“having taken from the three-nailed wood the dead (or hanging) body.” Thus clearly showing the number of nails he considered right.
Bosius then goes on to quote Apollinaris Laodicenus, who, in his tragedy entitled Christus patiens, called the holy Cross by the same words, τσισηλον ξυλω, “three-nailed wood”; and he also quotes from the Meditat. vitæ Christi of Bonaventura, “Illi tres clavi sustinent totius corporis pondus.” Nonnus, the Greek poet, writing in the fifth century, also says that our Lord’s feet overlapped each other, and were fastened by only one large nail. So that there is a very fair amount of antiquity in favour of three nails.
Against this theory may be quoted the authority of St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Gregory of Tours, Pope Innocent III., Rufinus, Theodoret, and others, who say four nails were used in the Crucifixion of our Saviour. The battle waged pictorially; but perhaps the earliest known representation of the Crucifixion, that found in the Cemetery of St. Julian, Pope, or of St. Valentine in Via Flaminia at Rome, ought to bear most weight. Our Saviour is represented as being clothed in a long sleeveless robe, which reaches to His ankles; the feet are separate, and are each nailed. It is said that Cimabue was the first to paint the feet overlapping, and one nail. His example, however, was much followed, and hence the controversy.
Of these nails, universal tradition says that St. Helena sent two to her son Constantine, and, as the Golden Legend has it, “the emperour dyd do sette them in hys brydel and in hys helme when he wente to batayle.” One can understand one of these sacred nails being worn in the Emperour’s helmet as a presage of victory and as a safeguard against danger, but the utility of incorporating one of such priceless relics in a horse’s bridle is not so easy to comprehend; but the fathers of the Church, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, Theodoret, and St. Gregory of Tours, recognise in it the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zecharius, chap. xiv. 20: “In that day shall be upon the bridles of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord.”
This bridle, or rather bit, is now said to be in existence in France at Carpentras, department of Vaucluse. How it got there is not clearly known, but probably it was taken at the time of the Crusades—as leaden seals on which it is engraved exist, attached to parchments of the dates 1226 and 1250, and it was mentioned in an inventory of relics in the year 1322.
1 The iron crown of Lombardy. 2 The holy bridle at Carpentras. 3 Nail at Venice. 4 Nail at Rome in Sta. Maria in Campitelli. 5 Nail at Arras. 6 Nail at Colle. 7 Nail in the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, at Rome. 8 Portion of nail at Toul. 9 Nail at Trèves.
I have reproduced it, as well as the Iron Crown of Lombardy and the nails, from M. Rohault de Fleury’s work, and, as will be seen, it is undoubtedly of great antiquity, closely resembling the bits of the Romans.
According to Bosius, who quotes Gregory Nazianzen, a third nail was thrown by St. Helena into the Adriatic Sea, in order to calm a tempest; and the same authority says that the fourth was deposited in the head of a statue of Constantine, but this militates much against the number of holy nails said to be in existence. Calvin notices this, and is down upon it with sledge-hammer force:—
“Yet there is a greater combat of the nayles. I wyll recite them only that are come to my knowledge. Thereupon there is not so lytle a childe but wyll judge that the Devyll hath to much deluded the worlde in takyng from it both understandyng and reason, that it coulde discerne nothynge in this matter. If the auncient writers saye trewe, and namely Theodorite Historiographer of the auncient churche, Helene caused one to be nayled on her sonne’s helmet, the other two she put in his horse bitte. How be it Sainct Ambrose sayeth not fully so. For he sayeth that one was put in Constantine’s crowne, of the other his horsebit was made, and the thirde Helene kept. Wee se yt already more than twelve hundred yeres agone this hath bene in controversie, to wit, what was become of the nayles. What certentie can be had of them then at this present time?