The Cross of Jesus Christ, his Passion and death, is at the heart of the Christian faith. The significance of the Cross was made known by Jesus’s glorious Resurrection a mere three days later, and since that momentous day that significance has not been lost for a moment.
Generation after generation, century after century, millennium after millennium, Christians all over the world have lifted the holy wood of the Cross upon which hung our salvation. One way in which the Cross has been venerated has been in all forms of art, every medium, for nearly 2,000 years.
In her new book, Robin Jensen explores in great detail, with academic rigour and a believer’s vigour, the history of the Cross in Christian belief, worship, and art.
In the opening chapter, Jensen reflects on St Paul’s theology of the Cross, and the particular point of significance he sees in it: “What matters is not simply that Jesus died but how he died.” This is where the importance of the Cross came into Christian understanding. It was notable that the Saviour of the world died by way of a painful, humiliating, ignominious means of public execution – all of which was then overcome.
So how did Christians come to understand just what import the Cross carried? A diligent scholar, Jensen explores the Cross from numerous angles, including the scandal that the idea of a crucified Messiah would have caused, as well as the insights that came following the Resurrection. She also describes the Muslim approach to the Cross of Christ.
The fifth chapter, “Adoratio Crucis: Monumental Gemmed Crosses and Feasts of the Cross”, contains what is certainly one of the most engrossing portions of the book. Among her discussion of gemmed and bejewelled crosses, symbolically representing the majesty of the True Cross which served as the instrument of Christ’s execution, Jensen weaves a historical narrative of central importance to any exploration of Cross veneration.
“Shortly after its discovery in the 4th century,” Jensen writes, “the True Cross became an object of veneration for its own sake. Its role as the instrument of Christ’s Passion gave it a place in the salvation story, and it became the sign or symbol of the Lord’s triumphant return at the end of the age.”
This is where the crux of the matter – so to speak – is to be found: these bits of wood, seemingly innocuous and unremarkable, were the means by which the human race was saved from its sins, and the Lord conquered death. It is no surprise that these wood fragments have inspired such devotion and adoration, and have been recreated and depicted countless times over the centuries.
Jensen explores other modes of veneration beyond artistic depictions of Christ and the Cross. In chapter six, “Carmina Crucis”, she examines the Cross in poetry, legend and liturgical drama. Chapter seven, “Crux Patiens”, looks into the devotion to the dying Christ that developed in the medieval period, while chapter eight, “Crux Invicta”, assesses the way the Cross and crucifix were treated during the Reformation.
I write this review in the heart of the season of Lent, when the Cross is ever before us in a more conscious way. One example is in the practice of reciting the Stations of the Cross – a popular devotion during this liturgical season.
Jensen deftly traces the history of this practice back to early Christian devotion, with evidence of it already present in the diary of a 4th-century pilgrim named Egeria.
Initially a recreation of the Via Dolorosa in the actual footsteps of Jesus in Jerusalem, the practice began to spread beyond the Holy Land in the Middle Ages, so that pilgrims who could not make the journey to Jerusalem could recreate the experience of walking with the Lord on the way to Calvary. The tradition persisted through the ages, and gained in popularity, and is now practised by millions of faithful all over the world.
This book is a splendid work of scholarship. Jensen has synthesised centuries of theological insights, artistic endeavours and personal devotion into an eminently readable text.
Jensen is a professor at Notre Dame University, and the book is published by Harvard University Press. But this should not put off the general reader. The content is accessible and deserves to be engaged with.
It is indeed appropriate that Jensen works at Notre Dame, which was founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross. That religious order has a profound spirituality of and devotion to the Cross. The Congregation’s motto could serve as an alternative subtitle for this book: Ave crux, spes unica (“Hail to the Cross, our only hope”).
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