CROSS, INVENTION or FtxmNu or The name of the Church festival commemorative of the finding of the cross upon which Christ died by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constan tine, in the year 326. related by Socrates (Ece/esia.stical History, 1. xvii.), who wrote about .130, the story is this: lit Christ's sepul chre she found three crosses, along with Pilate's tablet, and on the advice of Nlacarins, Bishop of Jerusalem, determined which was Christ's cross by taking the three to a sick woman, who touched the first two without avail, but was restored as soon as she had touched the third—so that was accepted as Christ's. Similar is the story in Sozomen ( Ere/c.siost lea/ History, 11. i.), who wrote a little later. From this time 1111 for ninny centuries there was no question of the fact. Doubt has been cast upon it by the consideration that Eusebins, who wrote in the fourth century, and who was particularly explicit regarding everything relative to the Constantine family in his account of Helena's visit to the 11oly Laud (Life of Constantine, says nothing of her discovery of the crosses, nor when speaking of the erection of the church over the Holy Sepulchre (ib. III. xxviii. sqq.). it is also note worthy that the Bordeaux Pilgrim, the author of the Dinerarium Burderptlen se, writing in 333. says nothing in his deseription of the holy Places of any cross being discovered in the Holy Sepulchre (Itinerary from Boil/cans to s1eeu sapnir, Palestine Pilgrim's Text Society's Eng.
trans., London. 1887. p. 241. Still Cyril of Jeru salem. writing in the Holy City in 347-34S. uses this language: "He was truly crucified for our sins. For if thou WollIdet deny it, the glare refutes thee visibly, this blessed Golgotha. in which we are now assembled for the sake of llim who was crucified, and the whole world has since been filled with pieces of the wood of the cross" I('aiechetieal Lectures, iv. And lie alludes to the finding of the cross when writ ing to Constantins, the son of Constantine (Ep. ad ('oast. (•. 3). That 'Helena found three and that she and many others believed that one of them was the cross of Christ may be accepted, though we have no eonlirmatory proof of its authenticity.
The festival of the Invention of the Cross may date from the visit of Helena, but unless it was at first local, the earliest certain mention of it is in the eighth century. In the Latin Church the day is May 3. in the Creek Church there is a festival of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14. Consult, in favor of the story: Newman, Essuw on Ecclesiastical 1liraries; and as against it : W. 1'. Prime. .1 History of the Invention, and Disappearance of the Wood Know» as the True Cross (Ne• 'York, 18771: and E. Nestle. De Sancta ('rune, Ein hcitray cm- thristlich( a Lcgendcligeschichk CROSS, Jt DGMENT OF. See ORDEAL.