Church History 1.25–2.6

When the synod had decided these things, it happened that at the same time there was the festival of the twentieth year of Constantine's reign. It is the Roman custom to hold a public festival every ten years of the ruler's reign. Thinking it a fitting occasion, the emperor invited the synod to a banquet and honoured them with suitable gifts. When they were preparing to return home, he called them all together and advised them to be of one mind about the faith and to hold to peace among themselves, so that they might remain free of strife thereafter. After speaking at length on this, he finally bade them pray earnestly for himself, his children and the empire, and entreat God continually. Having said this to those who had come to Nicaea, he took leave of them. To make known to those who were absent what had been accomplished at the synod, he sent letters to the churches in the cities, and in particular other letters besides these to the church of Alexandria, urging them to lay aside all dissension and to agree about the faith set forth by the synod. For this, he said, was nothing other than the mind of God, established by the Holy Spirit through the agreement of so many and such great high priests, and approved after exact inquiry and testing of all doubtful points.

So the affairs at Nicaea came to this end, and each of the priests returned home. The emperor rejoiced exceedingly, seeing the catholic church in agreement on doctrine; and offering thanks to God for the concord of the bishops, for himself, his children and the empire, he thought he should build a house of prayer to God in Jerusalem, near what is called the place of the Skull. About the same time his mother Helena came to Jerusalem to pray and to visit the holy places there. Being devoutly disposed toward the doctrine of the Christians, she made it a great concern to find the wood of the venerable cross. But it was not easy to find either it or the godly tomb. For the pagans who formerly persecuted the church, eager by every device to cut off the religion while it was still beginning to grow, had hidden the place under a great mound of earth and raised it high, though it had been lower, as can still be seen. They enclosed the whole area of the resurrection and of the Skull, adorned it, paved the surface with stone, built a temple of Aphrodite and set up an image, so that those who worshipped Christ there would seem to honour Aphrodite, and in time the true reason for the reverence paid to the place would be forgotten, since Christians did not dare to go there freely or to point it out to others, while the pagan temple and statue were gaining credit. Yet the place became known and the deception contrived about it was detected: as some say, because a Hebrew who lived in the East revealed it from writings handed down from his fathers; but as it is truer to think, because God showed it by signs and dreams. For I do not think that divine things need to be revealed by men, when God sees fit to make them known. At that time, then, by the emperor's command, the area was cleared to a depth, and in one part the cave of the resurrection appeared. Elsewhere, near the same place, three crosses were found, and apart from them another piece of wood, like a whitened board, bearing in Hebrew, Greek and Roman letters the words, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” As the sacred book of the Gospels relates, this had been written above Christ's head by order of Pilate, who governed Judea. But it was still difficult to distinguish the divine cross, even though it had been found, since the inscription had been torn off and thrown aside, and the three crosses were scattered about at random, the order, naturally, having been confused when the crucified bodies were taken down. For when the soldiers found him already dead on the wood, they took him down and gave him up first for burial, according to the account. After that, hastening the death of the robbers on either side, they broke their legs, and threw the pieces of wood one here, one there, wherever it happened. Why would they take care to leave them in their former order, when each was eager to finish before evening and thought it no good thing to linger near the crosses of men who had died by violence? Since the divine wood was thus still unknown and needed a revelation more divine than human, the following happened. There was in Jerusalem a woman of rank who was suffering from a very severe and incurable disease. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, came to her as she lay ill, bringing with him the emperor's mother and those about her. He first prayed, and gave those who were watching a sign: that cross would be the divine one which, when laid on the woman, would free her from her disease. Then he brought each piece of wood and applied it to her. When two had been laid on her, what was happening seemed nothing but nonsense and a joke, for the woman was at death's door. But when he brought the third piece of wood in the same way, she suddenly opened her eyes, gathered her strength, and at once sprang up healthy from her bed. It is said that a dead man was also restored to life in the same way. Of the godly wood that was found, the greater part, kept in a silver case, is still guarded in Jerusalem to this day. The empress took a part to her son Constantine, and also the nails with which the body of Christ had been pierced. From these, they relate, the emperor made a helmet and a horse's bridle, according to the prophecy of Zechariah, which foretold: “At the present time, what is on the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord Almighty.” For so the prophet says in these words. These things had long been known and foretold by the sacred prophets, but were confirmed later by wonderful works, when they appeared at the time God thought fit. Nor is this so very wonderful, since even the pagans themselves agree that this line is the Sibyl's: “O most blessed wood, on which God was stretched out!” Not even someone eager to oppose it could deny this. So the wood of the cross was foretold, and the veneration paid to it. We have related these things as we received them, having heard them from men who knew them exactly, to whom the knowledge came by succession from fathers to sons, and from those who wrote them down, as far as they were able, and left them to those who came after.

About this time the emperor, having resolved to raise a church to God, ordered the governors there to see that the work should be made as magnificent and costly as possible. His mother Helena for her part built two churches, one at Bethlehem by the cave of Christ's birth, and the other on the summit of the Mount of Olives, from which he was taken up into heaven. Many other things show her piety and reverence, and not least this. It is said that while she was staying at Jerusalem at that time she invited the holy virgins to a banquet and became their servant at the meal, setting the dishes before them, pouring water on their hands, and doing the other things that it is customary for the servants of guests to do. Then, going round the cities of the East, she honoured the churches in each city with fitting gifts; she made rich many who had fallen from their property; she distributed necessities generously to the poor; and she freed people from long imprisonment, from exile beyond the frontiers, and from the mines. And it seems to me that she received a worthy reward for these things. For she passed her life here as splendidly and as illustriously as was possible: she was proclaimed Augusta, she stamped gold coin with her own image, and she received from her son authority over the imperial treasuries and used them as she wished. When she had to leave this life, she died gloriously, about eighty years old, leaving her son, together with the Caesars, her grandsons, rulers of the whole Roman world. And if there is any benefit in such things, oblivion did not cover her even in death; for future ages hold a pledge of her lasting memory in the city in Bithynia, and another among the Palestinians, which took their names from her. Let this be what we have to say about Helena.

The emperor, always labouring at something, contributed to piety and raised most beautiful churches to God everywhere, especially in the chief cities, as at Nicomedia in Bithynia, at Antioch on the river Orontes, and at the city of Byzantium, which he made equal to Rome in power and a sharer in its rule. For when everything went as he wished, and his dealings with foreign peoples had been brought to success by wars and treaties, he decided to found a city bearing his own name and equal in honour to Rome. He took the plain before Ilium, by the Hellespont, above the tomb of Ajax, where the Achaeans who once made war on Troy are said to have had their anchorage and their tents, and he laid out the plan of the city, its shape and its size; and he built gates on a height, which are still seen from the sea by those sailing past. While he was at work on this, God appeared to him by night and bade him seek another place; and moving him to Byzantium in Thrace, across from Chalcedon in Bithynia, he showed him that he should build this city and that it was worthy to bear the name of Constantine. Obeying the words of God, he enlarged the city formerly called Byzantium to a wide extent and surrounded it with very great walls. Since he judged the native inhabitants too few to be citizens of so great a city, he built very large houses here and there along the streets and settled in them men of note, whom he summoned with their households, some from the elder Rome and some from other nations, and made them owners of the houses. He imposed taxes, some for the buildings and ornaments of the city, others for the maintenance of the citizens; and having arranged everything else about the city, and adorned it lavishly with a hippodrome, fountains, porticoes and other buildings, he named it New Rome, Constantinople, and made it the capital of all who inhabit the Roman lands to the north, to the south and to the east, and of the seas between, from the cities by the Ister and Epidamnus on the Ionian gulf as far as Cyrene and the part of Libya called Boreum. He established another great council, which they call the senate, and appointed the same honours and festivals as were customary for the Romans of the elder city. Eager to show his namesake city a rival in everything to Rome in Italy, he did not fail; for with God's help, it has grown so greatly that it is agreed to surpass Rome in population and in wealth. I think the reason for this is the godliness of its founder and of the city, and the compassion and generosity of its inhabitants toward the needy. It draws people so strongly to faith in Christ that many Jews and almost all pagans there become Christians. Since it began to rule at the time when religion was increasing in numbers, it has known neither altars nor pagan temples nor sacrifices, except for a brief attempt by Julian, who reigned later, which was soon quenched. Constantine honoured this city, as a newly founded city of Christ and his namesake, and adorned it with many very great houses of prayer. The Divine too assisted the emperor's zeal, and confirmed by manifestations that the houses of prayer in the city were holy and saving. It is agreed that the most famous of all, to strangers and citizens alike, has been from that time the church at the place once called Hestiae. This is the place now called the Michaelion, on the right as one sails from the Pontus to Constantinople, about thirty-five stades from the city by sea, and more than seventy going round the bay between. The place has received the name that now prevails because it is believed that Michael the divine archangel appears there. I too, having received very great benefits there, affirm that this is true. The experience of events shows it to be so from many other cases as well. Some who fell into terrible misfortunes or inescapable dangers, others into diseases or unknown afflictions, prayed to God there and found release from their troubles. It would be long to tell each case, how it happened and to whom; but I must tell what happened to Aquilinus, a man who still lives among us and pleads cases in the same courts as I do, partly as I heard it from him and partly as I saw it myself. When a violent fever caused by yellow bile seized him, the physicians gave him a medicine to drink, and he vomited it up; with the vomiting the bile poured out and stained his skin the same colour, and from then on he vomited every food and drink. When he had endured this for a long time and no food would stay in him, the physicians' art was at a loss before the disease. Being now half dead, he told his household to carry him to the house of prayer, declaring that he would either die there or be freed from his disease. As he lay there, a divine power appeared to him by night and ordered him to dip his food in a drink compounded of honey, wine and pepper mixed together. This freed the man from his disease, although to the physicians, according to the principles of their art, so very heating a drink seemed contrary to disorders of yellow bile. I have learned also that Probianus, one of the physicians who served at the palace, who suffered severely from a disease of the feet, was freed from his pains there and was counted worthy of a wonderful divine vision. He had at first been a pagan; when he began to be a Christian, the other parts of the doctrine seemed to him in some way persuasive, but he did not accept that the divine cross had become the cause of salvation for all. While he was of this mind, a divine vision appeared to him and showed him a symbol of the cross among those dedicated at the altar of the church there, and declared plainly that since Christ was crucified, of all the things that have been done for the common benefit of the human race or for individuals, none has been achieved, either by the divine angels or by pious and good men, without the power of the venerable cross. I have been led to tell these things, since there is no time to list all that I know to have happened in this church.

It is necessary also to relate what the emperor Constantine decided about the oak called Mamre. This place, which they now call the Terebinth, is fifteen stades from Hebron, which lies to the south, and about two hundred and fifty stades from Jerusalem. It is truly said that here the Son of God appeared to Abraham together with the angels sent against the Sodomites, and foretold to him the birth of his son. Here even now the people of the country and of more distant parts, Palestinians, Phoenicians and Arabians, hold a splendid yearly festival in summer. Very many also come together for trade, to sell and to buy. For the place is greatly prized by all: by the Jews because they boast of Abraham as their patriarch; by the pagans because of the visit of the angels; and by the Christians because he who in later times showed himself openly through the Virgin for the salvation of the human race then appeared to the pious man. They honour this place in ways suited to their religions: some praying to the God of all, others invoking the angels, pouring libations of wine, burning incense, and sacrificing an ox, a goat, a sheep or a cock. For each man kept whatever fine animal he had been carefully rearing through the whole year, promised for the feast of the festival here for himself and his household. All of them, honouring the place or guarding against suffering harm through divine wrath, neither have intercourse here with women, though these, as at a festival, take more care of beauty and adornment and happen to appear in public and go about, nor are they otherwise licentious, even though for the most part they have their tents together and sleep side by side. For the place is open country and ploughland, without buildings except those that were once Abraham's, by the oak, and the well he made. At the time of the festival no one draws water from it; for by pagan custom some set lighted lamps there, others poured wine or threw cakes into it, others coins, perfumes or incense; and for this reason, naturally, the water became useless because of what was thrown in. The mother of Constantine's wife, coming there once to fulfil a vow, reported to the emperor these rites, which were performed in the manner described and with pleasure, according to pagan custom. When he learned of it, he blamed the bishops of Palestine severely for neglecting their duty and allowing a holy place to be defiled by profane libations. His pious rebuke is shown by the letter he wrote on this to the bishop of Jerusalem, Eusebius son of Pamphilus, and the other bishops of Palestine. He ordered them to meet at the place with the bishops of Phoenicia, to demolish from its foundations the altar that had been there, to burn the images, and to lay out a church there worthy of the antiquity and sanctity of the place; and thereafter to see that it was kept free of libations and sacrifices, so that nothing else should be done there but the worship of God according to the law of the church. If anyone were caught attempting the former practices, the bishops were to report him, so that the emperor might inflict the severest punishment on him. In accordance with this letter of the emperor, the governors and the priests of Christ carried out what was commanded.

Since many peoples and cities throughout the empire still had fear and reverence for the illusion of idols, turned away from the doctrine of the Christians, and clung to antiquity and their ancestral customs and festivals, it seemed necessary to him to teach his subjects to neglect what they worshipped. This, he thought, would be easy if he first accustomed them to despise the temples and the statues in them. When he had resolved on this, he had no need of military force. Christian men of the palace carried out what had been decided, going through the cities with imperial letters. The peoples kept quiet, fearing that they themselves, their children and their wives might suffer some harm if they resisted. The temple wardens and priests, stripped of the support of the crowd, gave up their most precious things, including the images said to have fallen from heaven, and themselves brought them out of the inner shrines and the secret recesses of the temples. What had formerly been inaccessible and known only to the priests became accessible to anyone who wished. Of the images, those made of precious material, and of the other things whatever seemed useful, were refined by fire and became public property. Those wonderfully worked in bronze were brought from everywhere to the city named after the emperor, for ornament, and they still stand in public in the streets, the hippodrome and the palace. Among them were the Apollo of the Pythian oracle, the Muses of Helicon, the tripods of Delphi, and the celebrated Pan which Pausanias the Lacedaemonian and the Greek cities dedicated after the war against the Medes. Some temples were stripped of their doors, others of their roofs; others, otherwise neglected, fell into ruin and decay. At that time the temple of Asclepius at Aegae in Cilicia was razed and utterly destroyed, and that of Aphrodite at Aphaca by Mount Lebanon and the river Adonis. Both were very famous temples and revered by the ancients. For the people of Aegae boasted that those who were sick in body were freed from their diseases there, the demon appearing by night and healing them; and at Aphaca, at a certain invocation and on a set day, a fire darted like a star from the summit of Lebanon and sank into the nearby river. They said this was Urania, as they call Aphrodite. When this had happened, what the emperor was striving for went forward as he intended. Some, seeing things that had been held holy and dreadful thrown down anyhow and stuffed inside with straw and rubbish, came to despise what they had formerly revered and blamed their ancestors for their error. Others, envying the honour the Christians had with the emperor, thought it necessary to imitate the ruler. Others, giving themselves to the examination of the doctrine, judged it better to be Christians, through signs or dreams or conversations with bishops or monks. From that time peoples and cities changed their former opinion of their own accord. So it was that the port of the city of Gaza, which they call Maiuma, which had been exceedingly devoted to superstition and before this admired the ancient rites, turned to Christianity all at once, the whole people together. Rewarding them for their piety, the emperor counted them worthy of the highest honour: he declared the place, which had not been a city before, a city, and named it Constantia, honouring the place with the name of the most honoured of his children because of its religion. For a similar reason I have learned that Constantina in Phoenicia too took the emperor's name. But it is not easy to record each case; for very many other cities went over to the religion at that time and of their own accord, without any command of the emperor, pulled down their temples and images and built houses of prayer.

As the church was multiplying in this way throughout the Roman world, the religion also made its way among the barbarians themselves. For the tribes about the Rhine were already Christians, as were the Celts and the farthest Gauls who live by the Ocean; and the Goths, and those who formerly bordered on them about the banks of the river Ister, having long since shared in faith in Christ, had changed to a gentler and more rational way of life. For almost all the barbarians the occasion of honouring the doctrine of the Christians was the wars that arose from time to time between the Romans and foreign peoples, under the reign of Gallienus and the emperors after him. For when at that time an untold multitude of mixed nations crossed from Thrace and overran Asia, and other barbarians elsewhere did the same to the Romans who bordered on them, many priests of Christ were taken captive and were with them. When they healed the sick there and cleansed those possessed by demons, naming only Christ and calling on him as Son of God, and moreover lived a blameless life and overcame reproach by their virtues, the barbarians, marvelling at the men's life and their wonderful works, saw that it was wise, and that they would have God gracious to them, if they imitated those who had shown themselves better and served the Supreme as they did. So they took them as guides in what they should do, were taught and baptized, and thereafter assembled as churches.