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.

We can show that there was no need for a pedestal on the Cross as a means of not tearing the hands from the wounds made by the nails, and so that the Crucified One, having fallen from the Cross, would not leave. According to surgeons, the palms of the hands are so strong that, even when nailed down, they are able to restrain any body while it is alive, or, having died, has not yet begun to rot, and the closer the nail passes to the hand, the more securely the hanging on them. This is evident, among other things, from the fact that some of the apostles and martyrs were nailed to the cross upside down – and yet they hung without the danger of tearing themselves away from the cross. If in such cases the legs could support the whole body, why could not the arms, when, according to the same surgeons, they were not at all weaker than the legs? Moreover, it is known that the martyrs sometimes hung on hair alone; the same is known about Absalom. The Roman soldiers, who had previously practiced crucifying others, of course, knew from experience that a body hanging on a cross could not tear apart hands pierced by nails, and therefore for this purpose the pedestal was undoubtedly considered an unnecessary thing; their only concern here was to carry out the order of the commander as soon as possible and hang some slave, villain or disturber of public peace. To take care of the footstool, a thing completely useless, what kind of need?

Now let us decide the question of whether there was a footstool on the Cross of Our Lord. We answer in the same way as before – there was none. Christ the Saviour was crucified by Roman soldiers, of course, in compliance with the customs used by the Romans, as we have seen above. This means that His Cross was also Roman, and since the Roman crosses had no pedestals, so the Cross of Christ was also without a pedestal. And Sts. the Evangelists, speaking of the Lord's crucifixion on the cross, do not mention the footstool at all, although they speak of the title in very clear words. Further, none of the Sts. The Fathers of the first centuries (up to the seventh century), who spoke of the shape of the Cross and enumerated its parts, do not say a word about the footstool. In the writings of a writer of the seventh century, Gregory, Bishop of Tours (in Gaul), there is evidence of the footstool of the Saviour on the Cross; but Gregory himself, in addition to the fact that he cites the testimony about the pedestal according to his own consideration, betrays himself, saying that in the ancient images of the Cross the feet of Jesus Christ are represented as hanging, and not standing. But what kind of testimony is this, which, speaking of the footstool, refutes itself? Meanwhile, if the pedestal had really been on the Cross, then it would certainly have been mentioned by the Evangelists, the Fathers and writers of the Church, who described the appearance of the Cross: the pedestal, as the place of the Most Pure Feet of the Lord, pierced with nails together with them, sprinkled with the Blood of the Lord, would have been known as well as the Cross itself, since it together with the Cross would have constituted a precious treasure for Christians. Meanwhile, Sts. the Evangelists and the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, not to mention it, speak of the unimportant belonging of the Cross – the title. Moreover, if there had been a pedestal on the Cross, it would have remained with it forever, since, in all likelihood, it was nailed to the Cross as firmly as the cross to which the hands were nailed: it was supposed to support the weight of the body, and as that cross was preserved, so it would have been preserved; however, when the Cross was found, there was no footstool, while the titla, which was probably nailed to the Cross slightly (laid, as the Holy Evangelists say), was found in a special place.

In all likelihood, the footstool began to be depicted on crosses from the time of the Gallican bishop who, as we have seen, gives an alleged testimony to the foot, that is, from the seventh century, although, of course, this custom did not spread everywhere after that. And from that time until the very later centuries, crosses were made and depicted for the most part without pedestals; such were all the crosses on the churches of God, on sacred and secular persons (pectoral crosses (????????? crosses and crosses), vestments and vessels, on royal crowns, as we shall see below; and on those crosses on which the pedestal was made, the Crucifixion of the Lord was always depicted together with it (from the VII century), and without the Crucifixion this pedestal was never made or depicted anywhere until very late. This is proved by the crosses we have just mentioned. Moreover, when the foot was painted on the cross, it was never made oblique, as our so-called Old Believers wanted, but in the form of a beam or a platform, several steep ones, so that the feet stood freely, evenly, and firmly on it.61 The probability of the opinion that the foot began to be depicted from the time of Gregory of Tours, not earlier, is confirmed by the following circumstance. In the Western Church there are two material monuments of the Holy Cross, belonging to the eighth century and being the property of Charlemagne, one of which already has a pedestal, and the other does not, although both are with the Crucifixion of Christ. The oldest cross attributed to St. Nicodemus is without a pedestal. This cross, of which we will speak later, obviously belongs to remote antiquity and serves as a silent witness to the fact that in the first centuries of our era there was no tradition about the existence of a footstool on the Cross of Christ.

When did they begin to depict oblique pedestals on crosses? The most ancient monuments of the cross – Greek, Roman, etc. – do not represent anything of this kind, which means that the oblique foot is a work of the latest time, moreover, our Russian one. Determining the approximate time of its appearance, we can probably assume that this time was the fifteenth or sixteenth century,62 a time of extreme ignorance in our homeland and the appearance of many, sometimes the most absurd and absurd legends and stories concerning matters of faith and the Church. In fact, when one reads the wisdom of our so-called Old Believers about the meaning of this position on the Cross with the oblique footstool of our Lord, Who "lighten one right foot for this reason, that the sins of those who believe in Him may be lightened, and at the Second Coming they may be lifted up to meet Him, and for this reason they may be burdened, the footstool of the valley may be lowered, so that those who do not believe in Him may be weighed down and descend into hell".63 – then I involuntarily recalled this multitude of fictitious tales and stories, for which the dark imagination of our ancestors was so prolific.64 Of course, such wisdom did not contain anything contrary to the true faith, but nothing can vouch for its truth, and it is harmful in that it strongly resonates with novelty and presumptuous and shameless daring to explain in one's own way what none of the Fathers and teachers of the Church explained. And who needed to make an oblique pedestal on the Cross of the Savior, when it is so inconvenient, ridiculous and does not achieve its goal? Soldiers? But they did only what was usual in this case at any other time, and if, suppose, a foot was necessarily required, they would put under their feet something more suitable to the purpose, and not our oblique. Or did the Saviour Himself express His will that His feet be nailed to an oblique footstool? But apart from the fact that this is absurd (the Lord did not dispute anything: He gave full scope to the violent will of His enemies), who among the soldiers would have listened to Him and dared to do what had never happened on other crosses? And could this be expected from such soldiers as, for example, the one who, as if in revenge for not having the Lord's legs broken, like robbers, was so cruel and insensible that without the slightest thought he raised a spear and pierced His side? What good could be expected from such people?65

In addition to all this, it is necessary to put in the sight of the imaginary Old Believers, as we have almost already proved, that on the Cross of Christ there was no footstool, not only oblique, but also straight. The last proof in favor of this is based on the following consideration. In the description of the subsequent circumstances of the Lord's crucifixion, the Evangelist Luke says, among other things: "And he alone blasphemed Him from the wicked man," i.e., he speaks of the thief hanging on the cross, blaspheming the Lord, and it is known that both the Lord and the other thief, the wise one, were crucified in the same way as the evil thief, consequently the Lord was also hanged, i.e., He was in a hanging position on the Cross. and not at all in a standing one. But how can we say that He hung on the Cross, if it is said in the Scriptures: "Let us make a footstool under His feet"? Everyone will agree that the pedestal exists for this very reason, and that is why it is so called that the feet stand or are fixed on it, and he who stands on the pedestal does not hang.

What do the words "hanging, hanging on the cross" mean? Of course, the fact that a person nailed to the cross with the palms of his hands and the feet of his feet hangs with all the other parts of his body, i.e. in a vertical position he gravitates towards the ground. We say: in a vertical position, because when the feet are nailed to the cross with the feet, then a bend is made at the knees of necessity, and thus the body appears to hang in the proper sense. From all this we must conclude that on the Cross of the Lord there was not only no pedestal, but also no seat, which is mentioned by Seneca and even by some of the Fathers of the first centuries. Standing on the pedestal is so incompatible with hanging that if the legs are placed on the pedestal, then at the same time a third of the body rests on the pedestal, and in this case the body does not hang, but stands on the pedestal.

In addition to the Evangelists, many church songs and canons also say that Christ the Savior hung on the cross, for example, in services on Great Friday.