So have we seen Fortunatus address the Cross:
Hail, Altar! Hall, O Victim! Thee
Decks now Thy Passion's Victory.
The author of the glorious Ambrosian Hymn, Ad Cœnam Agni providi, still more boldly:
Whose Body hath redeemed our loss,
Roast on the Altar of the Cross;
which image is omitted in the Roman recast, Ad Regitu Agni Dapes. So also Santolius Victorinus:
Arâ sub illâ, Par Deo,
Se consecrabat Victimam:
and Adam himself repeats the thought in his Second Sequence on the Evangelists.
Arâ Crucis mansuëtus
Sic offertur, sicque vetus
Transit observantia.
So also S. Hildebert: "He on the Altar of the Cross made good the office both of King and Priest: of King, because He fought and conquered, of Priest because He made oblation and appeased: but neither was the oblation which He made, nor the God to Whom He offered, alien from Himself."
So Hildebert: "Christ therefore willed to be exalted on the Cross, not without a reason: but that in accordance with the four arms of the Cross, whereby the four parts of the world be signified, He might draw all men to love, to imitate, and to reign together with Him."
The reference is, of course, to the bitter waters of Marah. Daniel unaccountably applies it to the healing the Waters of Jericho by Elisha.
