2) Now let's see what "tita" means when it comes to any execution. Let us quote here the expression of a) external writers and b) the Holy Fathers themselves. Evangelists. Suetonius says of Caligula that in Rome, at a public feast, he suddenly gave a servant to the executioner because he had torn a silver tablet from the bed.42

Now let us listen to what the holy Evangelists say about the title. Let us take down here the passages of all four Evangelists in which they speak of this title—and they all express themselves in different words on this subject—and then show what the title on the cross is in the sense of the Romans, since it was customary only among them. St. The Evangelist Matthew significantly says: "And he put wine on the top of His head [Jesus Christ] [??????] It is written: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."43 St. The Evangelist Mark narrates: "And the writing of His guilt is written: King of the Jews".44 St. Luke says: "And it is written over Him by the Greeks, Romans, and Jews: This is the King of the Jews."45 St. The Evangelist John says: "And Pilate wrote the title, and put it on the cross: it is written, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. This title is many from the Jews, for near the place of the city where Jesus was crucified: and it is written in Hebrew, Greek, and Roman."46 Thus, the Evangelist Matthew calls the titla the guilt written; St. Mark – by the writing of guilt, St. Luke – by the written writing, and St. John the Evangelist used here the very Roman word – the title: "Put down the title Pilate." Since the inscription indicated the imaginary guilt of the Lord, for which He was crucified, the Evangelist Matthew calls the titla the written guilt, and the Evangelist Mark combined together both words, the inscription and the guilt, and said: "And the writing of His guilt is written"; the Evangelist Luke, paying attention to one inscription, to one word, says simply that an inscription was written on the cross. But St. John speaks most of all about the title, calling the inscription on the cross the Latin word itself47 ??????, since by this word he understood exactly what the Romans meant by it at that time, i.e. the inscription itself and the substance on which it was written, and the very guilt of death. From this we deduce the meaning of the word titla, namely: titla is the same as 1) guilt, the reason for which one is subjected to the crucifixion, 2) the crime for which he is executed, and 3) the very substance on which the guilt was inscribed; in short, in a word, in Roman, all this is called together by the titla – titulus, as the Holy Evangelist John called it. Although he wrote his Gospel, according to the testimony of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, in Greek, he used the Roman word here, among other things, because many Roman words, in the time of Christ the Savior and after, passed into the Greek language and became Greek; Among them are the words: ?????? –  titulus, ????????? – fragcllum, ?????????? (John 6), ?????? (Luke 8), ?????????? (Acts 6), ?????????, ?????????, ???????, ??????????? etc.

What was the substance on which the title was written? Sozomen, describing the finding of the Precious Cross by St. Helena, says that in the cave in which the three crosses were found, a white tablet was also found separately, resembling a tablet, on which were inscribed not only Hebrew, but also Greek and Roman letters, which words and letters expressed nothing else than the following: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.48 Thus, the imaginary guilt of Christ's death was written on a tablet, which was whitewashed with white paint for greater clarity and convenience in reading (????????); the words themselves were red, as is seen in the remains of the titla preserved at Rome,49 and were carved on wood with an iron tool (stylo ferreo) in the reverse order of the letters, as in the Hebrew language, since even at that time there was still in great use the method of writing, invented much earlier by carving on wood, metal, or stone, and the Greek verb ???????, ?????????, which expresses precisely this most ancient method of writing, has first of all precisely this meaning, i.e., to carve with an iron tool, as Joachim Perionius remarks in the second book on the affinity of the French language with the Greek, because the French verb engraver (sculpere, insculpcre), derived from the Greek ?????????,, means to carve, to cut on something.50 According to Roman custom, a tablet with an inscription of guilt was sometimes carried in front of the criminal to the place of execution, or he himself carried it around his neck, or. Finally, she was nailed to the cross. But it was not always an inseparable part of the cross. Sometimes, instead of writing the name of the criminal and the crime on a tablet, hanging it around his neck or carrying it before the criminal and then nailing it on the cross, they acted more simply: one of the soldiers in the ears of all the people had to shout: so-and-so is crucified for such and such a crime, and then the guilty person was crucified without nailing titles over him. For example, the crosses of the thieves crucified with Jesus Christ did not have a title.51

From all that has been said about the titla, it is evident that it did not at all constitute an essential attribute of the cross and, consequently, was not part of the cross; she may or may not have been on the cross; they could write, and sometimes did, and nailed to the cross, but they could not write, but simply proclaim that a known criminal was crucified for toto; In both cases, i.e., whether or not there was an inscription on the cross, it was still a cross, just as, for example, a man's house, whether it had an inscription with the name of the landlord on it or not, would still remain a house.

In order for even more so-called Old Believers to be convinced that even without the title the cross is the same immutable cross of Christ, it is enough to put into view the words of the Holy Evangelist John about the title laid down by Pilate. What are these words? We have already given them above, but here for this purpose we will cite them again. St. John says: "Pilate also wrote the title, and put it on the cross" (chapter 19). On what did Pilate put the title? – On the cross, on the very cross on which our Savior was already hanging. This means that even before the title the cross was already the Cross of Christ – and even when it was still carried first by the Savior Himself, and then by Simon of Cyrene to Golgotha.

Paying attention to the titla as it is made on our crosses, we cannot but say that it is difficult to recognize in it the titla that was placed on the Cross of the Lord: pious custom attached it to the tree of the cross in such a way that it seems to constitute the most essential integral part of it, together with the diameter that contained the nailed hands of the Divine Sufferer: Our titla is cut into the cross, and is not placed or nailed to it slightly, in accordance with its purpose: or if it is made of metal, then in this case we see not some kind of plank, but a real transverse yard.

The Church allows such crosses to be composed, of course, because it does not harm faith and piety in the least, and no sane person, of course, would stand for this or that type of cross. For Christians, there is always only one cross – Christ's – whether it has a title or without a title, with or without a footstool. But if the schismatics so advocate this title, then justice demands that it be said that the upper cross-sections of the cross should not be fixed on it in the same way as it is affirmed in our country, if they absolutely want the cross to have a title, but in such a way that it would be seen that it is nothing more and nothing less than an inscription of the cross, which in any case does not form a part of the cross, and should not be taken into account when counting its ends. as something accidental, surplus. Moreover, if the so-called Old Believers absolutely want to see the titla on the cross and do not want to worship the cross without it, then then they allow themselves not to depict on the cross or not to hammer into it the nails that pierced the Life-Giving Hands of the Saviour, and not to count their ends together with the ends of the titla and pedestal, while the huge Roman nails used in this case, were really protruding over nailed hands and feet, as the most ancient monuments of the Crucifixion show?52

In order to be consistent and true to themselves, the so-called Old Believers should pay attention to this and drive nails into every cross, and without them they should not consider the cross to be a cross: nails in comparison with Pilate's inscription have an inestimable merit, because they have passed through the Most-Pure hands and feet and have been stained with their blood. St. Chrysostom and John of Damascus, enumerating the venerable instruments of Christ's sufferings, speak, among other things, of nails, but not half a word about the title.53 This means that the titles should not be venerated, except perhaps for the one that was originally on the Cross of the Lord. True, the schismatics may say that they do not depict or insert nails in the cross because they have them in mind and, not seeing them with their eyes, they see them in their minds and also worship them in their minds. But if so, then why not also imply the titles or inscriptions of the cross, which in the cross are much less important than the nails?

Having shown the meaning, substance and degree of importance of the title at the executions of the Cross and, in particular, on the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us now speak about the pedestal on crosses, and precisely about whether there were pedestals on Roman crosses, whether they were needed for some fundamental purpose, in particular, about whether there was a pedestal on the Cross of the Lord and whether it was necessary on this Cross.

As for the question whether there were pedestals on Roman crosses, which usually served as instruments of execution for some criminals, it can be answered decisively that there were none. Not a single Roman historian, not a single father or teacher of the Church, until Gregory of Tours, a writer of the seventh century, speaks of a pedestal of the cross. In Seneca54 there is a passage where it speaks of a sharp cross, which, being driven into an ordinary cross, served as a seat for the crucified, on which, crouching, with the weight of his body, he crushed the wound resulting from such a sharp horn and hung in the most cramped position. This is exactly the same seat that, as we will see below, is mentioned by Sts. Justin and Irenaeus.55

Remarkable, by the way, is the expression of Seneca, who calls a sharp seat a cross (acuta crux). This, of course, is because the Romans called a cross any tree in general that causes a painful, slow death, and the very word "crux" comes from the word cruciatus – torment. But having sometimes been built on other Roman crosses, the seat was not made, as we shall see below, on the Cross of the Saviour. Thus, with some probability, it can be said that on Roman crosses there was only a seat, which, while giving very little peace to the body by supporting its weight, at the same time pricked and cut its hind parts. As for the foot, it was not on the Roman crosses, as can be seen from the following. When writers speak of crucifixion, they usually use the words affixus, crucifixus, or appensus, suspensus, but never, for example, status, constitutus in cruce or in crucem, i.e., they speak either of nailing or hanging, but not of being put on the cross. This is also evident from the fact that some were hanged upside down, as, for example, Eusebius testifies about the Egyptian martyrs56; In such cases, of course, no headboards were made for the head, because it is directly stated that they hung upside down, and did not stand on the head.57 St. the Apostle Peter was also hanged upside down and nailed hand and foot. St. Chrysostom, speaking of this execution of the Apostle, adds: "Blessed are the nails that pierced these sacred limbs".58

Now let us solve another question: was the foot of the cross necessary for any solid purpose? If it was necessary, it was necessary for only two reasons: either (1) it was a direct necessity in the cross, as a means of preventing the body, while hanging on the cross, from tearing apart by its weight the hands nailed by the nails, which alone supported the whole body, or (2) by the footstool they wanted to give the crucified a certain relaxation, rest in the agony of hanging, and, it means that it was instilled in the procurator who pronounced the sentence to be executed, and in the executors of the latter by a feeling of compassion. But in the first case, it must be assumed that the bonds of the hands are so weak, so torn, that the body is not able to hang on the latter, which, as we shall see, is decidedly unjust.

Is it possible now to admit the second reason, i.e., is it possible to assume a feeling of pity in the Roman commanders who pronounced the death sentence, by virtue of what feeling they would have allowed the construction of a pedestal on the cross for a little relief of the crucified? It can be said positively that such a reason is not at all relevant here. The cross is an invention of inhumanity, and it is generally known about the Romans, who lived in the time of Christ the Savior and after, that they were too inhuman and liked to amuse themselves in circuses with bloody scenes. In particular, it is known about the soldiers that they were very inhuman and rude, which is why they carried out all the executions of the Romans. In order to be convinced of this, it is worth recalling here the story of the Evangelists about the crucifixion of the Saviour, about how the soldiers mocked Him more than others, beat Him on the head with a cane and beat Him on the cheeks with their hands.

Moreover, the arrangement of a pedestal on the cross is also inappropriate because standing does not give peace to the body and legs at all, especially when a person has felt tired even before standing; still less can standing on nailed feet bring peace: here the feet suffer a double suffering – one from the tension of the muscles of the outstretched legs, and the other from the burning, cruelest ulcers of the nails. In this case, the hanging position of the body is more gratifying – the position is not tense, we feel calm when lying down we bend our legs slightly or when we sit, also bending our legs lowered to the floor. It is remarkable in this respect that all animals, when going to sleep, bend their legs. This means that it is not entirely easy to be in a standing position, especially when the legs are nailed down. Therefore, it is easiest and most thorough to imagine a crucifix without a pedestal – with bent legs. The justice of our judgment follows from the following considerations: if there was a pedestal on the cross, it was undoubtedly either in the form of a wooden beam, or a plank, or some kind of supports—in short, it was built in such a way that both feet could fit and stand firmly on it. If the crucified could stand on the pedestal with his hands nailed to the cross, without his feet nailed with nails, if any almost impossible danger of escape in this case was prevented by the guards59 at the cross, then why, it may be asked, should the very feet be nailed to the footstool, if the pedestal is inspired by a feeling of some compassion? The feet of the Saviour, according to the testimony of the Gospel, were indeed nailed to the Cross by hard-hearted soldiers, and therefore it cannot be thought that the foot on the Cross was allowed by them out of a feeling of compassion for the Crucified One.