ST. HELEN 371 fallen to ruin, had been bnilt on the spot, partly to desecrate it. The re- mains of the temple were discovered and cleared away, and then the diggers came upon the rock. St. Helen and her companions satisfied themselves and Constantine that this was the right place, and a church was built there, although it was not finished and dedicated till 336, after the death of Helen, and there the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands to this day. The empress visited all the churches in and around Jerusalem, not in royal robes or sitting in a place of state, but in the simplest attire, kneeling humbly amongst the other women. The great ecclesiastical event with which her name is connected is the discovery of the Cross of Christ. Being at Jerusalem, and much interested in the identification of the holy places, she conceived a great desire to find the very cross on which the Lord was "lifted up." There was no tradition regarding it, but she was informed that it would probably be found near the sepulchre, as it had been usual among the Jews to bury near the grave of a criminal the instruments of his punishment as un- clean things ; therefore, when they had discovered the site of the Holy Sepul- chre, they dug to a great depth, and found three crosses buried in one hole. This discovery filled the good empress with pious exultation, but it seemed impossible to distinguish the cross of the Saviour from those of the two thieves, until St. Macarius, the bishop of Jeru- solem, ascertained that one of the crosses would perform miraculous cures and the others would not. The aged saint then provided a costly shrine for part of the cross, and placed it in the new church in April or May, 32() ; she took another part to Constan- tinople, and presented it to her son, who received it with great veneration; and the rest she carried with her to Eome in the course of the same year, and gave it to be placed in her new church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where it remains to this day. The nails, the crown of thorns, the title, the sponge, the lance, each has its history. It is said that three nails were brought home by the empress, and in after times minute pieces of these were enclosed in new nails made in imitation of them, other copies being merely touched with one of the true nails, and in some cases a church having one of these secondary nails boasted of the possession of one of the original three.' St. Faulinus, in his twelfth epistle to Severus, relates that, although small pieces of the wood of the cross were cut oif daily, and given to devout persons, the sacred wood suffered no diminution. Many of the most trusted historians mention the finding of the sepulchre. The strongest doubt that is thrown upon the finding of the cross arises from Eusebius's silence concerning it. He mentions the building of the church, but does not describe the discovery and identification of the cross. One great church, or rather two joined together, bore the name of the Basilica of the Holy Cross. Part of it was on the site of the Crucifixion, and the other part, called the Church of the Eesurrec- tion, was on the site of the sepulchre. The piece of the cross kept in the church was annually shown to the people at Easter with great solemnity. The "Invention of the Cross" is celebrated on May 3. This day is called, in Adam King's Calendar, "The halie rude Day or finding of ye halie croce at Jerusalem be Helene Mother to Con- stantine ye greit.*' It is called in some parts of England "St. Helen's day in Spring," and was the appointed day for certain rural and agricultural proceed- ings. (This festival has been observed in the Latin Church since the oth or 6th century.) Adam King has, on May 7, "The apparitione of ye starnes in forme of ye croce at ierusalem vnder Constantine." And on May 21, " S. Helene mother to constantine ye greit quha fand ye halie rude vnder hir sone." Sept. 14 is the anniversary of the Exaltation of the Cross, the day on which the piece of the cross was put in its place in the newly dedicated church, ten years after the foundation of the one and discovery of the other.
