Latin cross

“ I have seen the Cross, the holy symbol of His mystic love, standing in the heart of the eternal city, Rome; the ruins of a power far greater than thine were crumbling into dust around It; hundreds of gods such as those you trust in, were lying prostrate on the ground, trampled under careless feet, not even daring to raise their crushed and wounded heads to gaze upon the Crucified. It stood upon the seven hills, stretching its mighty arms to the east and to the west, its holy brow glittering in the golden sunshine; men wistfully gazed upon its perfect lesson of self-abnegating Love ”

“ The very sanctity of the symbol, and the detestation in which it was held by the heathen, conspired to prevent the early Christians from exposing it to their profane gaze. It is almost impossible to conceive the abhorrence in which the cross was held in the early centuries by the Greek and Roman mind. It has for ages been hallowed by the most sacred and venerable associations, and invested with the most sublime and solemn interest as the emblem of the world’s redemption. ”

“ But, long before the Romans, long before the Etruscans, there lived in the plains of Northern Italy a people to whom the cross was a religious symbol, the sign beneath which they laid their dead to rest; a people of whom history tells nothing, knowing not their name; but of whom antiquarian research has learned this, that they lived in ignorance of the arts of civilization, that they dwelt in villages built on platforms over lakes, and that they trusted in the cross to guard, and may be to revive, their loved ones whom they committed to the dust. ”

“ After the division of the Roman empire, the western kingdom adopted for itself the name of the Latin kingdom; and its subdivisions were called the Latin kingdoms. The church connected with those kingdoms was also emphatically called the Latin church. Says Dr. More: “They Latinize everything. Mass, prayers, hymns, litanies, canons, decretals, bulls, are conceived in Latin. The Papal councils speak in Latin. Women pray in Latin. The Scriptures are read in no other language under the Papacy than Latin. In short, all things are Latin.” ”

“ The adoration of the cross by the Romans is spoken of by the Christian Father Minucius Felix, when denying the charge of idolatry which was made against his sect.
"As for the adoration of cross," (says he to the Romans) , "which you object against us, I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire them. You it is, ye Pagans, who worship wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore wooden crosses, as being part of the same substance with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, and standards, but crosses, gilt and beautiful. ”

“ Rome is often condemned for using in her liturgy the dead language of Latin, but it must not be forgotten that in every country she offers to the faithful a rich store of devotional literature in their own tongue, and that, supplementary to the liturgical offices, there is much public prayer and praise in the vernacular. Nor, in that which appeals to the eye, does she limit herself to the mysterious symbolism of the sacraments and the ritual which surrounds them; she gives to the people concrete, pictorial images to quicken their faith. ”

“ There should therefore be no difficulty in distinguishing between the official policy of the Roman See—which has been almost uniformly odious—and the history of the Christian religion in the Latin countries, which has added new lustre to human nature. The Catholic saints did not fly through the air, nor were their hearts pierced with supernatural darts, as the mendacious hagiology of their Church would have us believe; but they have a better title to be remembered by mankind, as the best examples of a beautiful and precious kind of human excellence. ”

“ The cross on which his Master was doomed to ignominy, now exalted as the sign of salvation, and the seal of God’s love to the world!―― (a spectacle as strange to a Roman or Jewish eye, as to a modern would be the gallows, similarly consecrated,) but who burning with that devotion which led him of old to bear that shameful burden? His own humble name raised to a place above the brightest of Roman, of Grecian, of Hebrew, or Chaldean story! but made, alas! the supporter of a tyranny over souls, far more grinding and remorseless than any which he labored to overthrow. ”

“ In a chanted Mass it is out of the question distinguishing any words. I should feel this more than I can express. Besides that {344} it gives scoffers the pretext of saying that the Roman Church aims at making her services a mere spectacle, or mainly a spectacle,—an infamous calumny indeed, but which this unhappy locking up her praises and prayers in the Latin tongue tends to substantiate. Sure I am that if the Anglo-German race be ever restored to the communion of the Latin Church, as I fervently pray that mercy may be reserved for them by God, this custom as regards them must be changed. ”

“ At the period when every man's heart and wishes were bound up in the excitement and enterprise of the crusades, and it was thought that heaven was to be entered sword in hand, the cross was a symbol used as a universal ornament. ”

“ I walk accompanied by my disciples.
As we pass a tall wooden cross I remembered that the Romans have crucified as many as two thousand men at one time because of religious dedication. Al­most every single one of us has witnessed a crucifixion.
Hail Caesar!
Ours was a solemn path on a clear morning, larks singing, the air brisk.
Carrying fronds, waving, hoping to speak to us, hundreds filled the paths and streets, wanting the miracle of love and life. ”

“ And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names there not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is - By the earth is here meant the Latin world; therefore the meaning is, that all who dwell in the Latin world shall adhere to the idolatrous and blasphemous religion of the Latin Church, which is supported by the Latin empire, except those who abide by the sacred Scriptures, receiving them as the only rule of faith and practice. ”

“ From the eleventh century onward, the gathering religious feeling pours itself out in passionate utterances; and in this new emotionalizing of Latin Christianity lay the chief religious office of the Middle Ages, wherein they went far beyond the patristic authors of their faith. The Fathers of the Latin Church from Tertullian to Gregory the Great had been occupied with doctrine and ecclesiastical organization. ”

“ That, though false enough as theology, accurately represents the Italian mind. The nature goddess, the mother, the earth and its fulness, will console, recreate, and speak to the soul of the Latin on his native soil when religion has no language which reaches him. From the heart of that soil the Latin learnt his religion, and he has never parted with it. ”

“ Christianity, giving a larger place to the affections than did Stoicism, was already fast winning the hearts of men.
Writers of the Early Latin Church.—The Christian authors of the first three centuries, like the writers of the New Testament, employed the Greek, that being the language of learning and culture. As the Latin tongue, however, came into more general use throughout the extended provinces of the Roman empire, the Christian authors naturally began to use the same in the composition of their works. ”

“ We expressly forbid that, in administering baptism, any of the Christian rites are to be omitted.... We command, moreover, that a name of the Roman martyrology be given to the catechumen, and not an idolatrous one.... We order that no one, under any pretext whatever, shall change the signification of the names of the cross, of the saints, or of any other sacred thing.... ”

“ But if we would learn how the figure of a man came to be suspended upon this form of the cross, we must refer to Mediaeval History, which teaches that in the year 680, under the Pontificate of Agathon, and during the reign of Constantine Pogonat, at the sixth council of the church, and third at Constantinople, it was ordered in Canon 82 that "Instead of a lamb, the figure of a man nailed to a cross should be the distinguishing symbol of the Christian religion." ”

“ It is more than doubtful whether the cross itself is the original one, while the pillar on which it stands is apparently Roman. This prodigy of bloody signs of the cross falling from heaven on people’s clothes, suggests the prodigies we read of in Livy ”

“ The Priests maintain that there is some peculiar charm in the Latin language, which makes a Latin prayer more efficacious than an English one; and many of our poor people believer it is the only language which the devil does not understand. It is in vain to tell us, that the Latin prayers are all translated, and that those who have read their prayer-book know what prayer the Priest is reading. ”

“ Augustine who brought the Christian religion to the English. Latin was the language of the Romans. The word religion itself is a Latin word meaning reverence for the gods; and Mass, the name given to the chief service of the Catholic religion, comes from the Latin missa, taken from the words, Ite missa est ("Go; the Mass is ended") , with which the priest finishes the Mass. Missa is only a part of the verb mittere, "to finish."
The words priest, bishop, monk, altar, vestment, [12] and many others, came into the English language from the Latin with the Christian religion. ”

“ I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is revealed a righteousness of God by faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith. ”

“ These reflections draw after them others that are too melancholy. I will make haste to put them out of your head by the farce of relicks, with which I have been entertained in all Romish churches.
THE Lutherans are not quite free from these follies. I have seen here, in the principal church, a large piece of the cross set in jewels, and the point of the spear, which they told me very gravely, was the same that pierced the side of our Saviour. ”

“ And a good illustration of the fact in question still exists in the Caroccio crucifix of Milan; in which relic we see, under the usual inscription, an androgynous Christ upon a cross, with a man's head but half the body of female form, and with, instead of a cloth or fig-leaf, the phallic crux ansata, or Egyptian cross or symbol of Life, placed sideways, and as if the oval represented the female organ of reproduction, and the tau or incomplete cross that of the other sex. ”

“ For the rules concerning priests are not the same among the Latins as they are with us ; For we are given the command by the canonical laws and the teaching of the Gospel, " Touch not, taste not, handle not! For thou art consecrated." Whereas the Latin barbarian will simultaneously handle divine things, and wear his shield on his left arm, and hold his spear in his right hand, and at one and the same time he communicates the body and blood of God, and looks murderously and becomes 'a man of blood,' as it says in the psalm of David. ”

“ Had not the Holy Roman Church (mark the very name!) of the fourteenth century far more in it of pagan Rome than of Hebraic Nazareth? Was there no one to tell those people gathered there that all these stately processions bringing with them light and color into the twilight of the churches, these swaying banners of gorgeous design, these choir boys in violet robes, these tall, solemn-faced priests resplendent in their vestments—all had been employed centuries before to delight and subjugate the Roman populace? ”

“ In so far as Latin is concerned, it is evident that those who aim at anything more than the degree of knowledge requisite for understanding better the modern languages, and the terms which are in common use derived from Latin, or, perhaps, for a more intelligent appreciation of church offices, ought to master the language fully, together with its classical literature. The reasons which prove this statement apply with tenfold force to ecclesiastics, for whom Latin ought to be a second mother-tongue. ”

“ Latin, the consecrated language of all Christendom, farther beautified with the sparkling ornament of rhyme, was the appropriate garb wherein to clothe their hallowed thoughts; but this, while it gives to their compositions eternity and universality, goes to shut out very many from reaping ghostly advantage therefrom. ”

“ The close of the thirteenth chapter has gone all in the direction of Christian wakefulness, decision, and the battle-field of conquering faith. The Roman convert, roused by its trumpet-strain, will be eager to be up and doing, against the enemy and for his Lord, armed from head to foot with Christ. He will bend his whole purpose upon a life of open and active holiness. He will be filled with a new sense at once of the seriousness and of the liberty of the Gospel. ”

“ What art has done for the modern church, time has effected for the ancient. If the one is majestic to the eye by its grandeur, the other is hallowed to the memory by its age.
As this church by its rise commemorated the triumphant establishment of Christianity as the religion of Rome, so in its progress it reflected every change wrought in the spirit of the new worship by the ambition, the prodigality, or the frivolity of the priests. ”