St. Rights. John of Kronstadt

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.

Let us now decide the last question: was it not necessary for our Saviour to have a footstool on the Cross proper, i.e., did He not need it because of the extreme exhaustion that preceded the Crucifixion, and the complete exhaustion of His strength?

This, too, cannot be answered in any other way than in such a way that for the Saviour, in spite of the exhaustion of His powers. The foot was not necessary. According to the testimony of surgeons, the weakening of bodily strength does not make the sinewy fabric of the hands weaker – it becomes even stronger as the soul leaves the body, and the veins of the dead body are the strongest. This explains the circumstance why Christians were so often flogged with animal sinews during persecutions. In their wiry, muscular and bony being, the arms are at any rate strong and sturdy enough to hold a hanging body. In conclusion, if human hands were so weak in general, if the pedestal were really necessary, then wouldn't anatomists and surgeons have noticed such an incongruity in the depiction of the Crucifixes with reality during the eighteenth century, and would not have advised the painters, carpenters, statue painters, and the priests themselves, who are in charge of it, to eliminate this incongruity – to make a pedestal, precisely for the very reason that that the body cannot hang on one hand? However, most of the oldest and most modern Crucifixes on crosses do not have pedestals, and no one noticed to anyone that this was wrong or ridiculous.

Having determined, as far as possible, on the basis of reliable testimony, the appearance of the original Cross on which our Lord was crucified, and having said what seemed necessary about the title and pedestal on the cross, let us now say a few words about the wood of which this first Precious Cross was made and what happened to it after the removal of the Most-Pure Body from it.

According to the reliable reports of ancient Roman writers, the cross, which for the most part bore the contemptuous name of the "unfortunate tree" (arbor infelix), was always made of the trees of the so-called unfortunate and damned (arbores infelices damnataeque religione), but never of the best trees, which were for the most part dedicated to the gods by the Romans (for example, the oak to Jupiter, the laurel to Apollo, the olive to Minerva, the myrtle to Venus, the poplar to Hercules) or used to make idols (for example, wood: cedar, grape, etc.). To make a cross from wood brought as gifts to the gods – a shameful instrument of death – meant, in the opinion of the pagan, to offend the gods. Among these unfortunate trees were some trees that were barren, wild, and thorny. In all likelihood, on one of these trees, cursed in popular opinion, our Saviour also suffered. From the history of the Gospel we know that the soldiers, at whose disposal Pilate gave Jesus Christ in order to dishonor the Lord more and mock Him, to the satisfaction of the people, wove Him and put them on His head, perhaps according to the custom of the Roman kings, who, as can be seen on the coins, wore laurel wreaths on their heads, not laurel or oak or any other used wreath, but thorns, like a wreath of such a tree, which, because of its thorns and barrenness, was considered contemptible. If they did so in this case, why should they have done otherwise in choosing the tree for the Cross itself? Both here and there the Roman soldiers and the Jews had, of course, the same goal, to the exclusion of all others: the disgrace and suffering of the condemned to the crucifixion; therefore, if the wreath on the head of the Saviour was made of thorns, instead of oak or laurel, as was customary, then why should they have made the Cross itself of good wood, and not of bad and contemptible wood? Moreover, if an unusual tree had been used for the Cross of the Lord, if something special had happened during the selection of it, then Sts. the Evangelists would not have left this without remarking, since, for example, they noticed that the body of Christ the Savior was laid in a new tomb. Not to mention the fact that the Roman soldiers had no motives on their part to use a special, better wood for the Cross of the Lord. For some incomprehensible reason, they were too bitter against the Saviour: they spoke mocking greetings to Him, struck Him on the head with a cane, spat in His face, and, kneeling before Him, bowed to Him. What good could be expected from them? When the Saviour was condemned to the cross as a criminal, the majority of the people who were present at the crucifixion also looked at Him unfavorably: there were not many chosen ones who either believed from the bottom of their hearts, or only guessed that this was not an ordinary person, but the Son of God; but the majority saw in Him an ordinary man, and precisely a criminal worthy of shameful execution. From the circumstances following the crucifixion, it is evident that even those who passed by on the path of Golgotha boldly mocked the Savior, nodding their heads. The robbers hanging with Christ seem to have been almost ignored by the frenzied people; perhaps he even expressed a feeling of pity for them. The main attention of all was directed to Him Who hung on the middle cross, so that even "one of the evildoers" together with the people blasphemed the Saviour. Is it possible, therefore, even to think that a special tree, better than the others, was used for the cross of such a contemptible man, in the opinion of the soldiers and the people? Judging by the excessive malice and bitterness of the Jews, who, of course, set fire to the soldiers with fresh slander, one can ask more quickly and with greater reason, whether they did not use the most accursed, so to speak, tree, on the Cross of the Lord, if there was one, the worst and most contemptible. Indeed, it was made of contemptible wood, of the same kind as the crosses of the evildoers crucified with Christ were made. This is confirmed by the story of the discovery of the Cross of the Lord and the testimony of St. Gregory of Nyssa, who, in turn, bases it on the general opinion of the people.

After the discovery of the Cross of the Lord together with the two crosses of the evildoers crucified with Christ, the former, without the miraculous instruction of God, could not be distinguished from the latter.66 This circumstance makes us think that either the Cross of the Savior was made of the same wood from which the crosses of evildoers were usually made, or the crosses of the evildoers crucified with Christ were made of the same best kinds of wood that our so-called Old Believers wish to see in the composition of the Cross of the Lord (which will be discussed at the end). But the latter is impossible according to the customs of the Romans, and the former, for this very reason, remaining true, is confirmed by it. that the found Cross of Christ in the eyes of eyewitnesses did not have the physical qualities that people of later times see in it. Christians of the fourth century saw for themselves and proclaimed to all that the tree that is part of the Cross of the Lord belongs precisely to such kinds of trees that in the opinion of people are considered worthy of contempt. True, few of the fathers of the fourth century convey to us such an opinion of their contemporaries about the wood of the Cross of the Lord, but nevertheless it is reliable. St. Gregory of Nyssa, on the basis of a universal rumor that reached him, does not hesitate to attribute the Life-Giving Wood of the Cross of the Lord to the despised trees. "Paying attention," he says. – on many of the things of the Church, although you see them as contemptible. what is subject to the eye, but at the same time great is what they produce... And the wood of the Cross of the Lord is salvific to all men, despite the fact that it is a part, as I hear, of the despised and most dishonorable tree."67 This testimony of the famous theologian and Church Father of the fourth century, in all fairness, deserves complete trust.

As for the fate of the Cross of Christ itself, after Joseph of Arimathea removed the Most-Pure Body of Christ the Savior from it, it is known from Jewish tradition that all the instruments with which the death of the guilty was inflicted were usually buried in the ground at the place of execution. Such a tradition was preserved by Moses of Corduba, the most famous rabbi among the Jews, in his extensive work – "Manus fortis" (The Hand of the Brave), in the treatise Sanhedrin (Chapter 15, Article IX) and in his commentary on the "Miznayot" – the most ancient book of the Jews, which serves as the basis of all their law and tradition. What was usual with the instruments of execution for criminals, the same followed with the Cross of the Lord. Relying on the tradition now indicated, the Christians then, at the behest of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Empress Helena (as will be said below), dug up from the place of the Lord's execution on Golgotha a large thickness of earth (which had been poured here with intention) and found here what they were looking for. We now proceed to describe, as briefly as possible, but in the order of time, the most ancient monuments of the cross, made in any way whatsoever, and preserved to our time in their original form, or only in photographs, or, finally, described in books, from the first century of Christendom to the seventeenth century. The so-called Old Believers will see in the very faces, so to speak, in the very things the cross which all Christians from the very beginning to later times depicted and venerated under the name of the Cross of Christ. Whether or not they believe what we wish to present to their eyes here is their business; but we will do our work conscientiously, in the eyes of the All-Seeing God, from Whom no deception or falsehood will be hidden.

For the most convenient survey of the monuments of the holy cross and its images over the course of seventeen centuries, we can, not without reason, divide this vast space of time into four periods, and in each period we consider these monuments separately. It is the first part, or the first period of time, in the fate of the Cross of Christ that we will limit to the first three centuries, when the Cross was originally hidden from human eyes in the earth, and all crosses made in imitation of this Cross, because of persecutions, were rare in the Christian world of that time.