Crucifixion

:Crucify redirects here. For the song, see Crucify (song).

Details of crucifixion

Crucifixion was hardly (if ever) performed for ritual or symbolic reasons; usually, its purpose was only to provide a particularly painful, gruesome, and public death, using whatever means were most expedient for that goal. In fact, crucifixion is only an arbitrary subset of a much wider continuous spectrum of slow and painful execution methods, which include varied forms of impalement, hanging from hooks, burning at the stake, exposure to wild beasts, etc.

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Therefore, the details of crucifixion must have varied considerably with location and epoch, and even from case to case; and very little can be said about the practice in general.

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Cross shape

The horizontal beam of the cross, or transom, could be fixed at the very top of the vertical piece, the upright, to form a T called a tau cross or Saint Anthony's cross. The horizontal beam could also be affixed at some distance below the top, often in a mortise, to form a t-shape called a Latin cross, most often depicted in Christian imagery. Alternatively, the cross could consist of two diagonal beams to form an X alternatively known as the decussate cross (after 'decus', Latin for 'ten', insofar as 'X' is the Roman numeral for ten) or as Saint Andrew's cross. (This shape may be recognized from its white-on-blue manifestation in the flag of Scotland.)

Related Topics:
Tau - Saint Anthony - Christian - Saint Andrew - Scotland

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For reasons of simplicity, a single, upright wooden pole (crux simplex), with no transom at all, was also often used for ancient crucifixions; the original Greek word for "cross" (stauros) is generally understood to indicate a simple upright pole or stake. On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, "to fasten to a stake or pale," are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiatical form of a two beamed "cross". The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz, being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name. By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. pagans were recieved into the churches were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the "cross" of Christ.(Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament.)

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