The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-29
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Copyright, 1896, by F. w. Farrar9
1t would be wholly out of place to
enter here into learned disqufsitions
about the date OF different apocryphal
documents, or to inquire as to the ex-
act age of various traditions. Ny OBJ
ject is rather 20 mention few legends
about the death Of Christ, and his de-
scent into Eades, and his resurrection,
of which one or two in their earliest
form are traceable as far back as the
second century, but others are not.
older than the middle ages. and others
may be no more than current folklore
which originated in the imagination Of
the people as they thought about these
most sacred subjects. They all belong
to that class OF literature which the
Jews call Haggadoth, or, collectively,
the Haggadan. Many of them We're
never intended to be accepted as literal
facts, hut rather as dim possibilities,
or as moral conceptions enshrined in
allegofic tales and ntended-though
often Ilost unSuccessfully-to bring out
deeper or fuller meanings than lay on
the surface OF the sacred narratives.
We must say of these legends, that
although the much diversified and in
terpolated documents in which some
of them still exist may be traced back
in their simplest original form to the
days of Justin the Martyr it is eX-
ceedingly doubtful whether they pre-
serve for US even one grain of genuine
history among their often crude inven-
lions 1.-The Gospel of Nicodemus or
Acts of Pilate which in it's original
share is one of the Oldest OF the
apocryphal books of Christ. makes
large use of the Four Evangelists, but
many of It's original touches are ignor-
ant. impossible, and self-contradictory
1t serves, as do the apocryphal stories
of the Infancy, to illustrate the i'm
measurable superiority of the sacred
narratives. but it is far less heretical
and puerile than some Of them. And
il must not be thought that these he
tions are wholly beneath our notice.
Further anyone who is entirely iS-
norant of these legends. which had
such universal vogue and were accep-
ted as true in the middle ages, Will lose
half the meaning Of some of the most
striking productions of genius in me-
diaeval art.
It is natural that the Imagination of
men should have been haunted by the
cross. To the ancient Greeks and Ro-
mans cross was the most losthy and
abhorrent of all objects; it was the
torture implement for the worst crinl-
mails, and the gibbet for the Vilest OF
slaves. 1t summoned up pictures so in
toierable that Cicero said it should be
kept from the sight, and even from the
thoughts. of all good citizens. No
wonder that the cross was Ito the
Jews a stumbling-hlock, and to the
CIR seks foolishness." Who could have
DIRE, med that God would give to the
doctrine of the cross so stupendOus
victory over all the combined strength,
contempt and fury OF the world, that,
before three centuries were finished, it
should have passed from a symbol of
abject and degrading anguish to the
most revered enrichment of banners,
and the most glorious symbol upon I'M
periai diadems? The discovery, or as
ii is called, the invention of the true
cross by st. Helena, the mother of
Constantine, was an event surrounded
by halo Of sham miracles, and can
hardly be accepted as history unless it
represents a deliberate fraud practiced
on the credulity of the British queen.
But il shows how immense was the
veneration which had been attracted to
itself by the once detested emblem;
and we trace the same thing in the
legend Of Dysmas, the converted rob-
ber as told in one of the recenSions of
the gospel of Nicodemus He appears
to the patriarchs. whom Christ had
just liberated from Hades, as a very
wretched man, and the holy fathers
said to him, "Who art thou having
the aspect of robber, and what is the
cross which thou Dearest Oh thy Shout
ders?" He tells them of Christ's prom
Use to him on the cross, and that as he
approached Eden ''the flaming sword
seeing the sign of the cross, opened to
me, and Michael the archangel babe
me wait here little for our forefather
Adam and the righteous
There are many popular fancies about
the cross. One says that it was made
of four different kinds of wood; but
folklore say that it was made of aspen
wood and assigns lthap reason for the
CHASTITY and perpetual SILVER of the
aspen leaves. Again we are told that
when Adam was driven from Paradise.
he still possessed one seed of the tree
OF life, which had been brought to him
an the bill of a bird. He planted that
seed, and from it grew the tree of
which the cross was ultimately made, |
In scores of pictures Of the Crucifx |
ion the reader will have observed a |
skull lying at the foot of the cross. No |