Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/330

306 AN ACCOUNT OF SOME MONUxMENTAL the cross. It is well known that the idolatry or worship of this image among others, was boldly protested against by the Cluu'ch in England, more than a thousand years ago. When the so called second Council of Nice, in the year 787, sanc- tioned the practice, Alcuin attacked it, and having produced scriptural authority against it, transmitted the same, in the name of the bishops of the Church of England, to the emperor Charlemagne, who having protested and Avritten against the error, summoned a council at Frankfort, in the year 794, in which the worship of all images was denounced, and the decrees of the second Council of Nice " were rejected, de- spised, and condemned." But though the worship of images was thus denounced, it a[)pears that the human figure was carved and depicted on the cross, even in the time of Con- stantino. The historian of this great emperor says that he erected crosses in the principal streets of Byzantium, but in his palace he erected "the sign of the Lord's passion," and with such honom' did this prince regard that figure, that " I do believe," says the historian, " the prince regards it as the palladium of his empire." Lactantius, a writer of this time, it is said, saw this figin-e, and ahudes to it thus, Respice me *•' *' *' Cerne manus clavis iixus bractosque lacertos Atque ingens lateris vulnus, cerne inde fluorem Sanguineam, fossosque pedes artusque cruentes. I learn also from Gretzer that the crucifix was in use even in the time of Tertullian, who lived before Constantino ; and Prudentius, who wrote some years after Lactantius, evidently refers to more than a mere cross. Such allusions and references might be multiplied on this subject by those who have access to the necessary books. I will not however detain the reader longer on this matter, than merely to state that the human figure displayed upon the little cross before us, is no evidence against the antiquity I am disposed to claim for it. This figure is carved upon many crosses in Ireland, and upon several round towers, which it appears were erected not much later than the fifth and sixth centuries. With a brief allusion to pieces of Roman pottery stamped with parts of a cross and the monogram, in the possession of Mr. Thomas Kent, of Padstow, in this county, and reminding I'vXainplcs of Roman fictile vessels thus oeeunence in tliis country. A fraiTiment oinanK'nted are believed to be of very rare ol' " Saniian," found at Catterick, York-