Excerpt from The Cross of Christ: Studies in the History of Religion and the Inner Life of the Church

A delineation, briefly presenting in its leading features the historic course of development which gave rise successively to these main forms and phases of the religion of the Cross, may, on account of the beauty and grandeur of its object, be regarded as secured against the suspicion of micrologic dul ness. The history of the Cross necessarily presents a reflected image of the history of Christianity itself, and indeed a more instructive and important one than any other similar contem plation, under the veil of an emblem, of the rise and growth of our religion hitherto, which might in any way be attempted. Specially upon a closer examination of its preparatory history - in the remarkable and partly enigmatical airy reflections which, in the form of so many a cruciform symbol upon the art monuments of the pre-christian as of modern Heathen dom, serve as heralds and precursors of the cultus of the Cross in the Christian Church - does our subject awaken interest in every one at all endowed with historic culture, and a sense for the appreciation of higher ethical endeavours and problems. The title Contribution to the Philosophy of History, pertains with unquestionable right to a treatment of the subject designed and executed from such standpoint; even though from time to time an indispensable entering into the details of the controversies with regard to the archeology of worship or of art, as also an examination of the more important phenomena of the dogmatic or mystic-ascetic literature bearing upon our subject, should occasion many deviations from the mode of treatment ordinarily prevailing in works on the philosophy of history.

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