The Sign of the Cross. 35
antiquity, adoration was taken for humbling and prostrating the body.
The Sign of the Cross 1. The fathers used to arm themselves against the devil with the sign of the cross, not that they ascribed any such power unto the outward figure, but because they would make show unto others of their belief in the cross, that is, in the death of Christ, with this solemn ceremony, and use it as an item or watchword to stir up their faith which overcomes all evils. And the sign whereby Constantine was victor was not the sign of the cross, but the character of the name of Christ, which we see in many ancient coins of Constantine and other
Christian emperors, in form as in the margin here expressed (114), together with this inscription, τούτω νίκα, or as Socrates, lib. 1, cap.
1; Nicephorus, lib. 7, cap. 29; and Zonarus in Constantine, have it, ἐν τούτω νίκα, that is, in isto Deo, non signo, or "In this God, not this character." "It is not requisite," says Chrysostom, Hom. 55, in Matth.,
"to make a bare cross with your finger in your forehead, but with strong faith in your heart." So that the cross does not signify the figure of the cross, but the passion of Christ crucified, by a metonymy. So says Origen, in Rom., lib. 5, "And the praises given unto the sign of the cross are but rhetorical terms; as when they call it an altar, it is a figurative speech borrowed from the ceremonial law, and when they call it a ladder, it is a transcendent metaphor."
And unto all the sayings of the fathers where they call the cross their redemption, hope, and salvation, I answer in a word, the speeches are relatives, all referred to Christ's passion, or unto Himself in that figure represented. For it is ordinary among them to put the continent for the thing contained.
2. The cross was never adored by the ancients, much less adored with divine honors. They allowed it a certain veneration, namely, a reverent use, using it in testimony of their faith, and with all extolling it as the sign of their unmovable belief upon Christ crucified before the Gentiles, yea, even when they were threatened with torments.
(115) This end and use is not now among us, because we are not now among the Gentiles. "We neither worship crosses," says Arnobius
(contra Gentis, lib. 8), "nor yet desire them." "Helene," says Ambrose (De obitu Theodos.), "finding the title, adored the king
(Christ, he means), but not the wood, because that is an error of the heathen, or an ungodly vanity." But about the 400th year after Christ, the cross began by little and little to be adored by some private men. So says Prudentius (lib. Apotheosis):
"But now the scarlet red Of the emperor in Christ his courts is spread:
And by this mighty prince the cross is worshipped."
So says Paulinus (epist. 11): "He (the bishop of Jerusalem), every year at Easter set forth the cross for the people to worship, being himself the chief of the worshippers." So Jerome, in his epitaph of Paula, says that she did prostrate herself in adoration before the cross, as if she saw the Lord there hanging. And in epist. 17 to Marcella he says, "Paula and Eustochium do wish that they might but have leave to lick the wood of the cross." So the Apamienses anno
540, bringing forth the cross, do adore and embrace it (Evagr. hist. eccle., lib. 4, cap. 25). But afterwards, the Second Council of Nicea, actio 7, denied that Christ's image was to be adored with divine worship.
3. The transient or passing cross (that is, the cross which they signed, or the sign of the cross) was commonly used in the purer churches,
not the fixed cross, that is, the cross made of stone, wood, or metal, or yet painted upon walls in churches or oratories for the first 400 years. The first altar and the first cross were set up in England by Oswald in the field where he conquered Cadwall, anno 635
(Polychronic., lib. 5, cap. 2). Also, in the consecration of the sacraments the cross was never called to use until about the 400th year. For the first 300 years after Christ it was but held a sign of a man's outward profession, used in his ordinary actions, but afterwards it was brought into the Lord's supper, at first to signify unto us the good we reap by Christ (Augustine in Joan., tract. 118), but afterward that by it the sacrament might be blessed and consecrated. But that Christ did consecrate the Eucharist on this manner, Analarius utterly denies (De ecclesiast. offic., lib. 3, cap. 24), ascribing it unto Augustine. Besides, the sign of the cross for many ages at first was but a simple and bare ceremony in the sacrament, but afterward that rite being changed, anno 1000, it since has been always used in an odd number (Microlog., cap. 14).
4. The ancient writers held the soul to be defended by the sign of the cross either following Montanus, as Tertullian (De resurrect. carn.):
"The body is signed, that the soul may be defended." Or else doubtfully: "I do think," says Augustine (De peccat. merit. et remiss., lib. 2, cap. 26), "that the catechumenists are sanctified by the sign of Christ, and prayer, with imposition of hands after some certain manner." Where note the words, "I think," and "after some certain manner," for these show that Augustine doubted of that ceremony, and besides, you see, he held not the sanctification to be made by the cross only, but with prayer also.
5. At the signs of the cross there have miracles been done because the name of Christ crucified was always adjoined, either in secret or express invocation, and then the saints had a power to work
miracles. "Our faith," says Tertullian (in Scorpiace contra Gnostic.), "is our defense, and if it be not stricken with distrust when we sign on this fashion, that is, by making this sign, we often do good unto the heathen, God giving us that power which The apostle showed when he scorned the biting of the viper. And therefore, we see that miracles and casting out of devils are not to be ascribed unto the cross, but unto the faith of miracles and invocation of Christ. "How much this sign terrifies the devils," says Lactantius
(De vera Religione, lib. quarto, cap. 23), "he may soon know, that sees how when they are adjured by Christ, they were forced to flee from the bodies they had possessed." And a little after, "Christ's followers can cast out the same filthy spirits out of men, both by their
Master's name, and by the sign of His passion." "This directs our course," says Saint Augustine (De Sanctis, sermon 19), "This it does, together with the faithful calling upon Christ's name, namely, the famous memory of the victorious cross." "Stand stoutly upon this sign," says Cyril (Cataches. 13), "for when the devils see the cross, they remember the crucified." To speak in a word, the fathers give not these wonderful effects so much unto the sign of the cross, as unto prayer and invocation of God. Look in the writings of all those that are of antiquity and see whether this be true. Look in Nazianzene unto Nemesius, Origen against Celsus (lib. tertio & octavo), Theodoret in his Peter and Thalassius, Eusebius in histor.
Ecclesiastic. (lib. octavo, cap. septimo), Sulpitius unto Eusebius the priest (Epistol. prim.), the author of the Dialogues in Gregory
(Dialog., lib. primo, cap. prim.), Victor of the persecution by the Vandals (lib. secundo), and Paulinus of the life of Saint Martin (lib. secundo). All these will testify my assertion. Nay, the sign of the cross, as the fathers used it, was a certain secret invocation of Christ crucified, so that it is a foolish and an idle forgery to say that it had