Our Wednesday night Bible study group keeps a glass fishbowl on the coffee table in our main meeting room, and whenever we have questions that need answers but don’t quite fit the topic for that night, they write them down and I answer them during dinner the next week.
Last week a student asked, “When did Christians start using the cross as a symbol?”
“During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross may have been rare in Christian iconography, as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution. The Ichthys, or fish symbol, was used by early Christians. The Chi-Rho monogram, which was adopted by Constantine I in the fourth century as his banner (see labarum), was another Early Christian symbol of wide use.
However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the second century.”
