Stauros

The word stauros comes from the verb ἵστημι (histēmi: "straighten up", "stand"), which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *steh2-u- "pole",[1] related to the root *steh2- "to stand, to set"[2] In ancient Greek stauros meant either an "upright pale or stake", a "cross, as the instrument of crucifixion", or a "pale for impaling a corpse".

[8] The fifth century BC writer Ctesias, in a fragment preserved by Photios I of Constantinople in his Bibliotheca, describes the impalement of Inaros II by Megabyzus in these terms.

[16][18] Plutarch, at the beginning of the second century AD, described the execution on three stakes of the eunuch Masabates as anastaurosis in his Life of Artaxerxes.

[21] From the Hellenistic period, Anastaurosis was the Greek word for the Roman capital punishment crucifixion (Latin: damnatio in crucem, lit.

[16][22][23] In the first century BC Diodorus Siculus describes the mythical queen Semiramis as threatened with 'crucifixion' (Ancient Greek: σταυρῷ προσηλώσειν, romanized: staurō prosēlōsein, lit.

For it would seem that there were more kinds of death than one by the cross; this being sometimes accomplished by transfixing the criminal with a pole, which was run through his back and spine, and came out at his mouth (adactum per medium hominem, qui per os emergat, stipitem.

There can be no doubt, however, that the latter sort was the more common, and that about the period of the gospel age crucifixion was usually accomplished by suspending the criminal on a cross piece of wood.

Stauros means "an upright pale," a strong stake, such as farmers drive into the ground to make their fences or palisades — no more, no less.

Neither stauros nor zulon ever mean two sticks joining each other at an angle, either in the New Testament or in any other book.A similar view was put forward by John Denham Parsons in 1896.

[34] The stauros used as an instrument of execution was (1) a small pointed pole or stake used for thrusting through the body, so as to pin the latter to the earth, or otherwise render death inevitable; (2) a similar pole or stake fixed in the ground point upwards, upon which the condemned one was forced down till incapable of escaping; (3) a much longer and stouter pole or stake fixed point upwards, upon which the victim, with his hands tied behind him, was lodged in such a way that the point should enter his breast and the weight of the body cause every movement to hasten the end; and (4) a stout unpointed pole or stake set upright in the earth, from which the victim was suspended by a rope round his wrists, which were first tied behind him so that the position might become an agonising one; or to which the doomed one was bound, or, as in the case of Jesus, nailed.

For the famous Greek lexicographer, Suidas, expressly states, "Stauroi; ortha xula perpegota," and both Eustathius and Hesychius affirm that it meant a straight stake or pole.

Both the noun and the verb stauroo, "to fasten to a stake or pale," are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed "cross."

In fact, such terminology often referred in antiquity to cross-shaped crucifixion devices.Chapman stresses the comparison with Prometheus chained to the Caucasus Mountains made by the second century AD writer Lucian.

[38] Similar statements are made by Jack Finegan,[39] Robin M. Jensen,[40] Craig Evans,[41] Linda Hogan and Dylan Lee Lehrke.