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Stauros (σταυρός) is a Greek word for a stake or an implement of capital punishment. The Greek New Testament uses the word stauros for the instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and it is generally translated as "cross" in religious texts, while also being translated as pillar or tree in Christian contexts.
The word cross is recorded in 11th-century Old English as cros, exclusively for the instrument of Christ's crucifixion, replacing the native Old English word rood.The word's history is complicated; it appears to have entered English from Old Irish, possibly via Old Norse, ultimately from the Latin crux (or its accusative crucem and its genitive crucis), "stake, cross".
The Koine Greek terms used in the New Testament of the structure on which Jesus died are stauros (σταυρός) and xylon (ξύλον).These words, which can refer to many different things, do not indicate the precise shape of the structure; scholars have long known that the Greek word stauros and the Latin word crux did not uniquely mean a cross, but could also be used to refer to one, and ...
A symbol similar to the cross, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, almost like a nomen sacrum. [5] The extensive adoption of the cross as a Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century. [6]
Christian cross variants 7th-century Byzantine solidus, showing Leontius holding a globus cruciger, with a stepped cross on the obverse side Double-barred cross symbol as used in a 9th-century Byzantine seal Greek cross (Church of Saint Sava) and Latin cross (St. Paul's cathedral) in church floorplans
The origins of these words go way back to the seventh or eighth century B.C.E, Beaulieu says, but the basic concepts are still relevant today and apply to the modern world.
Ancient Greek has two verbs for crucify: anastauroo (ἀνασταυρόω), from stauros (which in modern Greek only means "cross" but which in antiquity was used for any kind of wooden pole, pointed or blunt, bare or with attachments) and apotumpanizo (ἀποτυμπανίζω) "crucify on a plank", [4] together with anaskolopizo (ἀνασκολοπίζω "impale").
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