Crucifix

“ During the glimpse of light afforded me by the approach of the monk who brought me bread and water, I arranged the crucifix so as that I could feel it when I awoke. This was very often, and not knowing whether it was day or night, I uttered my prayers at random. I knew not whether it was matins or vespers; there was neither morning or evening for me, but it was like a talisman to me to touch the crucifix, and I said as I felt for it, “My God is with me in the darkness of my dungeon; he is a God who has suffered, and can pity me. ”

“ They know his sufferings, one by one; they are familiar with his thorns and his nails; they have pondered over his wounds and mangled flesh; they penetrate into the side pierced for their love. He who knows even this much is not ignorant. Yet all this, and, much more, is familiar to every one accustomed to look with faith on the crucifix. ”

“ Hugh Capet—Signal! signal!
(Above, sounds the battle-horn, this time nearer.)
Jacques Sar—Now!
Jules Bacqueur—Now then!
Cries—Now! Now! NOW!
(Slowly the priest lifts the crucifix.)
All—God's with us! God's with us!
(They go springing up the mountain. A flash of lightning strikes the uplifted crucifix and clings for a moment like a wreath of blue fire round the brow of the priest whose face shows white as chalk. The crucifix slips from his fingers and he reels and falls backwards.)
Cries—Men! Men! Men! ”

“ There is a crucifix by the side of the narrow fort-road, larger than most of the others, and there on the cross hangs a wooden figure of Jesus Christ, so worn and weather-beaten that it looks almost a skeleton, and all bleached and pale as if it had been hanging there through thousands of years. ”

“ And yet it was so piteous—the struggling breath, and the eyes that seemed to look towards the crucifix, and yet not to see it. I shall never forget it; it seems as if it would come between me and everything I shall look at. ”

“ Just then the wind wailed again furiously about the church, and the crucifix fell down upon the floor of the sacristy.
The priest started forward, picked it up, and stood with it in his hand. He glanced at the wall, and saw at once that the nail to which the crucifix had been fastened had come out of its hole. A flake of plaster had been detached, perhaps some days ago, and the hole had become too large to retain the nail. The explanation of the matter was perfect, simple and comprehensible. Yet the priest felt as if a catastrophe had just taken place. ”

“ Every voice became mute, and the stillness of death reigned throughout the sacred edifice. In the midst of the general astonishment and attention he walked slowly to the altar, took up the massy silver crucifix which decorated it, and throwing over that symbol of earthly sorrow and divine hope, a black vail, he approached the empress-mother, and gave her the crucifix in mourning to kiss. ”

“ They may be necessary, but they are not glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” these things jar with our spirit. We little men may well fail and repent, but it is our faith that our God does not fail us nor himself. We cannot accept the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to a pitiful God. We cannot accept the Resurrection as though it were an after-thought to a bitterly felt death. ”

“ The Holy Father crowns all his favors, by presenting M. Ratisbonne a crucifix, a precious souvenir which the young Christian will ever cherish, clinging to it in his combats and his sorrows, as a weapon that must assure him the victory over hell. A new soldier of Jesus Christ, he needs no other arms than the cross and Mary Immaculate, signal protectors that will guide him in the ways of justice, and one day, usher him into the light of eternal felicity. ”

“ Having reached the crucifix, she deposited the burden on the high stone erected there for that purpose. This silent assistant is always found beside the symbol of faith. At the feet of Him who laid the heaviest burden on himself to make men free and brotherly, men take off a while the load of the day, to gather strength for further toil.
Crescence looked intently at the crucifix, but without thinking of what she did; for her mind was occupied with dread of Florian's following her. ”

“ It is sad to contrast the manner in which English abroad and at home enter the House of God with the reverence shown by the right-minded in Catholic communities. A still more to be regretted omission is that of the Crucifix, which might, with much edification, appear prominently at least in one part of the church, over the rood-screen or over the altar. How often, in France or Italy, passing some retired village, or at a turn in the road, may one admire a Crucifix, large as life, sanctifying the village green, or making a shrine of some leafy recess? ”

“ He took the crucifix without a word, and went straight to the frenzied boy, struggling wildly against the detaining clasp of his father's arms.
"Let him go," he said briefly; and there was that in the tone that caused the astonished old man to loose his hold, and stand gazing in awe and amaze at the youthful face, kindling with its strange look of resolve and authoritative power. ”

“ He returned to her bedside and held out the crucifix. She half raised herself; her pale, lovely hair hung about her blue wrap. She took the crucifix in her hands and clasped it to her bosom. The darkness was lifting–behind Exeter towers; she saw the Thames as she had seen it from the windows of Whitehall; she heard the priest’s voice reciting the prayers for the dying. Her lips were on the crucifix; she gave the responses, but her thoughts were not in the words. The light brightened into a dazzle that blotted everything out. She let the crucifix fall and sank back on her pillow. ”

“ That class of persons who go into raptures over works of art, therefore, have nothing to say against the Catholic use of the crucifix which is not contradicted by their own practice and avowed sentiments. If the devout sentiments awakened by a crucifix or a painting of the crucifixion are legitimate for once and for the space of half an hour, they are legitimate at all times. ”

“ He sees in the face of the crucified One patience, resignation, compassion for sinners, love even for his enemies. He sees the consequences of sin, and he beholds their remedy. Looking on this, the Catholic finds support in his trials or afflictions and moderation in his joy. Show me the volume he could ponder over and learn as much. All that he heard at his mother's knee and from the preacher's lips is brought before him in a single glance at his crucifix. All is brought up again when he makes the sign of the cross. ”

“ The crucifix shows us how conventionalization and familiarization set aside all the suggestion which an artifact really carries. The figure of a naked man dying in torture is purely horrible and repulsive. No one could get edification from an artistic 451representation of a man hanging on the gallows. Many people overlook so much of the crucifix and add so much in imagination that they get great edification from it. The language used in the communion about eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our mores, and appeals to nothing in our experience. ”

“ Young Hugues de la Tour stood up, and scornfully refusing the crucifix of the priest, looked around upon the scene with an air of irreconcilable indignation. His companions, Bec and Caron, the men who in the cave had spoken of themselves as ruined, the one by taxes, the other by the tithe, were more abject, and clutched the crucifix in despair. ”

“ Without noticing the presence of a stranger and a heretic—for I was gazing most undevoutly and heretically upon the jewelled image before me as they entered—they dipped the tips of their fingers in a font of holy water which stood by the entrance—passed into the centre aisle in front of the great crucifix, and kneeling in a cluster upon a rich carpet, spread upon the pavement over the crypts of the distinguished dead, by a female slave who attended them, were at once engaged in the most absorbing devotion. ”

“ Tell them that, in the eyes of the English, a crucifix is a profane object, that would be looked upon with as much horror as a statue of Vishnu, and they will have their doubts whether the name of Christian really ought to be applied to an English person.
In religion, everything is spiritualized in England and America. A crucifix recalls the fact that Christ became man. ”

“ There was nothing in the confused shadows which I saw to contradict these suppositions, and the one thing that I saw most clearly and distinctly was a crucifix as sharply outlined as the cross on an escutcheon, and under the right branch of that crucifix the emaciated, fleshless face of Monsieur d'Alvimar. The features seemed somewhat agitated at first, while a voice repeated the prayers for the dying ”

“ Here is evidently the crucifix standard again.
"This must have been (says Mr. Higgins) a Staurobates or Salivahana, and looks very like the figure of a man carried on their standards by the Romans. This was similar to the dove carried on the standards of the Assyrians. This must have been the crucifix of Nepaul." [198:3]
Tertullian, a Christian Father of the second and third centuries, writing to the Pagans, says:
"The origin of your gods is derived from figures moulded on a cross. ”

“ A procession of priests came to the well, the forms of exorcism were gone through, and a [Pg 79] crucifix—a life-size image of the Saviour—was consecrated by the bishop, and placed in that niche which you see before you. The place was thus to become holy ground. Next morning the crucifix was found hurled from its position. Who had done it? None of the peasants; they would not be guilty of such impiety. And besides, none of them would have had the courage to venture to the haunted well in the night-time. The crucifix was restored to its place. ”

“ Yonder kneels an emaciated figure, before a yet more emaciated crucifix. It is a female--bending down, as it were, to the very grave. She has hardly strength to hold together her clasped hands, or to raise her downcast eye. ”

“ "God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be trusted"
AND after this I saw with bodily sight in the face of the crucifix that hung before me, on the which I gazed continually, a part of His Passion: despite, spitting and sullying, and buffetting, and many languoring pains, more than I can tell, and often changing of colour. ”

“ And, indeed, of many authorities who have recorded their opinion on the effect of this canon of the Quini-sextile council, W. DN. is the only one who expresses a doubt as to its direct reference to the cross and the crucifix. Both the historians of the church, and those who have treated of the history of the Arts in the Middle Ages, are concurrent in their testimony, that it was not till immediately after the promulgation of the canons of the Council in Trullo that the use of the crucifix became common in the early churches. ”

“ Then the Father drew from his bosom a little crucifix, which he always carried about him, and leaning over deck, intended to have dipt it into the sea; but the crucifix dropt out of his hand, and was carried off by the waves. This loss very sensibly afflicted him, and he concealed not his sorrow from us. The next morning we landed on the Island of Baranura; from the time when the crucifix was lost, to that of our landing, it was near twenty-four hours, during which we were in perpetual danger. ”

“ And he entered into the hermitage, and found a crucifix therein, being the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, even as he was crucified, and for the remembrance of Him, he bent both his knees to the ground, and claspt his hands, weeping and confessing his sins before God, for he weened not that any man in the world saw or heard him. ”

“ There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places, larger fragments exist, as at Paris, in the Holy Chapel, at Poictiers, and at Rome, where a crucifix of tolerable size is said to have been entirely made out of it. In fine, if all the pieces which could be found were collected into a heap, they would form a good shipload, though the gospel testifies, that a single individual was able to carry it. ”

“ THE CROSS AND THE CRUCIFIX.
(Vol. v., p. 39.)
Your space precludes controversy: but the communication in Number 115. from W. DN. requires an explanation from me; which I give the more readily as it may perhaps serve to throw further light on a curious inquiry. A correspondent in a former Number (Vol. iv., p. 422.) questioned the correctness of an assertion by the Hon. MR. CURZON, that "the crucifix was not known before the fourth or fifth century, though the cross was always the emblem of the Christian faith." I ventured to sustain MR. CURZON'S view (Vol. iv., p. 485.) ”

“ In theology there is another reason why this should be avoided: for when we attempt a representation of any object of Christian worship, we too nearly fall into idolatry. Hence the cross is admissible where the crucifix is not: and the not unfrequent representation of the Holy Trinity, in which the Father is represented as a man, supporting the Lord Jesus on the cross, is shocking to the reverent eye. For the like reasons the representations of the holy eucharist, under the old figure of a crucifix pouring blood into four cups placed to receive it, is very objectionable. ”

“ Almost the only emblematic additions to the crucifix which have survived in use to our day are the apocalyptic symbols of the four evangelists, still often found on large crosses, especially those on rood screens; and the skull placed at the foot, sometimes with cross-bones, as a symbol of death. ”