CHAPTER III.
The Cross in Ritual.
Allusion has already been made to the frequency with which the primitive Christians used the sign of the Cross; and there can be no question that it early became a symbol of that confidence which they had, that through the Cross of Christ all blessing, all protection, in a word all Divine help, was afforded them. They delighted, therefore, in finding in the Old Testament prophetic foreshadowings of its efficacy. Israel blessing the sons of Joseph with hands laid crosswise; Moses controlling the fortunes of the chosen people at the battle of Rephidim, by spreading wide his arms; the two sticks with which Elisha caused the axe-head of his disciple to float; and those other two which the widow of Sarepta had just gathered when help came to her in the arrival of Elijah; the saving sign marked on the foreheads of the faithful in the vision of Ezekiel (Ezek. ix., 4), which all antiquity understood as being a tau (T); these, and other more or less fancifully selected passages, all spoke to them of the mystery of the cross.
A full catena of authorities for the primitive use of this sign would embrace most of the fathers of the Church; one or two quotations must be sufficient to show how universal it was, as a symbol carved or painted, or as simply traced with the hand. S. Ephrem (died about 378), in a sermon on the Saviour’s passion, exclaims, “Let us imprint on our doors, our foreheads, our eyes, our mouths, our breast, on all our members, this life-giving cross; without this let us undertake nothing, but in going to bed and in rising, in working, in eating and drinking, in travelling by sea or land, let us adorn all our members with this life-giving sign.” S. Cyril of Jerusalem, in a like spirit, instructs his catechumens “not to be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, but openly to mark it on the forehead, and to use that sign in eating and drinking, sitting and lying, rising from bed, conversing and walking, in a word, on all occasions.”
S. John Chrysostom in his fifty-fifth homily thus gives us a reason for these exhortations; “the passion of our Lord,” says he, “is the fountain of that happiness by which we live and are; with a joyous heart, then, as if crowned, let us carry about with us the Cross of Christ. Let us earnestly impress this cross upon our houses, our walls, our windows; on our foreheads also, and on our breasts. It is the sign of our salvation, of our common liberty, of the meekness and humility of the Lord. As often, therefore, as you sign yourself, go over in your mind the general concern of the Cross, subdue all the motions of anger and other passions, and fortify your hearts with courage.”
Not to multiply instances unnecessarily, let a saying reiterated frequently by S. Jerome sum up the practice, as inherited by his own from earlier lines—“Before every action, at every step, let your hand make the sign of the cross.”
Over and above the idea that this holy sign recalled to Christians their obligation to glorify their Master in all their doings, the thought early sprang up that in the sign itself was provided a defence against the assaults of evil. S. Athanasius asserts most emphatically that “if only the sign of the cross, which the Gentiles ridicule, be used, if Christ be but named, devils will instantly be put to flight, and all the arts of magic be reduced to nothing.” S. Ephrem calls the sign “the invincible armour of Christians, the vanquisher of death, the hope of the faithful, the downfall of heresies, the bulwark of the true faith.” While Tertullian, who was quoted in this connection in a former chapter, tells us in his “Antidote for a Scorpion’s Sting,” that “we have faith for a defence, if we are not smitten also with distrust itself, in immediately making the sign of the cross over the wounded part, and adjuring that part in the name of Jesus.” One wonders whether from some similar hope the custom arose of marking plague-stricken houses with a red cross and the words “Lord have mercy.” Tertullian’s Apologies give us strong proof of the prevalence of the sign, and the reverence felt for it, in his day, in that he more than once finds it needful to repel the heathen charge that the Christians worshipped the cross, and were indeed merely a “priesthood of the cross, crucis antistites.”
The “Myrroure of our Lady” (published in 1530) thus quaintly describes and explains the manner of making the sign:—“Ye begin with the hand at the head downward, and then to the left side and after to the right side, in token and belief our Lord Jesus Christ came down from the Head, that is from the Father, unto earth by His holy Incarnation, and from the earth unto the left side, that is Hell, by His bitter Passion, and from thence unto His Father’s right side by His glorious Ascension; and after this ye bring your hand to your breast, in token that ye are come to thank Him and praise Him in the utmost of your heart for His benefits.” The sign was not, however, invariably made in the same way. The whole hand was sometimes employed (the usual method in the present day) signifying the five wounds of Christ; but sometimes three fingers only, as an invocation of the Holy Trinity; or two fingers emblematic of the two natures of the Saviour. In the east it is made from left to right.