|
|
3:1 ·
The Latin cross, crux immissa, crux capitata. The latin word crux is derived from "cruciare", meaning to torture. This cross since at least one thousand years has been the Western world's symbol par excellence. It is chiefly associated with the torture and killing of Jesus Christ, and thus with the Christian religion and Christianity.
Before the time of Jesus,  represented, among other things, the staff of Apollo, the sun god, son of Zeus, and appeared for instance on ancient coins.
Crosses with arms of equal length were used frequently since time immemorial in pre-Columbian America, the Euphrates-Tigris region, and other parts of the world. That cross seems to have been associated with the sun and the powers that controlled the weather. In Babylon, the equal arms cross was considered one of the attributes of Anu, god of the heavens. In the mighty Assyrian empire, which seems to have originated as a Babylonian colony in the second millenium B.C., the sun cross in the wheel cross form of  and  was one of the attributes of the national god, Assur. When  was used as the staff of Apollo it lost its ring, and one of its arms was lengthened to form . That seems to represent the first use of the Latin cross form in the Hellenic sphere. However, variations of crosses of the Latin type are fairly common elsewhere in Europe during, or even before the Bronze Age period, as witnessed by for instance such rock carved signs as  .
Sometime during the first centuries of the Western calendar the Latin cross was adopted by the Christian ideology. Still being associated with heavenly, almighty lords, both and even more so , the sun god's staff, gradually became symbols for death, sin, guilt death, sin, guilt, and burial. But, and in accordance with the law of the polarity of meanings of elementary graphs the cross also came to mean resurrection, rebirth, salvation, and eternal life after bodily death.
On gravestones and in genealogy the sign means dead, deceased and date of death. Compare with six-pointed and five-pointed star signs for born, or date of birth, on tomb stones and in genealogy.
|
