In addition to the coffinstones, on which the image of the Holy Cross is visible, it is also very often found on lamps74 used by Christians hiding from persecution in the dungeons. These crosses can be found here in two forms: either they have the usual shape of a four-pointed cross, or from their upper end there is an arc-shaped line to the cross across, ending at its longitudinal line, near the very cross.

Let us now speak of the cross in the vault of the church of St. Sylvester, built in the baths of Trajan.

These baths are nothing more than underground galleries that go into the interior of the earth side by side with each other. In one of these vaults of the galleries we have mentioned, in the former small church of St. Sylvester, a huge cross of mosaic work of different colors was visible. St. Sylvester settled in the baths of Trajan, or otherwise Domitian, at a time when the persecution against Christians was still going on – namely, under the tyrant Maxentius, who was still in power at that time, and under Constantine, still a pagan. Here, even before him, the priest Equitius, a famous man, a friend of Sylvester, who had an estate in this place, settled. St. Sylvester, having settled with him, built himself a small church and, conducting high priestly services in it, taught the visiting Christians the mysteries of the Holy Eucharist and consoled them in the misfortunes that then weighed upon them. In this church, until the XVIII century, a marble altar was visible, on which the Holy Pope offered the Bloodless Sacrifice, and several images of saints. After Constantine the Great was baptized by him, Christians breathed more freely and Christian churches quickly began to be erected. Then St. Sylvester built a larger church at the baths of Domitian.

C. On the Crosses That Were in the Fourth Century

The Cross of Christ, buried in the ground after the removal of the Life-Creating Body of the Lord from it, was found and shone like the sun three centuries later, during the reign of the pious Emperor Constantine. It was exhumed from the ground by the holy Empress Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, for the adornment and glory of the entire Church. At the same time, many crosses and their images were made by Constantine, who now placed all his glory in the cross and, together with the Apostle, boasted of nothing but the cross. In the fourth century, the glory of the Cross of Christ filled all Christian dwellings, various household and military garments, and even places outside the dwellings, so that St. Chrysostom already said: "The Cross is everywhere in glory: on houses, in the square, in solitude, on the roads, on the mountains, on the hills, on the plains, on the sea, on the masts of ships, on islands, on couches, on garments, on weapons, at feasts, on silver and gold vessels, on precious stones, on wall paintings... so everyone admires this amazing gift for a break." Without a doubt, St. Chrysostom speaks here of a four-pointed cross, for no other type of cross was known at that time.

Here we will speak only about the more remarkable crosses and their images, namely: 1) the appearance of the cross in heaven to Constantine, Equal-to-the-Apostles, 2) the finding of the Cross of Christ by St. Helena, and 3) the crosses made at the behest of Constantine and erected in various places and on different things: in addition, about the chased images of the cross on the coins of Constantine, his son Crispus and the emperors of the fourth century who followed him; about the conventional sign of the peaceful episcopal letters of the IV century and about the so-called historical Theodosius column with the image of a four-pointed cross on its base, which stood in Constantinople even after its capture by the Turks.

I. On the Sign of the Cross That Appeared in Heaven to Constantine, Equal-to-the-Apostles

This event is narrated by the biographer of St. Constantine, Eusebius, his contemporary and interlocutor.75 It happened before the discovery of the original Cross of Christ by Equal-to-the-Apostles Helena, the mother of Constantine, which is evident, among other things, from the fact that, upon the return of St. Helena from Jerusalem, her Equal-to-the-Apostles son had already erected three large crosses in memory of the three consecutive appearances of the cross in heaven. This is how Eusebius describes this miraculous appearance of the cross in heaven and the form of the military banner made in the image of this cross: "Earnestly lifting up his prayers and petitions (to God that He would enlighten him about Himself and turn him from error to the light of truth), the emperor received a most amazing sign sent from God, so that it would not have been easy to believe, if someone else had spoken. One afternoon. when the sun began to incline to the west, said the king, I saw with my own eyes the sign of the cross, composed of light and playing in the sun, with the inscription: "In this conquer." This sight seized him with horror, as well as the whole army, which, not knowing where, followed him and continued to contemplate the miracle that had appeared." Thus, from the Eusebian description of the military banner, arranged in the image of the cross seen by Constantine in heaven, it is clear that the sign of the four-pointed cross appeared in the sky, and that at that time Christians called the cross of Christ precisely the figure composed of only two trees or lines, longitudinal and transverse. This is a military banner, originally known as a labarum. later became the property of the Church as the banner of her victory over the devil, her fierce enemy, and death. At the present time, as in all times after Constantine, church banners with a four-pointed cross served and continue to serve as a silent visual monument to the appearance of the sign of the cross to St. Constantine in heaven and the construction of a military banner with a cross, or labarum. The real banners differ only from the labarum of Constantine, that on them, at the very top, there is no crown, and in it there is no name of Christ the Saviour, and that above the transverse yard, to which the sacred cloth was hung and which, with a longitudinal shaft, formed the figure of a cross, we make from the top of the longitudinal shaft and a small cross across. But in any case, the arrangement of the four-pointed cross on church banners in accordance with the cross proper, which St. Constantine wanted to see in them, should be preferred to the arrangement of the eight-pointed one: the first type was clearly depicted in the sky. The eight-pointed cross, sometimes visible on banners, is already a Russian invention: in Greece it did not exist and does not exist now

II. On the Finding of the Precious Cross by St. Helena