7,257
edits
Changes
m
→History: add link
The sign of the cross has been used since the days of the early Church both liturgically and at times as a marker of membership, a symbol of friendship of sorts, due to the persecution of early Christians. The first recorded reference to the Sign is found in the writings of [[Tertullian]] (c. 160-225 A.D.), who says that Christians "at every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table... in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign" (The Chaplet, 3). Other mentions of the sign of the cross and exhortations to perform it whenever possible abound in the [[Church Fathers]].
It does seem clear, though, that the most common way of making the Sign was simply to mark one's forehead, not the entire upper body. The first written record of this enlargement can be seen in [[Nino of Cappadocia|St Nino]], the Apostle of Georgia, from the fourth or fifth century: "St. Nino began to pray and entreat God for a long time. Then she took her (wooden) cross and with it touched the Queen's head, her feet and her shoulders, making the sign of the cross and straightway she was cured" (Studia Biblica, V, 32)."
One way of explaining the extension of the Sign is to point out that after the Emperor [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]]'s issuance of the [[Edict of Milan]] in 313, which made Christianity an officially legal religion, Christians were freer to cross themselves more emphatically and in a more open manner.
