EXALTATION, or ELEVATION, is chiefly used in a figurative sense, for the raising or advancing a person to some ecclesiastical dignity, particularly to the papacy.
EXALTATION of the Cross is a feast of the Roman Ca-
tholic church, held on the 14th of September, in memory, as is generally supposed, of the emperor Heraclius having brought back the true cross of Jesus Christ on his shoulders, in order to place it on Mount Calvary, from which it had been carried away fourteen years before by Cosroes, or Khusr, king of Persia, at his taking of Jerusalem, under the reign of the emperor Phocas. The cross was delivered up by a treaty of peace made with Siroe, the son and successor of Khusr. The institution of this treaty is commonly said to have been signalized by a miracle; inasmuch as Heraclius could not stir out of Jerusalem with the cross whilst he had the imperial vestments on, enriched with gold and precious stones, but bore it with ease in a common dress.
The feast of the dedication of the temple built by Constantine was, according to Nicodemus, held on the 14th of September, the day on which the temple had been consecrated in the year 335; and this feast was also called the exaltation of the cross, because it formed part of the ceremonial for the bishop of Jerusalem to ascend a high place, built for the purpose by Constantine, in manner of a pulpit, and called by the Greeks the sacred mysteries of God, or the holiness of God, and there to elevate the cross, that all the people might see it.