Crucifixion

=== Cross shape ===
{{multiple image
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 | image1    = Justus Lipsius Crux Simplex 1629.jpg
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 | image2    = De Cruce Libri Tres 47.jpg
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 | footer = Two illustrations from editions of a book by [[Justus Lipsius]] (1547–1606): on left, a ''crux simplex'' (1629 edition, p. 19); on right, crucifixion of Jesus (1593 edition, p.47).
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{{See also|Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion|Crucifix}}

In the [[Roman Empire]], the [[gibbet]] (instrument of execution) for crucifixions took on many shapes. [[Seneca the Younger]] ({{Circa|4 BCE–65 CE}}) states: "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways: some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet."<ref name="Seneca 1946" /> According to [[Josephus]], during Emperor [[Titus]]'s [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)]], Roman soldiers nailed innumerable [[Jewish]] captives to crosses in various ways.<ref name="josephus-jewishwars-5.11.1" />

At times the gibbet was only one vertical stake, called in Latin ''crux simplex''.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bBOqGJc6tpcC&pg=PA78 |first=William |last=Barclay |title=The Apostles' Creed |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-664-25826-9 |page=78|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press }}</ref> This was the simplest available construction for torturing and killing the condemned. Frequently, however, there was a cross-piece attached either at the top to give the shape of a T (''[[crux commissa]]'') or just below the top, as in the form most familiar in Christian symbolism (''crux immissa'').<ref>"The&nbsp;... oldest depiction of a crucifixion&nbsp;... was uncovered by archaeologists more than a century ago on the [[Palatine Hill]] in Rome. It is a second-century [[graffiti]] scratched into a wall that was part of the imperial palace complex. It includes a caption&nbsp;– not by a Christian, but by someone taunting and deriding Christians and the crucifixions they underwent. It shows crude [[stick figure|stick-figures]] of a boy reverencing his 'God', who has the head of a [[donkey|jackass]] and is upon a cross with arms spread wide and with hands nailed to the crossbeam. Here we have a Roman sketch of a Roman crucifixion, and it is in the traditional cross shape." Clayton F. Bower Jr. [http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1991/9110fea1.asp "Cross or Torture Stake?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080329020551/http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1991/9110fea1.asp |date=2008-03-29 }}</ref> The most ancient image of a Roman crucifixion depicts an individual on a {{Nowrap|T-shaped}} cross. It is a graffito found in a taberna (hostel for wayfarers) in Puteoli, dating to the time of [[Trajan]] or [[Hadrian]] (late 1st century to early 2nd century CE).<ref name="Cook">{{cite journal|last=Cook|first=John Granger|year=2012|title=Crucifixion as Spectacle in Roman Campania|journal=Novum Testamentum|volume=54|issue=1|pages=60, 92–98|jstor=23253630|doi=10.1163/156853611X589651}}</ref>

Second-century writers who speak of the execution cross describe the crucified person's arms as outstretched, not attached to a single stake: [[Lucian]] speaks of [[Prometheus]] as crucified "above the ravine with his hands outstretched". He also says that the shape of the letter Τ (the Greek letter [[tau]]) was that of the wooden instrument used for crucifying.<ref>"It was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified" ([http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl1/wl110.htm Lucian, ''Trial in the Court of Vowels'', p. 30]</ref> [[Artemidorus]], another writer of the same period, says that a cross is made of posts (plural) and nails and that the arms of the crucified are outstretched.<ref>{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cMd9DwAAQBAJ&dq=artemidorus+posts&pg=PA289| title = Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World | isbn = 978-3-16-156001-9| last1 = Cook| first1 = John Granger| date = 10 December 2018| publisher = Mohr Siebeck |page=289; cf. pp. 7–8}}</ref> Speaking of the generic execution cross, [[Irenaeus]] ({{Circa|130–202|lk=off}}), a Christian writer, describes it as composed of an upright and a transverse beam, sometimes with a small projection in the upright.<ref>"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" ( Irenaeus, ''[[On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis|Adversus Haereses]]'' II, [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103224.htmxxiv, 4]{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}).</ref>

New Testament writings about the crucifixion of Jesus do not specify the shape of that cross, but subsequent early writings liken it to the letter T. According to [[William Barclay (theologian)|William Barclay]], because tau is shaped exactly like the ''crux commissa'' and represented the number 300, "wherever the [[Church Fathers|fathers]] came across the number 300 in the Old Testament they took it to be a mystical prefiguring of the cross of Christ".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Barclay |first1=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bBOqGJc6tpcC&dq=Noah+ark+300+prefigure+cross+Jesus&pg=PA79 |title=The Apostles' Creed |publisher=[[Westminster John Knox Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-664-25826-9 |pages=79 |author-link=William Barclay (theologian)}}</ref> The earliest example, written around the late first century CE, is the ''[[Epistle of Barnabas]]'',<ref>[[wikisource:Epistle of Barnabas#Chapter 9|Epistle of Barnabas, chapter 9]]</ref> with another example being [[Clement of Alexandria]] ({{Circa|150|lk=off}}{{Snd}}c.&nbsp;215).<ref>{{cite web| url = http://logoslibrary.org/clement/stromata/611.html| title = Clement of Alexandria, ''The Stromata'', book VI, chapter 11}}</ref>

[[Justin Martyr]] ({{Circa|100|165}}) sees the cross of Christ represented in the crossed [[Rotisserie|spits]] used to roast the [[Passover lamb]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Justin Martyr, ''Dialogue with Trypho'', XL, 3 |url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.xl.html |quote=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.}}</ref>