[It has never, we believe, been printed since its first publication in Knight's Magazine, about the year 1824. From the omission pointed out by our correspondent, it is obvious that the accomplished writer of it does not himself regard this ballad as deserving of republication.]
Replies.
THE CRUCIFIX AS USED BY THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.
(Vol. iv., p. 422.).
A correspondent questions the accuracy of MR. CURZON'S statement, in his Monasteries of the Levant, that—
"The crucifix was not known before the fifth or sixth century, though the cross was always the emblem of the Christian faith,"—
and asks for information as to its use, and the dates of the earliest examples. Some twenty years ago I devoted some care to this inquiry, and the result will be found in a chapter on the decline of the arts in Greece, in a History of Modern Greece, which I published in 1830. To that essay, but more especially to the authorities which it cites, I would refer your correspondent; and I think, after an examination of the latter, he will be disposed to concur with me, that Mr. Curzon's statement is correct. It is in accordance with that of Gibbon, and sustained by the same authorities as Basnage, to the effect that the first Christians, from their association with the Jews, and their aversion to the mythology of the Greeks, were hostile to the use of images of any description in their primitive temples, in which they reluctantly admitted the figure of the ignominious cross, as a memorial of the Redeemer's death. At a later period, however, the veneration for the relics of departed saints led to the admission of their painted portraits, and eventually to the erection of their images and effigies in wood and marble. (Gibbon, chap. xxiii. xlix.) Reiskius states that it was not till the fourth century after Christ that the latter innovation began:
"Ecclesia vero Christiana tribus seculis prioribus ne quidem imagines recepit aut inter sacra numeravit instrumenta. Sed demum sub finem quarti seculi ea lege admisit ut in templis memoriæ ac ornatus causa haberentur."—Reiskius, De Imaginibus Jesu Christi Exercitationes Histor., ex. i. c. i. sec. ii. p. 12.
Lillio Giraldi concurs with Reiskius:
"Illud certe non prætermittam nos dico Christianos ut aliquando Romanos fuisse sine imaginibus in primitiva quæ vocatur ecclesia."—Lillius Gregorius Giraldus, Historiæ Deorum Syntage, v. i. p. 15.
The earliest images of Christ were those mentioned as being placed, by Alexander Severus, along with those of Abraham, Jupiter, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. (Reiskius, ex. vii. c. i. sec. i. p. 151.) Constantine placed two equestrian statues of the Saviour in the Lateran Church. But Molanus, who mentions the latter fact, insists that there were existing about this period numerous statues of the Saviour, which he would refer to the time of Pontius Pilate. (De Historia SS. Imaginibus, &c., lib. i. c. vi. p. 65.)