True Cross
In Christian tradition, the True Cross is the original wooden cross on which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
It is related by numerous historical accounts and legends that Helen, the mother of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, recovered the True Cross at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, when she travelled to the Holy Land in the years 326–328. The late fourth-century historians Gelasius of Caesarea and Tyrannius Rufinus wrote that while Helen was there, she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to have been used at the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves, Dismas and Gestas, who were executed with him. To one cross was affixed the titulus bearing Jesus's name, but according to Rufinus, Helen was unsure of its legitimacy until a miracle revealed that it was the True Cross. This event is celebrated on the liturgical calendar as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross by the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Persian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches.
The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches, as well as denominations of the Church of the East, have all claimed to possess relics of the True Cross as objects of veneration. Historians generally dispute the authenticity of the relics, as do Protestant and other Christian churches, who do not hold them in high regard.
Provenance
''The Golden Legend''
In the Latin-speaking traditions of Western Europe, the story of the True Cross was well established by the 13th century when, in 1260, it was recorded by Jacobus de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, in the Golden Legend.The Golden Legend contains several versions of the origin of the True Cross. In The Life of Adam, Voragine writes that the True Cross came from three trees which grew from three seeds from the "Tree of Mercy" which Seth collected and planted in the mouth of Adam's corpse.
In another account contained in "Of the Invention of the Holy Cross", Voragine writes that the True Cross came from a tree that grew from part of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "the tree that Adam ate of", that Seth planted on Adam's grave where it "endured there unto the time of Solomon". Alternatively, it reached Solomon via Moses, who used it as the staff of Moses, and David, who planted it at Jerusalem. It was felled by Solomon to be a beam in his temple but not found suitable in the end.
After many centuries, the tree was cut down and the wood used to build a bridge over which the Queen of Sheba passed on her journey to meet Solomon. So struck was she by the portent contained in the timber of the bridge that she fell on her knees and revered it. On her visit to Solomon, she told him that a piece of wood from the bridge would bring about the replacement of God's covenant with the Jewish people by a new order. Solomon, fearing the eventual destruction of his people, had the timber buried.
After fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge was fashioned into the Cross used to crucify Jesus Christ. Voragine then goes on to describe its rediscovery by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.
In the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, there was wide general acceptance of the account of the cross's history as presented by Voragine. This general acceptance is displayed in numerous artworks on the subject, culminating in one of the most famous fresco cycles of the Renaissance, the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca, which he painted on the walls of the chancel of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo between 1452 and 1466, faithfully reproducing the episodes of The Golden Legend.
Eastern Christianity
According to the sacred tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church the True Cross was made from three different types of wood: cedar, pine and cypress. This is an allusion to : "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious." The link between this verse and the crucifixion lies in the words "the place of my feet", which is interpreted as referring to the footrest on which Jesus's feet were nailed and which appears on the Orthodox cross..Tradition of Lot's triple tree
A further tradition holds that these three trees from which the True Cross was constructed grew together in one spot. A traditional Orthodox icon in the Monastery of the Cross depicts Lot, the nephew of Abraham, watering the trees. According to tradition, these trees were used to construct the Temple in Jerusalem. Later, during Herod's reconstruction of the Temple, the wood from these trees was removed from the Temple and discarded, eventually being used to construct the cross on which Jesus was crucified.Empress Helena and the Cross
The rediscovery of the True Cross, called the "Invention of the True Cross", was traditionally attributed to Saint Helena, mother of Constantine I, an account that emerged over time.Eusebius
The Life of Constantine by Eusebius of Caesarea is the earliest and main historical source on the rediscovery of the Tomb of Jesus and the construction of the first church at the site, but does not mention anything concerning the True Cross. Eusebius describes how the site of the Holy Sepulchre, once a site of veneration for the early Christian Church in Jerusalem, had been covered over with earth and a temple of Venus had been built on top. Although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of Hadrian's 130 reconstruction of Jerusalem into the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina, following Jerusalem's destruction at the end of the Jewish Revolt in the year 70, and in connection with Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132–135. Following his conversion to Christianity, Emperor Constantine ordered in about 325–326 that the site be uncovered and instructed Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to build a church on the site. Eusebius' work contains details about the demolition of the pagan temple and the erection of the church, but does not mention anywhere the finding of the True Cross.Cyril of Jerusalem
Perhaps the earliest witness to the tradition of the True Cross was Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem. In the fourth of his Catechetical Lectures, which are dated to around the year 350, he says that "the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the Cross." This text relates that pieces of the cross were dispersed as relics, but offers no information about the discovery of the cross itself. Elsewhere, in a letter to Emperor Constantius, Cyril only relates that the cross was found during the reign of Constantine.Gelasius and Rufinus
About forty years after Cyril, there was a fully developed story about how the True Cross was discovered. Cyril's nephew Gelasius of Caesarea recorded the account in a now lost Greek Ecclesiastical History prior to his death in 395. This version was adapted circa 402 in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin additions to Eusebius' Church History. In this narrative, Helena went to Jerusalem in search of the relic and was made aware of its location by a heavenly sign. She tore down the temple of Aphrodite that had been built there, and beneath the rubble found three crosses. The cross of Jesus was identified, with the aid of Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, by its miraculous effecting of a cure for a mortally ill woman. A Church was then built on the spot and the relic was divided, with part staying in Jerusalem and part given to Constantine along with the nails.Socrates Scholasticus
In his Ecclesiastical History, nearly a century after Eusebius and forty years after Rufinus, Socrates Scholasticus gives a description of the discovery later repeated by [|Sozomen] and [|Theodoret]. Socrates' account is very similar to Rufinus'.found three crosses in the sepulchre: one of these was that blessed cross on which Christ had hung, the other two were those on which the two thieves that were crucified with him had died.... Since, however, it was doubtful which was the cross they were in search of, the emperor’s mother was not a little distressed; but from this trouble the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, shortly relieved her. And he solved the doubt by faith, for he sought a sign from God and obtained it. The sign was this: a certain woman of the neighborhood, who had been long afflicted with disease, was now just at the point of death; the bishop therefore arranged it so that each of the crosses should be brought to the dying woman, believing that she would be healed on touching the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his expectation: for the two crosses having been applied which were not the Lord’s, the woman still continued in a dying state; but when the third, which was the true cross, touched her, she was immediately healed, and recovered her former strength.In it he describes how Helena Augusta, Constantine's aged mother, had the pagan temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses, the titulus, and the nails from Jesus's crucifixion were uncovered as well. In Socrates's version of the story, Macarius had a deathly ill woman touch the three crosses. This woman only recovered upon the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol. Socrates also reports that, having also found the cross's nails, Helena sent these to Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor's helmet and the bridle of his horse.