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For various as are the different forms of 'death by the stauros' of which descriptions have come down to us from pre-Christian ages and the first three centuries of our era, no relic of that date bears a representation of an instrument of execution such as we cause to appear in our sacred pictures, and even if, regardless of the more exact meaning of the word stauros, we suppose the term staurosis to have included every form of carrying out the extreme penalty by means of affixion or suspension, we meet with no description of such an instrument of execution as we picture.
It should first however be pointed out that though we Christians affirm that crucifixion was a form of capital punishment made use of in days of old, and abolished the fourth century after Christ by Constantine because Jesus was so executed, we cannot exactly prove that the staurosis thus abolished was crucifixion, or even that it included crucifixion.
Therefore even if we were to exclude from the staurosis abolished by Constantine all forms of transfixion by a stauros, we could not, upon the evidence before us, fairly say that what that astute Emperor abolished was what is usually understood by the term crucifixion.
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