"Crux-ifixion" -- For Execution and for Post-Mortem Torture of "Departed Souls"

Virgil is quoted by Frederick C. Grant, Ancient Roman Religion (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957) 209-10. Virgil wrote:

“Not even when their last day of life is done, and life and light depart, not even then do all the deep evils of body wholly leave them; for it is inevitable that many a long-continued evil should take an amazingly deep root.” What does Virgil say will help such hardened practicers of evil? They should be put on the crux for their own good! Says Virgil, “Hence they are disciplined with punishment, and pay in suffering for their lifelong sins; some are hung stretched out to the empty winds.”

We find that Virgil is inconsistent, for elsewhere he states his belief that those who do not receive burial are, for that lack, miserable souls in the nether world; therefore, he has forgot his crux-redeeming theory, which had it that it was for discipline and improvement in the nether world that an executed criminal’s crux-displayed corpse receives no burial. Here is how Virgil puts on the lips of one whom he makes to offer commentary on the departed souls of those who die but receive no burial. One such soul was that of the noble and virtuous Paulinurus, a helmsman lost overboard. Virgil says that Paulinurus’ soul was addressed by someone sympathetic to his plight, and he said to Paulinurus:

“Son of Anchises, true offspring of the gods, you see the deep pools of Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose power the gods fear to swear falsely. This crowd which you see are all helpless and unburied; Charon is the ferryman; those whom the waves bear across have found a tomb. Nor is it permitted to cross these awful banks and hoarse-throated streams until their bones have found a resting place. Whence comes, O Paulinurus, this fierce longing of yours? Are you, without burial, to behold the Stygian waters and the awful river of the Furies, and draw near the bank unbidden? Cease to hope that heaven’s decrees may be turned aside by prayer! But keep my words in your memory, for comfort in your hard lot. Far and wide the neighboring cities will be driven by celestial portents to appease your dust; they shall build for you a tomb” (Grant, 210).

Virgil glibly excuses the cruelty of executions upon a crux (the crux simplex, a stake) and would try to hide the real motive behind executioners’ exposing or keeping exposed a corpse on a crux so that animals might have their way with it, for the real motive in bringing about ghastly spectacles of criminals executed upon a stake and their being left there upon the crux was because of a cruelty in the executioners who could not be done with the criminal through their merely having executed him. They must ensure his torment of mind, so they thought, even in the nether world, which should occur, they thought, if they made sure that the one dying upon the crux was kept there so that he might not have a burial.

Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1951), 272 has this to say about the way ancient and classical Greeks looked upon the matter of buried bones being properly treated so that the soul might be aided after departing the body.

“The dead were above all ‘the dry ones.’ Alike the bones and the YUCH {soul} (still associated with them and the grave) were dry. Their great need, therefore, was liquid − preferably actual life-liquid of animal or plant or just the elemental liquid, water − what would help them to the state of the ‘living’ otherwise known as ‘wet’ (DIEROS). The characteristic offerings to the dead were in fact ‘pourings’ (COAI) . . . the habit still existing in Greece of breaking vessels filled with water on the tombs of departed friends . . . In classical times, also, water was poured for the dead. It was received, drunk, by the YUCH; to the bones it was a ‘bath’ (LOUTRON) . . . conferring life-liquid.”

Now, the philosophers prided themselves that they were not deceived by superstitions about what happens to the souls of those who have died. But of course they were still deceived, some by materialistic atheism and others by doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.

Next, I would like to address briefly here the question of the origin of Christendom's cross. Does the construction of a cross or tau-shaped device (i.e., an image constructed of -- or a depiction written as -- a certain combination of two elements; see what next follows) -- represent the shape of the instrument of execution upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was affixed, namely, (1) a vertical or upright member combined with (2) a transverse or crosswise member (where the transverse element is significantly lowered)? Neither the Bible, in an accurate translation from its original languages, nor secular history supports an affirmative answer to that question. The historiography appertaining this subject is voluminous and, as written and catalogued, is scattered across several languages (viz., Latin, Hebrew, Greek, French, German, English, Spanish, etc.). It is indeed a pleasant surprise when a student of the subject happens to find a site on the internet that accurately presents what things that reader's own years of research have revealed, and presents it in a highly readable fashion, concisely and succinctly, for a popular audience, but still giving an accurate distillation of the pertinent, historical data. For example, there is mention of a symbol that the New King James Version (NKJV) translation committee used as their Bible's logo:





 I have seen a discussion of this symbol; it is the Celtics' "Triquetra" emblem. Yes, it signifies Trinity to the Irish Catholic Church, but what meaning did the symbol have in a pre-Christian Celtic culture? So, the site has an interesting presentation, and it shows us how the Catholics consciously borrowed from pagan Celtic culture, reinterpreting it so that new converts from Celtic paganism might hold on to their sacred, comforting devices if they would but confess them as imbued with a reinterpreted, "Christian" meaning. Constantine had done this very thing for the bishops of the "Christianity" of his day in the 4th century. So, now for a few of such particulars. That site's URL and some excerpts from it are given below, too.

*******************************************

http://www.whats-your-sign.com/celtic-symbol-for-trinity.html

Celtic Trinity Symbol and Triquetra Meaning

The Celtic symbol for trinity has a myriad of symbolic meaning.

We see the trinity motif in Celtic knots, as well as in symbol-form like the triquetra and triskelion (a.k.a. triskele or fylfot)  

To the ancient Celtic mind, it may also signify the lunar or solar phases. This conclusion is made as we see the trinity/triquetra motif alongside other solar and lunar symbols in ancient remants [sic] and archeological digs.

Validating this theory, we know the Celts honored the Great Mother, a lunar goddess who was actually three personifications in one (three lunar phases and faces of the goddess)....

The Celtic symbol for trinity may also pertain to the three Bridgits [sic. Elsewhere the name of the goddess has her name translated into English as "Bridgid."]  Bridgit [sic] is one powerful goddess (aspect of Danu), who embodies three aspects which are:

Art
Healing
Metal smithing

*******************************************

http://www.celtarts.com/celtic.htm

The Cross did not become a common symbol of Christianity until the 4th century. Images of the cross were in fact quite rare before the Golden Legend became popular and the "discovery" of the "True Cross" promoted fragments of the "True Cross" as powerful relics....

There are in Britain stone monuments that may be the ancestor of the Celtic Cross. The Chi-Rho symbol, the monogram of Christ was a commonly used symbol of Christianity in the 4th century Roman Empire. The Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire used as his emblem the Chi-Rho in a laurel wreath. Thus combined were a pagan Imperial symbol of Rome with a symbol of the new faith. The diagonal cross members of the Chi were eventually conventionalized to a single horizontal cross member that made its cross with the vertical stem of the Rho and the wreath was conventionalized into a simple circle. There are examples of this where the loop of the Rho is also conventionalized into a shepherd’s crook. One can easily see how the curved crook of the staff could disappear to leave just a cross in a circle as is common in many Welsh crosses of the early Celtic Christian period which followed the Roman withdrawal from Britain....

Constantine used the Chi-Rho as a military insignia and victory symbol as well. The cross symbolizes Christ's victory. Military use of the cross as a favorite element of heraldry descends from the shields and standards of the Roman Empire.

(Now I end my making what I trust has been fair use of excerpts from the two sites referenced above.)