Helena Finds the Cross

Helena, the emperor’s mother, was directed by God in dreams to go to Jerusalem. (The emperor made Drepanum, once a village, into a city and called it Helenopolis after her name.) She found what had once been Jerusalem lying desolate, “like a shed for guarding autumn fruit,” as the prophet says. She searched carefully for the tomb of Christ, from which he rose after his burial, and after much difficulty, with God’s help, she found it. What the difficulty was I will explain in a few words. Those who had accepted the Christian faith after the time of his suffering held this tomb in great reverence. But those who hated Christianity covered the spot with a mound of earth, built a temple to Venus on it, and set up her image there, with no regard for the memory of the place. This worked for a long time, until it came to the knowledge of the emperor’s mother. So she had the statue thrown down, the earth taken away, and the ground cleared completely, and she found three crosses in the tomb. One was that blessed cross on which Christ had hung; the other two were those on which the two thieves crucified with him had died. With them was also found Pilate’s board, on which he had written in several scripts that the Christ who was crucified was king of the Jews. [a]

But since it was uncertain which was the cross they were looking for, the emperor’s mother was greatly distressed. Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, soon relieved her of this trouble. He settled the doubt by faith, for he asked God for a sign and received it. The sign was this. A woman of the neighborhood, who had long been afflicted with disease, was just then at the point of death. So the bishop arranged for each of the crosses to be brought to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed when she touched the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his hope. When the two crosses that were not the Lord’s were applied, the woman remained dying; but when the third, the true cross, touched her, she was healed at once and recovered her former strength. In this way the genuine cross was discovered.

The emperor’s mother built a magnificent church over the place of the tomb and named it New Jerusalem, building it to face the old, deserted city. There she left a portion of the cross, enclosed in a silver case, as a memorial for those who might wish to see it. The other part she sent to the emperor. He was convinced that the city where that relic was kept would be perfectly safe, so he secretly enclosed it in his own statue, which stands on a large column of porphyry in the forum called Constantine’s, at Constantinople. I admit that I have written this from hearsay; but almost all the people of Constantinople affirm that it is true. Moreover, Constantine took the nails with which Christ’s hands were fastened to the cross (for his mother had found these too in the tomb, and had sent them), and had them made into bridle bits and a helmet, which he used on his military campaigns. The emperor supplied all the materials for building the churches, and wrote to Macarius the bishop to hurry the buildings on. When the emperor’s mother had finished the New Jerusalem, she built another church, not at all inferior to it, over the cave at Bethlehem where Christ was born according to the flesh. Nor did she stop there, but built a third on the mountain of his ascension.

She was so devout in these matters that she would pray in the company of women. She would invite the virgins enrolled on the churches’ list to a meal, and serve them herself, bringing the dishes to the table. She was also very generous to the churches and to the poor. Having lived a life of piety, she died when she was about eighty years old. Her remains were carried to New Rome, the capital, and laid in the imperial tombs.