46 pfant Tsore, Isege^/, oriE "bijric/*, 



sponge ; the reed by means of which the Jews gave our Lord 

 vinegar and gall ; and one of the nails wherewith He was fastened 

 to the Cross. All these relics Maundevile tells us he saw at Con- 

 stantinople. 



Of what particular plant was composed the crown of Thorns 

 which the Roman soldiers plaited and placed on the Saviour's 

 head, has long been a matter of dispute. Gerarde says it was the 

 Paliunis aculeatus, a sharp-spined shrub, which he calls Christ's 

 Thorn ; and the old herbalist quotes Bellonius, who had travelled 

 in the Holy Land, and who stated that this shrubby Thorn was 

 common in Judea, and that it was " The Thorne wherewith they 

 crowned our Saviour Christ." The melancholy distinction has, 

 however, been variously conferred on the Buckthorns, Rhamnus 

 Spina Chvisti and R. Paliurus ; the Boxthorn, the Barberry, the 

 Bramble, the Rose-briar, the Wild Hyssop, the Acanthus, or 

 Brank-ursine, the Spavtium villosnm, the Holly (called in Germany, 

 Christdorn), the Acacia, or Nahkha of the Arabians, a thorny plant, 

 very suitable for the purpose, since its flexible twigs could be 

 twisted into a chaplet, and its small but pointed thorns would 

 cause terrible wounds ; and, in France, the Hawthorn — the epine 

 nolle. The West Indian negroes state that Christ's crown was 

 composed of a branch of the Cashew-tree, and that in consequence 

 one of the golden petals of its blossom became black and blood- 

 stained. 



The Reed Mace [Typha latifolid) is generally represented as the 

 reed placed, in mockery, by the soldiers in the Saviour's right 

 hand. 



Ufte ©y/ooiL- of tRe (i)fo^ib. 



According to the legend connected with the Tree of Adam, the 

 wood of the Cross on which our Lord was crucified was Cedar — 

 a beam hewn from a tree which incorporated in itself the essence of 

 the Cedar, the Cypress, and the Olive (the vegetable emblems of 

 the Holy Trinity. Curzon, in his ' Monasteries of the Levant,' 

 gives a tradition that the Cedar was cut down by Solomon, and 

 buried on the spot afterwards called the Pool of Bethesda ; that 

 about the time of the Passion of our Blessed Lord the wood 

 floated, and was used by the Jews for the upright posts of the 

 Cross. Another legend makes the Cross of four kinds of wood 

 representing the four quarters of the globe, or all mankind : it is 

 not, however, agreed what those four kinds of wood were, or their 

 respective places in the Cross. Some say they were the Palm, the 

 Cedar, the Olive, and the Cypress ; hence the line — 



' ' Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrtis^ Cupressus, Oliva. " 



In place of the Palm or the Olive, some claim the mournful honour 

 for the Pine and the Box ; whilst there are others who aver it was 

 made entirely of Oak. Another account states the wood to have 



