17. To enumerate now the incomparable uses of this wood, were needless; but so precious was the esteem of it, that of old there was an express law amongst the Twelve Tables, concerning the very gathering of the acorns, though they should be found fallen into another man’s ground: The land and the sea do sufficiently speak for the improvement of this excellent material; houses and ships, cities and navies are built with it; and there is a kind of it so tough, and extreamly compact, that our sharpest tools will hardly enter it, and scarcely the very fire it self, in which it consumes but slowly, as seeming to partake of a ferruginous and metallin shining nature, proper for sundry robust uses. It is doubtless of all timber hitherto known, the most universally useful and strong; for though some trees be harder, as box, cornus, ebony, and divers of the Indian woods; yet we find them more fragil, and not so well qualify’d to support great incumbencies and weights, nor is there any timber more lasting, which way soever us’d. There has (we know) been no little stir amongst learned men, of what material the Cross was made, on which our Blessed Saviour suffer’d: Venerable Bede in _Collectaneis_, affirms it to have been fram’d of several woods, namely cypress, cedar, pine, and box; and to confirm it S. Hierom has cited the 6th of _Isaiah_ 13. _Gloria libani ad te veniet, & buxus & pinus simul ad ornandum locum sanctificationis meæ, & locum pedum meorum significabo_; but following the version of the LXX. he reads _in cupresso, pinu & cedro_, &c. Others insert the palm, and so compose the gibbet of no less than four different timbers, according to the old verse: Nail’d were his feet to cedar, to palm his hands; Cypress his Body bore, title on olive stands:{52:1}