In Repairing A Hermitage Which Here
Existed, In 1547, The Workmen Came Upon A Stone Slab With A Cross And
Inscription Carved Upon It.
The story speedily developed itself that this
was the cross which had been embraced by the dying Apostle, and its
miraculous virtues soon obtained great fame.
It was eventually set up over
an altar in the Church of the Madonna, which was afterwards erected on the
Great Mount, and there it still exists. A Brahman impostor professed to
give an interpretation of the inscription as relating to the death of St.
Thomas, etc., and this was long accepted. The cross seemed to have been
long forgotten, when lately Mr. Burnell turned his attention to these and
other like relics in Southern India. He has shown the inscription to be
Pehlvi, and probably of the 7th or 8th century. Mr. Fergusson considers
the architectural character to be of the 9th. The interpretations of the
Inscription as yet given are tentative and somewhat discrepant. Thus Mr.
Burnell reads: "In punishment (?) by the cross (was) the suffering to this
(one): (He) who is the true Christ and God above, and Guide for ever
pure." Professor Haug: "Whoever believes in the Messiah, and in God above,
and also in the Holy Ghost, is in the grace of Him who bore the pain of
the Cross." Mr. Thomas reads the central part, between two small crosses,
"+ In the Name of Messiah +." See Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 55
seqq.; De Couto, u.s. (both of these have inaccurate representations
of the cross); Academy, vol.
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