Why cross left to right?

[chrisb]

It’s interesting to note that in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III (contemporary with St. Francis of Assisi) instructed the faithful on the meaning of the sign of the cross in these words:

“The sign of the cross is made with three fingers, because the signing is done together with the invocation of the Trinity. This is how it is done: from above to below, and from the right to the left, because Christ descended from the heavens to the earth, and from the Jews (right) he passed to the Gentiles (left).”

Note that Pope Innocent is describing what the custom was in the West. In the 13th century the East and the West still made the sign of the cross in the same way. [Some priests] do it this way so that they and the people will be signing themselves in the same way. You can easily verify this—picture the priest facing the people for the blessing— when we make the sign of the cross over the people, it is from left to right.

So the people, imitating the blessing of the priest, began to sign themselves from left to right. Be that as it may, centuries have gone by since then, and we in the West make the sign of the cross from left to right, with the palm open in error.

Why hasn’t this be corrected in the West?

 

[anjoh66]

Just a thought but its only from me and probably just a thought.

The left usually symbolises the bad side and the right for the good.

Can it not be that the meaning is from heaven to earth, and from darkness into light, or from bad to good?

thereby i am not saying that the crossing from right to left is wrong.

 

[passus]

It’s just more logical to make a cross from left to right. Draw a cross on a piece of paper and notice that you draw the patibulum from left to right.

I don’t know that it’s really an issue that needs correcting. How we make the sign of the cross is based on custom. In the Latin rite, we’ve been doing it this way for centuries and so that suffices as “custom.”

 

[chrisb]

It’s just more logical to make a cross from left to right. Draw a cross on a piece of paper and notice that you draw the patibulum from left to right.

I don’t know that it’s really an issue that needs correcting. How we make the sign of the cross is based on custom. In the Latin rite, we’ve been doing it this way for centuries and so that suffices as “custom.”

Clearly at one time East and West crossed themselves ‘right to left’ as late as the 13th Century. At sometime between then and now the Western Church ‘changed’ and it appears this change was in error. Since we appear to be attempting to rationalize this error. Why not just correct ourselves?

 

[malphono]

It’s just more logical to make a cross from left to right. Draw a cross on a piece of paper and notice that you draw the patibulum from left to right.

I don’t know that it’s really an issue that needs correcting. How we make the sign of the cross is based on custom. In the Latin rite, we’ve been doing it this way for centuries and so that suffices as “custom.”

You may think it more logical since you are used to an Indo-european language that writes from left to right. But how about those who speak a Semitic language, all of which write from right-to-left? And that’s not to mention all the “lefties” out there of whichever language family.

No, I’m not making an issue of this: either way, left-to-right or right-to-left, it’s the sign of the victorious Cross, and in the end that’s what matters.

 

[EasterJoy]

Clearly at one time East and West crossed themselves ‘right to left’ as late as the 13th Century. At sometime between then and now the Western Church ‘changed’ and it appears this change was in error. Since we appear to be attempting to rationalize this error. Why not just correct ourselves?

Traditionalists have been given enough change to swallow in one lifetime. Let it be.

Besides, if we change it, those who are bothered by it would be deprived of the penance of enduring it!

 

[AJV]

It’s interesting to note that in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III (contemporary with St. Francis of Assisi) instructed the faithful on the meaning of the sign of the cross in these words:

“The sign of the cross is made with three fingers, because the signing is done together with the invocation of the Trinity. This is how it is done: from above to below, and from the right to the left, because Christ descended from the heavens to the earth, and from the Jews (right) he passed to the Gentiles (left).”

Note that Pope Innocent is describing what the custom was in the West. In the 13th century the East and the West still made the sign of the cross in the same way. [Some priests] do it this way so that they and the people will be signing themselves in the same way. You can easily verify this—picture the priest facing the people for the blessing— when we make the sign of the cross over the people, it is from left to right.

So the people, imitating the blessing of the priest, began to sign themselves from left to right. Be that as it may, centuries have gone by since then, and we in the West make the sign of the cross from left to right, with the palm open in error.

Why hasn’t this be corrected in the West?

Innocent himself acknowledges the other practise and provides an explanation for it. He begins as you write

Est autem signum crucis tribus digitis exprimendum, quia sub invocatione Trinitatis imprimitur, de qua dicit Propheta : “Quis appendit tribus digitis molem terrae?” (Is. 40). Ita quod de superiori descendit ad inferius, et a dextra transeat ad sinistram, quia Christus de caelo descendit in terram. et a Iudaeis transivit ad gentes.

The sign of the cross is to be made with three fingers, for it is imprinted under the invocation of the Trinity, of which the Prophet says “who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth” (DR). So it descends from the top to the bottom, and from the right to the left, for Christ descended from heaven to earth, and passed from the Jews to the Gentiles

But then he continues:

Quidam tamen signum crucis a sinistra producunt in dextram, quia de miseria transire debemus ad gloriam, sicut et Christus transivit de morte ad vitam, et de inferno ad paradisum, praesertim ut seipsos et alios uno eodemque modo consignent.

Some however make the sign of the cross left to right, for from misery we ought to go to glory, just as Christ passed from death to life, and from hell to heaven, especially that both sign themselves and others in one way.

 

[chrisb]

Innocent himself acknowledges the other practise and provides an explanation for it. He begins as you write

Grace and Peace AJV,

Would you mind sharing with me your source for the whole piece? I’ve only seen this one quote.

I found this on the Catholic Encyclopedia…

At this period the manner of making it in the West seems to have been identical with that followed at present in the East, i.e. only three fingers were used, and the hand traveled from the right shoulder to the left. The point, it must beconfessed, is not entirely clear and Thalhofer (Liturgik, I, 633) inclines to the opinion that in the passages of Belethus (xxxix), Sicardus (III, iv), Innocent III (De myst. Alt., II, xlvi), and Durandus (V, ii, 13), which are usually appealed to in proof of this, these authors have in mind the small cross made upon the forehead or external objects, in which the hand moves naturally from right to left, and not the big cross made from shoulder to shoulder. Still, a rubric in a manuscript copy of the York Missal clearly requires the priest when signing himself with the paten to touch the left shoulder after the right. Moreover it is at least clear from many pictures and sculptures that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Greek practice of extending only three fingers was adhered to by many Latin Christians. Thus the compiler of the Ancren Riwle (about 1200) directs his nuns at “Deus in adjutorium” to make a little cross from above the forehead down to the breast with three fingers". However there can be little doubt that long before the close of the Middle Ages the large sign of the cross was more commonly made in the West with the open hand and that the bar of the cross was traced from left to right. In the “Myroure of our Ladye” (p. 80) the Bridgettine Nuns of Sion have a mystical reason given to them for the practice: “And then ye bless you with the sygne of the holy crosse, to chase away the fiend with all his deceytes. For, as Chrysostome sayth, wherever the fiends see the signe of the crosse, they flye away, dreading it as a staffe that they are beaten withall. And in thys blessinge ye beginne with youre hande at the hedde downwarde, and then to the lefte side and byleve that our Lord Jesu Christe came down from the head, that is from the Father into erthe by his holy Incarnation, and from the erthe into the left syde, that is hell, by his bitter Passion, and from thence into his Father’s righte syde by his glorious Ascension”.

Thanks and God Bless.

 

[Linda_Marie]

There are a few different ways to make the Sign of the Cross. Using an open palm is not an error, merely a different way to make the Sign. (see option D below)

The Sign of the Cross is made thus: First choose your style:

Option A. With your right hand, touch the thumb and ring finger together, and hold your index finger and middle finger together to signify the two natures of Christ. This is the most typical Western Catholic practice.

Option B. Hold your thumb and index finger of your right hand together to signify the two natures of Christ

Option C. Hold your thumb, index finger, middle finger of your right hand together (signifying the Trinity) while tucking the ring finger and pinky finger (signifying the two natures of Christ) toward your palm. This is the typically Eastern Catholic practice.

Option D: Hold your right hand open with all 5 fingers – representing the 5 Wounds of Christ – together and very slightly curved, and thumb slightly tucked into palm
Then:

touch the forehead as you say (or pray mentally) “In nomine Patris” (“In the name of the Father”)

touch the breastbone or top of the belly as you say “et Filii” (“and of the Son”)

touch the left shoulder, then right shoulder, as you say “et Spiritus Sancti” (“and of the Holy Ghost”). Note that some people end the Sign by crossing the thumb over the index finger to make a cross, and then kissing the thumb as a way of “kissing the Cross.”
<…>
Note that Eastern Catholics (and Orthodox) go from right shoulder to left and end sometimes by touching their right side, above the hip, to symbolize Christ’s being pierced by the sword. The Bridgettine nuns in their Myroure of our Ladye write of the mystical reasons for the Latin practice, and how it summarizes the Incarnation, the Passion, and the Ascension:

And then ye bless you with the sygne of the holy crosse, to chase away the fiend with all his deceytes. For, as Chrysostome sayth, wherever the fiends see the signe of the crosse, they flye away, dreading it as a staffe that they are beaten withall. And in thys blessinge ye beginne with youre hande at the hedde downwarde, and then to the lefte side and byleve that our Lord Jesu Christe came down from the head, that is from the Father into erthe by his holy Incarnation, and from the erthe into the left syde, that is hell, by his bitter Passion, and from thence into his Father’s righte syde by his glorious Ascension. (Catholic Encyclopedia)
fisheaters.com/sign.html

 

[Cluny]

It’s just more logical to make a cross from left to right. Draw a cross on a piece of paper and notice that you draw the patibulum from left to right.

---

Not if you write in Arabic, Hebrew, or other Semitic languages.

 

[AJV]

Grace and Peace AJV,

Would you mind sharing with me your source for the whole piece? I’ve only seen this one quote.

I was using Migne’s Patrologia since I have access to it from my library - the work is Innocent III’s on the Sacred Mysteries of the Altar. However, I googled the quote and it comes up here

documentacatholicaomnia.eu/01p/1198-1216,_SS_Innocentius_III,_Legis_et_Sacramentis_Eucharistiae_Libri_Sex,_MLT.pdf

It claims to be a rendition of the Patrologia, but I can’t vounch for it sicne I’ve not compared it. The quoted section (which I only half quoted, there is still more) is accurate, though. It’s on page 33 of the pdf.

 

[ronyodish]

Hi,

Byzantines and Assyro-Chaldeans cross from right to left.

Latins, Alexandrians, Antiochenes, and Armenians cross from left to right.

Both postures are acceptable.

God bless,

Rony

 

[Mike_Dye]

I had never thought about it before. I just assumed it was because most people are right handed and it just flows more naturally that way?