|
WHEN the business at Nicaea had been transacted as above related,
the priests returned home. The emperor rejoiced exceedingly at the
restoration of unity of opinion in the Catholic Church, and desirous
of expressing in behalf of himself, his children, and the empire, the
gratitude towards God which the unanimity of the bishops inspired, he
directed that a house of prayer should be erected to God at Jerusalem
near the place called Calvary. At the same time his mother Helena
repaired to the city for the purpose of offering up prayer, and of
visiting the sacred places. Her zeal for Christianity made her
anxious to find the wood which had formed the adorable cross. But it
was no easy matter to discover either this relic or the Lord's
sepulchre; for the Pagans, who in former times had persecuted the
Church, and who, at the first promulgation of Christianity, had had
recourse to every artifice to exterminate it, had concealed that spot
under much heaped up earth, and elevated what before was quite
depressed, as it looks now, and the more effectually to conceal them,
had enclosed the entire place of the resurrection and Mount Calvary
within a wall, and had, moreover, ornamented the whole locality, and
paved it with stone. They also erected a temple to Aphrodite, and
set up a little image, so that those who repaired thither to worship
Christ would appear to bow the knee to Aphrodite, and that thus the
true cause of offering worship in that place would, in course of time,
be forgotten; and that as Christians would not dare fearlessly to
frequent the place or to point it out to others, the temple and statue
would come to be regarded as exclusively appertaining to the Pagans.
At length, however, the place was discovered, and the fraud about it
so zealously maintained was detected; some say that the facts were
first disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived
his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal
inheritance; but it seems more accordant with truth to suppose that
God revealed the fact by means of signs and dreams; for I do not
think that human information is requisite when God thinks it best to
make manifest the same. When by command of the emperor the place was
excavated deeply, the cave whence our Lord arose from the dead was
discovered; and at no great distance, three crosses were found and
another separate piece of wood, on which were inscribed in white
letters in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin, the following words:
"Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews." These words, as the
sacred book of the gospels relates, were placed by command of Pilate,
governor of Judaea, over the head of Christ. There yet, however,
remained a difficulty in distinguishing the Divine cross from the
others; for the inscription had been wrenched from it and thrown
aside, and the cross itself had been cast aside with the others,
without any distinction, when the bodies of the crucified were taken
down. For according to history, the soldiers found Jesus dead upon
the cross, and they took him down, and gave him up to be buried;
while, in order to accelerate the death of the two thieves, who were
crucified on either hand, they broke their legs, and then took down
the crosses, and flung them out of the way. It was no concern of
theirs to deposit the crosses in their first order; for it was growing
late, and as the men were dead, they did not think it worth while to
remain to attend to the crosses. A more Divine information than could
be furnished by man was therefore necessary in order to distinguish the
Divine cross from the others, and this revelation was given in the
following manner: There was a certain lady of rank in Jerusalem who
was afflicted with a most grievous and incurable disease; Macarius,
bishop of Jerusalem, accompanied by the mother of the emperor and her
attendants, repaired to her bedside. After engaging in prayer,
Macarius signified by signs to the spectators that the Divine cross
would be the one which, on being brought in contact with the invalid,
should remove the disease. He approached her in turn with each of the
crosses; but when two of the crosses were laid on her, it seemed but
folly and mockery to her for she was at the gates of death. When,
however, the third cross was in like manner brought to her, she
suddenly opened her eyes, regained her strength, and immediately
sprang from her bed, well. It is said that a dead person was, in the
same way, restored to life. The venerated wool having been thus
identified, the greater portion of it was deposited in a silver case,
in which it is still preserved in Jerusalem: but the empress sent part
of it to her son Constantine, together with the nails by which the
body of Christ had been fastened. Of these, it is related, the
emperor had a head-piece and bit made for his horse, according to the
prophecy of Zechariah, who referred to this period when he said,
"that which shall be upon the bit of the horse shall be holy to the
Lord Almighty.'' These things, indeed, were formerly known to
the sacred prophets, and predicted by them, and at length, when it
seemed to God that they should be manifested, were confirmed by
wonderful works. Nor does this appear so marvelous when it is
remembered that, even among the Pagans, it was confessed that the
Sibyl had predicted that thus it should be,
"Oh most blessed tree, on which our Lord was hung."
Our most zealous adversaries cannot deny the truth of this fact, and
it is hence evident that a premanifestation was made of the wood of the
cross, and of the adoration it received.
The above incidents we have related precisely as they were delivered to
us by men of great accuracy, by whom the information was derived by
succession from father to son; and others have recorded the same events
in writing for the benefit of posterity.
|
|