CROSS
526
CROSS
pope warmly recommended his clergy to make this
sign with care, else their blessing would be fruitless.
The action was accompanied by the solemn formula,
"In nomine Pat-ris, etc." Another use of the cross
was in the solemn dedication of churches (see Alpha-
bet ; Consecr.vtion). The bishop who performed the
ceremony wrote the alphabet in Latin and Greek on
the floor of the church along two straight hnes crossing
in the form of the Roman decussis. The letter X,
which in the land-plottings of the Roman augurs repre-
sented, with its two component lines, the cardo maxi-
mus and the decumanns maximus, was the same decus-
sis used by the Roman agrimensores, in their surveys
of farms, to indicate boundaries. This sign was ap-
propriate to Christ by its cruciform shape and by its
identity in shape with the initial letter of His name,
Xpio-Tis, in Greek. For this reason it was one of the
genuine forms of the signum Christi.
The use of the cross became so widespread in the fifth and following centuries that anything Uke a complete enumeration of the monuments on which it appears is wellnigh impossible. Suffice it to say that there is hardly a remnant of antiquity dating from this century, whether lowly and mean or noble and grand, which does not bear the sign. In proof of this we shall give here a cursory enimieration. It is quite frequent on sepulchral monuments, on the imperial urns at Constantinople, on the plaster of the loculi (resting-places) in the catacombs, especially of Rome, in a painting in a Christian cemetery at Alex- andria in Egypt, on a mosaic at Boville near Rome, on an inscription for a tomb made in the form of a cross and now in the museum at Marseilles, on the interior walls of sepulchral chambers, on the front of marble sarcophagi dating from the fifth century. In these last instances it is common to see the cross sur- mounted by the monogram and surrounded by a laurel wreath (e. g. the sarcophagi at Aries, and in the Lateran Museum). A very fine specimen was found recently in excavations in St. Domitilla's Cata- comb on the Ostian Way; it is a sjTnbolical picture of souls freed from the trammels of the body, and saved by means of the Cross, which lias two doves on its arms, while armed guards are asleep at its base. Lastly, in England, crosses have been found on se- pulchral monuments. So universal was its use by the faithful that they put it even on household uten- sils, on medals of devotion, on pottery lamps, spoons, cups, plates, glassware, on clasps dating from Mero- vingian times, on inscriptions and votive offerings, on seals made in the form of a cross, on toys representing animals, on ivory combs, on the seals of wine-jars, on reliquary boxes, and even on water-pipes. In objects of liturgical use we meet it on Biblical codices, on vest- ments, pallia, on leaden thongs inscribed with exor- cising formulse, and it was signed on the foreheads of catechumens and candidates for confirmation. The architectural details of churches and basilicas were ornamented with crosses; the faijades, the marble slabs, the transoms, the pillars, the capitals, the key- stones of arches, the altar-tables, the bishops' thrones, the diptychs, and the bells were also ornamented in the same way. In the artistic monuments the so- called cruciform nimbus around Our Saviour's head is well known. The cross appears over His head, and near that of the orante, as in the oil-stocks of Santo Menna. It is also to be met with on monuments of a symbolical nature: on the rocks whence flow the four celestial rivers the cross finds its place; on the vase and on the sjTubolical ship, on the head of the tempt- ing serpent, and even on the lion in Daniel's den.
When Christianity had become the official religion of the empire, it was natural that the cross should be carved on public monuments. In fact it was from the first used to purify and sanctify monuments and temples originally pagan; it was prefixed to signa- tures and to inscriptions placed on i)ublic work; it
was borne by consuls on their sceptres, the first to do
so being Basil the Younger (a.d. 541— cf. Gori, Thes. J
diptych., II, PI. XX). It was cut in marble quarries 1
and in brickyards, and on the gates of cities (cf.de I
Vogu6, Syrie Centrale; Architecture du VII siecle). |
At Rome there is still to be seen on the Gate of St.
Sebastian the figure of a Greek cross surrounded by a
circle with the invocations: AriE ■ KONON • AFIE •
rEDPri- In and around Bologna it was usual to
set the sign of salvation in the public streets. Ac-
cording to tradition, these crosses are very ancient,
and four of them date from the time of St. Petronius.
Some of them were restored in the ninth and tenth
centuries (cf. Giovanni Gozzadini, Delle croci monu-
mentali che erano nelle vie di Bologna nel secolo
xiii).
The cross also played an important part in heraldrj- and diplomatic science. The former does not directly come within our scope; of the second we shall give the briefest outlines. Crosses are to be found on docu- ments of early medieval times and, being placed at the head of a deed, were equivalent to an invocation of heaven, whether they were plain or ornamental. They were at times placed before signatures, and they have even been equivalent to signatures in themselves. Indeed, from the tenth centurj' we find, under contracts, roughly-made crosses that have all the appearance of being intended as signatures. Thus did Hugh Capet, Robert Capet, Henrj- I, and Philip I sign their official documents. This usage declined in the thirteenth century and appeared again in the fifteenth. In our own day the cross is reserved as the attestation-mark of illiterate people. A cross was characteristic of the signature of Apostolic notaries, but this was carefully designed, not rapidly written. In the early Middle Ages crosses were decorated with even greater mag- nificence. In the centre were to be seen medallions representing the Lamb of God, Christ, or the saints. Such is the case in the Velletri cross and that which Justin II gave to St. Peter's, mentioned above, and again in the silver cross of Agnello at Ravenna (cf. Ciampini, Vet. mon., 11, PI. XIV). .\11 this kind of decoration displays the substitution of some more or less complete symbol for the figure of Christ on the cross, of which we are about to speak.
It may be well to give here a list of works bearing on the departments of the subject just treated, and containing illus- trations which it has not been opportune to quote in the fore- going part of the article: Stockbauer, Kunstgeschichte des Kremes (Schaflfhausen, 1870); Grimou.^rd de S.UNT-LAtJRENT, Iconographie de la Croij: et du CrucifLc in Ann. archeol., XXVT, XXVII; M.vRTiGNT. Dictioiinaire d^s antiquites chretiennes, s. v. Crucifix; Bayet, Recherckes pour servir a Vhistoire de la pein- ture ... en orient (Paris, 1879); MuNZ, Les mosaigues chretiennes de V Italic iVoratoire de Jean VII) in Rev. archiol., 1877, II: L.tBARTE, HiMoire des arts industries, II; Kratjs, Real-Encyklopadie dcr christlich. AlterthUmer (Freiburg, 1882).
(5) Later Development of the Crucifix. — We have seen the progressive steps, artistic, symbolical, and allegorical, through which the representation of the Cross passed from the first centuries down to the Middle Ages; and we have seen some of the reasons which prevented Christian art from making an earlier display of the figure of the cross. Now the cross, as it was seen during all this time was only a sjTnbol of the Divine Victim and not a direct representation. We can thus more easily understand, then, how much more circumspection was necessarj' in proceeding to a direct portrayal of the Lord's actual Crucifixion. Although in the fifth centurj' the cross began to ap- pear on public monuments, it was not for a century afterwards that the figure on the cross was shown; and not until the close of the fifth, or even the middle of the sixth, centurj-, did it appear without disguise. But from the si.xth century onward we find many images — not allegorical, but historical and realistic — of the crucified Saviour. To proceed in order, we will first examine the rare allusions, as it were, to the Crucifixion in Cliristian art down to the sixth century,
