by Stephen Austen

Created on: January 08, 2009

Is there hidden symbolism in the Christian cross?

There are countless debates regarding the symbolic meaning of the Crucifixion and other symbolism hidden within Christianity in general; many of the concepts put forward are valid and founded upon much evidence which roots Christianity in other ancient religions including certain paganistic beliefs that have been carried over into Christianity. There is an exhausting amount of information that has been researched over the centuries which directly links Christianity to Judaism (of course) and beyond that to the older mystery religions of ancient Egypt.

For example, the Egyptian ankh symbol so often seen in hieroglyphs is a cross with a loop at the top end of the vertical bar. It is most definitely cross-like in structure with a horizontal bar which is said to represent the rays of the Sun. To the Egyptians the meaning of the ankh represents "life" and although Christians may see the death' of Jesus on the Cross as more significant in terms of their salvation from sin, in fact the deeper symbolic meaning as signified by Jesus on the Cross is actually representative of "life" rather than of death.

Most Christians take the New Testament as a literal account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and notwithstanding, there may indeed be much credence to this as ancient writers were often highly meticulous. Although we must allow for some inaccuracies due to human error (or even more devious means) and to literal translations from ancient documents which were written in languages which can often be hard to decipher exactly, my own personal feeling is that we pretty much have the story of Jesus faithfully recorded for us, minus of course, certain gospels such as that of the Gospel of Thomas etc which were books that the early Church excluded from official recognised authoritative' accounts but which were preserved for us in Gnostic Christianity. Now, if we generally accept that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are honest and true accounts of the life of Jesus, then we must also seriously take into account some of the statements made in those ancient passages.

With this in mind, let us consider before us the sight of Jesus on the Cross with the two thieves crucified on either side of him; in Luke's account of the Crucifixion (Chapter 23, verses 40-43) one of the thieves reviles Jesus but the other one says this in response; "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed;

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