Early

believers shrank from representing the dead Christ as from an impiety: “To them he was the living not the dead Christ.” The crucifix is only found in the 6th century. The St Andrew’s cro is the Greek letter Khi (X), and was an early symbol. It occurs on coins of Alexander Bala in Syria (146 8.c.), and on those of Baktrian kings about 140 to 120 B.c. (see Smith's Dicty. of Christian Antiq., under “ Money”). The supposed finding of the true cro by Helena, mother of Const an tine, is celebrated on 3rd May at the “ Feast of the Invention of the Cro ,” which was supposed to have occurred in 326 A.c., when Helena—aided by the Patriarch of Jerusalem—discovered three cro es, the true one being known by healing a sick woman who touched it. They were under the ruins of a temple of Venus; and, if really found, might have been (according to Tertullian’s view) pagan emblems. {The earlier accounts of Helena’s visit mention only her pilgrimage to Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives. The story of finding the cro first appears in Rufinus, in 440 a.c. The first pilgrim to Jerusalem, from Gaul about 333 a.c., says nothing of the cro . It@ is noticed, as distributed over the world, in the lectures of Cyril about 350 a.c, and by Jerome rather later.