When was Jesus first depicted as “crucified” in Christian artwork?
It was believed in ancient times (according to Wikipedia) that christians used the cross symbol from very early times and it became associated with christians (even though the Romans used crucifixion as a punishment for common criminals) but fear of persecution meant christians didn’t overtly use the cross symbol for the first three centuries, they used doves, fish etc as iconography due to the ambiguity of the symbolism as it had meaning for pagans but special meaning for christians. The earliest overt use of the cross in christian iconography then had to be post-Constantine. The earlist time Jesus is portrayed as being crucified on a cross though comes not from Christians but from opponents of Christianity. This graffitto was discovered on the Palatine HIill (in Rome) and is thought to date to circa 200CE http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/ency… It portrays a figure with th
