The Staurogram

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In Greek, the language of the early church, the capital tau, or T, looks pretty much like our T. The capital rho, or R, however, is written like our P.

If you superimpose the two letters, it looks something like this: . The earliest Christian uses of this tau-rho combination make it what is called a staurogram. In Greek the verb to “crucify” is stauroō; a “cross” is a stauros. In scholarly terms a combination of letters like this is called a compendium, a monogram-like device, in this case (in the earliest Christian uses) producing a pictographic representation of a crucified figure hanging on a cross—used in the Greek words for “crucify” and “cross.”

It is a commonplace belief among historians of the early church that early Christianity did not emphasize Jesus’ crucifixion and that this did not change until the late fourth or fifth century. Crucifixion was shameful, and so (so the theory goes) Christians would have been hesitant to draw attention to the crucified Jesus. Indeed, some scholars have inferred from this the notion that pre-Constantinian Christianity avoided depictions of Jesus’ crucifixion.

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But the staurogram seems to contradict this position, for the earliest extant examples of the staurogram date 150–200 years earlier than what have often been posited as the earliest Christian depictions of the crucified Jesus—that is, to about 200 C.E.

That the staurogram is intended as a depiction of the crucified Jesus is confirmed by the fact that in the earliest surviving Christian instances it is used in the word “crucify” (stauroō) and “cross” (stauros). In these instances, these words are written in a special “contracted” (abbreviated) manner, and the tau-rho compendium is part of this abbreviated form of the words.

The earliest example is a papyrus copy of the Gospel of John known as P⁶⁶ (P. Bodmer II), dated to about 200 C.E.; the staurogram appears in the Greek words for “crucify” and “cross” in John 19:6, 15, 16, 18, 19, 25, 31. Likewise, in another early Gospel codex, P⁷⁵ (P. Bodmer XIV–XV), including portions of Luke and John and dated to about the same time, there are further instances of the staurogram in the same two Greek words (Luke 9:23; 14:27; 24:7).¹

From perhaps a bit later, in the Vienna fragment of P⁴⁵, the earliest extant codex containing all four Gospels and Acts (c. 200–250 C.E.), we have an additional instance preserved in Matthew 26:2. Here, the word staurōthēnai (“to be crucified”) is written in a contracted way with a staurogram forming part of the abbreviation.

The staurogram is only one of several christograms, that is, monogram-like devices used by ancient Christians to refer to Jesus. The most widely known christogram is the chi-rho combination (), using the first two Greek letters of “Christ.”² It is frequently seen on liturgical vestments as well as in icons and other ecclesiastical items. None, however, is as early as the examples of the staurograms cited above.

The staurogram is different from the other christograms in another respect: The staurogram does not refer to any name or title linked with Jesus. It refers only to crucifixion; it is a simple kind of picture. By contrast, the chi-rho sign refers to the word “Christ.” This is true of other christograms as well. The iota-chi combines the initial letters of the Greek words for “Jesus Christ” (Ιησοῦς ΧριστΌς); and the iota-ēta is composed of the first two letters of “Jesus” (Ιησοῦς).

Unique among christograms, the letters of the tau-rho combination seem to be intended to refer visually to the crucified Jesus. This places the staurogram among the earliest extant expressions of a distinctive ancient Christian “visual culture.”³

Almost all of the christograms were also used in pre-Christian times, before they were adopted by Christians. This was true of the chi-rho combination, as well as for the tau-rho combination. The tau-rho combination appears in pre-Christian usage as an abbreviation for the Greek words tropos (“manner,” “direction”), trias (“three”) and triakas and triakondas (“thirty”). One interesting example of this usage is on coins of Herod the Great (37–4 B.C.E.) to mark the third year of his reign.⁴ The tau-rho device is also found on items from Dura Europos, apparently functioning as craftsmen’s marks.⁵ The chi-rho combination was used in the pre-Christian times as an abbreviation for various 052 Greek words such as chronos (“time”) and chiliarch (“commander of a thousand”).⁶

Although the earliest Christian examples of the tau-rho date from about 200 C.E., as already noted, these examples are unlikely to have been the originating instances. We should probably assume that the first Christian appropriation of the tau-rho compendium occurred at least as early as the mid/late second century C.E. This makes the staurogram by far the earliest visual reference to the crucified Jesus,

In time christograms came to be used not only in texts but as free-standing symbols of Christ or Christian faith, for example on liturgical vestments and church utensils. This was probably also true of the staurogram, tau-rho; where it would represent simply an independent symbol of Christ or Christian faith. But the earliest use of the tau-rho was as a visual reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. As such, it is the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion.⁷

In Greek, the language of the early church, the capital tau, or T, looks pretty much like our T. The capital rho, or R, however, is written like our P.