_Crosses and Crucifixes_ (Vol. iv., pp. 422. 485.).--Your correspondent
SIR J. E. TENNENT, in extracting from his volume on _Modern Greece_
(vol. ii. p. 266.), has given fresh currency to a singular error. The
Council of Trullo was cited by him in 1830, and is again quoted as
ordering "that thenceforth fiction and allegory should cease, and _the
real figure of the Saviour be depicted on the tree_;" and we are
referred to _Can. 82. Act. Concil._ Paris, 1714, v. iii., col. 1691,
1692. But should your readers turn to the canons of that council they
would be disappointed at finding nothing about the cross, and one is
curious to know how an historian could have been led into so singular a
mistake. Johnson (see _Clergyman's Vade Mecum_, Part II., p. 283. third
edit.) thus gives the substance of the canon:--
"82. Whereas, among the venerable pictures, the Lamb is
represented as pointed at by the finger of his forerunner [John
the Baptist], which is only a symbol or shadow; we, having due
regard to the type, but preferring the anti-type, determine that
he be for the future described more perfectly, and that the
portraicture of a man be made instead of the old Lamb: that by
this we may be reminded of His incarnation, life, and death."
And though I have not the precise edition at hand to which SIR J. E.
TENNENT refers, yet on turning to Labbé, I find that Johnson has
correctly epitomized the canon in question.
"In nonnullis venerabilium imaginum picturis, agnus qui digito
præcursoris monstratur, depingitur, qui ad gratiæ figuram
assumptus est, verum nobis agnum per legem Christum Deum nostrum
præmonstrans. Antiquas ergo figuras et umbras, ut veritatis signa
et characteres ecclesiæ traditos, amplectentes, gratiam et
veritatem præponimus, eum ut legis implementum suscipientes. Ut
ergo quod perfectum est, vel colorum expressionibus omnium oculis
subjiciatur, ejus qui tollit peccata mundi, Christi Dei nostri
humana forma characterem etiam in imaginibus deinceps pro veteri
agno erigi ac depingi jubemus: ut per ipsum Dei verbi
humiliationis celsitudinem mente comprehendentes, ad memoriam
quoque ejus in carne conversationis, ejus passionis et salutaris
mortis deducamur, ejusque quæ ex eo facta est mundo
redemptionis."--_Labbé, Sacros. Concil._ t. vi., p. 1177. Paris,
1671.