in the sin of murder. thou shalt not kill is one of the ten kmamts. he would have thought of helena as his great ally, thinking he can rely on his mother s support in anything. perhaps he should have thought again before he killed her grandson. you are weak. you are a weak and sinful man. the murder of fausta and of
constantine abandoned his first wife to marry the noble woman fausta. fausta has given him three young sons. but her husband s likely successor is his eldest son crispus. he was the golden boy. he had a successful military career. he had been made cesar by his father. on the face of it, the christian family at the center of the roman empire are united. but a scandal is about to erupt. christian sources tend to hush-hush about it. they don t want to say anything. but the pagan sources jump all over constantine. the story goes that
the murder of fausta and of crispus happens in 326. helena departs for the holy land in 327. there s almost certainly some connection between those two events. if you re his mother, hoping for his soul to be saved somehow, you re going to want to make a passionate gesture of reconciliation, of penitence. she knew what she wanted when she traveled to jerusalem. and when she went looking for that true cross, she was surely determined to find it. resolution #1: binge more. join the un-carrier, and get four unlimited lines for only forty bucks each.
there is potentially a darker side to helena s journey. it follows on from a scandalous episode within the house of constantine. constantine abandoned his first wife to marry the noble woman fausta. fausta has given him three young sons. but her husband s likely successor is his eldest son, crispus. crispus was the golden boy of the constantinian household. he d had a very successful military career. he d been made caesar by his father. on the face of it, the christian family at the center of the roman empire are united. but a scandal is about to erupt.
helena was crushed by this scandal. this was likely her favorite grandson. this must have been devastating for her. but the scandal is about to get bigger. constantine discovers from back channels that perhaps fausta had manufactured all of this, that she favored her own sons for the throne and that she set crispus up to be murdered. orders that she be put in a bath chamber, the doors locked and the fires stoked to the point that it cooks her to death.