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THE miraculous appearance of
the cross to Constantine, and the discovery of that sacred wood by St.
Helen, gave the first occasion to festival, which was celebrated under the
title of the Exaltation of the Cross on the 14th of September, both by the
Greeks and Latins as early as in the fifth and sixth ages, at Jerusalem
from the year 335. The recovery of this precious instrument and memorial
of our redemption out of the hands of the infidels, in the reign of
Heraclius in the seventh century, was afterward gratefully commemorated on
the same day; and the feast of the Invention or Discovery of the Cross has
been removed in the Latin church to the 3rd of May ever since the eighth
century. The history of the recovery of this sacred relic from the
Persians is gathered from the continuation of the Paschal Chronicle,
Theophanes, Cedrenus, and other historians.
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