sordid, are restored again to their pristine integrity and brightness through diligent care, to the exhilaration of the minds of those who seek the pleasure of the intellect. Let us therefore dispose ourselves, as we are commanded, and putting off the distaste which we have contracted from long negligence, let us celebrate this bright and most venerable day, instituted in memory of the life-giving Cross, with works of mercy and with faith: and thus our sins shall be taken away, and we shall cry out to God with fear together with joy: "Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us; holy and consubstantial Trinity of the same majesty, have mercy on us; to whom is due honor, power, majesty and magnificence for the infinite ages of ages. Amen." A B C D
HISTORICAL ENCOMIUM OF ALEXANDER THE MONK CONCERNING THE INVENTION OF THE PRECIOUS AND LIFE-GIVING CROSS
The Encomium of the holy Cross which we now publish is an epitome of the former one. Who may have redacted this compendium is not clear to me. The abbreviator omits everything up to the reign of Constantine the Great, when, the tyrants having been removed, he alone possessed the empire, while Macarius held the see of the Jerusalemite Church. Thereafter, having set forth the invention of the Cross, he again cuts away much, right up to the Encomia of the holy Cross which are more numerous and copious in this transcript than in the two exemplars which we used in the edition of Alexander. You will also find variant readings in some places, as a collation with the edition will teach.
Who this Alexander may truly have been is not sufficiently certain. It is credible that he is the one whose Encomium on the holy apostle Barnabas exists in Surius, volume XXXI, under this inscription: "The laudation of Alexander the monk on the apostle Barnabas, which he delivered at the request of the high priest, the prefect of the venerable temple which had been consecrated to the blessed Barnabas," because the style agrees, and the concern of excusing his own infirmity, as if unequal to undertaking such a task. Yet from the aforesaid inscription nothing certain is gathered concerning the condition and age of Alexander, nor from the course of the rest of the oration, except that it is deservedly believed that Alexander delivered the Encomium of Saint Barnabas in Cyprus itself, in the place where the relics of Saint Barnabas had been found: for there Anthemius, Bishop of Salamis, had erected a magnificent temple in honor of Saint Barnabas, very noble on account of various miracles, whose prefect it seems that man acted who had requested this Encomium from Alexander.
Furthermore, together with the relics of the blessed Barnabas was found the Hebrew Gospel of Saint Matthew, written by the hand of Saint Barnabas, concerning which Alexander says: "At the request of the Emperor (he was Zeno), they brought the Gospel into the city of Constantinople," etc. Where it is preserved to this day, and on the Great Thursday of Easter it is read every year in the palace oratory, the gospel from that book. Cedrenus in his Compendium of Histories: "Zeno placed the Gospel in the palace, in the chapel of Saint Stephen in Daphne." Baronius refers the invention of Saint Barnabas to the year of Christ 485, and affirms that Alexander lived at the same time; which, however, in my opinion, is not gathered sufficiently clearly from the Encomium itself.
But whether the author of both Encomia is one person, or different, this Epitome singing the praises of the holy Cross is not unworthy to be read, whoever it may be who performed the office of abbreviator. It came to me from Antwerp, from the Reverend Father Andreas Schottus, of our society, who had received it as a gift from the learned man Geverhart Elmenhorst, who is well known for his Arnobian lucubrations, in the year of Christ 1618. Farewell.