Cruciform

“ The Lamb with the cross, therefore, became a common symbol of the Crucifixion during the first six centuries. In its most restrained form we find simply above the head of the Lamb the sacred monogram as used on the labarum of the Christianized empire; and occasionally the figure becomes not so much a type as a representative of the Saviour, by having five bleeding wounds in its feet and side. Later the same emblem appears, often with a cruciform nimbus about its head, carrying a slender cross on a tall shaft, or a banner charged with a cross. ”

“ Speaking of the crucifix Dr. Dale says; “It makes our worship and prayer unreal. We are adoring a Christ who does not exist. He is not on the cross now, but on the throne. His agonies are passed forever. He has risen from the dead. He is at the right hand of God. If we pray to a dying Christ, we are praying not to Christ Himself, but to a mere remembrance of Him. The injury which the crucifix has inflicted on the religious life of Christendom, in encouraging a morbid and unreal devotion, is absolutely incalculable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would be difficult to find a more complete revolution of feeling among mankind, than that which has taken place concerning the instrument of crucifixion: once the object of horror and a symbol of disgrace, it is now the blessed emblem of our faith; the sign of admission by baptism to all the benefits of Christian fellowship. . . . The change from cross to crucifix, in ancient monuments, is gradual: first occurs the simple cross; afterwards a lamb appears at the foot of it. In a third stage there is Christ clothed, on the cross with hands uplifted in prayer, but not nailed to it ”

“ So rare and unearthly the light is, from the mountains, full of strange radiance. Then every now and again recurs the crucifix, at the turning of an open, grassy road, holding a shadow and a mystery under its pointed hood.
I was startled into consciousness one evening, going alone over a marshy place at the foot of the mountains, when the sky was pale and unearthly, invisible, and the hills were nearly black. At a meeting of the tracks was a crucifix, and between the feet of the Christ a handful of withered poppies. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O Heart of Mary, I offer, etc., etc.
Twenty-first Day. The world is a mystery. Life, death, time, good, evil and miseries, are mysteries to us. The crucifix is the solution of them all. It is a consoling contemplation when we are in trouble. When we have sinned it brings tears of repentance to our eyes, and gives us the hope of salvation; it is a source of love; it is a light in darkness; it is a solemn exhortation without words. O blessed cross, cause of the fifth sorrow to Mary! help us to have a joy in the cross in this life, that we may be led by it to a happy eternity. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Our crucifix, if you must have a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a foot already torn away from its nail, and with eyes not downcast but resolute against the sky; a face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in the surpassing glory of the struggle and the inflexible will to live and prevail. ”

“ The earliest crucifix in the catacombs is of the seventh or eight century, and Pope John VII., in 706, dedicated the first mosaic example in St. Peter’s at Rome. Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Jarrow (died 690) , brought from Rome the first picture of the crucifixion of which we hear in the [Pg 21] north of England. S. Augustine advancing with his monks to his first conference with King Ethelbert of Kent, was preceded by a silver cross and a crucifixion painted on a panel. ”

“ When we compare this with the fact that for centuries after the time assigned for the birth of Christ Jesus, he was not represented as a man on a cross, and that the Christians did not have such a thing as a crucifix, we are inclined to think that the effigies of a black or dark-skinned crucified man, which were to be seen in many places in Italy even during the last century, may have had something to do with it. ”

“ In long course of time, when many months had gone, came the day when he brought forth his own first work, a crucifix, the fruit of his own labors, touched by no other hands from first to last. Himself he selected the tusk, flawless, finely grained; cut it to the block, shaped it, the upright of the cross, the arms, the rough outline of the Christ upon it. Then, bit by bit, cutting, cutting, cutting, the figure grew, with rounding outlines, and coherent features. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Louder and louder they grew until the sound of them echoed clatteringly through the silence of the night. Then sudden deafening stillness.
As yet he could make out no form. He wondered what was happening. Slowly he realized that the gloom-merged mass of the crucifix had been seen and that the feet were coming toward it. A long half minute and then something soft and cold brushed his cheek. A quick, half-smothered cry. A woman had reached him with her outstretched hands. Her fingers had touched his face.
"Mon Dieu!" She whispered. "Then I am not alone? Mon Dieu! Who are you?" ”

“ They are like the kiss which a man imprints upon his wife's picture, or the uncovering of the head when a procession passes the statue of Washington. There is only one question, therefore, in regard to the veneration given to the crucifix, and that is, Does the object or person represented, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, deserve the worship of latria, or divine worship, which we pay to him, and which we signify by these exterior marks of respect toward his image? The same is the case with the images of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To erect crosses in their houses, or to wear them on their persons, was impossible in the times of heathen ascendancy, without risking insult to the holy sign, and danger to themselves. Moreover, in days when crucifixion was still in use as the most degrading of all forms of punishment, and the cross to the world at large a more infamous figure than the gallows is now to us, it must have been difficult even for the followers of the Crucified to rise entirely above the common sentiment of their age. ”

“ The height of the cross, as now standing, is 10 ft. 6 in. The reverse of the sculptured head portrays the Madonna and Child, with a kneeling figure, most likely meant for the donor. The obverse is remarkable because the Crucifixion is introduced not, so to speak, per se, but rather incidentally, as constituting part of the Holy Trinity group. The crucified Son, then, is placed between the knees of the Eternal Father, Whose hands upraised on either side, the right in benediction, may be observed above the arms of the crucifix. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ Mediæval flagellations and dances were cases of suggestion. In fact, all popular manias are to be explained by it. Religious bodies practice suggestion on themselves, especially on their children or less enthusiastic members, by symbols, pictures, images, processions, dramatic representations, festivals, relics, legends of their heroes. In the Middle Ages the crucifix was an instrument of religious suggestion to produce vivid apprehension of the death of Jesus. In very many well-known cases the passions of the crowd were raised to the point of very violent action. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”