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Eusebius on the True Cross1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

H. A. Drake
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Extract

According to a beloved and now generally disbelieved story, the Cross upon which Jesus suffered was discovered some three hundred years after the event by the saintly Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, Rome's first Christian emperor. For centuries, this story enjoyed the greatest vogue, blossoming into a full-blown Legend of the Cross which traced its genealogy all the way back to the Garden of Eden. With the waning of the Middle Ages, however, came new criteria for evidence, and with them a scholarly predisposition to dismiss the discovery, as well as the legend, as pure bunkum. Put together all the pieces of the True Cross, it became common to say, and one could float a fine freighter.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 1 - 22
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

2 A familiar version of the story was told in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine in his popular Legenda Aurea, ed. Th. Graesse, 3rd edn, Bratislava 1890, ch. lxviii. But there are many variants. See Delehaye, H., Les Légendes hagiographiques, 3rd edn, Brussels 1927, 35fGoogle Scholar; Quinn, E., The Quest of Seth for the Oil of Life, Chicago 1962Google Scholar. The story was told visually in the fifteenth century in a series of woodcuts reprinted by Ashton, J., The Legendary History of the Cross, London 1887, repr. 1937Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g., Erasmus, Peregrinatio religionis ergo, in L.-E. Halkin el al. (eds.), Opera omnia, i. 3, Amsterdam 1972, 478. On the growth of critical scholarship on Constantine, see Kaegi, W., ‘Vom nachleben Constantins’, Schtveizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte, viii (1958), 289–326Google Scholar, esp. 307ff; Schmidinger, H., ‘Konstantin und die konstantinische Aera’, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophic und Theologie, xvi (1969) 3–21, esp. 12ffGoogle Scholar.

4 De obit. Theod. xli-xlviii, in Caillau, D. (ed.), Opera omnia, Paris 1842, viii, 133–6Google Scholar. Earlier references to the discovery are made by Chrysostom, John, Horn, in Joh. lxxv. 1Google Scholar (P.G. lix. 461), and the pilgrim Egeria, Itin. Eger. xlviii. 1–2 (C.C.S.L. dxxv. 89). On Helena, see now Hunt, E. D., Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire: AD 312–460, Oxford 1982, ch. 2Google Scholar; Mulligan, W., ‘The British Constantine: an English historical myth’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, viii (1978), 257–79Google Scholar.

5 On Egeria’s name and the date of her pilgrimage, see Wilkinson, J., Egeria’s Travels, London 1971, 235ffGoogle Scholar; Hunt, op. tit., 124, 164. For the Tixter inscription, C.I.L. viii, supp. 3, p. 1944, no. 20600.

6 Catech. iv. 10 (P.G. xxxiii. 469).

7 Ep. ad Constantium iii (P.G. xxxiii. 1168).

8 Decline and Fall, ch. 23, n. 66 (Bury edn, ii. 481). Eusebius’s account of the Sepulchre is at VC, iii. 25–40; it runs to six pages in the new edition by F. Winkelmann, Berlin 1975. By comparison, the account of the vision, VC, i. 27–31, runs to three pages.

9 So A. Linder, ‘The myth of Constantine the Great in the West: sources and hagiographic commemoration’, Studi Medievali, ser. 3, xvi (1975), 43–95, at p. 54 n. 54. See also H. Leclercq,’ Pelerinages aux lieux saints’, Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chretienne et de Lilurgie (hereafter cited as DACL), xiv. 1, 72; C. Coleman, Constantine the Great and Christianity (Columbia Univ. Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, No. 146), New York 1914, 119f.

10 Subsequent to Ambrose, the legend is told by Paulinus, Ep. ad Severum xxxi (C.S.E.L. xxix. 271–4); Sulp. Sev., Hist. Sacra, ii. 34 (P.L. xx. 148); Rufinus, H.E., x. 7–8 (ed. Th. Mommsen in E. Schwartz, ed., Eusebius’ Werke, 11. 2, Leipzig 1908, 969–71; Socrates, H.E., 1.17; Sozomen, H.E., ii. 1. The association of Helena with Rome’s Church of Santa Croce in Jerusalem might be behind her introduction into the legend: a palace church in the Sessorian evidently is Constantinian, but it is unclear at what point in the fourth century this church became identified with the Holy Cross. See Pietri, C., Roma Christiana, Rome 1976, i. 14ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Coüasnon, C., The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, London 1974, 11ffGoogle Scholar. This is the most up-to-date report on the site generally available. For details, however, the extensive study by Vincent, Frs H. and Abel, F. M., Jerusalem, recherches de topographic, d’archéologie et d’histoire, Paris 1914–1922Google Scholar (hereafter cited as VA), remains indispensable. For their study of the Hadrianic city, see VA, ii. 1–88.

12 It remains possible that Hadrian did not distinguish between Christians and Jews in his efforts to punish Israel for the Bar-Cochba revolt. But on his attitude towards Christians in general, see Frend, W. H. C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, New York 1967, 168f.Google Scholar; T.D.Barnes, ‘Legislation against the Christians’, Journal of Roman Studies (hereafter cited as JRS), lviii (1968), 37.

13 VC, iii. 55; cf. De laudibus Constantini (hereafter cited as LC), viii. 6.

14 John xix. 41, 42; Heb. xiii. 12. Further, VA, ii. 93.

15 Hamrick, E. W., ‘The third wall of Agrippa I’, Biblical Archaeologist, xl (1977), 18–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hunt, Pilgrimage, 3.

16 This has not always been understood. Hamilton, R. W., ‘Jerusalem in the fourth century’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, lxxxiv (1952), 89Google Scholar, dismisses the passage as ‘an elaborate rhetorical exercise.’

17 VC, iii. 33. 3, 34.

18 VC, iii. 25, 40.

19 Itin. Burdig. 593. 4 (C.C.S.L., clxxv. 17).

20 Pertinent testimonia are collected in VA, ii. 206ff, and analysed in E. Wistrand, Konslantins Kirche am Heiligen Grab in Jerusalem nach den ältesten literarischen Zeugnissen (Acta Universitatis Gotoburgensis, lviii. 1) Göteborg 1952. The incredulity provoked in the minds of visitors to the present structure is well reflected in the amused reaction of Mark Twain, who marvelled that ‘The place of the Crucifixion, and, in fact, every other place intimately connected with that tremendous event, are ingeniously massed together and covered by one roof...’ The Innocents Abroad (1869), ch. 53.

21 Holy Sepulchre, 41.

22 See, e.g., Chron. Pasch., ed. L. Dindorf, Bonn 1832, i. 531. Egeria wrote that the Encaenia of both Martyrium and Anastasis was timed to occur on the day the Cross had been found: Itin. Eger., xlviii. 1–2 (C.C.S.L., clxxv. 89). Subsequently, separate days were devoted to each building, with the Encaenia celebrated on 13 September and the discovery of the Cross on 14 September. The exact date of the split is unknown, but it had already occurred in the Greek calendar by A.D. 572. See G. Garitte (ed.), Le Calendrier palestino-géorgien du Sinaiticus 34 (Xe siècle) (Subsidia Hagiographia, xxx), Brussels 1958, 330. The present Crypt of St Helena dates from the twelfth century, but the caverns themselves may date to the original structure. See Conant, K. J., ‘The original buildings at the Holy Sepulchre’, Speculum, xxxi (1956), 1–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 11; Coöasnon, Holy Sepulchre, 41.

23 Thus, even H. Dömes, who has done more than any other scholar to call attention to the importance of Constantine’s ‘self-witness’, summarises Constantine’s letter in a narrative which simply repeats the gist of Eusebius’s own account: Constantine the Great, New York 1972, 163Google Scholar.

24 Barnes, T. D., Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge, Mass. 1981, 141Google Scholar.

25 Two Essays on Biblical and Ecclesiastical Miracles, 4th edn, London 1875, 291, 296nGoogle Scholar. DeCombes, L., The Finding of the Cross, New York 1907, 238Google Scholar, cited in corroboration Benedict xiv, De festis domini nostri, i. 14, nn. 10–12. I have been unable to locate an edition with these notes. However, at VC, iii. 1. 2, Eusebius clearly uses τò τo πάθoυς τρóπαιoν to mean the Cross. It is also noteworthy that Lampe takes this passage to designate the Cross in Patristic Greek Lexicon, s.v. γνώρισμα.

26 See, with examples, MacMullen, R., ‘Roman bureaucratese’, Traditio, xviii (1962), 364–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 The connection of Golgotha with Adam was known to Origen in the third century, and probably derives from Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, modifying an earlier Jewish tradition making the Temple the site of Adam’s burial. See Jeremias, J., Golgotha, Leipzig 1926, 38fGoogle Scholar; Bagatti, B. and Testa, E., Il Golgota e la Croce: ricerche slorico-archeologiche, Jerusalem 1978, 26–30Google Scholar.

28 Armstrong, G., ‘Constantine’s Churches: symbol and structure’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxx (1974), 5–16, at p. 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Vincent described it firmly as an apse, VA, ii. 162f. But Coüasnon, Holy Sepulchre, 44, was more hesitant, preferring an apse but agreeing that the term is more suitable for a cupola. Conant, ‘Original buildings’, iof, saw it as a ‘semidome’ with a dwarf transept.

30 Wistrand, Konstantins Kirche, 13.

31 ‘L’ Hémisphairion et l’omphalos des lieux saints’, Cahiers Archeologiques, i (1945), 13Google Scholar. The same suggestion is made by Clos, E. M., Kreuz void Grab Jesu, Kempten 1898, 82fGoogle Scholar, and, more tentatively, Davies, J. G., ‘Eusebius’ description of the Martyrium at Jerusalem’, American Journal of Archaeology, lxi (1957), 171—3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, Baltimore 1965, 40fGoogle Scholar. Egeria seems to describe this part of the Basilica as an apse, perhaps specifically modified to afford a view of Golgotha. Itin. Eger. xlvi. 4 (C.C.S.L., clxxv. 88). I am grateful to Dr E. D. Hunt for this reference.

32 VC, iv. 46. See Drake, H., In Praise of Constantine, Berkeley 1976, ch. 3Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., 46. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, disputes the interpretation of the oration offered here. But he also concludes that Eusebius’s remarks had to accord with Constantine’s own views on this occasion.

34 In Praise of Constantine, 171 n. 25.

35 Op. cit., 12ff. Abel also thought this passage reflected the ‘duality’ of the structure: VA, ii. 190. On Eusebius’s penchant for pleonasm, see Bartelink, G., ‘“Maison de priere” comme dénomination de l’Eglise en tant qu’édifice, en particulier chez Eusèbe de Césarée’, Revue des Études Grecs, lxxxiv (1971), 101–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See pp. 105f.

36 At the end of the fourth century, Egeria refers to a location ‘post Crucem’, separate from the Basilica, which was used during Easter Week. Itin. Eger. xxxv. 2, xxxvii. 1 (C.C.S.L. clxxv. 79f). Coüasnon, Holy Sepulchre, 51, conceived of this structure as a church, but Conant,’ Original buildings’, 6, thought it more a large Bema, or platform. See further, idem, ‘The holy sites at Jerusalem in the first and fourth centuries A.D.’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, iii (1958), 14–24Google Scholar, esp. 22f, and Coüasnon, op. cit., 17f, 33,

37 Conant, ‘Original buildings’, 47, thought the Rotunda was completed before 348. For evidence of the pre-Rotunda arrangement, see Coüasnon, op. cit., 2 if; Hunt, Pilgrimage, 11 f.

38 ν υσῳ κατ’ α ὐτò δ ριoν μρτύριoν. I translate ‘martyrion’ in its general sense of ‘witness’ or ‘evidence’ because of the general nature of the passage. See the note to my translation, In Praise of Constantine, 171 n. 24. See also Grabar, A., Martyrium, Paris 1946Google Scholar, repr. London 1972, i. 29, for such use of the term during Eusebius’s time, and cf. Wistrand, Konstantins Kirche, 12.

39 VC, i. 32. 2. For ‘trophy of the Cross’, see VC, i. 28. 2, 31. 2; ‘Saving Trophy’, VC, ii. 7, 9. 2, 16. 1; iii. 3. 2 ; iv. 21 (twice). See also VC, iii. 2. 2.

40 The phrase occurs in a speech which has been attached to the text of the LC, and which I have entitled De sepulchro Christi (hereafter cited as SC): In Praise of Constantine, ch. 3. For its use as the body of Christ: SC, xv. 8, 10, 13; as churches: SC, xi. 2, xviii. At SC, xvi. 3, Christ’s body is specifically identified as a νικητήριo;ν τρóπαιoν which has been raised over the demons, while at SC, xvii. 4 it is temples and oratories which have been raised as τρóπαια νικητήρια. See also Euseb., H.E. ii. 25. 5, where the phrase ‘trophies of the apostles’ means either their remains or, more likely, their tombs, as argued by Lassus, J., ‘L’Empereur Constantin, Eusebe et les lieux saints’, Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, clxxi (1967), 135–44Google Scholar; see p. 137 n. 29. Because of his different use of the term, it is not entirely correct to say that ‘Eusebius’ trophy was the Christian cross as the triumphant symbol of Christ’s victory over death’, as Storch, R., ‘The “Eusebian Constantine”‘, Church History, xl (1971), 145–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 148.

41 Cf. VC, i. 40, iii. 2, iv. 21. The classic statement on the importance of the vision and the labarum to Constantine’s conversion is in Baynes, N., Constantine the Great and the Christian Church, 2nd edn, Oxford 1972, 6, 20,fGoogle Scholar.

42 Duckworth, H., The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, London 1922, 87Google Scholar.

43 DeCombes, Cross, 240.

44 ‘Helena Augusta, das Kreuz und die Juden’, Saeculum, xxvii (1976), 211–22Google Scholar; Eng. tr. Classical Folia, xxxi (1977), 135–51Google Scholar.

45 Conant, ‘Holy sites’, 16, argues that the rock of Calvary, about which Eusebius is silent, has a greater scholarly claim to authenticity than the tomb, one of only several on the site. Eusebius’s presumed abhorrence of idolatry remains a subject of debate. See Sister Charles Murray, ‘Art and the early Church’, JTS, 2nd ser., xxviii (1977), 303–45, esp. 326ff; Schäferdiek, K., ‘Zu Verfasserschaft und Situation der epistula ad Constantiam de imagine Christi’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, xc (1980), 177–86Google Scholar; Gero, S., ‘The true image of Christ: Eusebius’ letter to Constantia reconsidered’, JTS, 2nd ser., xxxii (1981), 460–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Eusebius states his intention to celebrate Constantine’s virtues at VC, i. 10. 2, a passage frequently cited. Less often noticed is his judgement at VC, i. 3. 4, that Constantine stands as a model of the pious life. But see the penetrating remarks by F. Winkelmann, Leben Konstantin, xlix-lii, and ‘Konstantins Religionspolitik und ihre Motive im Urteil der literarischen Quellen des 4. und 5. Jahrhunderts’, Ada Antigua, ix (1961), 239–56, esp. p. 242; Farina, R., L’Impero e l’Imperatore cristiano in Eusebio di Cesarea, Zurich 1966, 22Google Scholar. While continuing to differ as to reason, recent writers acknowledge Eusebius’s tendency to distort his picture of Constantine. See Chesnut, G., The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius (Theologie Historique, xlvi), Paris 1977, 163Google Scholar; Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 271.

47 A. Momigliano, The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century,

48 See, e.g., the defeat of Maxentius in Bk. i and of Licinius in Bk. ii; the destruction of temples (iii. 54–6), and suppression of heresies (iii. 63–6). For his heralding of the faith and his discourses, see i. 40, ii. 23, iii. 2, 24; iv. 15, 29.

49 E.g., ii. 20–1, 44–5; iv. 18, 23–8.

50 E.g., i. 32, ii. 14, iv. 17, 22, 30, 48.

51 E.g., i. 42, 44; ii. 63; iii. 6, 13.

52 E.g., i. 4, 6, 41, 47; iv. 14, 74.

53 As does Vogt, ‘Helena’, 219; Storch, ‘Eusebean Constantine’, 149; W. Telfer, ‘The author’s purpose in the Vita Constantini’, Studia Patristica, i. 1, Berlin 1957, 157–67.

54 Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 2 70, calls Eusebius’s treatment of Nicaea ‘deliberately selective’. For recent appreciations of the importance of ceremonial and monuments to Eusebius’s conception of the Christian empire, see Murray, ‘Art and early Church’, 334f; MacCormack, S., Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity, Berkeley 1981, 117Google Scholar.

55 On omission and inference as features of Eusebius’s method, see now Grant, R. M., Eusebius as Church Historian, Oxford 1980, 25ffGoogle Scholar.

56 H.E., x. 4. 55ff; LC, vi. ioff; VC, iv. 40.

57 E.g., VC, i. 31. 3, 37. 1, 40. 1; ii. 16. 2; iii. 2. 2, 3. 1. LC, vi. 21; ix. 8, 16–17, ‘9. Cf. R. Storch, ‘The trophy and the Cross: pagan and Christian symbolism in the fourth and fifth centuries’, Byzantion, xl (1970), 105–17.

58 VA, ii. 190 n. 6.

59 Pocknee, C. E., Cross and Crucifix in Christian Worship and Devotion, London 1962, 33Google Scholar. Eusebius makes no mention of the ban on crucifixion, but it is noted by Aurel. Viet., Cats., xli. 4, and Sozomen, H.E., i. 8. 13.

60 VC, i. 40. 1, iii. 49. Cf. LC, ix. 8.

61 Bruun, P., ‘The Christian signs on the coins of Constantine’, Arctos, 2nd ser., iii (1962), 5–35Google Scholar; cf. Roman Imperial Coinage, vii, London 1966, 61–4Google Scholar.

62 Storch, ‘Trophy and Cross’, 105. See also Gillman, I., ‘Constantine the Great in the light of the Chrisms Victor concept’, Journal of Religious History, i (1961), 197–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 The groundbreaking article was by Norman Baynes, ‘Eusebius and the Christian Empire’, Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie el d’Histoire Orientates (Melanges Bidez), ii (1934), 13–18. See also Chesnut, First Christian Histories, 151f.

64 Nock, A. D., ‘A Diis Electa: a chapter in the religious history of the third century’, Harvard Theological Review, xxiii (1930), 251–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The Emperor’s Divine Comes’, JRS, xxxvii (1947), 102–16Google Scholar; Chesnut, First Christian Histories, ch. vi.

65 Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 253ff, considers the LC an aggressively Christian speech. But he does not argue with the proposition that Eusebius had to reflect Constantine’s own views in this speech. Thus, if Barnes’s interpretation is correct, it would make Eusebius’s association of the site with the Cross in the LC even more suggestive.

66 SC, xi. 3 (see n. 40 above). For examples of pagan attitudes, see Brown, P., The Cult of the Saints, Chicago 1981, 7Google Scholar.

67 ‘Memoria, martyr’s tomb and martyr’s church’, JTS, 2nd ser., xvii (1966), 36Google Scholar. Eusebius’s description is at VC, iv. 58–60.