people were familiar with the horrors of roman crucifixion. the cross is an instrument of capital punishment. and it s quite amazing. it s one of the big stories of early christianity that the instrument of the execution and torture of jesus christ, over time, becomes the primary symbol of jesus christ. one of the key factors in the change is helena s pilgrimage to find the true cross. it changes the cross to something that actually becomes something tangible that people want to think about as part of their devotion. as fragments spread around the world, they will also help turn christianity from an
she is likely to have left from rome. to reach jerusalem is almost 2000 miles over land. for an elderly lady, helena was in her 70s at this point, this journey is an enormous undertaking. it is so unbelievably far away. in the american context, if new york is rome, jerusalem is something like guam, or american samoa. but by all accounts, helena is a remarkable woman. we know only a couple of things about the empress helena. we know that she was christian, and we know that she was a commoner. and yet she gets together with a traveling roman and gives birth to the man who will one day become emperor of rome. since its creation in 27
true cross start appearing throughout the roman empire. our first evidence that fragments of the cross were being spread around the mediterranean is from the late 340s and 350s when we learn that people have taken pieces of the true cross over to the north african seaboard. if the helena tradition is correct, that would only have been 20 years or so since its first finding. that shows that physical particles of the true cross actually did spread out from jerusalem very early on. there must have been the discovery of wood by helena or someone for this trade-in relics to have really boomed. this really becomes a new moment for christianity in which the cross becomes something that they are no longer afraid to talk about or to signify. before the cross is basically a symbol of defeat, a symbol of humiliation, a symbol of death,
city she reclaimed. helena is the person that takes jerusalem from a sleepy capital and turns it into a place we are all looking to for a spiritual message. for centuries devoted pilgrims have come here to mark their fate with a symbol now recognized the world over. at the time of jesus, a cross was a very negative image. it was a place of brutal horrible execution and death. after constantine and helena it becomes a contract with the transcendent. without the story of the discovery of the true cross helena would be just another but the story places her in the
but the sight of christ s passion is no more. jerusalem is now an outpost of the roman empire, renamed elia capataline. when helena entered the city of jerusalem, it s likely to have been a shell of its former glorious self in the early first century a.d. you have to realize that ancient cities are absolutely chaotic. we can imagine that she s sort of overwhelmed by the tangible reality of life in the ancient world. it was full of sounds and noises, and it was dirty. jerusalem is now a pagan city. 200 years before, a jewish uprising was crushed by rome. jews were banned from jerusalem and an observance of jewish law was prohibited by the romans.