"Allegorical and fantastic, as when the tree is made the principal object, with its branches terminating in patriarchs and prophets, virtues and graces.
"Realistic, as when the mere event is rendered as through the eyes of an unenlightened looker-on.
"These and many other modes of conception account for the great diversity in the treatment of this subject; a further variety being given by the combination of two or more of these modes of treatment together; for instance, the pelican may be seen above the Cross giving her life's blood for her offspring; angels in attitudes of despair, bewailing the Second Person of the Trinity; or, in an ideal sacramental sense, catching the blood from His wounds—the Jews below looking on, as they really did, with contemptuous gestures and hardened hearts; the centurion acknowledging that this was really the Son of God, while the group of the fainting Virgin, supported by the Marys and St. John, adds legend to symbolism, ideality, and history."
In the study of the doctrinal development nothing is so important as the exegesis of the New Testament statements about the Cross; and this has been done in a masterly way by Dr. Dale in his work on the Atonement. What may be called the Philosophy of the Cross (to borrow a happy phrase of McCheyne Edgar's) came late. It is usually reckoned to have commenced with Anselm; and since the Reformation every great theologian has added his contribution. Yet the work is by no means completed. Indeed, at the present day there is no greater desideratum in theology than a philosophy of the Cross which would thoroughly satisfy the religious mind. Shallow theories abound; but the Church of Christ will never be able to rest in any theory which does not do justice, on the one hand, to the tremendously strong statements of Scripture on the subject and, on the other, to her own consciousness of unique and infinite obligation to the dying Saviour. Perhaps the most satisfactory expression of the Christian consciousness on the subject is to be found in the hymns of the Church, from the Te Deum down through Scotua Erigena and Fulbert of Chartres to Gerhardt and Toplady. See Schaff's Christ in Song.
A third line of development might be traced—the Practical—in martyrology, the history of missions, asceticism, and the like; and the spokesman of this branch of the truth is à Kempis, who, as Zöckler says, teaches his disciples to know poverty and humility as the roots of the tree of the Cross, labour and penitence as its bark, righteousness and mercy as its two principal branches, truth and doctrine as its precious leaves, chastity and obedience as its blossoms, temperance and discipline as its fragrance, and salvation and eternal life as its glorious fruit.
[6] When the Northern nations became Christian they transferred to the Cross the nobler ideas embodied in the mystic tree Igdrasil; and one of the commonest ideas of the mystical writers of the Middle Ages is the identification of the Cross as both the true tree of life and the true tree of knowledge.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GROUPS ROUND THE CROSS
In the last chapter we saw the Son of Man nailed to the cursed tree. There He hung for hours, exposed, helpless, but conscious, looking out on the sea of faces assembled to behold His end. On the occasion of an execution a crowd gathers outside our jails merely to see the black flag run up which signals that the deed is done; and in the old days of public executions such an event always attracted an enormous crowd. No doubt it was the same in Jerusalem. When Jesus was put to death, it was Passover time, and the city was filled with multitudes of strangers, to whom any excitement was welcome. Besides, the case of Jesus had stirred both the capital and the entire country.[1]
The sight which the crowd had come to see was, we now know, the greatest ever witnessed in the universe. Angels and archangels were absorbed in it; millions of men and women are looking back to it to-day and every day. But what impressions did it make on those who saw it at the time? To ascertain this, let us look at three characteristic groups near the cross, whose feelings were shared in varying degrees by many around them.