Seeing the Ruthwell Cross. A portal to the beyond.
Hi everyone, I thought many of you may be interested in this. Just over two weeks ago I was on holiday in Cumbria and managed to nip over the border to have a look at the Ruthwell cross.
Carved in the 8th century (!!!), the 17 feet tall cross embodies the early medieval Christian synthesis of Celtic, Saxon, and Roman influences. It was ordered to be destroyed during the iconoclasm of the reformation by the Presbyterians. Fortunately the partly reluctant Scottish minister ordered to carry out the act (a severance of the sacred from the material world I believe we're still suffering from) broke it up carefully and, though some of it was lost, most of it was able to be put back together again when discovered in the churchyard soil in the 19th century.
The close up above shows Martha washing Christ’s feet
I don't know if the images do it justice but to stand and see it with one's own eyes is quite the experience. I did reach over and have a quick touch of the stone, with a prayer on my lip, and I can only describe it as something like a portal between the ages. Feeling the chisel of a man thirteen hundred years ago carving the face of Christ.
You have to ignore the rather esoteric pyramid in the centre, this is a Victorian addition to restore the lost piece and is not accurate. There was no pyramid on the original. The scenes depicted on the cross are all biblical, plus an image of St Anthony the Great meeting St Paul (not the apostle). A reminder of where the Irish and British saints like Cuthbert and Aidan got their asceticism from...Egypt! There is something so cool about how all of this connects.
Some thirty minutes away, back in England I also managed to see the remains of the Bewcastle cross. Though the top has been knocked off, this one is the same age and is still in its original place - outside the church! - it has the same images on and was likewise carved by monks from Jarrow (near Newcastle).
Many of you will be aware that recently there was a certain debate between a certain UK figure and the Vice President of the USA. Bewcastle as an area was recently served by the MP (and now podcaster) by the name of Rory Stewart, and inside the visitor's centre by this Bewcastle Cross was some text from Rory when he opened it, only a few years ago. Now I don't want to dip too much into politics - but I do think Stewart was essentially ill informed on the issue of love - and given that he visited this place of Christian history, I would have hoped his knowledge of Christian thinking through the centuries would be a bit more thorough.
By the way, this is probably all in the time of Bede. Just after the lifetime of St Cuthbert. If that helps communicate some of the wonder and enchantment these crosses have by association.
On the side of the Ruthwell Cross are runes which recount Caedmon's poem, the dream of the rood. Caedmon we recall was raised up under St Hilda of Whitby. Roods (from the Saxon word rod, or pole, or cross!) still fill English churches with Christ crucified, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John at his side. One walks under the rood into the chancel to receive the body and blood of Christ, the bread of heaven. In a sense one walks from earth under the cross which leads us into heaven, to be filled up, before returning back to earth each week. This is what roods are, this is what the rood screen of later medieval worship does.
A window behind the cross shows St Hilda. Very cool how this all connects. Beside that a modern painting showing the history of the cross.
Later medieval development of the rood ‘screen’ example above from a church in York. Walking from Earth into heaven by going through the cross.
Here are the runes translated from the Ruthwell cross (not by me!). Looking at runes, it's all very Tolkienesque:
Girded him then
God Almighty
When he would
Step on the gallows,
Fore all mankind
Mind fast, fearless,
Bow me durst I not.
Rood was I reared now
Rich king heaving,
The lord of light-realms;
Lean me I durst not.
Us both they basely mocked and handled,
Was I there with blood bedabbled,
Gushing grievous from his dear side
When his ghost he had uprendered.
Christ was on rood-tree,
But fast from afar
His friends hurried
To aid their aetheling.
Everything I saw.
Sorely was I with sorrows harrowed,
Yet humbly I inclined
To the hands of his servants
Striving with might to aid him,
With streaks was I all wounded.
Down they laid him limb-weary,
O’er his lifeless head then stood they,
Heavily gazing and heaven’s chieftain.
Wow, thank you for sharing all this! The quest to re-enchantment is so well served by such photos, prose and poetry. I feel transported from all the way across the sea, I can't imagine the experience of witnessing it all with one's own eyes (and reaching out to touch it as you did), so incredible. God has given us such a tremendous gift with the arts and to see how fellow believers sought to glorify Him through art across the ages is so encouraging.
Thank you again for sharing this, Oliver. Have you considered writing a book? (structured even just as you have here, detailing your journeys and pilgrimages to such places wherein you relate to it and by extension allow the reader to)... there is so very little of this here in the States, and I for one would be so thankful (especially since I have long been something of an admirer of your country, and yet still find there is so much I have never heard of, or encountered before).