On a visit to Rome, we sought out the church of Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme. My American Express Guide to Rome (long out of print, but still handy)
says it was “One of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome, it is said to have been
built to house the precious relics of the True Cross brought to Rome from
Jerusalem by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine.”
Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme (photo: Commons.Wikimedia.org)
It is said that Helena founded the
church on land where her private palace stood. Although it was on the edgte of
the city, the relics of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that Helena brought back from Jerusalem made Santa
Croce in Gerusalemme a center for pilgrimage. Most important were some pieces of Christ’s
Cross (croce means “cross”) and part
of Pontius Pilate’s inscription, called the Titulus Crucis, proclaiming “Jesus
of Nazareth King of the Jews,” written in Latin, Hebrew and Greek. There is
little doubt that this wooden plaque is very old, but numerous tests performed
over the years have never established its authenticity absolutely.
Nevertheless, even to a non-Christian observer, it is quite moving to view
these relics.
.
When we
entered the church, only a few days after Easter, we seemed to be the only
visitors. We walked up to the altar and
around the chapel. We did not see any relics, so we made our way into the
smaller side rooms and found them in a small room behind the main altar. Here we saw St. Helena’s relics: three pieces
of wood set in a larger cross; they are said to be actual pieces of the True
Cross. Two thorns, said to be from
Jesus’ crown of thorns are mounted and stand alongside it, as does a piece of a
bronze nail, said to be from the crucifixion itself. And finally, we saw the piece of wood that is
said to be from the sign Pontius Pilate was said to have erected over Jesus
while he was crucified.
Whether or
not they are authentic relics, I cannot say.
But seeing them was a fascinating experience.
It led me
to recall the importance of Helena ,
later revered as St. Helena , to the ancient land of Israel Constantine .
Constantius I Chlorus
follis (307/310-337), father of
Constantine I, first husband of Helena (photo: cngcoins.com)
In 292,
when Constantius became Caesar of Spain, Gaul
and Britain ,
he dumped Helena
and married Theodora, the daughter of Maximian, his patron.
Theodora, died before
337 AD, follies (photo: cngcoins.com)
Meanwhile, Helena’s son Constantine
became a soldier, and spent a lot of time at Diocletian’s court. When Constantine
persuaded the Roman legions in Britain
to proclaim him Caesar in 306, he immediately called for his mother and
installed her in his court with the appropriate honors befitting the mother of
the Emperor.
Constantine I bronze
struck at Constantinople. The reverse depicts a labarum crowned by a
Christogram, piercing a serpent, with the legend SPES PVBLIC (hope for the
public). Constantine saw the Christogram in a vision and also began to wear it
on his helmet and shield (photo: cngcoins.com)
In 312, the
most significant event of Constantine ’s
reign occurred. While preparing for a battle with the army of his rival
Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in Rome, he saw a cross in the sky with the
inscription IN HOC SIGNO VINCES (“In this sign you will conquer”). He immediately ordered his troops to paint
the monogram of Jesus, the labarum, on their shields and this extra strength
enabled their victory and gave Constantine
control of the West as well as the East, whereupon Constantine vowed to make the Roman Empire a Christian nation.
Vetranio bronze (c.
350 AD) struck under Constantius II (337 – 361 AD) as Siscia. The reverse
legend is HOC SIGNO VICTORERIS (In this sign, you will conquer). The scene and
legend on this coin provide a re-enactment of Constantine I’s victory at the
Milvian Bridge. (photo: cngcoins.com_
In 324 AD
Constantine named Helena as “Augusta,” a title that was established by Augustus
for Livia, but certainly not granted every empress, much less every royal
mother.
Helena as Augusta 324-328/30, bronze follis (photo:
cngcoins.com)
In 325 AD,
the Council of Nicea met and Constantine
declared Christianity to be the nation’s official religion. Incidentally, it is
not clear whether Constantine himself actually ever became a Christian. His mother, Helena, was not only converted
but was so excited by her spiritual experience that it enticed her to make a
pilgrimage, circa 326 AD to Judea, where she could visit all of the sites that
were important in the life of Jesus. She was in her late 70s at the time she
embarked. Helena’s pilgrimage was the prototype for the travels of virtually
every Christian pilgrim to the Holy Land for some 1,700 years, right up to
today.
Until Helena’s
visit, nobody outside of the Christians in the Holy Land had paid much
attention to the sites there. In
Helena’s day the Jews maintained important academies at Tiberius, Sepphoris,
and Lydda (Lod). Led by Rabbi Yehudah
Ha’Nassi the Jewish scholars were in the final stages of developing the Talmud
itself. When I was the numismatist at
the Joint Sepphoris Expedition in 1985 and 1986, led by Duke’s Eric and Carol
Meyers and Hebrew University’s Ehud Netzer, we discovered some remarkable
mosaic floors—and many more were subsequently discovered at Sepphoris—which
indicated that the city was extremely wealthy at the time Helena arrived in the
country. In fact, we dated some of these mosaics by small groups of
Constantinian coins lying on top of and just under them.
While there
is no doubt that the local traditions held some, or perhaps many of the sites
Helena visited as holy shrines, it did not hurt that the mother of the Emperor
of Christian Rome further declared the sites to be true.
And indeed,
Helena was said
to have:
--Proclaimed
the actual path Jesus took on his way to the cross, the Via Dolorosa, and
declared the precise spots of all of the fourteen Stations of the Cross;
Fifth Station of the
Cross (top) and the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem. (photos: David
Hendin)
--Found at
least several pieces of the true cross itself;
--Identified
the spot near the Sea of Galilee where the
miracle of fish and loaves occurred;
--Confirmed
the place where Jesus stood when he gave his Sermon on the Mount;
--Marked
the place of the Annunciation, where Mary learned that she would give birth to
Jesus;
--And she
also identified places where Joseph’s carpentry shop stood, where Jesus was
born, the field in which the shepherds saw the Bethlehem Star, and the inn of
the Good Samaritan.
The story
of Helena ’s
pilgrimage is certainly not fantasy. In
his Life of Constantine (c. 340 AD),
Eusebius wrote (only about ten years after her death) that Helena lavished good
deeds on the Holy Land, and “Although well advanced in years, she came, fired
by youthful fervor, in order to know this land” and she “explored it with
remarkable discernment …And by her endless admiration for the footsteps of the
Savior…she granted those who came after her the fruits of her piety. Afterward
she built two houses of prayer to the God she revered, one in the Grotto of the
Nativity (this is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ) and the other on the Mount of the
Ascension (this is the Eleona
Church Mount of Olives ).” Helena
also is said to have identified the spot where Jesus was crucified and buried,
and ordered the first Church of the Holy Sepulcher to be built there.
It is a
matter of some interest that while Helena ’s
important pilgrimage is well documented, not a single numismatic memento of
these events was issued. So the coins of Helena
can only offer us a glimpse of the appearance of this important woman of
antiquity.
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