I. On the Cross Attributed to St. Nicodemus

The famous chronicler Baronius tells us about the cross attributed to St. Nicodemus under the year 1099, and a photograph of this cross is presented in the Latin work of Cornelius Curtius, called "De Clavis Dominicis". Let us write down Baronius' account here in the form in which it is found in the book of his Chronicles (vol. XI, p. 757): "Let us turn our discourse again to the East," he says, "in order to tell of what happened after the conquest of Jerusalem, and among other things, of how the venerable depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, became known, Who was represented by the ancient painter in royal form (schemate regio) in His likeness. It was made (as the ancient tradition testifies, firmly preserved to posterity) by the efforts of Nicodemus, the nocturnal disciple of Christ; from Jerusalem he was brought by a very pious man, named Stephen, a Lucanian by birth, who, by pious motive, together with others in the year 1098, undertook a journey to the Holy Land; he received this image from a certain Gregory the Syrian and brought it to Lucca (in Turkey), where it is reverently preserved to this day; There is also a history of everything that happened to this image, written in antiquity. Why is the Saviour depicted on the cross in royal attire, and not naked?.. To abolish the temptation of the cross and to show the glory of Christ in a greater light." In conclusion, Baronius says of him: "Let the venerable sacred image of Christ the King, hanging on the cross, stand for the denunciation of the most unfortunate iconoclasts, as a permanent monument to the newly nascent Church, handed down to posterity." We can add: and to denounce our unfortunate brethren, the so-called Old Believers, who blaspheme the four-pointed cross because it is four-pointed and not eight-pointed.

Here is the very image of this cross:68

On this cross, the Savior is represented in a royal headdress, in a crown, purple and shoes; the porphyry is made of anthrax, the crown is made of pure gold, the shoes are silver, tied with gold bands. He Himself is represented as completely alive, as if He had just been nailed. In the upper part of the cross are inscribed the Greek letters a and so, showing Who is the One Who was crucified on the Cross, like the evildoers. This last circumstance alone speaks very much in favor of the deepest antiquity of this cross. In the Roman catacombs, on the graves of martyrs, the name of Christ the Savior is very often found, which is written together with two Greek letters X and P s ? and? on both sides in the following form:

For example, in the cemetery of St. Clement, on one tombstone, under the inscription, there is the following image of the name of Christ the Savior: