when
> Sulpicius's Martin of Tours, facing impending doom
> as gleeful pagans
> attempt to fell a tree on him, responds with the
> sign of the cross (which
> causes the tree to spin around and nearly crush
> them), does this mean that
> Martin crossed himself?
I thought it meant Martin made the blessing gesture to
the tree, thus exorcising the demon that controlled
it. Today the blessing of medals and other religious
objects involves the use of the word "exorcise." If
you're interested in the exact wording, I can get it.
MG
Or that he whipped out a
> crucifix like a Hollywood
> vampire slayer?
> You may have this problem in Saxon England.
> An abundance of
> wayside crosses witnesses the devotion to the
> crucifix. These signa were a
> major of part of lay piety. For example, in
> Huneberc's late eighth-century
> Vita Willibaldi, we read how the future saint--then
> a three year old near
> death--was offered up by his parents '"before the
> holy cross of our Lord
> and Savior. And this they did, not in a church but
> at the foot of a cross,
> such as is the custom for nobles and wealthier men
> of the Saxon people to
> have erected on some prominent spot in their
> estates, dedicated to our Lord
> and held in great reverence for the convenience of
> those who wish to pray
> before it." In such a world, injunctions to resort
> to the sign of the
> cross cannot automatically be assumed to refer to
> the gesture.
>
>
> --John Howe, Texas Tech
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