Of the popularity of the ſtory of the Croſs there can be no doubt, but its origin is involved in obſcurity. It is generally poſſible to track moſt of the religious and popular folk tales and romances of the Middle Ages to their origin, which is frequently Oriental, but it is not eaſy to do ſo with the Legend of the Croſs. It would rather ſeem that it was made up by ſome romancer out of all kinds of pre-exiſting material, with no other object than to write a religious novel for pious readers, to diſplace the ſenſuous novels which were much in vogue. We know that this was largely done after the third century, and a number of martyr legends, ſuch as thoſe of S. Apollinaris Syncletica, SS. Cyprian and Juſtina, the ſtory of Duke Procopius, S. Euphroſyne, SS. Zoſimus and Mary, SS. Theophanes and Panſemne, and many others were compoſed with this object. The earlieſt of all is undoubtedly the Clementine Recognitions, which dates from a remotely early period, and carries us into the heart of Petrine Chriſtianity, and in which many a covert attack is made on S. Paul and his teaching. On the other hand, we know that an Asiatic prieſt, as Tertullian tells us, wrote a romance on “Paul and Thecla, out of love to Paul.” S. Jerome ſays that a Pauline zealot, when convicted before his biſhop of having written the romance, tried to exculpate himſelf by ſaying that he had done it out of admiration for S. Paul, but the Biſhop would not accept the excuſe, and deprived him. Unfortunately this romance has not come down to us, though we have another on S. Paul and his relations to Thecla, who is ſaid to have accompanied him on his apoſtolic rambles, diſguiſed in male attire. The Greek romance literature was not wholeſome reading for Chriſtians. Some of the writers of theſe tales became Chriſtian biſhops, and probably devoted their facile pens to more edifying ſubjects than the difficulties of parted lovers. Heliodorus, who wrote “Theagenes and Charicheia,” is ſaid to have become Biſhop of Tricca, in Theſſaly. Socrates, in the fifth century, in ſpeaking of clerical celibacy, mentions the ſeverity of the rule impoſed on his clergy by this Heliodorus, “under whoſe name there are love-books extant, called Ethiopica, which he compoſed in his youth.” Achilles Tatius, author of the “Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe,” is ſaid alſo to have become a biſhop. So alſo Euſtathius of Theſſalonica, author of the “Lives of Hyſemene and Hyſmenias,” but this is more than doubtful.