HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 21, 2024 – Members of the early Church were initially known by their accent. Recall how Peter was “outed” on the night Jesus was arrested for speaking with the same accent or dialect as Jesus. Later, John wrote that Church members would be known by their love for each other and for people in general. The Gospels offer no other specific mention of a common identifier to be worn or displayed by followers of Jesus.

As the years passed and the persecution against the Church became more widespread, members would self-identify not by their accents (the Church had grown to include people of all nations by that time) or their love (they had to keep their heads down in public to avoid arrest, not wear their heart of their sleeve) but by the casual tracing of half a stylized fish in the dirt during a conversation with a stranger. If the stranger were also a Church member, he or she would complete the “fish”. If, however, the stranger were not in the Church, the seemingly idle marking in the dirt could just as casually be erased.

The fish symbol was simple and universal across all nations and its adoption was based on the scripture where Jesus told his disciples they would become “fishers of men”. I would assume (and it’s not unreasonable to do so) that this method of self-identification of the Church to strangers continued until the early 4^th century, when Constantine halted the persecutions by making Christianity legal. It was at that time that what has become known as “the cross” was universally imposed as the main signifier of Christianity (it allegedly appeared to Constantine in a vision), and the fish identifier fell by the wayside, no longer being needed.

I wrote earlier about the symbolism of the cross in scripture. In his mentions of the cross, Jesus was drawing a parallel between a yoke that extends across the shoulders of one or more plow animals and the crossbar that is affixed to a tree or a stationary pole during crucifixion. Specifically, Jesus was telling us to pick up our crossbar daily, not the full crucifixion apparatus. The condemned didn’t carry the full crucifixion apparatus to their place of crucifixion; they only carried the crossbar, as the pole was stationary and was in many cases simply a tree trunk still rooted in the ground but stripped of limbs, branches, and leaves. Scripture does in fact state that Jesus was hung on a “tree”. So again, the cross mentioned by Jesus is not two poles crossed but the crossbar (what Jesus called the cross) only.

Therefore, I do not believe that Constantine’s cross is the cross Jesus was referring to. In other words, I do not believe that the cross mentioned by Jesus was the full crucifixion apparatus of two crossed poles (or a pole crossing a tree) but the crossbar only, which he likened to a yoke. We are to pick up our cross daily in the same way as we’re to take on ourselves the yoke of obedience and spiritual labour required by God as followers of Jesus; the two – the cross(bar) and the yoke – are intended to conjure one image of basically the same thing – a heavy piece of wood laid across our shoulders.

This distinction between what Jesus meant by the cross and what the worldly church calls “the cross” is critically important, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it here. The cross as a symbol predates Jesus and, of course, Constantine, and has its origins in pagan religions. As we well know, “pagan” is a polite term for “demon worship”, so the cross was originally a symbol of a demon.

Why would Jesus want his followers to be identified by the symbol of a demon?

Clearly, he wouldn’t and doesn’t. If the cross mentioned by Jesus in scripture were indeed what we’re told it is today (two lines intersecting), why wouldn’t the early Church have adopted the cross as a symbol rather than the fish? Wouldn’t it have been easier and thus more logical for them simply (and casually) to trace a line in the dirt, which the stranger would then hopefully “cross”, than to trace half a fish? The only reasonable answer to this question is that the early Church well knew that two lines intersecting was a demon symbol and was therefore entirely inappropriate to be used for their purposes. It simply would never have occurred to them to use it. The pagan Constantine, on the other hand, along with the people who were forced to join the newly minted worldly church when it became the official religion of the realm in 381 AD, would have had no qualms adopting and adapting a demon symbol for their purposes.

What has become known as the star of David is also a demon symbol, as is the crescent moon which is emblematic of Islam. One day, all three symbols – the demon cross, the demon star, and the demon moon – will be combined into one, denoting these three alleged Abrahamic religions as worshiping the same god. Only the god they’ll be worshiping is not our God.

Knowing the above, I cannot in good faith look at two crossed lines and see them as a symbol of Jesus. Again, I do not believe that Jesus was talking about two intersecting and adjoined wooden poles when he mentions the cross in scripture, as why would he want to be identified with and by a demon symbol? It makes no sense.

What does make sense, however, is how people today who openly worship Satan can simultaneously adorn themselves with “crosses”, pentagrams, goat’s heads, etc., and see no contradiction between their various adornments. The demon symbol cross imposed on Christianity by the pagan Constantine does not now and never did have anything to do with God’s Church.