In this part 117, Helena Augusta 2 of 4 Ill.Kt. H Ruperti-Campbell / Wikipedia
After Constantine’s ascension to the throne
Constantine was proclaimed Augustus of the Roman Empire in 306 AD by Constantius’ troops after the latter had died, and following his elevation his mother was brought back to the public life in 312 AD, returning to the imperial court.
She appears in the Eagle Cameo portraying Constantine’s family, probably commemorating the birth of Constantine’s son Constantine II in the summer of 316 AD (Note 1). She received the title of Augusta in 325 AD. According to Eusebius, her conversion to Christianity followed her son becoming emperor.
Pilgrimage and relic discoveries
Constantine appointed his mother Helena as Augusta Imperatrix, and gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of the Christian tradition. In 326–28 AD Helena undertook a trip to Palestine.
According to Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265 AD – 339/340 AD), who records the details of her pilgrimage to Palestine and other eastern provinces, she was responsible for the construction or beautification of two churches, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives, sites of Christ’s birth and ascension, respectively.
Local founding legend attributes to Helena’s orders the construction of a church in Egypt to identify the Burning Bush of Sinai. The chapel at Saint Catherine’s Monastery—often referred to as the Chapel of Saint Helen—is dated to the year 330 AD.
Helena finding the True Cross,
Italian manuscript, c. 825
The True Cross and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Jerusalem was still being rebuilt following the destruction caused by Titus in 70 AD. Emperor Hadrian had built during the 130s AD a temple to Venus over the supposed site of Jesus‘s tomb near Calvary, and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. Accounts differ concerning whether the temple was dedicated to Venus or Jupiter.
According to Eusebius, “[t]here was a temple of Venus on the spot. This the queen (Helena) had destroyed.” According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and, according to the legend that arose at the end of the 4th century, chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. The legend is recounted in Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius (died 395 AD) and at length in Rufinus‘ chapters appended to his translation into Latin of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, the main body of which does not mention the event (Note 2).
Then, Rufinus relates, the empress refused to be swayed by anything short of solid proof and performed a test. Possibly through Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, she had a woman who was near death brought from the city. When the woman touched the first and second crosses, her condition did not change, but when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered (Note 3), and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross.
On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Churches were also built on other sites detected by Helena.
The “Letter from Constantine to Macarius of Jerusalem”, as presented in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, states:
“Such is our Saviour’s grace, that no power of language seems adequate to describe the wondrous circumstance to which I am about to refer. For, that the monument of his [Christ’s] most holy Passion, so long ago buried beneath the ground, should have remained unknown for so long a series of years, until its reappearance to his servants now set free through the removal of him who was the common enemy of all, is a fact which truly surpasses all admiration. I have no greater care than how I may best adorn with a splendid structure that sacred spot, which, under Divine direction, I have disencumbered as it were of the heavy weight of foul idol worship [the Roman temple]; a spot which has been accounted holy from the beginning in God’s judgment, but which now appears holier still, since it has brought to light a clear assurance of our Saviour’s passion.”
Helena of Constantinople,
by Cima da Conegliano, 1495
Sozomen and Theodoret claim that Helena also found the nails of the crucifixion. To use their miraculous power to aid her son, Helena allegedly had one placed in Constantine’s helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse. According to one tradition, Helena acquired the Holy Tunic on her trip to Jerusalem and sent it to Trier.
St Helena Saint Helena with the Cross,
Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493 Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1525
Notes
- The cameo was incorporated in the rich binding of the Ada Gospels; the year 316 AD is argued in Stephenson 2010:126f.
- Noted in Stephenson 2010:253f, who observes “None of this is true” noting Rufinus’ source in a lost work of Gelasius of Caesarea.
- There are actually several different accounts: Catholic Encyclopedia: Archæology of the Cross and Crucifix: “Following an inspiration from on high, Macariuscaused the three crosses to be carried, one after the other, to the bedside of a worthy woman who was at the point of death. The touch of the other two was of no avail; but on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well again. From a letter of St. Paulinus to Severus inserted in the Breviary of Paris it would appear that St. Helena herself had sought by means of a miracle to discover which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried to be carried to the spot, whereupon, by contact with the third cross, he came to life.
From the 1955 Roman Catholic Marian Missal: St. Helen, the first Christian Empress, went to Jerusalem to try to find the True Cross. She found it in 320 AD on September 14. In the eighth century, the feast of the Finding was transferred to May 3rd and on Sept. 14 was celebrated the “Exaltation of the Cross,” the commemoration of a victory over the Persians by Heraclius, as a result of which the relic was returned to Jerusalem.
From yet another tradition, related by Ambrose following Rufinus, it would seem that the titulus, or inscription, had remained fastened to the Cross.”; see also Socrates’ Church History at CCEL.org: Book I, Chapter XVII: The Emperor’s Mother Helena having come to Jerusalem, searches for and finds the Cross of Christ, and builds a Church.
Cont’d…