T. The Crou as a Signature. — ^As early as the sixth century had it become the custom to put three crosses (^ '\ ^) near the signature of important documents, these having the value of an oath on the part of the signer. Priests never omitted to add it to their sig- nature, and bishops, as a sign of the dignity of their office, placed it before their signature. In ^plomatic documents, crosses were used extensively as early as the fifth century. The appropriate use of crosses ((fTccvpoXoyia) was an important part in diplomatic knowledge. They were sometimes the ordinary cross, t» or the St. Andrew's cross, X» ^^® starry cross, H^y the rhomboid cross, ^, or of other ornamental forms. They were usually made with black ink. The Byzantine emperors used red ink till they wei^ imi- tated by other sovereigns, when they adopted the green <^lor. The Anglo-Saxon kings used a golden cross, (Uspensing with the signature and the seal. Blue and
silver crosses are also met with. The crosses were marked with a stile or pen, or were stamped, or were sometimes made of a thin plate of ivory, bone, or met- aL By tradition the cross is now used as a signature, but only by those who cannot write. Crosses were often presented to cloisters by" pious visitors, and are preserved in many of their manuscripts. They were used to mark the beginning and end of books, letters, documents, of chapters, paragraphs, references, and critical remarks in books. They are especially used in many countries at the head of letters announcing a death. The cross was early adopted for the ground- plan of churches. In the later Gothic period the apsis was turned out of the line of the axis of the nave to represent the drooping of the head of Christ at his death.
CROSS, Christ's. The question as to '* the true croat^^ upon which ova Saviour suffered has been much agitated, especially among Protestants, for the relics shown as such are generally credited among Roman- ists. (See the controversy revived in modem times by Mr. Williams, in fevor of the tradition, Boly City^ ii, 128 ; and against it, by Dr. Robinson, Bibl. Ret» ii, 12 sq.) True, on this subject exact information ought to be accessible, since four ecclesiasticid historians (Socrates, i, 18 ; Sozomen, ii, 1 ; Rufinus, i, 7 ; Theo- doret, i, 18) concur in stating that the cross was found by Helena, mother of Constantino the Great. This event is assigned to the year of our Lord 826. Eusebius is silent on the discovery. The other writ- ers state that Helena, when seventy-nine years of age, was induced by the warmth of her piety to visit the places which the Saviour had rendered sacred by his presence and sufferings. The hatred of the hea- then had! led them to obliterate as much as possible all traces of the memorable events which the life and death of Jesus had hallowed, and to cover Mount Calvary with stones and earth, and raise thereon a temple to the goddess Venus. A Jew, however, had treasured up what traditions he could gather, and was thus en- abled to point out to Helena the spot where our Lord had been buried. The place being excavated, three crosses were found, and the title which that of Jesus bore was also found lying apart by itself. The ques- tion arose how the cross of Christ was to be distin- guished from the other two. Macarius, bishop of Je- rusalem, suggested that their respective efiScacy should be tried as to the working of miracles. Sick persons were brought forward and touched by each separately. One only wrought the desired cures, and was accord- ingly acknowledged to be the true cross. A full view of all the authorities on this matter may be seen in Tillemont (Mem, EeeUs. chapter on Helena). Hav- ing built a church over the sacred spot, Helena depos- ited within it the chief part of the real cross. The remainder she conveyed to Constantinople, a part of which Constantino inserted in the head of a statue of himself, and the other part was sent to Rome, and placed in the church of Sta. Croce in Gemsalemme, which was built expressly to receive the precious relic. When, subsequently, a festival to commemorate the discovery had been established, the bishop of Jerusa- lem, on Easter Sunday, exhibited to the gratefU eyes of eager pilgrims the object to see which they had travelled so far and endured so much. Those who were persons of s^^tance were fitrther g^tified by obtaining, at their ndl price, small pieces of the cross set in gold and gems ; and, that wonder might not pass into incredulity, the proper authorities gave the world an assurance that the holy wood possessed the power of self-multiplication, and, notwithstanding the innumerable pieces which had been taken from it for the pleasure and service of the fiilthful, remained in- tact and entire as at the first (Paulinus, Ep. xi ad Sev,). The capture of Jerusalem by the Persians, A.D. 614, placed the remains of the cross in the hands of Chosrocs II, who mockingly conveyed them to his
CROSS
680
CROSS
ctpital. Fourteen yean afterwards Heraclitis recov- ered thesi, and bad them carried first to Constantino- ple, and then to Jemsalem, in such pomp that, on his arrival before the latter city, be found the gate barred and entrance forbidden. Instructed as to tbe cause of this hindrance, the emperor laid aside the trap- pings of his greatness, and, barefooted, bore on his own shoulders the sacred relic up to the gate, which then opened of itself, and allowed him to enter, and thus place his charge beneath the dome of the sepul- chre. See Calyart. From this time no more is heard in histoiy of the true cross, which the advocates of its genuineness claim may hare been destroyed by the Saracens on their conquest of Jerusalem, A.D. 687. Fragments only of it are now exhibited in various parts of Europe. (See below.) The whole story is justly regarded by Protestants as containing unmis- takable evidence of being at best a pious fraud on the part of Helena, or a tridL on the part of her guides. See Helena. But, even if the story were not so in- trinsically absurd (for, among other reasons, it was a law among the Jews Uiat the cross was to be burned ; Othonis, Lex, Rab, s. ▼. Supplidum), it would require far more probable evidence to outweigh the silence of Eusebius. It clearly was to the interest of the Church of Rome to maintain the belief and invent the story of its miraculous multiplication, because the sale of the relics was extremely profitable. To this day the sup- posed title, or rather fragments of it, are shown to the people once a year in the church of Sta. Crooe in Ge- rusalemme at Rome. On the capture of the true cross by Chosroes II, and its rescue by Heraclius, with even the seals of the case unbroken, and the subsequent sale of a large ftagment to Louis IX, see Gibbon, iv, 836 ; yi, 66. Those sufficiently interested in the annals of such imposture may see farther accounts in Baronius {Ann. Ecc. A.D. 826, No. 42-50), Jortin, and Schmidt (Probksn, de CrucU Dcmimca Inveniione^ Helmst. 1724) ; and on the fate of the true cross, a paper read by Lord Mahon before the Society of Antiquaries, Feb. 1881.