The Cross: A Symbol of Faith, Hope and Love

Whether dangling around one’s neck or inked onto a person’s body, put up on a wall or made into a statuette, the cross is an abundant symbol in today’s world. Its representation goes from consoling and comforting, to captivating and inspiring a great mass of people. From its earliest forms, to its adoption by Christianity, the cross has a long and powerful history, carrying with it a great amount of significance. It is amazing how two perpendicular lines can entice so much spirituality throughout human history.

The Pre-Christian Era of The Cross

Many, many centuries, before the adoption of the cross by the Christian faith, crosses were found etched into stones, carved into monuments, impressed into pottery, and in many other places. George Willard Benson, author of The Cross: It’s History and Symbolism, calls the cross “the oldest symbol in the world” (16). Its origins may have easily come about from innocent means, as humans were beginning to discover that they could create art and could draw or etch shapes and lines into objects, two lines drawn perpendicular to each other could be an easy shape to create. While this primitive shape could have more than likely not held any religious or spiritual significance, it would be a symbol that would develop almost a universal religious custom among the people of the ancient worlds, as many iconographic versions of various gods were often decorated and adorned with crosses (Benson 16). Much like fire-making or invention of the wheel, the first human to make a cross is unknown. Ancient peoples varied in shape and form of crosses, but throughout the ages, some variation of cross held through to have a “vital significance and influence” (Benson 16).

The shapeliness of ancient...

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...e of the belief many things. It is a symbol of comfort and forgiveness, a symbol of inspiration and devotion. It is a symbol of the three basic concepts of life; faith, hope, and most importantly, love. Christ suffered and died on the Cross as a sacrifice to humankind as a sign of his everlasting love for our lives.

Works Cited

Benson, George Willard. The Cross: Its History and Symbolism. New York: Hacker Art

Books, 1976.

Bowker, John, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1999.

Benson, George Willard. The Cross: Its History and Symbolism. New York: Hacker Art

Books, 1976.

Grabar, André. Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins. Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1968.

Monk, Robert C., et al. Exploring Religious Meaning. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003.