nigh, this wood rose to the surface, and was brought out of the water. The executioners, when seeking a suitable beam to serve for the cross, found it, and of it made the instrument of the death of the Saviour. After the Crucifixion it was buried on Calvary, but it was found by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, deep in the ground with two others, May 3, 328; Christ's was distinguished from those of the thieves by a sick woman being cured by touching it. This same event is, however, ascribed by a Syriac MS. in the British Museum, unquestionably of the 5th century, to Protonice, wife of the Emperor Claudius. It was carried away by Chosroes, king of Persia, on the plundering of Jerusalem; but was recovered by Heraclius, who defeated him in battle, Sept. 14, 615; a day that has ever since been commemorated as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Such is the Legend of the Cross, one of the wildest of mediæval fancies. It is founded, though unconsciously, on this truth, that the Cross was a sacred sign long before Christ died upon it.

And how account for this?

For my own part, I see no difficulty in believing that it formed a portion of the primæval religion, traces of which exist over the whole world, among

every people; that trust in the Cross was a part of the ancient faith which taught men to believe in a Trinity, in a War in Heaven, a Paradise from which man fell, a Flood, and a Babel; a faith which was deeply impressed with a conviction that a Virgin should conceive and bear a son, that the Dragon's head should be bruised, and that through Shedding of blood should come Remission. The use of the cross, as a symbol of life and regeneration through water, is as widely spread over the world as the belief in the ark of Noah. May be, the shadow of the Cross was cast further back into the night of ages, and fell on a wider range of country, than we are aware of.

It is more than a coincidence that Osiris by the cross should give life eternal to the Spirits of the Just; that with the cross Thorr should smite the head of the Great Serpent, and bring to life those who were slain; that beneath the cross the Muysca mothers should lay their babes, trusting by that sign to secure them from the power of evil spirits; that with that symbol to protect them, the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay them down in the dust 2.

2 Appendix C.

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Schamir

T will be remembered that, on the giving of the

IT

law from Sinai, Moses was bidden erect to God an altar: "Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Exod. xx. 25). And later: "There shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them" (Deut. xxvii. 6). Such an altar was raised by Joshua after the passage of Jordan: "An altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron" (Joshua viii. 31).

When King Solomon erected his glorious temple, "the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building" (1 Kings vi. 7). And the reason of the prohibition

of iron in the construction of the altar is given in the Mischna-iron is used to shorten life, the altar to prolong it (Middoth 3, 4). Iron is the metal used in war; with it, says Pliny, we do the best and worst acts: we plough fields, we build houses, we cleave rocks; but with it, also, come strife, and bloodshed, and rapine. The altar was the symbol of peace made between God and man, and therefore the metal employed in war was forbidden to be used in its erection. The idea was extended by Solomon to the whole temple. It is not said that iron was not used in the preparation of the building stones, but that no tool was heard in the fitting together of the parts.

That temple symbolized the Church triumphant in heaven when the stones, hewn afar off in the quarries of this world, are laid noiselessly in their proper place, so that the whole, "fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord;" an idea well expressed in the ancient hymn "Angulare fundamentum :"

"Many a blow and biting sculpture
Polish'd well those stones elect,
In their places well compacted
By the heavenly Architect."

Nothing in the sacred narrative implies any

miraculous act having been accomplished in this erecting a temple of stones hewn at a distance; and in the account of the building of the temple in the Book of Chronicles no reference is made to the circumstance, which would have been the case had any marvel attended it.

The Septuagint renders the passage, ὁ οἶκος λίθοις ἀκροτόμοις ἀργοῖς ᾠκοδομήθη. The word ἀκρότομος is used by the LXX in three places, for which is rough, hard, unhewn stone. Where it says in Deuteronomy (viii. 15), "Who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint," the LXX use ȧκρóтоμоs. Where the Psalmist says, "Who turned the flint-stone into a springing well" (Ps. cxiv. 8), and Job, "He putteth His hand upon the rock" (xxviii. 9), they employ акρóтоμos. So, too, in the Book of Wisdom (xi. 4), "Water was given them out of the flinty rock,” ἐκ πέτρας ἀκροτόμου, which is paralleled by "the hard stone," λídos σκλnpós. And in Ecclesiasticus, Ezekias is said to have digged the hard rock with iron,” ὤρυξε σιδήρῳ ἀκρότομον (xlviii. 17).

Ailos ȧxpóтоμos is, therefore, not a hewn stone, but one with natural angles, unhewn. Thus Suidas uses the expression, σκληρὰ καὶ ἄτμητος, and Theodotion calls the sharp stone used by Zipporah in