Sabbath 7/4/43/120

Dear Friends,

I said that this week I would deal with the development of the cross under ancient Rome. The paper at reference is the Cross: Its Origin and Significance (No. 039).  We see from that text the item used to kill felons and especially Christ was the stauros. There was no mention in the original Bible texts of a cross or crux or crucifix in the First Century CE at the time of the death of Christ in 30 CE. The Bible only makes mention of the stauros.  There is no mention of a cross in the original Greek or Aramaic texts of the Bible.  A stauros is a stake sharpened at one or both ends and inserted into the ground with the hands and feet nailed top and bottom to the stauros. It was developed by the Phoenicians to kill a person in an uncomfortable death which caused the lungs to fill with phlegm or fluid and the person to struggle to stay alive.  Such was the death Christ suffered.

The Cross was developed by the Romans in order to prolong the death throes of the person being executed. The first step was to add a crossbar at the end of the First or beginning of the Second Century which was then placed across the back of the prisoner and he was made to walk with the cross bar tied to his arms and then was lifted to the stake and the cross bar attached. This has the effect of prolonging the death throes of the victim for longer than previously experienced into the night.  If Christ and those with him had been on a cross they would not have died in the time they did. To further prolong the agony, a pedestal was later placed so that the victim could gain some purchase with the feet and struggled to stand more upright and thus the victim prolonged the death throes or agony even longer.  That was not introduced for decades afterwards and as the Roman mind set became more degenerate.

The idea for the cross came from the worship of the god Attis taken to Rome from the Middle East.  The effigy of Attis was paraded around Rome attached to the equilateral Sun cross which was the symbol of the Sun and Mystery Cults. As the worshipers of Attis entered Christianity they brought their traditions in with them along with Sunday Worship and the festival of the Goddess Easter as explained in the Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235). By the Fourth Century the priests of Attis were complaining that the Christians had stolen all their doctrines as Frazer notes in the Golden Bough (cf. 235; also cf. Ditheism (No. 076B) and Binitarianism and Trinitarianism (No. 076)). In 111 CE they held their first Sunday services alongside the Sabbath the day before. Until then Sunday was a day of the Sun and Mystery Cults and did not exist in Christianity and there was no symbol of a crucifix for at least three centuries. In the Third century the symbol of Chi-ro was introduced to indicate the name of Christ. The symbol of the Christ on a cross with long hair and a trimmed beard was introduced from Italy in the Middle Ages. Christ polled his hair like any other Jew in accordance with Ezekiel 44:20.  Nor did any Jew trim their beards in accordance with Leviticus.  

The traditions that entered Christianity from Rome were pagan customs contrary to Biblical Law (L1). Everything they did to Christianity was derived from the Sun and Mystery Cults under the influence of Satan and their time is now at an end.  The cross is also rendered as a phallus in the countries that depict it. The entire system will be destroyed under the coming Empire of the Beast about to break out after the coming War of the Sixth Trumpet, which will destroy a third of mankind. We will then receive direct instruction under the Two Witnesses (No. 135) as explained in The Wars of the End Part II: 1260 Days of the Witnesses (No. 141D). Then Messiah will come and, with the Host, he will destroy every false system on the planet. He will destroy the Sun and Mystery Cults and every mother goddess cult on the planet with the statues and symbols and the followers of the Triune god. Be strong and counted worthy to stand in your place at the end of Days in the First Resurrection.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General