page_title: Descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross
section_title: For outstretched arms of victim
hierarchical_section_title: Descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross / For outstretched arms of victim
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Aphrodisias (Museum): Herakles befreit Prometheus - Relief des Aphrodite-Tempels
context_page_description: Descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross, whether by Christians or non-Christians, present the instrument ordinarily used in putting people to death by crucifixion as composed of two wooden pieces. Whether the two pieces of timber of the normal execution cross were permanently conjoined or were merely put together for the purpose of the execution is not stated.
context_section_description: The Early Christians interpreted their practice of praying with arms outstretched as a representation of the form of Christ's cross.
  Tertullian saw this prayer posture reflected in nature: "The birds now arising are lifting themselves up to heaven and instead of hands are spreading out the cross of their wings, while saying something which may be supposed to be a prayer" (et aves nunc exsurgentes eriguntur ad caelum, et alarum crucem pro manibus expandunt et dicunt aliquid quod oratio videatur). Of the Christians he said that they not only lift up their hands in prayer, "but also spread them out, and, modulating them by the Lord's passion, in our prayers also express our faith in Christ" (nos vero non attollimus tantum sed etiam expandimus, et dominica passione modulantes, et orantes confitemur Christo).
  According to Naphthali Wieder, it was because Christians interpreted prayer with outspread hands as referring to the crucifixion of their Messiah that Jews abandoned this prayer posture, which had previously been Jewish tradition.
  Justin Martyr interpreted as foreshadowing the shape of the execution cross the episode in the Book of Exodus 17:8-13. The text says that Moses "raised" (ירים, ἐπῆρεν in the Greek Septuagint translation) his hands, without specifying in what way they were raised; but Justin uses a more specific expression to describe the posture of Moses, saying that he "spread out his hands on both sides" (τὰς χεῖρας ἑκατέρως ἐκπετάσας). He added that, when Moses relaxed some element of "this posture imitating the cross" (τοῦ σχήματος τούτου τοῦ τὸν σταυρὸν μιμουμένου), the people were defeated, but when Moses maintained it, the people prevailed "on account of the cross" (διὰ τοῦ σταυροῦ); he attributed this effect not to the prayer of Moses but to the fact that Moses "was forming the sign of the cross" (τὸ σημεῖον τοῦ σταυροῦ ἐποίει).
  The same Old Testament event is interpreted in a similar way in the earlier Epistle of Barnabas, which saw as one of the prophetic signs of "the cross and him who was to be crucified on it" (περὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ καὶ τοῦ σταυροῦσθαι μέλλοντος) in what Moses did when he, "standing higher than all, stretched out his hands, and so again Israel conquered; then, when he let them down, they were again slaughtered". It says that in this Moses was inspired to "make the form of a cross, and of him who was about to suffer" (ἵνα ποιήσῃ τύπον σταυροῦ καὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος πάσχειν).
  Justin Martyr said the cross's shape is found in things that have a transverse as well as an upright element: "The sea is not traversed except that trophy which is called a sail abide safe in the ship; and the earth is not ploughed without it: diggers and mechanics do not their work, except with tools which have this shape. And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the hands extended, and having on the face extending from the forehead what is called the nose, through which there is respiration for the living creature; and this shows no other form than that of the cross". 
  Later than Justin, Marcus Minucius Felix in his Octavius states: "We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched.". Scholars dispute whether this work is earlier or later than Tertullian's Apologeticus, which is generally assigned to the year 197.
  Lucian (125 – after 180) describes the situation of Prometheus chained to the Caucasus as a crucifixion with arms stretched out to right and left: "Let him hang over this precipice, with his arms stretched across from crag to crag [...] altogether a sweet spot for a crucifixion" (Fowler translation); in the original, ἀνεσταυρώσθω (let him be crucified) ἐκπετασθεὶς τὼ χεῖρε ἀπὸ τουτουὶ τοῦ κρημνοῦ πρὸς τὸν ἐναντίον [...] ἐπικαιρότατος ἂν ὁ σταυρὸς γένοιτο. and Artemidorus said it was an ill omen to dream of
caption: Hercules freeing Prometheus, relief from the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias, built and remodelled between 30 BC and AD 130[30][31]
exif: {"Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300"}