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Re: Helen and the True Cross
2006.06.28 12:20
Is there any truth to this:
Mgr Duchesne states that this Holy Cross day in September was a festival of Palestinian origin, "on the anniversary of the dedication of the basilicas erected under Constantine on the sites of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre", and he adds: "This dedication festival was celebrated in 335 by the bishops attending the Council of Tyre, who had pronounced upon Athanasius the sentence of deposition. There was associated with it also the commemoration of the discovery of the true cross", which was "exalted" before the people.
--September 14, Butler's Lives of the Saints
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Averil, I am familiar with Averil Cameron and S.G. Hall, The Life of Constantine, in fact, I used your and an earlier translation of the Vita Constantini to see what would happen if the passages from Book III (24-53) were in chronological order, rather than the disorder that you and Hall suggest (and an abstract of this exercise is within the lt-antiq archives 2001).
24... But there may be an opportunity to assemble these [letters] in a special collection, so as not to disrupt the sequence of our present account.
--Eusebius, Cameron/Hall translation
25... Eusebius moves straight from the account of the Council of Nicaea and its aftermath to the excavation and discovery of the tomb of Jesus, without finishing his account of Constantine's Vicennalia, which ended 25 July 326. This is understandable.
--Cameron/Hall commentary
Understandable yes, but not necessarily correct. It could just as well be that "the excavation and discovery of the tomb of Jesus" occurred a few months after the Council of Nicaea, thus corresponding with Eusebius' "sequence of our present account".
43.4-47.3. The death of the Empress Helena
46.2 Having settled her affairs in this way, she finally came to the end of her life. So great a son was present and stood by her, ministering and holding her hands..."
--Eusebius, Cameron/Hall translation
46.2 "...she was buried in a porphyry sarcophagus in a mausoleum in a mausoleum on the Via Labicana in Rome..."
--Cameron/Hall commentary
After the Vicennalia 25 July 326, Constantine left Rome 3 August 326 and never returned to Rome.
47.4-49 Constantinople
52... The greatest single service to us by my most saintly mother-in-law has been to inform us through her letters to us of the mad folly of evil men [at Mamre], which has so far escaped attention among you, so that the neglected fault may receive appropriate corrective and restorative action from us, late perhaps but yet necessary.
--Constantine, Cameron/Hall translation
51-3... Constantine had been told of the pagan worship on the site in letters from Eutropia, the mother of Fausta, who evidently visited Palestine; Rubin, 'Church of the Holy Sepulchre', 90, places her visit between the defeat of Licinius and the Council of Nicaea (see also Walker, Holy City, Holy Places, 276), and the reference to her becomes more comfortable if the visit took place before the death of her daughter Fausta in 326. Rubin ingeniously argues that Eusebius deliberately includes the letter so as to expose his rival Marcarius, who, however, was soon to assume the role of guide to Constantine's own mother Helena ('Church of the Holy Sepulchre', 88-91, accepted by Walker, Holy City, Holy Places, 276n.); it seems more likely that he includes the letter in order to make his dossier of Constantinian documents as complete as possible. Marcarius is not named by Eusebius, but this is in accordance with his normal practice (see e.g. on IV.61.2-3). Constantine's letter is placed out of chronological order, which serves to reduce the importance of Eutropia.
--Cameron/Hall, commentary
So we have Constantine himself saying "late perhaps", yet Rubin says Eutropia was in Palestine before the Council of Nicaea, and this is somehow "ingenious"(?). I don't find any of this "comfortable" at all. For a start, isn't Rubin's date for Eutropia in Palestine one of his own design choice as opposed to based on any historical evidence? And, more importantly, there is no real indication that Eutropia was even writing from Palestine when she wrote to Constantine about Mamre.
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