Crucifixion As A Means Of Execution

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ncarta Reference Library 2004)





The cross became an important part of Christian liturgy and art. Christians make a sign of the cross with the right hand both to profess their faith and to bestow a blessing. Early Christian clergy used small hand-held crosses to bestow blessings. Larger crosses were carried in processions; these took spectacular forms in later centuries. In time, crosses were placed on altars in churches and erected outdoors in markets and along roads. Small crosses were worn by clergy and laity as tokens of piety, marks of ecclesiastical office (pectoral crosses), reliquaries, good-luck charms, or decoration. Most large medieval churches were built on the plan of a Latin or Greek cross, symbolic of Christ's body.

The cross, as first used in Christian art, generally did not show the body of Jesus, not only because the early church still followed the Jewish prohibition of images as idolatrous, but also because the empty cross symbolized Jesus' resurrection rather than his death. As a result, Christ was sometimes symbolized by a lamb or a bust of a youth above the cross. By the 7th century, however, it had become customary to represent the whole figure of Jesus, alive and robed, as the triumphant Christ, in front of the cross but not attached to it. Gradually, as the church put more emphasis on his suffering and death, Christ was portrayed naturalistically in a loincloth and crown of thorns, nailed to the cross. The wound in his side was visible.


Thereafter, most three-dimensional crosses in the Roman Catholic Church were crucifixes, and scenes of the crucifixion became popular themes of medieval and Renaissance painting and sculptures. Most non-Lutheran Protestant churches, which tend to follow early church traditions, use the cross alone.
Crucifixion probably originated with ancient Persians. There is evidence, that captured pirates were crucified in the port of Athens in the 7th century B...