THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE Cross

THE CROSS: HISTORY, ART AND CONTROVERSY ROBIN JENSEN

For the first decades, even centuries, of the church, fish, anchors, ships and doves were far more prominent symbols of Christianity than the cross. Robin Jensen, in his book The Cross: History, Art and Controversy, writes that frescoes were more likely to feature other episodes from Jesus’ ministry and life, such as his baptism, rather than his crucifixion. In their book Saving Paradise scholars Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker tell us that it was not the crucifixion but paradise that was the key image of the early church, representative of God’s kingdom bursting forth on earth, a sign of hope and community amongst the Roman world of cruelty. For the earliest Christians, both Jewish and pagan in origin, the cross was a reviled image, reserved for the worst criminals, which is why St Paul has to persuade his readers not to be ashamed of it but to see its significance. For Paul, paradoxically, the means by which Jesus is humiliated becomes for us a celebration. But the adoption of the cross as a symbol simply proved to pagans and Jews how strange these Christians were.

Once the cross became a well-used symbol, it was malleable. It could be associated with ships and builders’ tools, and it represented the four points of the compass. It would also be closely associated with Eden’s Tree of Life, a symbolism refined and embellished over the centuries. In the Middle Ages a legend developed that the cross was actually made from wood from the Tree of Life, because, says Jensen, it was thought the wood itself must have been in some way special.

Origen wrote that the cross shouldn’t be thought of as magical, but after Constantine’s conversion and the story of his mother’s implausible discovery of the relic of the True Cross, this is exactly what happened. It seems the hunger for talismans is strong. Pieces of the True Cross, which could magically duplicate, were used for healing, taken into battle and housed in elaborately jewelled containers.

It is surprising to us, writes Jensen, with our being used to their ubiquity, that crucifixes only appeared after the ninth century, and even then they featured a defiantly living rather than dying Jesus. As the importance of focussing on Jesus’ suffering developed in the Middle Ages crucifixes became more realistically gruesome, often to encourage guilt and therefore loyalty to the church as the means of being saved. In the East, they thought this was a problem as theses crucifixes took away from the importance of the resurrection.

Martin Luther’s theology, building on St Paul’s, has the cross at the centre, as a hidden, paradoxical place of power. Luther thought contemplating Christ’s suffering, as a means of our liberation, was appropriate, but for Zwingli and Calvin crucifixes were part of all that Catholic superstition, and their followers burned and smashed them along with the statues of Mary and the saints.

The cross remains a controversial symbol. In China the government recently removed external crosses from churches, only to have lawyers challenge the practice. As has been well-publicised, wearing a cross on the job can get you fired in Europe. And in our mainstream media the image of a cross silhouetted against the sky inevitably refers to dark, scandalous behaviour within the church, turning the cross once again into a symbol of pain and shame.

For some churches, an empty cross, rather than a crucifix, symbolises that it is not atonement and displaced punishment that is central and necessary, but rather the Easter message of new life arising surprisingly, amongst the poor and marginalised and despite the world’s tendency to cruel displays of power.