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CANOX J. A. MAcCrLl.OCH, D.D._, OX 



to the abvsSj full of light and in the form of a ladder. On this 

 liuninous Cross the multitude ascend from the abyss.* 



Another reduphcation is found in the Acts of Mattheic. When 

 his coffin was cast into the sea by the pagan kinn. the Bishop 

 Plato saw Matthew standing on the waters,, with two men in 

 shining garments, and in front of them a beautiful boy (viz., 

 Christ in that form). Out of the sea rose a Cross, at the end of 

 which was the coffin with the body of Matthew, which the boy 

 carried to the palace. t 



The oneness of Christ and the Cross is still more evident in 

 the account of the translation of the body of S. Philip, in which 

 a shining Cross is seen beside his glorified form. Some Athenian 

 philosophers carried it to Hierapolis, guided by Jesus in the form 

 of Philip. They found the city gate closed, but one of them 

 appealed to the Cross to open it. This was done, and at the 

 same time the city was lit with hght from the Cross. The people 

 rushed out, and heard a voice bidding them look to the right, 

 where they see a Cross reaching to heaven, and bidding them 

 come to it and be enlightened. A shining form, that of PhiHp, 

 was seen beside the Cross, which was now taken upwards. As 

 it went, it cried to Phihp, Behold the place of thy rest, until I 

 come in the glory of My Father and awake thee.'*! Again, in 

 the Acts of Xantippe she sees on the wall a Cross of Hght through 

 which appears a beautiful youth, and under Him a path of Hght 

 on which He walks. Then he takes the form of S. Paul and raises 

 her up.§ This change of form (and aLso of stature) on the part of 

 Christ, or sometimes of His Apostles, is one of the most curious 

 episodes of Christian apocryphal Hterature. It originated in 

 the Docetic views of the Gnostics : For since He was an in- 

 corporeal form, He transformed Himself just as He pleased,'" 

 according to the BasiHdeans.,, As the heavenly ^on Christ 

 assumed a different form in each of the heavens through which 

 He descended to earth, it is not surprising that on earth similar 

 transformations take place. This also throws Hght upon this 

 conception which we are now studying, that the Cross is a double 



* Acta AposL Apoc., ed. Lipeios and Bonnet, ii, 2, 64. 

 t The Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Apocalypses, Edinbniglu 1870, 

 p. 3So. 



i Texts and Studies, Cambridge, ii, 3, 158 f. 

 § Ibid,, ii, 3, 68, 



ii Irenaeus, i, 19, 2. 



