But--the reader may object--how about the Greek word which in our
Bibles is translated as "crucify" or "crucified?" Does not that mean
"fix to a cross" or "fixed to a cross?" And what is this but the
strongest possible corroboration of our assertion as Christians that
Jesus was executed upon a cross-shaped instrument?

The answer is that no less than four different Greek words are
translated in our Bibles as meaning "crucify" or "crucified," and that
not one of the four meant "crucify" or "crucified."

The four words in question are the words _prospegnumi, anastauroo,
sustauroo_, and _stauroo_.

The word prospegnumi, though translated in our Bibles as "crucify" or
"crucified," meant to "fix" to or upon, and meant that only. It had no
special reference to the affixing of condemned persons either to a
stake, pale, or post, or to a tree, or to a cross; and had no more
reference to a cross than the English word "fix" has.

The word _anastauroo_ was never used by the old Greek writers as
meaning other than to impale upon or with a single piece of timber.[4]

The word _sustauroo_ does not occur in pre-Christian writings, and only
five times in the Bible against the forty-four times of the word next
to be dealt with. Being obviously derived in part from the word
stauros, which primarily signified a stake or pale which was a single
piece of wood and had no cross-bar, _sustauroo_ evidently meant
affixion to such a stake or pale. Anyhow there is nothing whatever
either in the derivation of the word, or in the context in either of
the five instances in which it occurs, to show that what is referred to