answer there is none; but there is Tradition that authorises it, custom that confirms it, submission that observes it.” De Corona mil. c. iii. iv. P. 289.
CENT. IV.
LACTANTIUS, L. C.-"As Christ whilst He lived amongst men, put the devils to flight by his word, and restored those to their senses whom these evil spirits had possessed; so now his followers, in the name of their Master, and by the sign of his passion, exercise the same dominion over them. The proof is easy. When the idolaters sacrifice to their Gods, they cannot proceed, if, a Christian being present, he sign his forehead with the Cross; nor can the diviner give his responses. This has often been the cause of the persecutions we have undergone. And, in like manner, when some masters were on the point of sacrificing in the presence of their Christian servants, the latter, by making the sign of the Cross on the forehead, so frightened away the Gods, that nothing could be collected from the bowels of the victims." Divin. Institut. L. 4. c. xxvii. p. 345.
EUSEBIUS OF CÆSAREA, G. C.—He relates, speaking of the first Christian Emperor Constantine, that he placed, in the most conspicuous parts of the city, images, representing our Saviour; and in his palace a magnificent Cross, “ the sign of our Lord's passion.” “And to me it seems,” adds the historian,“ that the religious Prince viewed that sign as the defence and bulwark of his empire.” De Vita Constant. L. iii. c. xlix. p. 605.
ST. ATHANASIUS, G.C.-" In the midst of the incanta-
