Even granting that Irenaeus must have been mistaken, his evidence none
the less affects one of the most important points debated in this work.
For it is clear that if even he knew so little about the execution of
Jesus, the details of that execution cannot have been particularly well
known; and the affirmation that the stauros to which Jesus was affixed
had a transverse bar attached may have had no foundation in fact, and
may have arisen from a wish to connect Jesus with that well-known and
widely-venerated Symbol of Life, the pre-Christian cross.



CHAPTER V.

ORIGIN OF THIS PRE-CHRISTIAN CROSS.

Having in the foregoing chapters demonstrated that it is possible, if
not indeed probable, that the instrument of execution to which Jesus
was affixed was otherwise than cross-shaped; and having also shown that
it was not mainly, if indeed even partially, that the early Christians
signified that instrument by the sign of the cross; it is now desirable
that, as a preliminary to an enquiry into the circumstances under which
the cross became the symbol of Christianity, we should enquire into the
origin of the _pre_-Christian cross.

That there was a pre-Christian cross, and that it was, like ours, a
Symbol of Life, is generally admitted.

The authorities upon such subjects, however, unfortunately differ as to
the reason why the Cross came to be selected by the ancients as the