letter Aleph is cross-shaped in Aramaic and paleo-Hebrew.

Egyptian hieroglyphs with cross-shapes include Gardiner Z9 – Z11 ("crossed sticks", "crossed planks").

Other, unrelated cross-shaped letters include Brahmi ka (predecessor of the Devanagari letter क) and Old Turkic (Orkhon) d² and Old Hungarian b, and Katakana ナ na and メme.

The multiplication sign (×), often attributed to William Oughtred (who first used it in an appendix to the 1618 edition of John Napier's Descriptio) apparently had been in occasional use since the mid 16th century.

Other typographical symbols resembling crosses include the dagger or obelus (†), the Chinese (十, Kangxi radical 24) and Roman

Unicode has a variety of cross symbols in the "Dingbat" block (U+2700–U+27BF) :

✕ ✖ ✗ ✘ ✙ ✚ ✛ ✜ ✝ ✞ ✟ ✠ ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥

The Miscellaneous Symbols block (U+2626 to U+262F) adds three specific Christian cross variants, viz. the Patriarchal cross (☦), Cross of Lorraine (☨) and "Cross of Jerusalem" (implemented as Cross potent, ☩).

Cross-like emblems

The following is a list of cross symbols, except for variants of the Christian cross and Heraldic crosses, for which see the dedicated lists at Christian cross variants and Crosses in heraldry, respectively.

Crosses as emblems and symbols

Picture	Cross name	Description
	Ankh	The ankh or crux ansata, an Egyptian hieroglyph representing "life".
	Basque cross	The Basque cross or lauburu.
	the Sun cross	The "sun cross" or "wheel cross" appears with some regularity in prehistoric European artefacts, usually interpreted as a solar symbol, perhaps representing the spoked wheel of the Sun chariot.
	Swastika	The swastika or crux gammata (in heraldry fylfot), historically used as a symbol in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, and widely popular in the early 20th century as a symbol of good luck or prosperity before adopted as a symbol of Nazism in the 1920's and 30's.

As a design element

Picture	Cross name	Description
	Compass rose	A compass rose, sometimes called a windrose, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions and often appears as a cross tapering to triangular points.
	Crossed keys	Symbol of the Papacy used in various emblems representing the keys to heaven.
	Crossed swords	The crossed swords symbol (⚔ at Unicode U+2694) is used to represent battlegrounds on maps. It is also used to show that person died in battle or that a war machine was lost in action. Two crossed swords also look like a Christian cross and the mixed symbolism has been used in military decorations. It is also a popular way to display swords on a wall often with a shield in the center
	Four-leaf clover	Used as a symbol for luck as well as a stand in for a cross in various works.
	Skull and crossbones	Traditionally used to mark Spanish cemeteries; the symbol evolved to represent death/danger, poison, and pirates.

Notable formations known as "cross"

• Crux, or the Southern Cross, is a cross-shaped constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. It appears on the national flags of Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.
• Notable free-standing Christian crosses (or Summit crosses): The tallest cross, at 152.4 metres high, is part of Francisco Franco's monumental "Valley of the Fallen", the Monumento Nacional de Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caidos in Spain. A cross at the junction of Interstates 57 and 70 in Effingham, Illinois, is purportedly the tallest in the United States, at 198 feet (60.3 m) tall. The tallest freestanding cross in the United States is located in Saint Augustine, FL and stands 208 feet.
• The tombs at Naqsh-e Rustam, Iran, made in the 5th century BC, are carved into the cliffside in the shape of a cross. They are known as the "Persian crosses".

Physical gestures

Cross shapes are made by a variety of physical gestures. Crossing the fingers of one hand is a common invocation of the symbol. The sign of the cross associated with Christian genuflection is made with one hand: in Eastern Orthodox tradition the sequence is head-heart-right shoulder-left shoulder, while in Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican tradition the sequence is head-heart-left-right.

Crossing the index fingers of both hands represents and a charm against evil in European folklore. Other gestures involving more than one hand include the "cross my heart" movement associated with making a promise and the Tau shape of the referee's "time out" hand signal.

In Chinese-speaking cultures, crossed index fingers represent the number 10.

In vampire mythology

The use of a Cross in warding off vampires varies depending on the mythology and story. In some stories, the vampire can only be warded off by religious icons of the religion it held in life. In other stories, the person holding the holy symbol must believe in it for it to work.

Gallery

References

Sources

• Chevalier, Jean (1997). The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Penguin Template:ISBN.
• Drury, Nevill (1985). Dictionary of Mysticism and the Occult. Harper & Row. Template:ISBN.
• Koch, Rudolf (1955). The Book of Signs. Dover, NY. Template:ISBN.
• Webber, F. R. (1927, rev. 1938). Church Symbolism: an explanation of the more important symbols of the Old and New Testament, the primitive, the mediaeval and the modern church. Cleveland, OH. Template:OCLC.

External links

• Seiyaku.com, all Crosses - probably the largest collection on the Internet
• Lutheransonline.com, variations of Crosses—images and meanings
• Cross & Crucifix - Glossary: Forms and Topics
• Nasrani.net, Indian Cross
• Freetattoodesigns.org, The Cross in Tattoo Art
• The Christian Cross of Jesus Christ: Symbols of Christianity, Images, Designs and representations of it as objects of devotion