ST. HELENA’S VISION OF THE CROSS.
BY CALIARI (PAOLO VERONESE).
NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON.
Such is the legend in its most complete form. It directly associates the finding of the Cross with Helena’s visit to Jerusalem, and attributes also to her the magnificent church which was raised in the latter part of the reign of Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre. But it must also be added that the first historical mention of the “Invention” is seventy years after the discovery was supposed to have taken place. Eusebius, in describing Helena’s pilgrimage,[[114]] knows nothing of the finding of the Cross, and, while he speaks of the discovery of the Sepulchre, he does not associate it with Helena, though he attributes to her piety the new church at Bethlehem. It was Constantine, according to Eusebius, who built the church on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, and beautified the cave of Bethlehem and the site of the Ascension, but of the finding of the Cross there is not a word—a significant silence, which can only mean that the legend was not yet current when Eusebius composed his “Life” of Constantine. What cannot well be doubted is that the site of the Sepulchre was discovered and cleared in Constantine’s reign. The Emperor built upon it one of his finest churches, but popular tradition, with a sure eye for the romantic and the extraordinary, preferred to attribute the origin of the noblest shrine in Palestine to the pious enthusiasm of the aged Helena. Her pilgrimage over, Helena died not long afterwards, and was buried by Constantine with full military honours “in the royal tombs of the reigning city.” The phrase points clearly to Constantinople as the place of burial, though Rome also claims this honour.
History is silent as to the events of the next few years. But as the Empire had been free both from civil and foreign war since the downfall of Licinius, we may accept the general statement of Eusebius “that all men enjoyed quiet and untroubled days.”[[115]] Peace was always the greatest interest of the Roman Empire, but it was rarely of long continuance, and in 330 and the two following years we find the Emperor campaigning in person against the Goths and the Sarmatæ. The account of these wars in the authorities of the period is so confused and contradictory that it is impossible to obtain a connected narrative.
It was the old familiar story over again. The barbarians had come raiding over the borders. There seems to have been fighting along the entire north-eastern frontier, from the great bend of the Danube to the Tauric Chersonese. Constantine and the legions drove the enemy back, won victories chequered by minor reverses, and finally the Emperor was glad enough in 332 to come to terms with the chiefs of the Gothic nation. Mention is made of a handsome subsidy paid by Constantine to the Gothic kings, which certainly does not suggest the overwhelming triumph of the Roman arms of which Eusebius speaks when he says that the Emperor was the first to bring them under the yoke and taught them to acknowledge the Romans as their masters.[[116]] As for the Sarmatæ, Eusebius declares[[117]] that they had been obliged to arm their slaves for their assistance against the attacks of the Scythians, that the slaves had revolted against their old masters, and that in despair the Sarmatæ turned to Constantine and asked for shelter on Roman territory. Some of them, says Eusebius, were received into the legions; others were distributed as farmers and tillers of the soil throughout the frontier provinces; and all, he declares, confessed that their misfortunes had really been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as it had enabled them to exchange their old state of barbarian savagery for the Roman freedom. Probably we shall not be far wrong if we place a different interpretation on the words of Eusebius, and see in the transference of these Sarmatians to the Roman provinces a confession of weakness on the part of Constantine. They were not captives of war. They were rather invited over the borders to keep their kinsmen out, and the Roman Emperor paid for his new subjects in the shape of a handsome subsidy. There can be no other meaning of the curious words of Eutropius that Constantine left behind him a tremendous reputation for generosity with the barbaric nations (Ingentemque apud barbaras gentes memoriæ gratiam collocavit.—x., 7). Money was not so plentiful in Constantine’s exchequer that he gave subsidies for nothing. The suggestion is not that he suffered defeat and bought off hostility; it is rather that he thought it worth while, after vindicating the honour of the Roman arms, to pay for the friendship of the vanquished.
On the Eastern frontier peace had remained unbroken throughout Constantine’s long reign. Persia had been so shattered by Galerius that King Narses made no attempt to renounce the humiliating treaty which had been imposed upon him. His son, Hormisdas, had likewise acquiesced in the loss of Armenia and what were known as the five provinces beyond the Tigris, and when Hormisdas died, leaving a son still unborn, there was a long regency during which no aggressive movement was made from the Persian side. However, this son, Sapor, proved to be a high-spirited, patriotic, and capable monarch, who was determined to uphold and assert the rights of Persia. It is not known how the peaceful relationship, which had so long subsisted between his country and Rome, came to be broken. According to Eusebius,[[118]] Sapor sent an embassy to the Emperor, which was received with the utmost cordiality, and Constantine, we are told, took the opportunity of sending back by these same envoys a letter commending to his favourable regard the Christians of Persia. The document contained a very tedious and involved confession of faith by the Emperor, who affirmed his devotion to God and declared his horror at the sight and smell of the blood of sacrifice. “The God I serve,” said Constantine, “demands from His worshippers nothing but a pure mind and a spirit undefiled.” Then he reminded Sapor how the persecutors of the Church had been destroyed root and branch, and how one of them, Valerian, had graced the triumph of a Persian king. He, therefore, confidently committed the Christians, who “honoured by their presence some of the fairest regions of Persia,” to the generosity and protection of their sovereign.
This remarkable letter suggests that Sapor had been alarmed at the growth of Christianity in his dominions, and by no means looked upon his Christian subjects as lending lustre and distinction to his realm. Whether he replied to what he may well have regarded as a veiled threat, we do not know, but in 335 we hear of what Eusebius calls “an insurrection of barbarians in the East,”[[119]] and Constantine prepared for war against Persia. In other words, Sapor had fomented an insurrection in the provinces beyond the Tigris and was claiming his lost heritage. Constantine laid his military plans before the bishops of his court. These declared their intention of accompanying him into the field, to the great delight, we are assured, of the Emperor, who ordered a tent to be made for his service in the shape of a church, while Sapor, in alarm, sent envoys to sue for a peace which the most peaceful-minded of kings (ἐιρηνικώτατος βασιλὲυς) was only too ready to grant. Such is the story of Eusebius, but it is evident that the Eastern legions had been carefully mobilised, and, whether such a peace was granted or not, the death of Constantine in 337 was the signal for a renewal of the old conflict between the two great empires of the world, and for a war which lasted without intermission through the reigns of Constantine’s sons and that of his nephew Julian.
