On a marble stone dug out of the cemetery of Priscilla, at the top, in front of the inscription, in a triangle, the name of the Savior is also depicted with the letters a and so on the sides of the name.

After the caption there was an image of the palm of martyrdom. The Christians of the early Church loved to designate the Divine dignity of their Lord with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, remembering His words:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." This circumstance, as well as the fact that the Saviour is represented on the cross in a royal attire, which was never done afterwards, make us believe that this cross, if it does not belong to Nicodemus himself, then at least is a cross, the oldest of all.

II. Of the Crosses Found in the Roman Catacombs

The crosses found in the Roman dungeons, which constituted the secret refuges and eternal resting places of the Christians of the first three centuries at a time of great persecution against them, are found on various things unearthed in these catacombs: on the stone tombstones, on the candlesticks with which these dark and deep caves were illuminated, as well as on the underground winding passages in the church of St. Sylvester, Pope of Rome, built in the underground baths of Domitian, and finally, on sarcophagi or marble arches, the outer sides of which are decorated with sculptural images from the history of the Old and New Testaments.

Let us speak in order about all these things, having in mind mainly the very form of the Holy Cross.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when they were eagerly engaged in the search for and study of various monuments of antiquity hidden in the Roman dungeons (coemeterium), among other rarities, a number of tombstones with inscriptions were dug up, some of which indicated the time in which the famous martyr suffered; For example, together with the image of the cross, palm tree, brazier, etc., symbols of martyrdom, the name of the emperor or the Roman consuls under whom the martyr suffered was also indicated.

Let's imagine three such stones, the first two of which are in the picture. The so-called Old Believers must believe at least the ancient Orthodox underground Rome, if they do not believe the later Rome out of contempt and prejudice. Although the work entitled "Underground Rome" was written in modern times in the Roman language by a Roman writer, this should not embarrass our brothers in the faith: Aringus wrote his huge work and embellished it with many photographs from the ancient monuments of Christianity, in order to show to the whole world the most precious treasures of the first centuries of Christendom, which for more than a thousand years69 had been hidden unknown in the dungeons of Rome. And, of course, not so that, for example, in a photograph from the famous stone that was on the grave of a martyr, it is possible to imagine a four-pointed cross and thereby convince the Russian imaginary Old Believers of the truth of the form of the four-pointed cross: such work is not undertaken for the sake of falsehood, but only in the name of truth and for the sake of truth.