We will cite here the images of the four-pointed cross according to the indication of Sts. Fathers and teachers of the Church.

In the Book of Genesis, the image of the victorious cross of Sts. the fathers found, first of all, in the three hundred of Abraham's household (318), with whom he went out against the people who had captured Lot, and defeated them, since this number is written through the ancient Hebrew and Greek letter t, which resembles the shape of the four-pointed cross3. Clement of Alexandria says: "When Abraham heard that Lot had been taken into captivity, he gathered together three hundred and eighteen men of his household and went out against the enemy, and defeated them in a far superior number." Therefore we say that the image of the sign of the Lord (in this number), considered in relation to the form, is the letter signifying three hundred, and iota and ita signify the saving name (of Jesus).4

In the Book of Genesis, we also see the image of the cross in the blessing of Joseph's children, Ephraim and Manasseh, by Patriarch Jacob. St. St. John of Damascus says that James, having laid his hands one over the other and made of them as slingshots in the blessing of Joseph's children, very clearly described the image of the cross.5

In the Book of Exodus, he foreshadowed the four-pointed cross: a) the lamb, which, after expiration, had to be eaten by the command of God. St. Justin Martyr says: "When lambs are baked, then they are in the form of a cross" (speciem crucis praexerunt), since one – straight – the horn falls from below to the head, and the other passes across the spine, to which the feet of the lamb are tied."6

b) The cross-shaped crossing of the sea by Moses' rod also prefigured the four-pointed cross: "The rod of Moses," says St. John of Damascus, "crossed the sea in the likeness of the cross, and saved Israel, and immersed Pharaoh"7. "The cross was inscribed by Moses..." – is also sung in the church hymn.8

Further, c) the four-pointed cross was formed by the hands of Moses praying on Mount Moses, folded in the form of a cross. "Arms stretched out like a cross," says St. John of Damascus, "drove Amalek away."9

d) The arrangement of the Israelite regiments in the wilderness into four parts also served as a foreshadow of the four-pointed cross in the following way: in the middle of the militia stood the canopy of the witness with the nod of the Covenant, and there was also the tribe of Levi, serving the tabernacle. In front, on the east, there were three regiments: Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; behind, from the west, there were also three regiments: Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. On the right side, from the south, there are three regiments: Reuben, Simeon, and Gad. On the left side, from the north, there are three: Dan, Assur, and Naphtali. Thus the army of the Israelites in the wilderness was cruciform.1010 This foreshadowing is also mentioned in the canon of the Exaltation, in the fourth canto, the third sticheron: "People are sacredly encamped in the fourfold parts, preceding the testimony of the tabernacle, glorified by the cross-shaped rites."

In the Book of Numbers11, the four-pointed cross was prefigured by (a) Moses' striking with a rod on a stone, which consequently poured out water for the thirsty people of Israel in the wilderness. Bl. Augustine says: "Moses struck [the stone] twice, because there are two trees in the cross."12 Severian of Gabala, in his fourth homily on the cross, says: "Moses struck the stone twice. Why twice? If he obeys the power of God, then what is the need for a second blow? And if it strikes without the assistance of the power of God, then neither the second, nor the tenth, nor the hundredth blow will be able to make barren nature fruitful. Thus, truly, if this action was purely divine and not mysterious, one blow, one wave, one word was enough. But two blows were made in order to prescribe the image of the cross. It is said that Moses struck twice, not in the same way, but in the form of a cross, so that even inanimate nature might revere the sign of the cross."

b) The brazen serpent hung by Moses in the wilderness on a banner. The Saviour Himself speaks of this foreshadowing: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness..." (John 3:14). Severian of Gabala asks: "How did the image of the accursed animal bring health to a people who were in misfortune and struggling with disease? Would it not be more likely if he [Moses] had said thus: "If any of you be bitten, let him look to heaven or to the tabernacle of God, and receive salvation." But, considering this to be less, he placed only the image of the cross."13

In the Book of Judges, the four-pointed cross was foreshadowed by Samson, who clasped the pillars in the Philistine temple with both hands.14 "Note here too," says Blazh. Augustine, the image of the cross, since he stretched out both hands to the two columns, stretched them out as if to the two trees of the cross, but he killed the opponents by crushing them; likewise, His [the Lord's] sufferings became the cause of death for the persecutors."15 In the Book of Kings, the foreshadowing of the Life-Giving Cross was, as noted by Sts. the logs that the widow of Zarephath gathered to bake bread on them.16 Bl. Augustine says: "Here the sign of the cross is depicted not only by the tree, but even by the number of trees."17 In another place he says: "This widow had nothing left to her, and that was finished, and with her children she had to die. So she went out to gather two logs to bake bread for herself, and then Elijah saw her; then the man of God saw her, when she was looking for two logs. This woman foreshadowed the Church, and since the cross is made of two trees, she, threatened with death, sought that by which she could always exist."18

Thus, the prefigurations of the Holy Cross in the Old Testament had a likeness of a four-pointed cross, and by no means an eight-pointed one; therefore, the Life-Giving Tree itself must be four-pointed.

Turning from the images and the canopy to the thing itself, we really find that the Cross of our Saviour was in its form exactly the same as it was foretended, i.e. four-pointed. The crosses of the Romans, which alone were used during the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ for the execution of the cross, were predominantly four-pointed. Various material monuments and images of the Holy Cross, which have survived in one way or another from the first ten and subsequent centuries to the seventeenth century, when for the first time our so-called Old Believers made the titla and the pedestal essential accessories of the cross, irrefutably confirm that the appearance of the instrument of Christ's death was four-pointed. Thus, with God's help, let us begin to speak about the form of the holy cross and, first of all, about the material cross.

A. On the Material Cross