St. Helena (255-330): The Empress Who Discovered the True Cross by Chris White

St. Helena--St. Peter's Basilica in Rome

Let me ask you a question: what is the main symbol of Christianity?  If you said “the cross” you would be correct Biblically (Gal. 6:14, 1 Cor. 2:2) and factually (nearly every church in the world displays a cross somewhere in its building), but not so historically.  If I could put you in a time machine and send you back to the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd centuries AD, you would find many different symbols in use by the church (such as the sign of the fish, the dove, the anchor, even loaves and fishes) but not a cross.  Why so?  Well, for one reason crucifixion was still practiced as a form of capital punishment at the time and it would seem very odd for anyone to wear or display a cross anywhere.  What would you think if you walked into your neighbor’s home and saw a beautiful painting of an electric chair on the wall or possibly a hangman’s noose over the door?  You would probably think this person has an odd taste for home décor at best and at worst a macabre fetish for instruments of human torture.  Secondly, a cross was largely associated with criminal behavior.  Jesus was not a criminal himself, but according to the gospel, as the Son of God he was taking upon himself the sins of all humanity and judicially paying the penalty for them on our behalf.  The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death before a holy and perfect God.  This is what makes Christianity stand apart from all other religions.  Instead of us sacrificing to atone for our sins, God Himself makes the sacrificial atonement on our behalf.  But this took some explaining in the early days of the church because the common understanding was a person who died by crucifixion must be a horrible person and accursed by God in some way.  If Jesus was God and so good, then why would he die in that way?  This is why St. Paul called the cross “folly” and a “stumbling block” to those who have no spiritual understanding (1 Cor. 1:18).  So why did this all change and suddenly the cross become a beloved and universal symbol of Christianity?  This is where the story of St. Helena becomes our important connection. 

The Cross a cherished symbol by Christians

St. Helena was born into a humble family of Bithynia (Northern Turkey).  Her father is believed to have been an Innkeeper or perhaps a shepherd according the bishop Ambrose of Milan.  Helena apparently was a very attractive woman who caught the attention of Constantius Chlorus, a man rapidly rising in the ranks of the Roman military.  Helena became what we would call the common law wife (a concubine) of Constantius and when she gave birth to their son he was given the name Constantine.  This son would grow up to become the Roman emperor who not only legalized Christianity but openly practiced it and governed as a Christian ruler.

But long before Constantine’s rise to power, his father too was visited by good fortune and was elevated to the rank of Caesar of the western Roman empire.  For reasons of state, Constantius was required to put his wife Helena away and marry the daughter of the Augustus (the Emperor).  Constantine remained with his father living in Britannia (England) and Helena went into seclusion and obscurity for many years.

When Constantius died unexpectedly, his son, now a general in the Roman army, is proclaimed the western Caesar and through conquest and acclamation of the people begins his meteoric rise to power.  When Constantine is firmly in control he brings his mother out of seclusion and gives her a place of honor and leadership in his court as the Imperial mediatrix or Augusta.  By this time Helena herself is also a Christian with a reputation for acts of charity and devotion to Christ.  As Augusta, Helena is given the Sessorian Palace in Rome where she lives and helps conduct governmental affairs in the west while her son is building and ruling in the east from the new capitol he named ever-so-modestly Constantinople.

It is now the year 325 AD.  Constantine the Great respects freedom of religion but believes Christianity is true and that Jesus Christ has raised him up to unite the Roman empire under the Christian faith.  Paganism is tolerated but is no longer supported by the state as Constantine lavishes public and private funds on the Church building magnificent buildings and elevating the clergy, once poor and beleaguered by persecution, to positions of honor and yes, even wealth, in society.  The fortunes of the church had changed rapidly, but Constantine was reversing a governmental policy of repression and persecution that had been going on for several centuries.  And he believed the future blessing of the empire hinged on promoting the faith of Christ in every way he could.

One of the unique ways Constantine promoted Christianity was through what some have termed “sacred geography.”  Rome had always been the capital of the empire and to its citizens, both Christian and pagan, the very heart of civilization.  But part of the reason why Constantine moved his capital city to Byzantium (before renaming it Constantinople) was for a fresh start.  Rome had been a city long polluted with idol worship and paganism.  The new capital was to be a place marked by Christianity.  In fact later visitors were so impressed with the splendor of the city and its many, many churches, they wondered if it wasn’t already a province of heaven.  But Constantine took this even one step further. Part of his empire was a province called Palestine by the Romans, and it was the very stage where Jesus Christ lived his life, conducted his ministry, suffered death on the cross, rose from the grave, and will be returning in the future.  This was holy ground and it must be preserved to reinforce the faith of Christians.  And just as Christianity triumphed in Rome, its triumph would also be shown in Jerusalem through Constantine’s efforts.

Israel named Palestina by Romans

Israel has a very sad history after Jesus.  When he arrived in Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus looked upon the city with its great temple and with a heart of sadness prophesied that it would be left desolate (Mt. 23:38).  When the chief priests rejected Jesus of Nazareth before Pontius Pilate they declared “we have no king but Caesar (Jn 19:15)!”  They really did mean to reject Christ, but the stuff about Caesar, not so much.  Within one generation, sedition was in the air and Rome enthusiastically retaliated destroying Jerusalem and its temple in 70 AD.  Nearly 62 years later the Jews under Simon bar Kokhba attempted to seize control of Jerusalem and restore the Temple.  After the failure of this revolt,  the emperor Hadrian kicked all Jews out of Jerusalem and changed the name of the city to Aelia Capitolina.  The Temple mount, so sacred to the Jews, was defiled with a shrine dedicated to Jupiter built on top.  Wanting to be equally offensive to Christians, Hadrian had a temple of Venus built over Golgotha, the very place Jesus was crucified.  Jerusalem eventually became a small, run-down city that was a mere shadow of its former glories.  Its population included a small Christian community, a few stalwart Jews and a lot of Bedouins and foreigners who were down on their luck.  But now, after nearly 200 years, on outskirts of Jerusalem the Empress Helena and her royal entourage were arriving on a very special assignment.

Modern pilgrims trace Christ's steps on Good Friday

Constantine had sent his mother with a large amount of funds and imperial authority to locate, preserve, and aggrandize as many sites pertaining to the gospel as possible.  Even though it is known that Christian believers have always traveled to Israel to see Biblical points of interest, the number of people who actually made this journey is relatively small.  Helena, who made her one and only journey to Israel at age 79, is rightly the mother of Holy Land pilgrimages.  In fact, it is either her or Constantine that is credited with first referring to Israel as the Holy Land.  But from Helena’s time to the present day, Christians have for reasons of faith, penance, and simple curiosity have ventured in great numbers to Israel to see the sites where the Gospel drama unfolded.

When Helena arrived in the Holy Land she was baptized in the Jordan river, visited Bethlehem and the cave where Joseph and Mary welcomed Jesus into the world, and went in search of the places where Jesus was crucified and then buried and rose from the dead.

Helena also built church of Nativity

That Calvary could still be found nearly 300 years later is neither impossible or even improbable.  All sorts of important events and their locations are recalled by locals long after they occur.  Humans are story tellers by nature and most history, even if not totally accurate, is oral before it is committed to writing.  Combine this with the knowledge that within a century after the crucifixion of Jesus, there was a shrine of Venus built there, the spot wouldn’t be hard to detect even if only ruins remained.

However it was detected (and it has been suggested that Helena may have had her Roman guard use torture to get this information), Helena was able to find the Holy Sepulcher (the tomb of Jesus) nearby and there a glorious church has stood (rebuilt several times) up to the present day.  The discovery of the Sepulcher no doubt led to another question: whatever happened to the cross that Jesus was actually crucified on?  A search ensued, and near the area of the Holy Sepulcher in an empty cistern were found the remains of three crosses and separate and unattached the titulus crucis or the sign that hung above Jesus mentioned in the gospels.

Helena and the discovery of the True Cross

Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem who was in attendance suggested the one which was used by Jesus Christ could be determined by a miracle and it was suggested that three incurably ill people be brought to the site and have them touch one of the crosses.  The person that was cured was obviously touching the cross of Jesus.  The experiment happened as described and one of the three people was miraculously cured by touching the cross and so this was identified as the true cross from that day forward.  Of course, it didn’t occur to anyone to have the other two unhealed persons also touch the cross of Jesus and see if they got well too.  But, this was a prescientific era and so the idea of double-checking your results was not yet known.

The story of finding the true cross is found in the works of 4 credible historians of the times.  But there is a huge difficulty in the fact that the premier church historian Eusebius, who was in the court of Constantine and possibly knew the empress as well, speaks only about the discovery of the Holy Sepulcher but says nothing about this relic or that Constantine received a portion of it for himself.  Obviously this is an argument from silence but that silence seems rather loud.  However, it could simply be that for Eusebius the discovery of the Holy Sepulcher was the headline event and the discovery of the relic an entailment that was implied but not mentioned.

Titulus Crucis housed in Rome today

Although the story is not completely absurd, what is absurd is what happened to pilgrims in later years.  As they gathered at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to view the relic of the cross, they were offered an opportunity to bring a sliver of it home as a souvenir for a price.  When asked how it could be possible to do this with so many people coming every year, the pilgrims were told the cross has a special power to regenerate itself.  But this was many centuries after Helena’s visit. 

 

Typical size of most relics of the cross

 At the time of the visit, a significant portion of the cross was left to be shown the pilgrims when the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was completed.  Helena sent to her son Constantine the great a piece of the true cross and two of the nails that were found with it.  Constantine is said to have incorporated the nails in his military helmet and the wood was put inside a huge statue of himself in Constantinople.  This would enhance his image as Christ’s ruler on earth as people would look at him or his statue and would be reminded that they were also in the presence of the relics of Christ’s passion.  Finally, Helena took a significant portion of the true cross and the titulus crucis back to her palace in Rome along with a large shipment of soil from the area of the Calvary that was being excavated for the building of the Basilica that stands today. 

Shortly after her death in 327 AD, the Sessorian palace was converted into a church in Rome called Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross of Jerusalem) where pilgrims to Rome, also a holy city, could also be in the presence of these relics.  Today, the only portion of the original Sessorian palace that remains is the small chapel of St. Helena underneath the apse.  It is said that under the floor of the chapel is the soil that Helena brought back from Jerusalem so that technically visitors are standing on an outpost of the Holy Land.  The relics once housed in the wall of the chapel now reside in their own chapel on the top floor of the church.

Helena lived long enough to return to Jerusalem one more time to inspect the progress of the construction of the churches being sponsored by her son and then died in her early eighties in the imperial palace at Nicomedia (in Bithynia the region of her birth).

Pilgrims at Church of Holy Sepulcher today

Pieces of the true cross were shared with many of the churches throughout the Roman empire to the extent that Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem said several decades after Helena that the whole world was filled with pieces of the cross.  With such widespread awareness of the cross and the memory of its appearance, it became after Helena’s discovery the most popular symbol of Christianity as it remains today.

Whether or not the relics of the true cross were actually found by Helena so many centuries ago is a question of endless debate between scholars, skeptics and believers.  Authentic or not, the cross represents a physical connection to the passion of Jesus Christ which is the centerpiece of all Christian hope and confidence and an event beyond doubt.  In that sense, the relics of the cross that exist today are holy as reminders to all who view them that the son of God did in fact take our sins upon himself on a Roman cross that by faith we too may become sons and daughters of the living God.

Empress Helena

Today, over 4 million people a year visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  The church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in Rome has significantly less visitors, but has always been a popular with Christian pilgrims visiting the city.

Sources

Cairns, Earle E.  Christianity Through the Centuries : A History of the Christian Church.  (Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1981)

“Chapel of St. Helena.”  Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.  12, Piazza di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Roma, Italy.  Feb. 5, 2015.  Personal visit.

Chidester, David.  Christianity : A Global History.  (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000)

Cohn-Sherbok, Lavinia.  Who’s Who in Christianity.  (London : Routledge, 1998)

Day, Malcolm.  A Treasury of Saints: Their Lives and Times.  (New York : Chartwell, 2002)

Ferguson, Everett.  Church History : From Christ to Pre-Reformation.  (Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2013)

Guy, Laurie.  Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Survey of Its Life, Belief, and Practices.  (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2004)

“Helena”  Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature.  McClintock and Strong eds.  (Grand Rapids : Baker Book House, 1981)

“Helena”  Dictionary of Christian Biography.  Michael Walsh ed.  (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2001)

“Helena”  Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity.  Angelo Di Berardino ed.  (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2014)

Leithart, Peter J.  Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom.  (Downers Grove : Intervarsity Press, 2010)

McCulloch, Diarmaid.  Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.  (New York : Viking, 2009)

Schaff, Philip.  History of the Christian Church Vol. III.  (Grand Rapids : Eerdmanns, 1910)

Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 30-107 AD) : Brilliant Light in the Winter Sky by Chris White

Ignatius of Antioch being eaten by beasts

It was late in the fall when the emperor Trajan and his army arrived in Antioch.  It was time to resupply and rest for in two days they would be continuing their march east to battle the Parthians (ancient Persia) who had been encroaching upon the Roman frontiers.  Antioch Syria (now part of present-day Turkey) had a very large Christian community which had once been taught by both the Apostles Peter and Paul and was actually the place where people were first called “Christians” (Acts 11:19).  The Church of Antioch was born out of Roman persecution and had suffered from it sporadically for many years.  Ignatius of Antioch was the beloved bishop of the city and gave loving oversight to the church much like a father would his children.  

Antioch is in present-day Turkey

Antioch was a long ways from Rome and Trajan saw that this distance had provided the freedom for the Christian “disorder” as he called it, to take root there like an aggressive weed.  The citizens of Antioch were among those he and his army had come and would possibly give up their lives to defend but to his thinking they were hardly loyal to him.  Like other Roman emperors before and after, Trajan decided to make a stand against this movement.  Through the torture of several citizens, he learned who the Christians were and where they could be found and many in the Christian community were rounded up to be publicly “reconverted” to the gods of Rome (which among them was often the emperor himself) or be executed for treason.

Ancient "enhanced interrogation"

As a crowd assembled in the amphitheater to see what was going on, an elderly gentleman made his way through the streets to the gathering.  He was on a mission.  Trajan was seated on his portable throne to look upon the proceedings.  Church members were going to be brought forward and be asked if Caesar was lord.  If they said yes, they would be asked to fully apostasize by offering incense to the genius of the emperor.  If they denied Caesar and continued to only acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, they would be tortured and then put to death before Trajan left town.  But something entirely different happened that day.

A computer generated model of the ancient city

That same elderly gentleman seen on the streets was well-known to everyone in Antioch as bishop Ignatius.  Quite fearlessly Ignatius entered the theatre and walked directly towards Trajan.  Trajan’s guard tried to stop the meeting, but Trajan recognized that Ignatius must be a key person in town and wanted to hear what he had to say and so the two men met face to face.

“You have no call to harass these people!” said Ignatius.  “I am their spiritual leader and it is I who have taught them to give all their allegiance to the Lord Jesus.  The blame for this should fall upon me, and me alone.”

“And who are you old man?” replied Trajan.  “My given name is Ignatius, but my true name is Theophorus (meaning “God-bearer”) because as the bishop of this town, I bear the truth of God and the sacred meal of our religion which is the body and blood of our Lord and God Jesus of Nazareth.”

Most all of this was incomprehensible to Trajan, but as a skilled politician, senator, and military man, he had long ago learned to identify the strategic moment in most situations and this was certainly one of them.  Ignatius was the head of this subversive movement in Antioch and once he was disposed of, this whole Christian craze will likely die for lack of leadership or splinter apart with in-fighting about who will be his successor.

And with that thought in mind, Trajan had Ignatius the bishop of Antioch arrested and placed in chains and sent to Rome with a detachment of ten soldiers.  Normally the death sentence would have been executed then and there, but as I mentioned before, Trajan was a strategic thinker.  The people of Rome loved watching execution by wild animals as part of the entertainment program at the Circus Maximus.  Why not let them watch a great religious leader be torn apart in front of them at the very least, or, in a best case scenario, watch him cower in fear at the sight of the lions and renounce his faith in Christ and find his new found allegiance to Caesar in the capitol of the Empire?

Trajan a man skilled in war and politics

Normally the trans-shipment of a prisoner was done by sea, but with winter closing in the sea route was not going to work.  And so, even as Trajan’s army marched east towards Persia, Ignatius of Antioch, his Roman guard detail, and a few friends who were allowed to attend to him began the march west moving first though Anatolia (Asia Minor) and then joining the via Egnatia in Macedonia which would take them overland to Rome.  All along the way to Rome, in something providentially akin to the book of Acts, local Christians come to meet Ignatius, most likely feeding him and his traveling companions, and then staying to hear a brief homily (short sermon).  Ignatius also takes time to dictate letters to Christian communities and friends such as bishop Polycarp of Smyrna along the way.  These letters are the primary source of information we have about Ignatius as a person but also what he believed.  Because he is a person who lived during the apostolic age and just into the sub-apostolic age, his writings give us a picture of the pattern of life and theology of the earliest church.

Possible routes that could have been taken

The question I ask when I read these letters is why these receiving congregations thought these letters valuable enough to collect them long after the fact (which they did) and why Ignatius, in the absence of there existing anything remotely akin to a monarchial bishop in the day, felt the freedom to exhort these congregations who had their own bishop?

Read the full text of the Ignatian Epistles

If there is any truth to some of the later accounts that come to us through the historian Eusebius and other church fathers, Ignatius, though not an apostle, was an eyewitness of Jesus himself but also knew personally the Apostles Peter and Paul, and was later taught, along with Polycarp, by the Apostle John in Ephesus.  The Martyrium of Ignatius says that when Jesus took a child into his arms and said let the children come to me (Mk. 9:36) the actual child he held was Ignatius at possible 4 years of age.  This is very possible if Ignatius lived to be in his 80s.  The bulk of his letters are to congregations in Asia Minor with the exception of the final one directed to the Church of Rome.  It could be that Ignatius was simply well-known in that part of the world because he was one of the last living eyewitnesses at the time or just as plausible, he actually knew many of the congregational leaders because of his strong connection to Ephesus and the Apostle John.  Whatever the reasons, the letters of Ignatius were valuable at the time they were written and are of greater importance today as the only testimony from an era in Christian history we know so little about.

So what do we learn from the epistles of Ignatius?  In all of them there are three principle concerns: Christian unity, remaining steadfast in sound doctrine, and finally that Ignatius himself would bravely face his martyrdom.  Ignatius considered being killed by the Romans for his testimony of Christ to be the ultimate form of discipleship, laying down his life for his church, even as Christ did at the cross.

Christian unity is a theme that must be understood in the context of the schismatic churches and teaching that were in blossom during this time.  Ignatius is the first Christian to actually use the term “catholic church” in his writing.  For him, this church went beyond local congregation to a world wide body of true Christians walking faithfully with the Lord and in unity with one another.  The basis for that unity was walking in fellowship and concord with your local bishop.  The bishop was the spiritual father of the area who was in charge of all instruction and celebration of the Eucharist.  Churches had a divinely charged threefold ministry of bishop, elders, and deacons and these correspond to the Father, Son, and the Apostles.

Two of the controversies that Ignatius dealt with in his day was those who believed Jesus was God but didn’t have a true human body but rather only appeared to have one as a concession to our weakness as humans.  The other was the age-old issue of whether Christians should keep the Sabbath day or not.  To these issues we find Ignatius quite direct and unequivocal.  He directly states that Jesus is God and that Jesus is God incarnate.  I would guess that even as a young lad, Ignatius would have noticed or not if Jesus didn’t have a real physical body when he held him.  This is important as Ignatius shows us the earliest theology is very much that of the later ecumenical councils.  To the Sabbath, Ignatius points out that Christians have always worshipped on Sunday because this is the day of the resurrection of Christ and it is the new day of God’s choosing for worship.  Once again, something Christians believed long before the day of Constantine and his legislation of Sunday as a day of rest for all.

Christ and Apostles Mosaic in Antioch

Most important is the theme of martyrdom as a sacrifice and offering in the letters.  It has a benefit for the faith of the entire church.  The mood of his correspondence on this topic is exaltation bordering on mania. Martyrdom is following Christ in his passion.  This was the highest form of discipleship.  Ignatius sets his face like flint to Rome in this matter.  This may have been partly out of an internal fear that he apostasize to save his own life or that a rumor get started that he did.  

Hear a dramatic reading of Ignatius' epistle to Rome 

Ignatius writes “Near the sword is near to God.” And elsewhere “I am the wheat of Christ, and am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.”  This echoes the teaching of Jesus about God’s judgment being a separation of the wheat and the chaff (Mt. 3:12).  As he sends a letter forward to the Christians in Rome he writes: do not show inopportune kindness to me but let me meet my doom as a witness and martyr.  He asks several times in the letter for their non-intervention.  This request to me is quite intriguing.  Does it suggest that they did have some power to save him?  Were there powerful people in the Roman church or did they have people on the inside of the military who could arrange for a timely escape?

Cave church of St. Peter in Antioch today

Traditionally it is believed that Ignatius was fed to the lions during the Saturnalia festival in December at the Circus Maximus.  Although grueling and violent, the lions were apparently quick and thorough leaving only a few bones behind at the end of their meal.  Schaff writes, “His faithful friends who accompanied him to Rome dreamed that night that they saw him standing next to Christ covered in sweat as if he had just come from great labor.”  This dream gave them the joyful confidence their bishop  was with the Lord and they carried his remains (or should I say leftovers) home for burial in Antioch.

Recently Pope Benedict XVI wrote that Ignatius is a ‘doctor of unity’ because he teaches the church that unity comes by common faith in Christ but also our devoted efforts to one another because we are part of a common body.  To this I add the summation of Michael Holmes:  “Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria.” As we recall the brave witness of this early Christian bishop, truly a brilliant light is still seen by all in the skies of winter.

Circus Maximus in Rome today where Ignatius was killed

 

 

 

Sources

Ferguson, Everett.  Church History vol. 1 : From Christ to the Pre-Reformation.  (Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2013).

Frend, W. H. C.  Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church.  (Cambridge : James Clarke and Co. Ltd., 2008)

Ignatius.  Letter to the Ephesians, Letter to the Romans.  The Early Christian Fathers.  Bettenson, ed.  (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1984)

“Ignatius of Antioch”  Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiological Literature.  McClintock and Strong eds.  (Grand Rapids : Baker, 1981)

“Ignatius of Antioch”  Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity.  Angelo di Berardino ed.  (Downers Grove : Intervarsity, 2008)

Jefford, Clayton N.  The Apostolic Fathers : An Essential Guide.  (Nashville : Abingdon Press, 2005)

Pope Benedict XVI.  The Fathers.  (Huntington : Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2008)

Saint of the Day: Lives, Lessons, and Feasts.  Foley and McCloskey O.F.M. eds., rev.  (Cincinnati : St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001)

Schaff, Philip.  History of the Christian Church Vol. 2.  (Grand Rapids :  Eerdmans, 1994)

The Apostolic Fathers in English.  Michael W. Holmes, translator and ed.  ( Grand Rapids : Baker Academic, 2006)