Showing posts with label True Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label True Cross. Show all posts

Monday, January 17, 2022

The True Cross—Found!

Empress Helena of Constantinople went to Palestine from 326-328CE to find Christian relics, consistent with her recent conversion to Christianity. Among other acts, she tore down a temple built by Emperor Hadrian in the 130s. Excavating under it, she found three wooden crosses.

As excited as she may have been to find three crosses, Helena wanted absolute proof of their authenticity. She tested the crosses by having a dying woman brought to the site, having her touch the crosses. Touching the first two produced no change in her condition, but touching the third cross resulted in a sudden recovery. This provided Helena the proof she wanted, and she declared the third cross the True Cross, used to crucify Jesus Christ.

On the site was built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a version of which exists today.

This story of the dying woman comes down to us from a monk Rufinus (344-411CE), who was a translator of Greek Christian writings into Latin. He tacks this story onto his translation of an Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius. Strictly speaking, there is no contemporary account of this. Eusebius, who died in 339CE and was therefore a contemporary of Helena, wrote a Life of Constantine (Helena's emperor son) in which he mentions the destruction of Hadrian's temple and the construction of the church on the site, but does not mention anything about the finding of the True Cross.

Nevertheless, many later records purporting to be accurate histories of the finding tell variations of the above story. Relics of the True Cross were spread all over Christendom, and even inspired a well-known Old English poem. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Saturday, January 15, 2022

The True Cross


 The "True Cross" refers to the cross upon which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Although it would have been of ordinary wood, Classical and Medieval and Renaissance legends decided it had to be something more than that.

The Golden Legend by Jacob de Voragine has several different origin stories for the wood of the Cross. In one, the Cross was made from the wood of three trees which grew from three seeds that had been planted by Seth in the mouth of his father's, Adam's, corpse. Seth had taken the seeds from the "Tree of Mercy" (which is not part of the Biblical story).

Another version related by Voragine explains that the wood came from a cutting from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, also planted by Seth on Adam's grave.

From either of these origins, an elaborate provenance was created to get the wood from Eden to Golgotha. The wood was made into the rod of Moses, which was planted by King David in Jerusalem, from which grew a tree that enabled Solomon to carve a beam for his temple. Eventually, the tree was cut down for wood that was used to build a bridge used by the Queen of Sheba to visit Solomon. The Queen had a vision that a piece of wood from the bridge would lead to the replacing of God's covenant with the Jews (this would be Jesus and his message). Solomon, thinking this a tragedy, had the wood buried. It was exhumed years later and some was used to make the True Cross.

How did it come to be discovered after the crucifixion? For that, we must talk about a remarkable woman, the Empress Helena of Constantinople, which we will do next.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Pelagio Galvani

 Cardinal Pelagio Galvani (c.1165 - 30 January 1230) was the papal legate leading the Fifth Crusade. He hailed from the Kingdom of León, and became a canon lawyer. Pelagio was not a tolerant man: on a two-year mission to Constantinople, he tried to close Greek Orthodox churches and imprison their priests, and action that created so much chaos that the Martin Emperor of Constantinople, Henry of Flanders, reversed Pelagio's acts.

Crusades needed religious leaders as well as military ones, and Pelagio was sent to lead the Fifth Crusade by Pope Honorius III (Pope Innocent II, who had called for the Crusade, had died July 1216, before the Crusade had started out).

During the Siege of Damietta, while the Crusading army made some inroads in to Egypt, intending to use it as a staging area from which to conquer Jerusalem (see yesterday's post), the sultan al-Kamil made a peace offering: he would ensure the handover of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, if they would depart completely from Egypt.

Given the main goal of the Crusades—to control Jerusalem—this would seem to be a win-win, and the secular leaders wanted to accept it. Pelagio, however, along with the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Venetians, wanted to keep what they had taken. The Templars and Hospitallers would have shared Pelagio's religious reasons for converting the whole world to Christianity. In the case of the Venetians, I suspect they were more interested in the value of Damietta and the Nile as trade routes for their merchant fleets.

The Siege continued to attack Damietta under Pelagio's orders, and a further deal was offered by al-Kamil: this time he included to release any prisoners they had taken and to return the piece of the True Cross that had come into Muslim hands. Pelagio turned this and subsequent offers. Despite arrivals of more Crusader forces, the western army never gained a permanent foothold in Egypt. Finally, on 28 August, even Pelagio realized the Egyptian route was a lost cause. A nighttime attempt to use a canal to make further progress into Egypt on 26 August 1221 resulted in disaster for the Crusaders when the Egyptians detected them and attacked. The defeat was so demoralizing that even Pelagio decided to admit defeat. Two days later, he sent an envoy to al-Kamil. On 8 September 1221, the Crusading army left Egypt, abandoning the Fifth Crusade, having never come close to Jerusalem.

But how is it that sultan al-Kamil had a piece of the True Cross to offer? He got it at the Battle of Hattin, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

Friday, August 20, 2021

Muslim Massacre

I have written about Muslim-Christian relations before (here and here). Conflict between the forces of Western European culture and the Arab world has been going on for centuries, with atrocities on both sides. One of the earliest atrocities was committed by King Richard I, called Lionheart.

Ayyadieh
After the fall of Acre during the Third Crusade, there was an agreement between Richard and his opponent, Saladin, to exchange prisoners.  Richard was willing to give up about 2700 hostages (men including soldiers, women, children) taken in Acre for 1600 Christian hostages held by Saladin. Richard also demanded 100,000 gold pieces and the True Cross.

Richard was an impatient man at best, and he wanted Saladin to release the Christian hostages first. Saladin, a powerful and proud man in his own right, of course demanded in turn that Richard release the citizens of Acre. Negotiations broke down. Richard decided to teach Saladin a lesson in delaying the fulfillment of Richard's demands.

On either August 16th or 20th, 1191, Richard had his captives to a hill called Ayyadieh, where they were in sight of Saladin's army. He had them all put to death. This enraged the watching army, who charged the Crusaders. Richard, however, had plenty of forces there, and they were able to retreat safely into the city.

An eyewitness Kurdish chronicler in Saladin's army, Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, claimed in his chronicle that many Crusaders did not approve of this particularly callous treatment of prisoners. Christian chroniclers do not mention that there were women and children, leading the reader to assume that only soldiers were massacred.

Saladin, outraged, and also know for harsh treatment of his hostages, had his Christian prisoners executed. The True Cross was sent to "Damascus, where it was said to be buried under the portals of the chief mosque." (The Dream and the Tomb: A History of the Crusades, by Robert Payne, p.239)