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The Cross is Not a Christian Symbol One of the most important symbols of Catholics and Protestants is the cross. The priest makes the sign of the cross on the head of infants as they are sprinkled; churches are built in the shape of the cross; when Catholics enter church, they take “holy water” and make the sign of the cross; during Mass, the priest makes the sign of the cross 16 times and blesses the altar with the cross 30 times. The cross is universally worn as jewelry around the neck, and is prominent in professing Christian homes. Early Christians considered the cross as “the accursed tree,” a device of death and “shame,” Hebrews 12:2. They did not trust in an old rugged cross. Instead, their faith was in what was accomplished on the cross (or stake, or whatever it was Yahshua was impaled upon). That is how the Apostles preached about the cross, I Corinthians 1:17-18. It was not until Christianity became paganized (or paganism was Christianized), when the cross image came to be thought of as a “Christian symbol”, part of worship. Crosses in churches was introduced in A.D. 431; the use of crosses on steeples did not come about until about 586. The Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says the cross originated among the Babylonians of ancient Chaldea, used as a symbol of the god Tammuz. Almost any book of ancient Egypt shows the use of the Tau cross (shaped like the letter “T”) on old monuments and walls of ancient temples. Seymour says that the cross, unchanged for thousands of years, “was reverenced . . . among the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Mexicans, and every ancient people of both hemispheres,” The Cross in Tradition, History, and Art, pp. 22, 26. The cross had been a sacred symbol of India for centuries among non-Christians. Prescott reports that when the Spaniards first landed in Mexico, they were shocked to behold the cross, sacred emblem of their own Catholic faith, reverenced in Aztec temples. A heathen temple in Palenque, Mexico, founded in the ninth century B.C., was known as “The Temple of the Cross.” Ancient Mexicans worshipped a cross as tota (our father), similar to apostate Israelites who worshipped a piece a wood as “my father,” Jeremiah 2:27. In 46 B.C., Roman coins show Jupiter holding a long sceptre terminating in a cross. Vestal virgins (temple prostitutes) of pagan Rome wore the cross suspended from their necklaces, as Roman Catholic nuns do today. “Since Yahshua died on a ‘cross’,” some say, “doesn’t that make it a Christian symbol?” Let us suppose He was put to death with a hatchet; would this be a reason to venerate the hatchet? Again, the important thing is not the way Jesus died, but who died (the Son of God), and why He died (for the sins of his people). Crucifixion was a common method of execution for flagrant crimes in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Palestine, Carthage, Greece, and Rome. << Terug na Artikels