The True Cross
The True Cross, or Holy Rood [rood is 0. Eng. röd, cross, Germ. rute, staff]: the cross on which Jesus was crucified, was alleged to have been discovered by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, in Jerusalem, during her visit in 326, in a cave which now is covered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The story as first told further stated that three crosses were found lying together, but the true cross was known because it raised to life a dead man who was touched by it. The tale is told with variations upon each of the points mentioned. In itself it is one of the inost remarkable legends in church history. That the location of the tomb of Jesus had been traditionally identified from the earliest times is not improbable; and that, in removing the structures which had been put upon it in order that Constantine might build a church in front of the holy sepulchre, a cave was found in which was wood which was honestly believed to have been that of the true cross, may be accepted as the basis of the story which afterward received many embellishments.
It is incredible that Helena was an impostor, and there is no necessity for adding to Constantine's other crimes that of deliberately deceiving his aged and pious mother. The alleged discovery of them [Golgotha and the Tomb] by the aged and credulous Helena, like the discovery of the Cross, may not, improbably, have been the work of fraud. It would perhaps, not be doing injustice to Bishop Macarius and his clergy, if we regard the whole as a well laid and successful plan for restoring to Jerusalem its former consideration, and elevating his See to a higher degree of influence and dignity. It must be concluded that the cross, claimed as the true Cross, was that upon which Christ died, or that a gross fraud was perpetrated by Bishop Macarius and his clergy.
But honesty requires the acknowledgment that there is no proof that Helena had anything to do with the discovery or that the cross was discovered in her time, for the earliest witness, the Bordeaux pilgrim to Jerusalem in 333, in his itinerary, only seven years after Helena's visit, says nothing about her in the discovery of the cross, nor does Eusebius in his Life of Constantine, written in 338, wherein he expatiates upon Helena's visit to Jerusalem and her church-building (iii., xlii. xlvi.), say anything about her discovery of the holy sepulchre, much less of the true cross.
The first mention of the true cross is by Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures, written in 348, who says, “the whole world has been filled with pieces of the wood of the cross (iv., 10); "the holy wood of the cross bears witness, seen among us to this day and from this place, now almost filling the whole world, by means of those who in faith take portions from it" (x., 19); “the wood of the cross confutes [him if he denied the Passion), which was afterward distributed piecemeal from hence to all the world” (xiii., 4).
But he makes no mention of Helena, nor gives any details of the discovery of the true cross. From Cyril, however, we do learn that the true cross was commonly believed to have been discovered, and that pieces of it were even then distributed. Chrysostom in 387, in his Contra Judaeos et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus (ed. Migne, Pat. Gr., xlviii., 826), speaks of the desire to possess portions of the true cross, and how they were encased in gold. Sulpicius Severus, writing in 395, is the first one to tell of the discovery of the true cross, and he connects it with Helena, and says that it was known because it restored a dead man to life. Ambrose, in a highly rhetorical and irrelevant oration on the death of Theodosius, delivered in 395, expatiates upon Helena's discovery of the true cross on politics and other subjects.
The story having been thus started, it was repeated in different forms by later writers. Helena was without further question accepted as the discoverer, and the true cross was set up in the church Constantine built, which was dedicated 335. Part, however, she sent to Constantine, who directed that it be put in a statue he was erecting in Constantinople. The title was sent to Rome and there put in the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, specially erected by Constantine in 331. It is still shown on Easter Sunday. Portions, generally mere splinters, were sold to persons of eminence or wealth.
According to pious tradition, the size of the Cross of Christ was fifteen feet in height and eight feet in length. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (444 AD) writes: "The whole world has now been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross" (Catachesis 4:10). He makes this statement no less than three times in his lectures to the catechumens of Jerusalem. St. John Chrysostom in the same century tells us that fragments of the True Cross were kept in golden reliquaries, which men reverently wore upon their persons. In 1889 two French archaeologists, Letaille and Audollent, discovered in the district of Sétif an inscription of the year 359 in which, among other relics, is mentioned the sacred wood of the Cross. Another inscription, from Rasgunia (Cape Matifu), somewhat earlier in date than the preceding, mentions another relic of the Cross.
St. Paulinus of Nola, some years later, sent to Sulpicius Severus a fragment of the True Cross with these words: "Receive a great gift in a little [compass]; and take, in [this] almost atomic segment of a short dart, an armament [against the perils] of the present and a pledge of everlasting safety" (Epistle 31). About 455 Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, sent to Pope St. Leo a fragment of the Precious Wood (Epistle 139). Later, under St. Hilary (468 AD) and under Symmachus (514 AD) we are again told that fragments of the True Cross are enclosed in altars. About the year 500 Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, asks for a portion of the Cross from the Patriarch of Jerusalem (P.L., LIX, 236, 239).
Some time in the eighth century the rather unhappily named festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross was introduced into the Roman Church. There is no such festival in the Greek Church. Very soon the demand for portions of the precious relic increased beyond the natural ability of the Cross to supply it. The crosse," writes Ribadeneira,' who fathers, probably unjustly, his words upon Paulinus, “ being a piece of wood without sense or feeling, yet seemeth to have in it a living and everlasting virtue; and from that time to this, it permitted itself to be parted and divided to comply with innumerable persons, and yet suffereth no loss or detriment."
On July 5, 1187, the true cross was carried by the crusaders to the battlefield of Hatten, in Syria. Long and bitter was the contest, for the Christians fought for the altar of their Sacrifice, but the heathen were victorious, and “what was most lamented,” saith Matthew Paris, “the Cross which freed men from the captivity of their sins was taken by Saladin." In the treaty of Acre the Saracens had promised to return the true Cross, and gave hostages for the fulfilment of this agreement. After some delay, the condition not having been performed, Richard I. threatened to cut off the heads of the pagans in his hands. Saladin anticipated him by sacrificing the Christians in his possession. The King kept his word, the captives were beheaded in the sight of Saladin's ariny. The bodies were disembowelled, and it is added that much silver and gold were found in the entrails. The gall obtained from the victims was used for medical purposes.
Frederick Barbarossa endeavored to obtain its restitution, but the wily conqueror, aware of the value set upon it by the Christians, demanded, as its ransom, the cities of Tyre, Antioch, and Tripoli, then in the possession of the Crusaders; promising also that if these were given up, he would restore the sacred wood, and permit pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. These conditions probably were not accepted, for, in 1218, the Sultan, Malik-el-Camel, proposing, in order to save Damietta the key of his kingdom, to deliver up Jerusalem.
Two years later, the Christians being conquered by the Saracens, were obliged to quit Damietta, and to deliver to their foes their slaves and prisoners at Acre and Tyre. The Saracens on their part agreed to give up their captives of Cairo and Damascus, to conduct the army to a place of safety, and to restore the true Cross. “ Everything was executed on both sides," says Vertot, “ except the restitution of the true Cross, which the infidels in all probability had lost.”! Yet it has been claimed that it was restored and placed in the hands of the Knights Templar, and preserved by them until their dissolution by Philip the Fair.
In the Vatican, at the foot of the Velitern Cross, beneath the figure of Christ, is a circular compartment, with a half figure of a woman, having a nimbus round the head, the hair curled and adorned with a band, as if of pearls, and in a rich jewelled dress. This may be conjectured to be the Empress Helena, to whom was granted the favour of finding the true Cross; and who is represented in several ancient crosses. On the reverse side, in the centre compartment, is an Agnus Dei, enamelled, upon a field of gold, without nimbus or banner, which are usually found in this emblem of the Lamb, which is so frequent in early Christian art. A beautiful example of the Agnus Dei is sculptured outside the door of the church of St. Pudentiana, at Rome, with appropriate inscriptions round it.
The Knights Templar believed that they had a cherished piece of the True Cross in their possession, as exemplified by section 122 of the Hierarchal Statutes of the Templar Rule. In 1811, this invaluable relic was presented by the burghers of Aix-la Chapelle to Napoleon; he wore it upon his breast in the battles of Austerlitz and Wagram, after the example of his illustrious predecessor, who for nine years never entered into battle without it. Bonaparte afterwards gave it to Queen Hortense, from whose bosom it was never absent.
Marvellous indeed must have been the increase to supply the centuries of demand, but no less marvellous than the miracle that many of the fragments are of different species of wood, yet that may be in part accounted for by admitting that the Cross was composed of divers kinds. Two hundred years ago, Erasmus declared that “if the fragments of the Cross were collected, enough would be found for the building of a ship, and yet our Lord carried the whole in his Cross." Voltaire also sneers in similar language; Swift, too, whose wit was never sacrificed to his reverence, says that "the Gospel testifies that the Cross could be borne by one single individual; how glaring, then, is the audacity now to pretend to display more relics of wood than three hundred men could carry”!
As for the common exception against the Crosse, that so many several pieces thereof are shown, which put together would break the back of Simon Cyrene to bear them, it is answered, Distrahitur, non diminuitur, and, like the loaves in the Gospel, it is miraculously multiplied in the dividing If all these fail, Baronius hath a razour shaveth all scruple clear away: For, saith he, Quicquid sit fides purgat facinus; so he that worshipeth the false relics of a true saint, God taketh his good intention in good worth, though he adore the hand of Esau, for the hand of Jacob.”
It is a common jibe that enough fragments of the true cross are shown as relics to make a dozen crosses, though some claim that as a matter of fact it is not so, but rather all of these pieces together would not make a piece of any size. It used to be said in Victorian England that there was enough wood of the True Cross in England to build one of Her Majesty's battleships.
In the Catholic Encyclopedia, the following is written to refute the Protestant and Rationalist argument that the amount of distributed relics of the Holy Cross throughout the world could be compared to the size of a battleship: "The work of Rohault de Fleury, "Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion" (Paris, 1870), deserves more prolonged attention; its author has sought out with great care and learning all the relics of the True Cross, drawn up a catalogue of them, and, thanks to this labour, he has succeeded in showing that, in spite of what various Protestant or Rationalistic authors have pretended, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not only not 'be comparable in bulk to a battleship', but would not reach one-third that of a Cross which has been supposed to have been three or four metres in height, with transverse branch of two metres, proportions not at all abnormal (op. cit., 97-179). Here is the calculation of this savant: Supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood, as is believed by the savants who have made a special study of the subject, and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilograms, we find that the volume of this Cross was 178,000,000 cubic millimetres. Now the total known volume of the True Cross, according to the finding of M. Rohault de Fleury, amounts to above 4,000,000 cubic millimetres, allowing the missing part to be as big as we will, the lost parts or the parts the existence of which has been overlooked, we still find ourselves far short of 178,000,000 cubic millimetres, which should make up the True Cross."
Dr. William C. Prime, in his interesting monograph on this subject, emphatically states that “there are very few fragments anywhere which profess to be relics of the holy Cross. The common idea that enough wood is shown in various places as relics of the true Cross to build a dozen crosses is a very foolish error, invented by some one who imagined that when a church claimed to possess a piece of the true Cross, it must be a piece of at least some feet in length and solid contents. Generally speaking, that very rare and highly prized relic, ‘ a piece of the true Cross,' whether possessed by a church, a crowned head, or a private individual, is a minute speck of wood, scarcely visible to the naked eye, set sometimes on an ivory tablet, always enclosed in a costly reliquaire. No other fragment is known so large as the Santa Croce tablet, which is not ten inches long by seven wide. There are but very few fragments known which are large enough to be called pieces of wood. Leaving out the Santa Croce tablet, all the relics of the holy Cross, claimed to be such, that I have been able to hear of in all the world, if gathered into one piece, would not inake another block of wood as large as the Santa Croce tablet. This tablet is not generally spoken of as a part of the Cross itself."
There are so many fragments of the “true cross,” that Paulinus, who writes in the fifth century, says, “The cross, possessing a living power in its senseless material substance, has continued daily to afford its wood to the innumerable cravings of men, in such a manner as not to have sustained any loss.” Now this is the account of the “true cross.”
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