The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-08-15
1 LEGEND or The CROSS
ITS TRADITIONS, AND HISTORY IN
EARLY CHRISTIAN DAYS.

According to an ancient and beau
t1ful legend, the tree of which the
Cross was made grew out of the grave
of Adam. For when Adam lay dying,
his son Seth went to the Garden of
Eden and brought from thence three
seeds from the Tree of Life, with this
message of hope from the angel who
guarded Paradise: When these seeds
become trees, Adam shall be freed
from the power Of DEATH" The seeds
were buried with the patriarch, and
SO, in course of time, the prophecy
came to its fulfilment. Pagan symbol
ism, too, took it's unconscious share
in foretelling the triumph of the Cross.
The ancient Egyptians placed a cross
shaped sceptre in the hands of their
gods, as symbol of Immortality, and
one of the few things known about
the prehistoric tribes of Northern
Italy is their custom of setting crosses
over the graves of their dead, to sig
nifty an expected resurrection.
Modern Christian feeling delights to
trace this budding morrow in mid
night" And nothing seems more fit
ting than that the shadow of the con-
quering Sign should stretch across the
first dark pages of human history,
mystically discernibIe to the eye of
love and faith. Christian art has rep
resented the Cross as a living, bud
ding tree, whose far-spreading
branches Swallowed the whole world;
and the four different woods-cedar,
palm, cypress and olive-which en-
tered into the composition of the
Cross, were mystically interpreted to
mean the four quarters of the earth,
to which Christ would bring salvation
But, as we know, this ardent love
and devotion was preceded in the
early centuries by a certain reverent
hesitation. Converts from Judaism
and paganism, for whom the Cross
had associations of indescribable
shame and horror, shrank particularly
from any realistic representation of
Christ's torture and seeming. defeat.
There are no very early catacombal
crosses. The Gross of Constantine
was rather monogram of the sacred
name than an actual rood; and prob
ably the Emperor himself did not ac-
cept the full significance of his own
vision till his mother, the aged EN-
press, returned from her crowned
quest of the Holy City, bearing the
true and actual STANDARD" of the
eternal conquest.
That matchless story of a woman's
divine instinct and illumined longing
has been told too well and too often
to need retelling here. The festival
concentrating st. Helena's Find
ing" sprang at once into popularity.
It's place had long been prepared in
all faithful and devout hearts. The
story of the carrying away of the
True Cross from Jerusalem to Persia,
and it's restoration to the Emperor
Heraclius, belongs more properly to
the festival of the Exaltation of the
Holy Cross.
Constantine ordered the erection of
crosses in public places; and, later the
Council of Trullo GA. D. 1927, sane
toned the representation of the actual
figure of Christ on the cross in place
of the symbolic lamb. By the tenth
century such representation had be
come more or less ealistic-defnite
attempts to show the divine Sufferer
in His human agony. But various art
collections preserved for us the earlier
crucifixes, with their reposeful and
idealized figures, robed and crowned
The proud and sensitive converts of
Imperial Rome were only gradually
reconciled to the sight of their Lords
humiliation.