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| The Emperor's Mother Helena having come to Jerusalem, searches for and finds the Cross of Christ, and builds a Church.
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Chapter XVII.—The
Emperor’s Mother Helena having come to Jerusalem, searches for
and finds the Cross of Christ, and builds a Church.
Helena, the emperor’s
mother (from whose name having made Drepanum, once a village, a city,
the emperor called it Helenopolis), being divinely directed by dreams
went to Jerusalem. Finding that which was once Jerusalem, desolate
‘as a Preserve for autumnal fruits,’212
| 212Isa. i. 8. ὀπωροφυλάκιον
, ‘a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,’ according to the
English versions (both authorized and revised), which follows the
Hebrew; in the LXX the words ἐν
σικυηράτῳ are
added.
|
according to the prophet, she sought carefully the sepulchre of Christ,
from which he arose after his burial; and after much difficulty, by
God’s help she discovered it. What the cause of the difficulty
was I will explain in a few words. Those who embraced the Christian
faith, after the period of his passion, greatly venerated this tomb;
but those who hated Christianity, having covered the spot with a mound
of earth, erected on it a temple to Venus, and set up her image there,
not caring for the memory of the place.213
| 213See the Ep. of Constantine to Macarius, in chap. 9
above.
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This succeeded for a long time; and it became known to the
emperor’s mother. Accordingly she having caused the statue214
| 214ξόανον, as distinguished
from ἄγαλμα, or ἀνδριάς, used with less
reverence; the word is derived from ξέω, ‘to polish.’
|
to be thrown down, the earth to be removed, and the ground entirely
cleared, found three crosses in the sepulchre: one of these was that
blessed cross on which Christ had hung, the other two were those on
which the two thieves that were crucified with him had died. With these
was also found the tablet215
of Pilate, on which he had inscribed in various characters, that the
Christ who was crucified was king of the Jews. Since, however, it was
doubtful which was the cross they were in search of, the
emperor’s mother was not a little distressed; but from this
trouble the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, shortly relieved her. And he
solved the doubt by faith, for he sought a sign from God and obtained
it. The sign was this: a certain woman of the neighborhood, who had
been long afflicted with disease, was now just at the point of death;
the bishop therefore arranged it so that each of the crosses should be
brought to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed on
touching the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his
expectation: for the two crosses having been applied which were not the
Lord’s, the woman still continued in a dying state; but when the
third, which was the true cross, touched her, she was immediately
healed, and recovered her former strength. In this manner then was the
genuine cross discovered. The emperor’s mother erected over the
place of the sepulchre a magnificent church,216
| 216οἶκον
εὐκτήριον,
‘house of prayer.’
|
and named it New Jerusalem, having built it facing that old and
deserted city. There she left a portion of the cross, enclosed in a
silver case, as a memorial to those who might wish to see it: the other
part she sent to the emperor, who being persuaded that the city would
be perfectly secure where that relic should be preserved, privately
enclosed it in his own statue, which stands on a large column of
porphyry in the forum called Constantine’s at Constantinople. I
have written this from report indeed; but almost all the inhabitants of
Constantinople affirm that it is true. Moreover the nails with which
Christ’s hands were fastened to the cross (for his mother having
found these also in the sepulchre had sent them) Constantine took and
had made into bridle-bits and a helmet, which he used in his military
expeditions. The emperor supplied all materials for the construction of
the churches, and wrote to Macarius the bishop to expedite these
edifices. When the emperor’s mother had completed the New
Jerusalem, she reared another church not at all inferior, over the
cave at Bethlehem where Christ was born according to the flesh: nor did
she stop here, but built a third on the mount of his Ascension. So devoutly was she
affected in these matters, that she would pray in the company of women;
and inviting the virgins enrolled in the register217
| 217κανόνι: a word of many
meanings; see Sophocles’ Lex. and a dissertation on the word in
Westcott On the Canon Appendix A, p. 499.
|
of the churches to a repast, serving them herself, she brought the
dishes to table. She was also very munificent to the churches and to
the poor; and having lived a life of piety, she died when about eighty
years old. Her remains were conveyed to New Rome, the capital, and
deposited in the imperial sepulchres.
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