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Of the Cruciferi, or Crucigeri, or the Cruched Friers.
THis Order of Friers is more ancient than all the former Orders, if ye will beleeue them. For they say, that Cli∣tus, Saint Peters Disciple, and the third Bishop of Rome af∣ter him, was warned by an Angell to build for them a house to entertaine all those that fled thither for the Christian Re∣ligion sake: which he with all speed performed, so that in a short time, many godly men repaired thither and were en∣tertained, who for many yeeres afterwards bare a Crosse in their hands in memoriall of the death and passion of our Sauiour. A thing vnlike to be true, that Clytus should bee warned by an Angell to build a house for a company of la∣zie Friers, to entertaine all those that fled to Rome for the Christian Religion sake; whereas the very name of Monks or Friers was not then, or many hundred yeeres after ei∣ther knowne or heard of in the Church of God. And with∣all, the persecution was then so great in Rome, that the Saints themselues were constrained to forsake the City, and therefore it is not credible that other Christians should re∣paire thither for reliefe and succour in their distresse and per∣secution.
There are others of opinion, that one Cyriacus Patriarch of Ierusalem, (and he whom they report to haue shewed S. Helen, Constantine the Great's Mother, where the Crosse was whereon our blessed Sauiour was crucified) was the first that instituted this order in memoriall of the inuention of the Crosse: and that hee gaue order that these Monks should euer afterwards carry a Crosse in their hands. And that this Cyriacus was afterwards martyred by Iulian the Apostata, and therefore their Order became almost extin∣guished. But Pope Innocentius the third, about the yeere