[Footnote 88: It would appear, that, before Costantine abolished the
punishment of malefactors on the cross, the Christians, who well knew
with S. Paul that Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block,
and to the gentiles foolishness', prudently abstained from
representing our Saviour nailed to the cross, and used rather to
depict a lamb with a cross near it, of which instances may he seen in
Rork's Hierurgia p. 520. The first mention of the _crucifix_ in the
church is believed to occur in the poem titled _De Passione Domini_
referred to the fourth century. That the use of the sign and the
image of the _cross_ was much more ancient and very prevalent among
Christians will appear from the following facts. "At every step and
movement" says Tertullian (in the early part of the third century)
"whenever we come in or go out, when we dress and wash ourselves, at
table, when lights are brought in, whether we are lying or sitting
down; whatever we are doing, we mark our foreheads with the sign of
the cross". Eusebius mentions that Constantine placed a magnificent
cross De Vit. Const. I. 3. In the fourth century in his palace S. John
Chrysostom in one of his eloquent homilies observes "Every where the
symbol of the cross is present to us. We inscribe it very diligently
on our houses, and walls, and doors, and brows, and thoughts". S.
Basil (De Spirit. S. ad Amphilochium c. 27.) derives the sign of the
cross from Apostolic tradition. That this custom universally prevailed
among Christians might be proved from S. Jerome, from the historian
Socrates and others, and from monuments of the early Christians still
preserved in Egypt: but why travel so far? we have only lo look around
us in the catacombs, or in the Vatican Museum and Library. The cross
is the chosen, the beloved sign of Christians; they repeated it a
thousand times on their lamps, on their rings, on their cups and
sacred vessels, that they might have the sign of their redemption ever