Jesse Tree Wood: Trunk, Vine, Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit-Part 4

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[Apology to the reader:  I wrote these last four parts in MSWord so I could include footnotes and other formatting that I have not figured out how to do just using the blog mode.  If I do not keep each segment relatively short, I find the text starts to move around and do odd things that I had not told it to do. The text and the accompanying pictures seemed unstable.  So I had to break up what was intended as two longish blogs into four parts and there is still more to come. Of course, if anyone wishes to tell me what to do, I will gladly listen.  Thank you. ]

Crucifixion of Jesus of left topologically linked to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar about the great tree and was to be cut down.  This woodcut from a Biblia Pauperum was a reflection of the understanding that the felling of the great tree was prefiguring the redemptive death of Jesus.

<http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/data/13030/w6/ft7v19p1w6/figures/ft7v19p1w6_00159.gif

Continued from previous blog:

      It is in this time period that one finds the first representation of the Crucifixion of Jesus.  Three images are presented below.  The earliest two depictions of the crucifixion were for private use.  The crucifixion scene on the door of Santa Sabrina in Rome is dated to the 6th century but not with as much certainty as the church itself.[17]

Carnelian engraved intaglio. 3-4th century, recovered in Constanta, Romania.  Inscription damaged, probably, ΙΧΘΥΣ or ICHTHYS.  The 12 figures probably represent the  apostles.  British Museum 1895,1113.1

http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00186/AN00186312_001_l.jpg?width=304

Panel from an ivory casket: the Crucifixion of Christ

Ivory panel made in Rome about 420-430 CE now in the British Museum. 1856,0623.5  It is one of four panels that covered the sides of a small box. (Maskell ivories) On the left Judas is hanging from a tree with the spilled bag of coins.  To his right are St. Mary and St. John.  On a tree branch bending toward the crucified but not suffering Jesus in a bird feeding his chicks, a symbol for Jesus as the Church feeding forgiveness to his followers.  On the far right is a figure traditionally identified as Longinus, the Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus.

<http://www.britishmuseum.org/images/ps297856_l.jpg>

Panel from wooden door of Santa Sabrina all'Aventino.  It represents Jesus crucified in the center and the two thieves on each side. The church was built about 425 CE in Rome during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I (422–433 CE.) and finished under the pontificate of Sixtus III (432–440 CE.) when the church was formally consecrated. 

<http://rometour.org/data/interior_on_the_wall_of_santa_sabina_allaventino-_image_2.jpg>

            According to all the ecclesiastical histories, it was Constantine and his mother Empress Helena who ordered and funded the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  The present Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the result of many reconstructions as the result of deliberate destruction, fire, earthquake, civil unrest, and neglect.  The current church bears little resemblance to the structure built by Constantine in the 4th century.  A plan of that church is useful in identifying the places in the church mentioned below, since the church covered the sites of the Crucifixion, removal of Jesus’ body from the cross, preparation for burial, burial site in the rock tomb, and the site of the Resurrection.  The church also covered the sites where the crosses were supposedly buried, subsequent destruction of the site with erection of pagan Roman temple under Emperor Hadrian, and the site where Empress Helena supposedly found three first century crosses.

1. Patriarchate

2. Rotunda-site of tomb and place of Resurrection

3. Edicule or room with the tomb

4. Garden courtyard

5. Calvary or Golgotha

6. Basilica or Martyrium

7. Atrium

<https://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/433/flashcards/1126433/jpg/reproduction_plans_of_church_of_holy_sepulchre_and_basilica_of_golgotha__jerusalem-144697C1A462A102A71.jpg>

            Depictions of the cross became more common as fragments of the cross became were dispersed around the known world.  Cyril of Jerusalem was the Bishop of Jerusalem from 350-386 with the exception of three periods of exile.  Cyril gave 23 lectures to those being prepared for baptism or shortly after baptism.  These were given in Jerusalem in the Martyrion, another early name for a place within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  The lectures as written give us a number of references to the cross.  In Lecture IV, On the ten points of doctrine, Sec. 10, Cyril mentioned that the catechumens were assembled at Golgotha as he spoke.  (See the plan for the Church above.)  He mentioned the Cross and then commented, “the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross.”[18]  In Lecture X On the Clause, and in One Lord Jesus Christ…, Sec 19. Cyril writes about testimonies bearing witness to Jesus Christ.  “The holy wood of the Cross bears witness, seen among us to this day, and from this place now almost filling the whole world, by means of those who in faith take portions from it.”[19]  Again in Lecture XIII, On the words Crucified and Buried, Sec. 4, Cyril wrote, "For though I should now deny it, here is Golgotha to confute me, near which we are now assembled; the wood of the Cross confutes me, which was afterwards distributed piecemeal from hence to all the world.  I confess the Cross, because I know of the Resurrection; for if, after being crucified, He had remained as He was, I had not perchance confessed it, for I might have concealed both it and my Master; but now that the Resurrection has followed the Cross, I am not ashamed to declare it.”[20]

            There is another 4th century reference to a presence of a wooden cross venerated by Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem.  It comes from the travelogue of a women, seemingly a well off and physically fit widow (though some have thought her a nun), who had the leisure and means to spend three years in the Holy Land.  Her name is not known but she is usually referred to as Egeria and her work as Peregrinatio Aetheriae or Itinerarium Egeriae.  She is thought to have come from southern France or Spain (Galacia). The date of the work is not certain but the early years of 380s are usually suggested.  Unfortunately her writings did not come to the present complete but missing beginning and ending.  Egeria describes in detail the services of the church in Jerusalem  In her description of the Veneration of the Cross during the Good Friday service, she wrote,

     Then a chair is placed for the bishop in Golgotha behind the Cross, which
     is now standing; the bishop duly takes his seat in the chair, and a table
    covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the deacons stand round
    the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the holy wood
    of the Cross. The casket is opened and (the wood) is taken out, and both
    the wood of the Cross and the title are placed upon the table. Now, when
    it has been put upon the table, the bishop, as he sits, holds the extremities
    of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the deacons who stand around
    guard it. It is guarded thus because the custom is that the people, both
    faithful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table,
    kiss the sacred wood and pass through. And because, I know not when,
    someone is said to have bitten off and stolen a portion of the sacred wood,
    it is thus guarded by the deacons who stand around, lest anyone approaching
    should venture to do so again. And as all the people pass by one by one,
    all bowing themselves, they touch the Cross and the title, first with their
    foreheads and then with their eyes; then they kiss the Cross and pass
    through, but none lays his hand upon it to touch it.[21]

It is interesting to compare the itinerary of the nameless Bordeaux pilgrim who traveled to Jerusalem 50 years earlier in 333 CE.  This itinerary makes no mention of any cross, though the pilgrim notes that a church of "wondrous beauty" has been built, though other information about the consecration of the church would suggest that it was still being built at the time the Bordeaux pilgrim saw the church.  The pilgrim comments on the large cisterns, from which water is raised, presumably for baptism, outside the church as well as "bath" for baptizing infants.(<http://orion.it.luc.edu/~avande1/jerusalem/sources/bordeauxJerus.htm>)

            Sometime between 451 and 458, the date of his death, while Juvenal was Bishop of Jerusalem, Pope Leo I the Great wrote to him.  In letter CXXXIX, the pope wrote to the bishop about using associations with the places where he lived to strengthen his faith and the faith of his flock.  Pope Leo urged Patriarch Juvenal to make use of the sites at hand as aids for teaching the faith to new converts before Baptism.  Leo speaks of the true cross as calling out to Juvenal the truth of the Incarnation.[22]
         
        The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis) tells about another fragment of the true cross recovered by Pope Sergius (reigned 687-701).  Sergius was from a Syrian family that had settled in Sicily.  He may have gone to Rome in response to Arab raids on Sicily though the island was not conquered by Muslims until about 900.  In a tarnished silver casket, Sergius found a gold and jeweled cross that contained a piece of wood.  In honor of this relic, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross was and is celebrated on September 14th.[23]  That is also one of two dates for the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335 CE.  So, the story about finding a fragment of the True Cross may in fact reflect the fact that Sergius brought the eastern church celebration of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Rome.  The spread of the celebration of Holy Cross Day in the western Catholic Church dates to the 7th century.

Helen finding the True Cross. British Library Egerton MS 1070. f.91v.

From the Book of Hours of René of Anjou, Paris use, 15th century France.

<http://molcat1.bl.uk/IllImages/Kslides/mid/K021/K021698.jpg>

            The fate of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was stormy.  The Byzantine Empire was not able to keep control of Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and any wood identified as the “True Cross.”  In the 614 war between the Byzantines and Persians, the victorious Persian general Shahrbaraz looted the city and killed thousands of the Christian inhabitants.  He took the relic as a war souvenir to Ctesiphon, now a part of Bagdad.  The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (d. 641) fought back and defeated the Persians in the Battle of Nineveh in 627.  He recovered the relic of the True Cross and returned it to Jerusalem in 630.  He carried the fragment of the "True Cross" dressed in humble clothes and walking in bare feet into Jerusalem.

Heraclius returned cross to Jerusalem in 630.  From Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, in French, with continuation to 1231 by William of Tyre.   Manuscript is in British Library Royal 15 E I f.16. Made in souther Netherlands, Bruge about 1479-80.  Text in French. <http://molcat1.bl.uk/IllImages/Ekta/mid/E115/E115495a.jpg>

       Sixteen or seventeen years later, Jerusalem was under siege by the army of Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah and the city led by Patriarch Sophronius capitulated in April 637 or 638.  Jerusalem remained under Muslin control until conquered by the Crusaders in 1099, during the First Crusade.  Less than 100 years later the Crusaders lost control after the disastrous Battle of Hattin in July 1187 against Saladin.  Within months of the battle of the horns of Hattin, Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin.  The wood of the True Cross was lost to the forces of Saladin and never recovered.

The loss of the Holy Cross.  British Library Royal 15 E I, f. f.433v.  William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, to 1231.Made in south Netherlands, Bruge, 1479-1480.

<http://molcat1.bl.uk/IllImages/Kslides/mid/K041/K041214.jpg>

Footnotes

[1] Nicholas Orme. Medieval Children.(2001) New Haven: Yale University Press.
[2] Dittmann K, Grupe G. (2000) Biochemical and palaeopathological investigations on weaning and infant mortality
in the early Middle Ages. Anthropol Anz.;58(4):345-55. (This article looked at a site in southern Germany dated to 500-700 CE.)
[3] Hühne-Osterloh G. (1989) Causes of pediatric mortality in a medieval skeletal series  Anthropol Anz. Mar;47(1):11-25. A study in Schleswig in northern Germany found another peak in mortality for children aged 8-10 years, most probably because of inadequate nutrition in the face of more work burdens as children passed the age of 7 years and could contribute to the work the family need to sustain itself.
[4] Lewis ME and Gowland R. (2007)Brief and precarious lives: infant mortality in contrasting sites from medieval and post-medieval England (AD 850-1859) Am J Phys Anthropol. 134(1):117-29.  Pearson JA, Hedges REM, Molleson TI, Özbek M (2010) Exploring the relationship between weaning and infant mortality: an isotope case study from AşikliHöyük and Çayönü Tepesi. Am J Phys Anthropol 143: 448–457.
[5] Orme, p. 117.
[6] Orme, p. 117.
[7] Maureen Barry McCann Boulton.  Sacred Fictions of Medieval France.(2015) Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 100.
[8] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.xviii.html>
[9] <http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/vita-constantine.asp>
[10] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.ii.iv.xvii.html>
[11] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.iii.vii.i.html>
[12] Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library MS 187 is an 11th century manuscript of Eusebius' Historia ecclesiastica, transl. by Rufinus.  There is a nearly identical text referred to as MS 184.  Both were from Christ Church Abbey, Canterbury. There is an online digital copy of the manuscript at: <https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/actions/manuscript_description_long_display.do?ms_no=187>.
[13] Gneuss and LaPidge Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (2014) p.544.
[14] For a detailed listed of places and dates see: Desiree Scholten, MA Thesis entitled The History of a Historia
Manuscript transmission of the Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita by Epiphanius-Cassiodorus. University of Utrecht  <http://cmrp.oeaw.ac.at/PDF/thesis_desiree_scholten.pdf>
[15] Desiree Scholten, “Cassidorius’ Historica Tripartita before the earliest extant manuscripts” in Clemens Gantner, Rosamond McKitterick, Sven Meeder, ed. The Resources of the Past in Early Medieval Europe. (2015) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., pp.34-50.
[16] Rosamond McKitterick. History and Memory in the Carolingian World. (2004) Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. p.235-244.
[17] Allyson Everingham Sheckler  and Mary Joan Winn Leith. The Crucifixion Conundrum and the Santa Sabina Doors. (2010)Harvard Theological Review. Vol 103 (1) 67-88.
[18] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.viii.html>
[19] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.xiv.html>
[20] <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.xvii.html>
[21] <http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm>
[22]< http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf212.ii.iv.cxxxiii.html>
[23] Raymond Davis, ed. The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715. (2000) Liverpool. Liverpool University Press, 87-88.

Still more to come!

Jesse Tree Wood: Trunk, Vine, Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit-Part 3

 Continued from previous blog.
    
       In the fifth century, most probably before 440 CE, Socrates Scholasticus wrote in Historia Ecclesiastica Book 1 Chapter XVII about how the Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena went to Jerusalem, searched for and found the Cross of Christ.  It was Constantine I and his mother, Helena, who had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built on the site. [10]  This is the first reference to finding the cross of Crucifixion.

      [She] found three crosses in the sepulchre: one of these was that blessed
     cross on which Christ had hung, the other two were those on which the

     two thieves that were crucified with him had died. With these was also
     found the tablet [alternatively, board] of Pilate, on which he had inscribed
     in various characters that the Christ who was crucified was king of the Jews.
     Since, however, it was doubtful which was the cross they were in search of,
     …bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius,…solved the doubt by faith, for he sought
     a sign from God and obtained it. The sign was this: a certain woman of the
     neighborhood, who had been long afflicted with disease, was now just at
     the point of death; the bishop therefore arranged it so that each of the crosses
     should be brought to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed
     on touching the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his expectation:
     for the two crosses having been applied which were not the Lord's,the
    woman still continued in a dying state; but when the third, which was the
     true cross, touched her, she was immediately healed, and recovered her
     former strength. In this manner then was the genuine cross discovered.
    The emperor's mother erected over the place of the sepulchre a magnificent
    church,[alternatively, house of prayer] and named it New Jerusalem,
    having built it facing that old and deserted city. There she left a portion
    of the cross, enclosed in a silver case, as a memorial to those who might
    wish to see it: the other part she sent to the emperor, who being persuaded
    that the city would be perfectly secure where that relic should be preserved,
    privately enclosed it in his own statue, which stands on a large column of
    porphyry in the forum called Constantine's at Constantinople...Moreover
    the nails with which Christ's hands were fastened to the cross (for his
    mother having found these also in the sepulchre had sent them) Constantine
    took and had made into bridle-bits and a helmet, which he used in his
    military expeditions.

            Writing a few years after Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomenus, began writing his Historia Ecclesiastica after 443 to bring the history of the church up to year 439, though the portion of his work that covers the years 425-439 has been lost.  In his Book II, he also wrote two chapters about Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine I, visiting Jerusalem.  The first chapter is about finding three crosses in Jerusalem.[11]  Sozomenus wrote “Helena repaired to the city for the purpose of offering up prayer, and of visiting the sacred places.  Her zeal for Christianity made her anxious to find the wood which had formed the adorable cross.  But it was no easy matter to discover either this relic or the Lord’s sepulchre.”

          In his version, Sozomenus offers an alternative explanation for finding the site, “some say that the facts were first disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance…”  Sozomenus went on to write, “When by command of the emperor the place was excavated deeply, the cave whence our Lord arose from the dead was discovered; and at no great distance, three crosses were found and another separate piece of wood, on which were inscribed in white letters in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin, the following words: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.’”  Sozomenus wrote that the soldiers had discarded the crossed after removing the bodies of Jesus and the thieves so it would require a sign to figure out which was the true cross.  As in Socrates’ version, the three crosses were brought to a lady sick to the point on death.  When the third cross was laid on her, she was immediately cured and rose from her sick bed.  Then,

          the venerated wood having been thus identified, the greater portion of it was
          deposited in a silver case, in which it is still preserved in Jerusalem: but the
          empress sent part of it to her son Constantine, together with the nails by
          which the body of Christ had been fastened. Of these, it is related, the emperor
          had a head-piece and bit made for his horse, according to the prophecy of
          Zechariah, who referred to this period when he said, ‘that which shall be upon
          the bit of the horse shall be holy to the Lord Almighty.’

            Theodoret , bishop of Cyrrhus from 423-457, was the third author of an Ecclesiastical History.  Theodoret wrote about 450 CE.  In his Book I, Ch. 17, he wrote a compact version of the finding of the true cross and its recovery and preservation.

   When the empress beheld the place where the Saviour suffered, she
    immediately ordered the idolatrous temple, which had been there erected,
    to be destroyed, and the very earth on which it stood to be removed. When
    the tomb, which had been so long concealed, was discovered, three crosses
    were seen buried near the Lord’s sepulchre. … [T]he wise and holy
    Macarius, the president of the city, resolved this question in the following
    manner. He caused a ladyof rank, who had been long suffering from disease,
    to be touched by each of the crosses... For the instant this cross was
    brought near the lady, it expelled the sore disease, and made her whole.

   The mother of the emperor… gave orders that a portion of the nails should be
   inserted in the royal helmet, in order that the head of her son might be
   preserved from the darts of his enemies. The other portion of the nails she
   ordered to be formed into the bridle of his horse…

  She had part of the cross of our Saviour conveyed to the palace. The rest was
  enclosed in a covering of silver, and committed to the care of the bishop of the
  city, whom she exhorted to preserve it carefully, in order that it might be
  transmitted uninjured to posterity …

       Apparently, none of the 5^th century texts of church history written in Greek were in England by 1100.  There were manuscripts of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica as translated by Rufinus available but the text by Eusebius did not relate any story about the finding of the Cross.[12]

       It was a fourth version of early Christian church history compiled by an Italian statesman and monk called Cassiodorus who was the author of the Historia Tripartita.   Cassiodorus was a Greek speaking Italian from the coastal Calabrian region who had retired to the monastic community, Vivarium, in the second half of the sixth century after being an administrator under the Ostrogoths in Italy and also in Byzantium.  He composed the history using the three fifth century texts mentioned above (Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomenus, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus).  One of Cassiodorus’ colleagues at Vivarium, Epiphanius, translated the text into Latin. 

       None of the Greek ecclesiastical histories were known in England.  The only English owned copy of Historia Tripartita is a fragment at the Winchester Cathedral Library with shelf-number 25.[13]  It was made in north-eastern France about 925-950.  Even though the evidence for the availability of the Latin Historia Tripartita is scant for England, ninth and tenth century and later copies including some early print editions of the Historia Tripartita texts were quite widely available on the continent in monasteries and later libraries now located in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.  One hundred thirty-seven manuscript copies of the text survived to the 20^th century, an indication of the text’s popularity and influence.  Some of the French abbeys having copies include Corbie Abbey and the Abbey St. Riquier, both in Sommes, Picardy; and Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in Seine-Maritime, Normandy, one copy was owned by Benedictine Abbey Saint-Père-en-Vallée in Chartres, Saint-Gatien at Tours, Saint-Auben at Angers, and others all had copies of Historia Trpartita.[14]  Several of these abbeys had ties to English houses.[15]  Rosamond McKitterick suggested in her book, History and Memory in the Carolingian World, that this pattern of distribution was not haphazard but rather a deliberate plan during the Carolingian Reformation to improve learning at the abbeys, correctio and emandatio[16].  So Cassiodorus’ Historia Tripartita was how the story of the finding of the True Cross reached from the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire to western Europe.

Two pages of Cassiodorus' Historia Tripartita that tell of Helen's finding of the Tree Cross from Book II. Manuscript now in the Vatican Library,Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 824.

Epiphanius Scholasticus & Flavius Magnus . Manuscript made in Germany about 1100.

Historia ecclesiastica tripartita —

<http://bibliotheca-laureshamensis-digital.de/bav/bav_pal_lat_824/0068>

Continued to the next blog. 

            

Jesse Tree Wood: Trunk, Vine, Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit-Part 2

I had hoped to have this prepared by Holy Cross Day, September 14^th, but that was not to be.  In medieval times, there were two celebrations of the Holy Cross in the Roman Catholic Church.  The Inventions of the Holy Cross was celebrated on May 3rd and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14th.  

Wood of the True Cross

            It might not be immediately obvious why a discussion of the wood of the instrument of brutal Roman punishment, crucifixion, should or even would be discussed when writing about the Jesse Tree.  The Jesse Tree celebrates the nativity of Jesus and his enthronement in glory where he “sitteth at the right hande of the father.”  The enthronement in glory is theologically tied to the coming again in judgment often called the Second Coming, at least since the Nicene Creed of 325 CE.  “[H]e shall come again with glory, to judge both the quicke and the dead.” (1549 Book of Common Prayer)  Or the Greek, “ἐρχόμενον κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς.” and Latin, “Et íterum venturus est cum gloria, Iudicare vivos et mórtuos…”

            As it says in the 1549 Book or Common Prayer and only minimally modernized (The Burial of the Dead):  “In the myddest of lyfe we be in death, of whom may we seke for succour but of thee, o Lorde, whiche for our synnes justly art moved? yet o Lord God moste holy, o Lord moste mighty, o holy and moste merciful saviour, delyver us not into the bitter paines of eternal death.” (Order for the Burial of the Dead, 1549 Book of Common Prayer).  The words in Latin are: Media vita in morte sumus ; quem quaerimus adjutorem, nisi te Domine, qui pro peccatis nostris juste irasceris? Sancte Deus, sancte fortis, sancte et misericors Salvator, amarae morti ne tradas nos.  The words are an antiphon written perhaps about 750 in France and familiar to many clergy, clerks, monks, nuns and laypeople. 

            At times in human history, it has seemed that the only purpose of life was death.  Until the 20^th century, mortality rates for infants, children, and adults were high, especially for children and women in childbearing years.  Death was an everyday fact of life.  A quarter of all newborns and infants died before their first birthday.[1]  Once children were fully weaned at age three, their diets were inadequate so death from malnutrition and infectious disease increased again at 4 years.[2]  About 36% of all children died before the age of 6 years.[3] Deaths continued in children older than 7 years because of malnutrition, infectious diseases, and increasing work load for children.[4]  Over 40% of children were dead by aged 10 years.[5]  Less than half of the children born reached their 21^st year.[6]  For a women who survived childhood and became pregnant, she could expect up to a 1-2% chance of dying with each pregnancy or about 10% during her lifetime or more during times of food shortages or epidemics..  Even as late as 1900, the average adult life expectancy was only 47 years.

            

       Though most Jesse Trees do not have depictions the Crucifixion, a few do such as the already stained glass windows at Wells Cathedral or the Crucifixion scene in the oculus above the Jesse Tree in Beauvais Cathedral.  And certainly a monk or nun contemplating the wood of the trunk of Jesse would have thought about Jesus and his death upon the Cross.  In the popular French retelling of the Bible called Le Roman de Dieu et de sa Mère, the author recommends that the reader contemplate the meaning of the Crucifixion even when making the sign of the cross.[7]

 Helen finding True Cross. British Library Royal 6 E VI  f. 447v.  "Crux (Cross)" in the encyclopaedia entitled Omne Bonum (Circumcisio-Dona Spiritui Sancti). Made in south-east England, London, during the years 1360-1375. Scribe is identified at James le Palmer.

<http://molcat1.bl.uk/IllImages/Ekta/thm/E123/E123997.jpg>

Legends of the True Cross

            The medieval mind was preoccupied with the interplay of words and images.  Examples shown in two biblical texts already discussed include: 1) Isaiah spoke of a stem from the tree stump of Jesse, and 2) Jeremiah prophesied a righteous Branch from David.  There is an additional tree or wood image that might not immediately come to mind.  When looking at sources such as the Bible picture books called Biblia Pauperum, one encounters pictures of the second dream of King Nebuchadnezzar.  In King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, a tree grew from the center of the earth to a great height so it was seen from everywhere.  The leaves were beautiful, and there was abundant fruit.  Animals found shade under its branches and birds built nests in its limbs.  But then a Holy Watcher came and ordered that the tree be cut down except for the stump in the ground bound with iron and brass. (Daniel 4.4-27)  Daniel interprets the dream as a prediction of the life that the King was to lead.  King Nebuchadnezzar was to become very powerful.  Then the king would be driven from society to dwell as a wild animal eating grass and bathing in dew until he learned the sovereignty of the Most High over everything.  Then, just as the stump was left in the ground, so King Nebuchadnezzar would reestablish his kingdom. 

Nebuchadnezzar and his dream of the magnificent and large tree.  British Libaray Royal 6 E VII   f. 489.  From the entry for Nebuchadnezzar in Omne Bonum (Jacob-Zacharias). Made in south-east England, London from about 1360-1375

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            To the medieval mind, the tree was hewed down so it could regrow as a Messianic kingdom.  The medieval mind saw these symbols of growth and destruction of trees as the destruction of Israel and subsequent redemption through Jesus Christ.  The reference is not just to the events of the gospels but also the hoped for second coming as expressed in Revelation 5.5:

            et unus de senioribus dicit mihi ne fleveris ecce vicit leo de tribu Iuda radix 
           David aperire librum et septem signacula eius.(Vulgate:Apocalypsis 5:5)

           Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe
           of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and
           its seven seals.” (Revelation 5.5, NRSV)

            To the early church, the crucifixion was still a source of pain and humiliation.  There are few references .to the cross or crucifixion in the writings of the early Christian church writers of antiquity.

Before Constantine

            Ignatius, was early church father who wrote in his “Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians” about the Glory of the Cross as a stumbling block.  He paraphrases Paul in I Corinthians 1.23, saying, “The cross of Christ is indeed a stumbling-block to those that do not believe, but to the believing it is salvation and life eternal.”[8]

            Another early reference to the cross is in the Epistle of Barnabas written at the end of the 1^st century or early 2^nd century by an unknown author, despite the letter’s title.  Written perhaps in Alexandria, the author sees frequent references to the Cross in the Old Testament as an extended foreshadowing of life and salvation given by the death of Jesus.  To the author, Moses is a type of Jesus, especially Moses’ sufferings at the hand of the Hebrews when they complain and rebel.  The author says that because Eve sinned because of the serpent, just as the Hebrews in the wilderness were bitten with venomous snakes and died until Moses raised the bronze serpent on a pole that they might look on it.  The raising of the pole and the cure by looking upon it was an indication of the glory of Jesus. 

     
       The veneration of relics was first mentioned in the Martyrdom of Polycarp written about 150-160 CE.  After his body was burned, his bones was collected and preserved as they “more valuable than precious stones.” (The letter of the Smyrnaeans or the Martyrdom of Polycarp, 18.2. Lightfoot translation. <http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/martyrdompolycarp-lightfoot.html>.)

            In early Christian art, there are no crosses.  In the catacombs of Rome, one finds chi and rho, alpha and omega, fish, anchors, but no crosses per se.  In an early Christian church dating to the 200s found at Megiddo, Israel, the elaborate mosaic floor has two fish and geometric designs.

The Centuries after Constantine

           The crossi is seen  with some regularity  with or soon after the death of the Emperor Constantine.  Eusebius of Caesarea writing after the death of Constantine about 337 CE or so mentions that Constantine had a dream of a new banner to be carried into battle of a cross with a banner and chi-rho for Christ called a labarum.  It appeared on the coins of Constantine and his sons.  An example of a bronze coin referred to as a follis from the end of the reign of Constantine I is shown below.

Constantine I AE follis. 335-337 AD bronze coin minted at Arles with Chi-Rho on banner or labarum.  RIC VII 394

<http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/constantine/_arles_RIC_vII_394.jpg>

            Eusebius continues in the Life of Constantine to write about how the site where Jesus had been buried was venerated among Christians in Jerusalem but it was covered with a mound of dirt and a temple to Venus built on top.[9]  (One assumes that this is a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem under Emperor Hadrian and his rebuilding of the city as Aelia Capitolina.)  Constantine ordered that the site be cleared of temple and dirt, and on the site the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was to be built.  Constantine gives orders to Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem and the governors about the building of the church.  There is no mention of finding any cross.  The narrative continues with Constantine’s mother, Helena, founding a church at the grotto where Jesus was born, and another on the Mount of Olives the site of the Ascension.

Continued to next part.