True charity desires the salvation
of all but she warns others of their danger; and does not cruelly
conceal it from them till it is too late.]
[Footnote 87: After these prayers the faithful used anciently to leave
the church, and the Priests to go to their own churches, to perform
the ceremonies till the evening-service: so that what follows was then
a totally distinct service. See Sacram S. Gregorii, ant. Ord. Roman,
etc. ap. Martene lib. IV, c. 23.]
[Footnote 88: It would appear, that, before Costantine abolished the
punishment of malefactors on the cross, the Christians, who well knew
with S. Paul that Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block,
and to the gentiles foolishness', prudently abstained from
representing our Saviour nailed to the cross, and used rather to
depict a lamb with a cross near it, of which instances may he seen in
Rork's Hierurgia p. 520. The first mention of the _crucifix_ in the
church is believed to occur in the poem titled _De Passione Domini_
referred to the fourth century. That the use of the sign and the
image of the _cross_ was much more ancient and very prevalent among
Christians will appear from the following facts. "At every step and
movement" says Tertullian (in the early part of the third century)
"whenever we come in or go out, when we dress and wash ourselves, at
table, when lights are brought in, whether we are lying or sitting
down; whatever we are doing, we mark our foreheads with the sign of
the cross".
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