A term applied to various
manual acts, liturgical or devotional in character, which have this at
least in common: that by the gesture of tracing two lines intersecting
at right angles they indicate symbolically the figure of Christ's cross.
Most commonly and properly
the words "sign of the cross" are used of the large cross traced from
forehead to breast and from shoulder to shoulder, such as Catholics are
taught to make upon themselves when they begin their prayers, and such
also as the priest makes at the foot of the altar when he commences
Mass with the words: "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti".
(At the beginning of Mass the celebrant makes the sign of the cross by
placing his left hand extended under his breast; then raising his right
to his forehead, which he touches with the extremities of his fingers,
he says: In nomine Patris; then, touching his breast with the same
hand, he says: et Filii; touching his left and right shoulders, he
says; et Spiritus Sancti; and as he joins his hands again adds: Amen.)
The same sign recurs frequently during Mass, e.g. at the words
"Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini", at the "Indulgentiam" after the
Confiteor, etc., as also in the Divine Office, for example at the
invocation "Deus in adjutorium nostrum intende", at the beginning of
the "Magnificat", the "Benedictus", the "Nunc Dimittis", and on many
other occasions.
Another kind of sign of the
cross is that made in the air by bishops, priests, and others in
blessing persons or material objects. This cross recurs also many times
in the liturgy of the Mass and in nearly all the ritual offices
connected with the sacraments and sacramentals.
A third variety is
represented by the little cross, generally made with the thumb, which
the priest or deacon traces for example upon the book of the Gospels
and then upon his own forehead, lips, and breast at Mass, as also that
made upon the lips in the "Domine labia mea aperies" of the Office, or
again upon the forehead of the infant in Baptism, and upon the various
organs of sense in Extreme Unction, etc.
Still another variant of
the same holy sign may be recognized in the direction of the "Lay Folks
Mass Book" (thirteenth century) that the people at the end of the
Gospel should trace a cross upon the bench or wall or a book and then
kiss it. It was prescribed in some early uses that the priest ascending
to the altar before the Introit should first mark a cross upon the
altar-cloth and then should kiss the cross so traced. Moreover it would
seem that the custom, prevalent in Spain and some other countries,
according to which a man, after making the sign of the cross in the
ordinary way, apparently kisses his thumb, has a similar origin. The
thumb laid across the forefinger forms an image of the cross to which
the lips are devoutly pressed.
Of all the above methods of
venerating this life-giving symbol and adopting it as an emblem, the
marking of a little cross seems to be the most ancient. We have
positive evidence in the early Fathers that such a practice 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 of our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in
lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever
employment occupieth us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the
cross". On the other hand this must soon have passed into a gesture of
benediction, as many quotations from the Fathers in the fourth century
would show. Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his "Catecheses" (xiii, 36)
remarks: "let us then not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the
cross our seal, made with boldness by our fingers on our brow and in
every thing; over the bread we eat and the cups we drink, in our
comings and in goings; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we
awake; when we are travelling, and when we are at rest".
The course of development
seems to have been the following. The cross 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 associated 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; xiv, 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. Paulæ") 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. ThusEpiphanius tells
us (Adv. Hær., xxx, 12) of a certain holy man Josephus, who imparted to
a vessel of water the power of overthrowing magical incantations by
"making over the vessel with his finger the seal of the cross"
pronouncing the while a form of prayer. Again half a century later
Sozomen, the church historian (VII, xxvi), describes how Bishop Donatus
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 suggestion of a larger cross made over the whole body, and perhaps
the earliest example which can be quoted comes to us from aGeorgian
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 Biblica, 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
symbolic reasons to the use of two fingers (the forefinger 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, throughout
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 the same time these fingers were so
held as to indicate the common abbreviation I X C (Iesous Christos
Soter), the forefinger representing the I, the middle finger crossed
with the thumb standing for the X and the bent middle finger serving to
suggest the C. In Armenia, however, 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
instruction of Leo IV in the middle of the ninth century. "Sign the
chalice 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 theTrinity is
symbolized. Take heed to make this sign rightly, for otherwise you can
bless nothing" (see Georgi, "Liturg. Rom. Pont.", III, 37). Although
this, of course, primarily applies to the position of the hand in
blessing with the sign of the cross; it seems to have been adapted
popularly to the making of the sign of the cross upon oneself. Aelfric
(about 1000) probably had it in mind when he tells his hearers in one
of his sermons: "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 Anglo-Saxon 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" (Blicking 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 of King Henry" (eleventh
century) a direction in the morning prayers to mark with the holy Cross
"the four sides of the body", there is a 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 traveled 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),
Sicardus (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 objects, in which the hand moves naturally from right to left,
and not the big cross made from shoulder to shoulder. Still, a rubric
in a manuscript copy of the York Missal clearly requires the priest
when signing himself with the paten to touch the left shoulder after
the right. Moreover it is at least clear from many pictures 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) directs
his nuns at "Deus in adjutorium" to make a little cross from above the
forehead down to the breast 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
"Myroure of our Ladye" (p. 80) the Bridgettine Nuns of 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 Chrysostome sayth, wherever the fiends see the signe
of the crosse, they flye away, dreading it as a staffe that they are
beaten withall. And in thys blessinge ye beginne with youre hande at
the hedde downwarde, and then to the lefte side and byleve that our
Lord Jesu Christe came down from the head, that is from the Father into
erthe by his holy Incarnation, and from the erthe into the left syde,
that is hell, by his bitter Passion, and from thence into his Father's
righte syde by his glorious Ascension".
The manual act of tracing
the cross with the hand or the thumb has at all periods been quite
commonly, though not indispensably, accompanied by a form of words. The
formula, however, has varied greatly. In the earlier ages we have
evidence for such invocation as "The sign of Christ", "The seal of the
living God", "In the name of Jesus"; etc. Later we meet "In the name of
Jesus of Nazareth", "In the name of the Holy Trinity", "In the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost", "Our help is in the
name of the Lord", "O God come to my assistance". Members of the
Orthodox Greek Church when blessing themselves with three fingers, as
above explained, commonly use the invocation: "Holy God, Holy strong
One, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy on us", which words, as is well
known, have been retained in their Greek form by the Western Church in
the Office for Good Friday.
It is unnecessary to insist
upon the effects of grace and power attributed by the Church at all
times to the use of the holy sign of the cross. From the earliest
period it has been employed in all exorcisms and conjurations as a
weapon against the spirits of darkness, and it takes its place not less
consistently in the ritual of the sacraments and in every form of
blessing and consecration. A famous difficulty is that suggested by the
making of the sign of the cross repeatedly over the Host and Chalice
after the words of institution have been spoken in the Mass. The true
explanation is probably to be found in the fact that at the time these
crosses were introduced (they vary too much in the early copies of the
Canon to be of primitive institution), the clergy and faithful did not
clearly ask themselves at what precise moment the transubstantiation of
the elements was effected. They were satisfied to believe that it was
the result of the whole of the consecratory prayer which we call the
Canon, without determining the exact words which were operative; just
as we are now content to know that the Precious Blood is consecrated by
the whole word spoken over the chalice, without pausing to reflect
whether all the words are necessary. Hence the signs of the cross
continue till the end of the Canon and they may be regarded as mentally
referred back to a consecration which is still conceived of as
incomplete. The process is the reverse of that by which in the Greek
Church at the "Great Entrance" the highest marks of honour are paid to
the simple elements of bread and wine in anticipation of the
consecration which they are to receive shortly afterwards.
Written by Herbert Thurston. Transcribed by John M. Pretz.
The Catholic Encyclopedia,
Volume XIII. Published 1912. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil
Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John
Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Bibliography
Thalhofer, Liturgik, I
(Freiburg, 1883), 629-43; Warren in Dict. Christ. Antiq. s.v.; Church
Quart. Rev., XXXV (1893), 315-41; Beresford-Cooke, The Sign of the
Cross in the Western Liturgies (London, 1907); Gretser, De Cruce
Christi (Ingolstadt, 1598); Stevens, The Cross in the Life and
Literature of the Anglo-Saxons (New York, 1904).
