Many Christians, such as those in the tradition of the Church of the East, continue the practice of hanging a Christian cross in their homes, often on the east wall.

In Christianity, communicants of the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches are expected to wear a cross necklace at all times these are ordinarily given to believers at their baptism. Christians used to swear by the power of the cross In contemporary Christianity Ī man holding several Eastern Orthodox pectoral crosses Accordingly the Christian Fathers had to defend themselves, as early as the second century, against the charge of being worshipers of the cross, as may be learned from Tertullian, 'Apologia,' xii., xvii., and Minucius Felix, 'Octavius,' xxix. 21–22 Lactantius, 'Divinæ Institutiones,' iv. cum Tryph.' 85-97) and the marking of a cross upon the forehead and the chest was regarded as a talisman against the powers of demons (Tertullian, 'De Corona,' iii. The cross as a Christian symbol or 'seal' came into use at least as early as the second century (see 'Apost. The catalogue of a 2007 exhibition says: 'The appearance of the Crucifixion on a gem of such an early date suggests that pictures of the subject (now lost) may have been widespread even in the late second or early third century, most likely in conventional Christian contexts'. On the reverse a later inscription by a different hand combines magical formulae with Christian terms. An inscription in Greek on the obverse contains an invocation of the redeeming crucified Christ. It portrays a naked bearded man whose arms are tied at the wrists by short strips to the transom of a T-shaped cross. The oldest extant depiction of the execution of Jesus in any medium seems to be the second-century or early third-century relief on a jasper gemstone meant for use as an amulet, which is now in the British Museum in London. The crucifix, a cross upon which an image of Christ is present, is not known to have been used until the 6th century AD.

In his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross. His contemporary Tertullian rejected the accusation of Christians being 'adorers of the gibbet' ( crucis religiosi). However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next, and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase τὸ κυριακὸν σημεῖον (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross, when he repeated the idea, current as early as the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, that the number 318 (in Greek numerals, ΤΙΗ) in Genesis 14:14 was interpreted as a foreshadowing (a 'type') of the cross (T, an upright with crossbar, standing for 300) and of Jesus (ΙΗ, the first two letters of his name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, standing for 18). The extensive adoption of the cross as a Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century. 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. It has been argued that Christians were reluctant to use it as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution. There are few extant examples of the cross in 2nd century Christian iconography. The Sinai icon of Christ Pantocrator (6th century), showing Christ with a cruciform halo and holding a book adorned with a crux gemmata Elworthy considered this to originate from Pagan Druids who made Tau crosses of oak trees stripped of their branches, with two large limbs fastened at the top to represent a man's arm this was Thau, or god.

The basic forms of the cross are the Latin cross with unequal arms and the Greek cross with equal arms, besides numerous variants, partly with confessional significance, such as the tau cross, the double-barred cross, triple-barred cross, cross-and-crosslets, and many heraldic variants, such as the cross potent, cross pattée, cross moline, cross fleury, etc.įor a few centuries, the emblem of Christ was a headless T-shaped Tau cross rather than a Latin cross. It is related to the crucifix (a cross that includes a corpus, usually a three-dimensional with representation of Jesus' body) and to the more general family of cross symbols, the term cross itself being detached from the original specifically Christian meaning in modern English (as in many other western languages). The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the crucifixion of Jesus on a large wooden cross, is a renowned symbol of Christianity.

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