SIGN
786
SIGN
tice was familiar to Christians in the second century.
"In all our travels and movements", says Tertullian
(De cor. mil., iii), "in all our coming; in and going out,
in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in
hghting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down,
whatever employment occupieth us, we mark our fore-
heads with the sign of the cro.ss". On the other hand
this must soon have passed into a gesture of benedic-
tion, as many quotations from the Fathers in the
fourth century would show. Tims St. Cyril of Jeru-
salem in his "Catecheses" (xiii, 36) remarks: "Let us
then not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be
the cross our seal, made with boldness bj'^ our fingers
on our brow and in everything; over the bread we eat
and the cups we drink, in our comings and in goings
out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we
awake; when we arc travelling, and when we are at
rest". The course of development seems to have
been the following. The cro.ss was originally traced
by Christians with the thumb or finger on their own
foreheads. This practice is attested by numberless
allusions in Patristic literature, and it was clearly as-
sociated in idea with certain references in Scripture,
notably Ezech., ix, 4 (of the mark of the letter Tau);
Ex., xvii, 9-14; and especially Apoc, vii, 3; ix, 4; .\iv,
1. Hardly less early in date is the custom of marking
a cross on objects — already Tertullian speaks of the
Christian woman "signing" her bed (cum lectulum
tuum signas, "Ad uxor.", ii, 5) before retiring to rest
— and we soon hear also of the sign of the cross being
traced on the lips (Jerome, "Epitaph. Paulaj") and on
the heart (Prudentius, "Cathem.", vi, 129). Not
unnaturally if the object were more remote, the cross
which was directed towards it had to be made in the
air. Thus Epiphanius tells us (Adv. haer., xxx, 12) of
a certain holy man Josephus, who imparted to a ves-
sel of water the power of overthrowing magical incan-
tations by "making over the vessel with his finger the
seal of the cross" pronouncing the wliile a form of
prayer. Again half a century later Sozomen, the
church historian (VII, xxvi), describes how Bishop Do-
natus when attacked by a dragon "made the sign of
the cross with his finger in the air and spat upon the
monster". All this obviously leads up to the sugges-
tion of a larger cross made over the whole body, and
perhaps the earUest example which can be quoted
comes to us from a Georgian source, possibly of the
fourth or fifth century. In the life of St. Nino, a
woman saint, honoured as the Apostle of Georgia, we
are told in these terms of a miracle worked by her:
"St. Nino began to pray and entreat God for a long
time. Then she took her (wooden) cross and with it
touched the Queen's head, her feet and her shoulders,
making the sign of the cross and straightway she was
cured" (Studia Bibhca, V, 32).
It appears on the whole probable that the general introduction of our present larger cross (from brow to breast and from shoulder to shoulder) was an indirect result of the Monophysite controversy. The use of the thumb alone or the single forefinger, which so long as only a small cross was traced upon the forehead was almost inevitable, seems to have given way for symboUc reasons to the use of two fingers (the fore- finger and middle finger, or thumb and forefinger) as typifying the two natures and two wills in Jesus Christ. But if two fingers were to be employed, the large cross, in which forehead, breast, etc. were merely touched, suggested itself as the only natural gesture. Indeed some large movement of the sort was required to make it perceptible that a man was using two fingers rather than one. At a somewhat later date, through- out the greater part of the East, three fingers, or rather the thumb and two fingers were displayed, while the ring and little finger were folded back upon the palm. These two were held to symbolize the two natures or wills in Christ, while the extended three denoted the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. At tbee&me
time these fingers were so held as to indicate the com-
mon abbreviation IXC ('l77<roi/s Xpiarbi SwttJp), the
forefinger representing the I, tlie middle finger crossed
with the thumb standing for the X and the bent mid-
dle finger serving to suggest the C. In Armenia, how-
ever, the sign of the cross made with two fingers is still
retained to the present day. Much of this symbolism
passed to the West, though at a later date.
On the whole it seems probable that the ultimate prevalence of the larger cross is due to an instruc- tion of Leo IV in the middle of the ninth century. "Sign the chahce and the host", he wrote, "with a right cross and not with circles or with a varying of the fingers, but with two fingers stretched out and the thumb hidden within them, by which the Trinity is symbolized. Take heed to make this sign rightly, for otherwise you can bless nothing" (see Georgi,"Liturg. rom. pont.". Ill, 37). Although this, of course, primarily applies to the position of the hand in bless- ing with the sign of the cross; it seems to have been adapted pojiularly to the making of the sign of the cross upon oneself. Aelf ric (about 1 000) probably had it in mind when he tells his hearers in one of his ser- mons: "A man may wave about wonderfully with his hands without creating any blessing unless he make the sign of the cross. But if he do the fiend will soon be frightened on account of the victorious token. With three fingers one must bless himself for the Holy Trinity" (Thorpe, "The Homilies of the AnglorSaxon Church", I, 462). Fifty years earlier than this Anglo- Saxon Christians were exhorted to "bless all their bodies seven times with Christ's rood token" (Blick- ling Hom., 47), which seems to assume this large cross. Bede in his letter to Bishop Egbert advises him to remind his flock "with what frequent diligence to employ upon themselves the sign of our Lord's cross", though here we can draw no inferences as to the kind of cross made. On the other hand when we meet in the so-called "Prayer Book ot King Henry" (eleventh century) a direction in the morning prayers to mark with the holy Cross "the four sides of the body", there is good reason to suppose that the large sign with which we are now familiar is meant.
At this period the manner of making it in the West seems to have been identical with that followed at present in the East, i. e. only three fingers were used, and the hand travelled from the right shoulder to the left. The point, it must be confessed, is not entirely clear and Thalhofer (Liturgik, I, 633) inclines to the opinion that in the passages of Belethus (xxxix), Si- cardus (III, iv). Innocent III (De myst. alt., II, xlvi), and Durandus (V, ii, 13), which are usually appealed to in proof of this, these authors have in mind the small cross made upon the forehead or external ob- jects, in which the hand moves naturally from right to left, and not the big cross made from shoulder to shoul- der. Still a rubric in a manuscript copy of the York Missal clearly requires tlie priest when signing him- self with the paten to touch the left shoulder after the right. Moreover it is at least clear from many i)ic- tures and sculptures that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Greek practice of extending only three fingers was adhered to by many Latin Christians. Thus the compiler of the Ancren Riwle (about 1200) di- rects his nuns at "Deus in adjutorium" to make a little cross first with the thumb and then "a large cross from above the fon^head down to the brea.st with three fingers". However there can be little doubt that long before the close of the Middle Ages the large sign of the cross was more commonly made in the West with the open hand and that the bar of the cross was traced from left to right. In the " Myr- oure of our Ladye" (p. 80) the Bridgettine Nuns (if Sion have a mystical reason given to them for the practice: "And then ye bless you with the sygne of the holy crosse, to chase away the fiend with all his deceytes. For, as Cbrysostome saytb, wherever the
