Is there a visible symbol for Christianity? Do you think of the cross? What about the figure of a fish, which appears on some ancient artifacts associated with Christians? Or is there perhaps some other visible symbol representative of Christianity?

Let us consider first the cross. Many English translations of the Christian Scriptures employ the word “cross” for the instrument upon which Jesus was nailed to die. (Phil. 2:8, Authorized Version) But was it really cross-shaped?

The Imperial Bible-Dictionary points out: “The Greek word for cross, staurós, properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our [word] cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.” It is true that on occasion these terms were used to refer also to cross-shaped objects. In these cases, however, the contexts of accounts employing these words describe crosses. But that is not the basic meaning of either the Greek staurós or the Latin crux.

Furthermore, the Bible also designates the instrument upon which Jesus died by the Greek word xylon. According to a Greek-English lexicon by Liddell and Scott, this word means “wood . . . II. a stick or piece of wood . . . III. later, a tree.” In the Authorized Version this word is rendered as “tree,” as at Acts 5:30, where we read: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.”​—See also Acts 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24, AV.

But do not writers early in the Common Era claim that Jesus died on a cross? For example, Justin Martyr (114-167 C.E.) described in this way what he believed to be the type of stake upon which Jesus died: “For the one beam is placed upright, from which the highest extremity is raised up into a horn, when the other beam is fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both sides as horns joined on to the one horn.” This indicates that Justin himself believed that Jesus died on a cross.

However, Justin was not inspired by God, as were the Bible writers. He was born more than eighty years after Jesus’ death, and was not an eyewitness of that event. It is believed that in describing the “cross” Justin followed an earlier writing known as the “Letter of Barnabas.” This non-Biblical letter claims that the Bible describes Abraham as having circumcised three hundred and eighteen men of his household. Then it derives special significance from a Greek-letter cipher for 318, namely, IHT. The writer of this apocryphal work claims that IH represents the first two letters of “Jesus” in Greek. The T is viewed as the shape of Jesus’ death stake.

Concerning this passage, M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia states: “The writer evidently was unacquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures, and has [also] committed the blunder of supposing that Abraham was familiar with the Greek alphabet some centuries before it existed.” A translator into English of this “Letter of Barnabas” points out that it contains “numerous inaccuracies,” “absurd and trifling interpretations of Scripture,” and “many silly vaunts of superior knowledge in which its writer indulges.” Would you depend on such a writer, or persons who followed him, to provide accurate information about the stake on which Jesus died?

The cross did not become popular as a symbol in Christendom until the fourth century C.E., when Roman emperor Constantine adopted the labarum, a flag bearing the symbol [Artwork​—Greek character]. However, this represented, not Jesus’ death stake, but the Greek letters khi (X) and hro (P) one atop the other. Many began to view this symbol as depicting the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ (XRistos).a

“Crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god, [Artwork​—Symbol], and are first seen on a coin of Julius Caesar. 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Caesar’s heir (Augustus), 20 B.C. On the coins of Constantine the most frequent symbol is [Artwork​—Greek character]; but the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the four equal arms vertical and horizontal; and this was the symbol specially venerated as the ‘Solar Wheel’. It should be stated that Constantine was a sun-god worshipper, and would not enter the ‘Church’ till some quarter of a century after his having seen such a cross in the heavens. . . . The Lord was put to death upon an upright stake, and not on two pieces of timber placed at any angle.”