is affixion to something that was cross-shaped.

The word _stauroo_ occurs, as has been said, forty-four times; and of
the four words in question by far the most frequently. The meaning of
this word is therefore of special importance. It is consequently most
significant to find, as we do upon due investigation, that wherever it
occurs in the pre-Christian classics it is used as meaning to
impalisade, or stake, or affix to a pale or stake; and has reference,
not to crosses, but to single pieces of wood.[5]

It therefore seems tolerably clear (1) that the sacred writings forming
the New Testament, to the statements of which--as translated for us--we
bow down in reverence, do not tell us that Jesus was affixed to a
cross-shaped instrument of execution; (2) that the balance of evidence
is against the truth of our statements to the effect that the
instrument in question was cross-shaped, and our sacred symbol
originally a representation of the same; and (3) that we Christians
have in bygone days acted, and, alas! still act, anything but
ingenuously in regard to the symbol of the cross.

This is not all, however. For if the unfortunate fact that we have in
our zeal almost manufactured evidence in favour of the theory that
_our_ cross or crosses had its or their origin in the shape of the
instrument of execution to which Jesus was affixed proves anything at
all, it proves the need for a work which, like the present one, sets in
array the evidence available regarding both the pre-Christian cross and
the adoption in later times of a similar symbol as that of the catholic
faith.

Nor should it be forgotten that the triumph of Christianity was due to