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 Catholic 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 Khosru, 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 Khosru. The institution of this treaty is commonly said to have been signalized by a miracle; insomuch 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.

**Exaltation**, in Astrology, is a dignity which a planet acquires in certain signs or parts of the zodiac, and which is supposed to give it an extraordinary virtue, efficacy, and influence. The opposite sign, or part of the zodiac, is called the dejection of the planet. Thus the 15th degree of Cancer is the exaltation of Jupiter, according to Almanazor, because it was the ascendant of that planet at the time of the creation; that of the sun is in the 19th degree of Aries, and its dejection in Libra; that of the moon is in Taurus; and so on.