~ Evidences Of The Cross ~ Watchtower's Misleading Claims ~

As I mentioned at the beginning of this paper, I stumbled across the Watchtower's misleading claims concerning the ante-Nicene Church Fathers because I was "hopping around the Watchtower's official web site looking for articles supporting their rejection of the cross as a Christian symbol - Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was put to death on an upright torture stake, not a t-shaped cross." The reason I was looking for such articles was that, during my ongoing study of the writings of the Church Fathers, I had discovered several references to the cross that appeared to me to be far too early to support the Watchtower's claim that the cross is a pagan symbol which entered into Christianity only after much time had passed since the death of the apostles.

Actually, the matter of whether Jesus died on a t-shaped cross or an upright torture stake is utterly irrelevant to fundamental Christian doctrine. However, the Watchtower uses the argument of the torture stake over the cross to create feelings of uncertainty in people about mainstream Christianity. After all, if mainstream Christianity is wrong about the origin of their most cherished symbol, what else could they be wrong about? Although the "stake vs. cross" argument is shabby at best, it remains one of the Watchtower's primary points of attack on the Christian faith, and for this reason I have decided to include as an appedix the earliest evidences for the Christian cross which I have found in the Bible and in the literature of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers.

John 20:25 (NWT) - "Consequently the other disciples would say to him: 'We have seen the Lord!' But he said to them: 'Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe.'" [Emphasis added]

"…the cross was to express the grace [of our redemption] by the letter ?…."

"Here again you have an intimation concerning the cross, and Him who should be crucified….in Moses, when Israel was attacked by strangers….the Spirit speaks to the heart of Moses, that he should make a figure of the cross, and of Him about to suffer thereon….Moses therefore placed one weapon above another in the midst of the hill, and standing upon it, so as to be higher than all the people, he stretched forth his hands…."

"[The cross], as the prophet foretold, is the greatest symbol of His power and role; as is also proved by the things which fall under our observation. For consider all the things in the world, whether without this form they could be administered or have any community. For the sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics do not their work, except with tools which have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended, and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living creature; and this shows no other form than that of the cross. And so it was said by the prophet, 'The breath before our face is the Lord Christ.' And the power of this form is shown by your own symbols on what are called 'vexilla' [banners] and trophies, with which all your state possessions are made, using these as the insignia of your power and government, even though you do so unwittingly. And with this form you consecrate the images of your emperors when they die, and you name them gods by inscriptions."

"…that lamb which was commanded to be wholly roasted was a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ would undergo. For the lamb, which is roasted, is roasted and dressed up in the form of the cross. For one spit is transfixed right through from the lower parts up to the head, and one across the back, to which are attached the legs of the lamb."

"Moses himself prayed to God, stretching out both hands…. if he gave up any part of this sign, which was an imitation of the cross, the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross. For it was not because Moses so prayed that the people were stronger, but because, while one who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was in the forefront of the battle, he himself made the sign of the cross."

"And God by Moses shows in another way the force of the mystery of the cross, when He said in the blessing wherewith Joseph was blessed, '…Let him be glorified among his brethren; his beauty is [like] the firstling of a bullock; his horns the horns of an unicorn: with these shall he push the nations from one end of the earth to another.' Now, no one could say or prove that the horns of an unicorn represent any other fact or figure than the type which portrays the cross. 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. And the part which is fixed in the centre, on which are suspended those who are crucified, also stands out like a horn; and it also looks like a horn conjoined and fixed with the other horns."

"The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails."

"And since He is the Word of God Almighty, who invisibly pervades the whole creation, and encompasses its length, breadth, height, and depth - for by the Word of God everything is administered - so too was the Son of God crucified in these fourfold dimensions…that He might demonstrate, by His visible form on the cross, His activity which is on the invisible level, for it is He who illumines the 'heights', that is, the things in heaven, and holds the 'deeps', which is beneath the earth, and stretches the 'length' from the East to the West, and who navigates the 'breadth' of the northern and southern regions, inviting the dispersed from all sides to the knowledge of the Father."

"And again, concerning His cross, Isaiah says, 'I stretched out my hands all the day to a disbelieving and contrary people,' for this is a sign of the cross."

"Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it." (Octavius, Chapter 29)

…it might be no slight solace to us in all our punishments, suffering as we do because of these same gods, that in their making they suffer as we do themselves. You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake? The body of your god is first consecrated on the gibbet." (Apology, Chapter 12)

"Every stake fixed in an upright position is a portion of the cross; we render our adoration, if you will have it so, to a god entire and complete. We have shown before that your deities are derived from shapes modelled from the cross. But you also worship victories, for in your trophies the cross is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the Romans is all through a worship of the standards, a setting the standards above all gods. Well, as those images decking out the standards are ornaments of crosses. All those hangings of your standards and banners are robes of crosses. I praise your zeal: you would not consecrate crosses unclothed and unadorned." (Apology, Chapter 16)

"Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat. Now you have the less to excuse you, for you dedicate to religion only a mutilated imperfect piece of wood, while others consecrate to the sacred purpose a complete structure. The truth, however, after all is, that your religion is all cross, as I shall show. You are indeed unaware that your gods in their origin have proceeded from this hated cross. Now, every image, whether carved out of wood or stone, or molten in metal, or produced out of any other richer material, must needs have had plastic hands engaged in its formation.

Well, then, this modeller, before he did anything else, hit upon the form of a wooden cross, because even our own body assumes as its natural position the latent and concealed outline of a cross. Since the head rises upwards, and the back takes a straight direction, and the shoulders project laterally, if you simply place a man with his arms and hands outstretched, you will make the general outline of a cross. Starting, then, from this rudimental form and prop, as it were, he applies a covering of clay, and so gradually completes the limbs, and forms the body, and covers the cross within with the shape which he meant to impress upon the clay; then from this design, with the help of compasses and leaden moulds, he has got all ready for his image which is to be brought out into marble, or clay, or whatever the material be of which he has determined to make his god. (This, then, is the process: ) after the cross-shaped frame, the clay; after the clay, the god. In a well-understood routine, the cross passes into a god through the clayey medium. The cross then you consecrate, and from it the consecrated (deity) begins to derive his origin….Since, then, in the production of your gods, you worship the cross which originates them, here will be the original kernel and grain, from which are propagated the wooden materials of your idolatrous images.

Examples are not far to seek. Your victories you celebrate with religious ceremony as deities; and they are the more august in proportion to the joy they bring you. The frames on which you hang up your trophies must be crosses: these are, as it were, the very core of your pageants. Thus, in your victories, the religion of your camp makes even crosses objects of worship; your standards it adores, your standards are the sanction of its oaths; your standards it prefers before Jupiter himself, but all that parade of images, and that display of pure gold, are (as so many) necklaces of the crosses. in like manner also, in the banners and ensigns, which your soldiers guard with no less sacred care, you have the streamers (and) vestments of your crosses. You are ashamed, I suppose, to worship unadorned and simple crosses." (Ad Nationes, Book 1, Chapter 12)

"Joseph, again, himself was made a figure of Christ….For Joseph is withal blest by his father after this form: 'His glory (is that) of a bull; his horns, the horns of an unicorn; on them shall he toss nations alike unto the very extremity of the earth.' Of course no one-horned rhinoceros was there pointed to, nor any two-horned minotaur. But Christ was therein signified: 'bull,' by reason of each of His two characters - to some fierce, as Judge; to others gentle, as Saviour; whose 'horns' were to be the extremities of the cross. For even in a ship's yard - which is part of a cross - this is the name by which the extremities are called; while the central pole of the mast is a 'unicorn.'" (An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 10; repeated in Against Marcion, Book 3, Chapter 18)

"But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech - destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil - the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory?" (An Answer to the Jews, Chapter 10; repeated in Against Marcion, Book 3, Chapter 18)

"Premising, therefore, and likewise subjoining the fact that Christ suffered, He foretold that His just ones should suffer equally with Him - both the apostles and all the faithful in succession; and He signed them with that very seal of which Ezekiel spake: 'The Lord said unto me, Go through the gate, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set the mark tau upon the foreheads of the men.' Now the Greek letter tau and our own letter T is the very form of the cross, which He predicted would be the sign on our foreheads in the true Catholic Jerusalem, in which, according to the twenty-first Psalm, the brethren of Christ or children of God would ascribe glory to God the Father…." (Against Marcion, Book 3, Chapter 22)

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