"There are also inanimate objects that if venerated may lead to breaking God's commandments. Among the most prominent is the cross. For centuries it has been used by people in Christendom as part of their worship. Soon God will execute his judgments against all false religions. Those who cling to them will suffer their fate." Watchtower 1989 May 1 p.23
For my second point, I am not speak about the stauros being identified as a cross. I am saying that Romans used the cross as a form of execution even before Christ's birth. What I am not asserting, is the usage stauros is given.
Therefore, if the cross existed as a method of execution before Christ's birth, and Christ was executed by the Romans, then it is entirely possible he was executed on one.
There are many pre-Christian references that indicate the cross was being used prior to the time of Jesus. These references show that it was a common practice for the victim to carry to crossbeam, or patibulum to their execution. In the first century B.C. Dionysius of Halicarnassus described the practice of tying the patibulum across the victims back:
- "A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at the time conducting in honour of the god. The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both hands and fastened them to a piece of wood (tas kheiras apoteinantes amphoteras kai xuló prosdésantes) which extended across his chest and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips" (Roman Antiquities, 7.69.1-2)."
As for your Church Father argument:
Justin Martyr was born at the time John is said to have written the account of Jesus death and wrote his apologies around 155 A.D. His descriptions of the death of Jesus identify that a cross was used. It shows that the cross was not introduced to Christianity 300 years after Jesus death by Constantine, but was already used as early as the second century. In Second Apology, chapter VI he talks of "? Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate." In Chapter XL he goes on to liken Jesus to the sacrificial lamb of the Passover.
- "God does not permit the lamb of the passover to be sacrificed in any other place than where His name was named; knowing that the days will come, after the suffering of Christ, when even the place in Jerusalem shall be given over to your enemies, and all the offerings, in short, shall cease; and 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,(1) 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."
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