>> Now my question is this: When did the sign of the cross become
>> commonplace among lay folks?
> Tertullian treats signing (making the sign of the cross) as an act
> characteristic not of clergy but of Christians generally...
The passage that I had in mind is in the _Ad uxorem_ (2.5), in which
Tertullian is discussing the impropiety of mixed (pagan-Christian)
marriage, pointing out that a Christian woman married to a non-Christian
husband will perforce expose to his uncomprehending eyes the privities
of the faithful:
"The more care you take to conceal them, the more liable
to suspicion you will make them, and the more exposed to the
grasp of gentile curiosity. Shall you escape notice when
you sign your bed (or) your body [cum lectulum, cum corpusculum
tuum signas]? when you blow away some impurity? when even by night
you rise to pray? Will you not be thought to be engaged in some
work of magic?
(text ed. Charles Munier, _Tertullien: a son e/pouse_ [Sources
Chre/tiennes 273], p. 138; tr. Thelwall, AnteNicene Fathers 4:46)
As for sufflation (ex- and in-), in both East and West it is
most commonly liturgical, associated primarily first with the
catechumenate and then with baptism. But there are hints, such
as in the passage above, that it also led an extraliturgical life
in folk practice, medicine, and the like. I summarized such
evidence as I could find a few years ago in an article that
also contains a fairly substantial bibliography on sufflation
generally: "The errant morsel in Solomon and Saturn II ...,"
Mediaeval Studies 57 (1995), 223-57.
pfs
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