Thanks for the quick responses by many--Paul Karen, Charles, Dennis,
John--to my initial question. I'm always amazed and thankful for the
breadth and depth of knowledge on this list.
Clinton Atchley, Ph.D.
Department of English and Foreign Languages
Box 7652
Henderson State University
Arkadelphia, AR 71999
Phone: 870.230.5276
Email: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.hsu.edu/faculty/atchlec
>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Howe [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:40 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Sign of the Cross
>
>
>At 11:29 AM 2/13/01 -1000, you wrote:
>> the Anglo-Saxon evidence ...is
>>clear that church leaders strongly encouraged the laity to make use of
>>the sign on a regular basis (e.g. daily) and as a protection from evil
>>(AElfric's homilies, among others). It is
>>also a commonplace in hagiography, where saints use the gesture in
>>powerful ways.
>
> Some caution is required here. In early
>hagiographical and other
>sources that refer to the "signum crucis" it is not always
>certain that the
>phrase means the gesture rather the crucifix. Thus, for example, 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? 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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