CROSS. The C. was a conunon instrument of capital punishment among the ancients; and the death of the C. was esteemed so dishonorable that only slaves and malefactors of the lowest class were subjected to it by the Romans. It was customary to proclaim the name and offense of the person crucified, or to affix a tablet (album) to the C., on which they were inscribed. Malefactors were sometimes fastened on a simple upright stake, and so left to die, or they were impaled upon it, and to this upright stake the Latin name cries was originally and more Aridly applicable; but very generally a cross-piece (patibulum) was added to the stake, to which the arms of the criminal were tied, or to which his hands were nailed. When the cross-piece was fastened at right angles below the summit of the upright stake, the C. was called crux immissa; when the cross-piece was fastened at right angles across the top of the upright stake, the C. was crux commissa; and when it was formed of two beams crossing one another obliquely, it was crux decus sate. The C. was erected without the gates of towns, but in places of frequent resort. The person crucified often lived for days upon the cross. The death of Christ by cruci fixion, led Christians to regard the C. with peculiar feelings of reverence, and to make use of the sign of the C. as a holy and distinguishing sign. The custom of crossing, in honor and commemoration of Christ, can be traced back'to the 3d century. The emperor Constantine, after obtaining the victory over Maxenthis, through the influence—as he believed—of the sign of the C., caused crosses to be set up in public places and upon public buildings; and the veneration of the C. increased, particularly after the Invention of the C., or finding of the alleged true C. of Christ in Jerusalem by the empress Helena. bee Cnoss, INVENTION OP. The desire for relies gratified, and numberless portions of the true C. were given away, without its being diminished. Iconoclasts and others contended in vain against the prevalent worship of the C. ; and the crucifix (q.v.), a C.
with an image of the Saviour affixed to it, was honored more than any other image. The sign of the C. is made not only by Roman Catholics, but by the members of the eastern churches also there are. however, distinctive differences in the manner in which it is made. It is admitted by the Lutherans as a commemorative sign of the atoning death of Christ, but by many Protestants is rejected as a human invention in worship, and as tending to superstition. It was very generally used during the middle ages, and still is among the less enlightened peasantry in some Roman Catholic countries, as a sort of charm, or as affording some security, like an amulet against all evil, and particularly against evil spirits and witchcraft.
It appears that the sign of the C. was in use as an emblem, having certain religious and mystic meanings attached to it, long before the Christian era; and the Spanish con querors were astonished to find it an object of religious veneration among the natives of Central and South America. Be this as it may, it was early adopted as a symbol by Christians, with express reference to the central fact of their religion, and it has been extensively used as an ornament in Christian architecture, and in the ground-plan of churches (q.v.). The C. of the resurrection is opposed to the C. of the passion, by ecclesiastical writers. It is a lance, headed by a C. instead of a pike, and carrying a banner upon which a C. is depicted. It is the C. held by the paschal lamb, and carried at the head of religious processions. The large C. always placed over the entrance of the main chancel of a church, was called the rood or holy rood.
The forms given to crosses in art are endless; but the two leading types are the Latin C., or crux tmmissa, supposed to be that on which Christ suffered, and the Greek C., both of which are subject to many fantastic variations. The Greek C. forms the well-known C. of St. George, which, adopted from the legends of that hero, was the national ensign of the English previous to the union with Scotland.