ours, a symbol of Life. And it must be obvious to all that if the cross
was a symbol of Life before our era, it is possible that it was
originally fixed upon as a symbol of the Christ because it was a symbol
of Life; the assumption that it became a symbol of Life because it was
a symbol of the Christ, being in that case neither more nor less than a
very natural instance of putting the cart before the horse.

Now the Greek word which in Latin versions of the New Testament is
translated as _crux_, and in English versions is rendered as _cross,
i.e._, the word _stauros_, seems to have, at the beginning of our era,
no more meant a cross than the English word stick means a crutch.

It is true that a stick may be in the shape of a crutch, and that the
stauros to which Jesus was affixed may have been in the shape of a
cross. But just as the former is not necessarily a crutch, so the
latter was not necessarily a cross.

What the ancients used to signify when they used the word _stauros_,
can easily be seen by referring to either the Iliad or the Odyssey.[1]

It will there be found to clearly signify an ordinary pole or stake
without any cross-bar. And it is as thus signifying a single piece of
wood that the word in question is used throughout the old Greek
classics.[2]

The stauros used as an instrument of execution was (1) a small pointed
pole or stake used for thrusting through the body, so as to pin the
latter to the earth, or otherwise render death inevitable; (2) a
similar pole or stake fixed in the ground point upwards, upon which the
condemned one was forced down till incapable of escaping; (3) a much