|
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.
Chosroes II, the most barbarous and perfidious king of Persia availing
himself of the weakness of the reign of the cruel and covetous usurper
Phocus broke peace with the empire, upon the specious pretense of
revenging the murder of the emperor Mauritius and his family, whom Phocas
had most in humanly massacred. But the conduct of the barbarian showed how
opposite his views were to those of public justice, and that his aim was
merely to gratify his ambition, and his implacable hatred of the Christian
and Roman name. The Persians, meeting with no opposition, plundered
Mesopotamia and part of Syria. Heraclius, prefect of Africa being pressed
by the chief statesmen and senators to assume the purple, and rid the
empire of a usurper, went with his forces by sea to Constantinople, after
a successful battle made Phocas prisoner, and put him and his children to
death in the year 611, the tyrant having reigned eight years and four
months. The new emperor, by suppliant entreaties, begged a peace of
Chosroes, with the proffer of an annual tribute; but the haughty barbarian
dismissed his ambassadors without an audience, and in the first year of
the reign of Heraclius the Persians took Edessa and Apamea, and advanced
as far as Antioch; in the second they took Caesarea in Cappadocia; in the
fourth Damascus, and in the fifth (which was the year 614) in the month of
June, they possessed themselves of Jerusalem filling that city with
outrages which cannot be mentioned without horror. Many thousands of
clerks, monks, nuns, and virgins were cruelly massacred, ninety thousand
Christians were sold for slaves to the Jews, and afterward many of them
were tortured and slain. The churches, even that of the holy sepulcher,
were burnt, and all the rich movables were carried away, among which were
an infinite number of consecrated vessels, many precious relics, and that
part of the wood of the true cross which had been left there by St. Helen.
The patrician Nicetas found means, by the help of one of the friends of
Sarbazara, the Persian general, to save two holy relics, namely the sponge
with which the soldiers gave our Savior vinegar to drink; and the lance
which pierced his side; both which he sent to Constantinople. The sacred
sponge was exposed to the view of the people in the great church, on the
feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, on the 14th of September, the same
year. The sacred lance was brought thither on the Saturday, the 26th of
October; it was publicly venerated in the great church on the following
Tuesday and Wednesday by the men, and on Thursday and Friday by the women.
The patriarch Zachary was carried away captive into Persia, with a great
multitude of other persons. During his absence the abbot Modestus took
care of the city of Jerusalem, and began to rebuild several churches and
monasteries that had been destroyed. The next year the Persians took
Alexandria, and plundered all Egypt; and in the year following they
conquered Carthage. These losses and calamities forced Heraclius again
suppliantly to beg peace of the victorious tyrant, who laughed at his
request, and blasphemously declared that he would never let those men
rest, so long as they should adore one who had been crucified by other men
and should refuse to worship the sun. Heraclius depending wholly upon the
Savior of the world, whose glory he was to assert, in the extreme poverty
of the state, borrowed the gold and silver which was found in the
churches, and coined it into money to raise an army for the protection of
his subjects. Saez, lieutenant-general to the Persian king, took Ancyra,
pillaged all Galatia, and being advanced as far as Chalcedon, offered to
treat of peace. Heraclius sent to him seventy noblemen of great worth to
negotiate with him, but the perfidious infidel put them all in chains, and
carried them into Persia. When he arrived there, his master caused him to
be flayed alive, because he had not brought with him Heraclius himself,
whom he had once seen, and had received presents from.
The emperor resolved at length to carry the war into Persia itself, to
oblige the infidels to return home for the defense of their own country.
That he might not leave any enemies behind him, he concluded a peace with
the chan of the Turci Avari who had attacked him on the side of Thrace,
and in the year 622, the twelfth of his reign, began his march toward
Persia immediately after Easter. When he put himself at the head of his
army, holding in his hand a picture of Jesus Christ, he protested to his
soldiers, that he would never abandon them till death, and set before them
how the enemies of God had overrun their country, rendered the cities
desolate, laid the countries waste before them, burnt the sanctuaries,
profaned the holy altars with blood, and defiled the sanctity of the most
holy places by their brutal lusts and debaucheries. With this army he
defeated the Persians the same year in Armenia, and in the ensuing summer
took the city Gazac in Persia, and burnt in it the fine temple, and the
palace of Chosroes, in which was a rich statue of that prince, sitting
under a dome which represented the heavens with the sun. moon, and stars,
and round about it angels, holding scepters in their hands, with wind
chimes to make a noise like thunder. Leading his army back to take winter
quarters in Albania, he there, out of compassion released fifty thousand
Persian captives he had brought with him, and supplied them with
necessaries; which act of humanity made them all pray with tears for his
success, and that he might deliver Persia from a tyrant, who by his
cruelty and exactions was the destroyer of mankind. The emperor's
campaigns in 624 and 625, were still more successful against numberless
armies of the enemy. Sarbazara, a Persian general, arrived with a strong
army before Chalcedon and was seconded by the perfidious chan of the Avari
who, having broke the truce, attacked Constantinople on the European side
of the Straits. They were, however, both repulsed by the Christians in
July, 626, and in their disorder slew one another. This deliverance was
looked upon as miraculous, obtained by the intercession of the Blessed
Virgin, as the Paschal Chronicle, Theophanes, and particularly Cedrenus
relate.
On the 12th of December, in 627, Heraclius gave the Persians an entire
overthrow almost without any loss on his side, near the ruins of the
ancient city of Ninive, under the command of Rezastes, who was himself
found among the slain, with his shield and armor of messy gold; and with
him fell most of the field officers and the greatest part of the Persian
army. The proud Chosroes was driven from town to town, yet continued
obstinately deaf to all proposals of peace. Heracleus in his pursuit,
burnt down all the king's houses of pleasure, but often released prisoners
without a ransom, though the barbarian detained even his ambassadors. The
disdain with which Chosroes rejected all means of peace, even though
Heraclius was master of the greatest part of Persia, extremely exasperated
his subjects; and his general Sarbazara, who was near Chalcedon upon
information that his master had condemned him to die, openly revolted from
him to the Romans. Chosroes locked himself up with his wives and children
in the strong city of Seluia on the Tigris, and being there seized with a
dysentery, declared Mardesanes or Medarses, his son by Sirem, the most
beloved of his concubines his successor and ordered preparations to be
made for his coronation. His eldest son Siroes, provoked at this
injustice, appealed to the nobles, took up arms, released the Roman
prisoners whom he sent back to Heraclius seized on his father, bound him
in chains, and threw him into a strong dungeon which Chosroea had lately
fortified to keep his treasures in. Exasperated more and more at his
father's arrogance, even though the tyrant saw himself in his power,
Siroes set no bounds to his rage, allowed him only a small quantity of
bread and water for his subsistence, and bade him eat the gold which he
had amassed by the oppression of so many innocent people. He sent his
satraps and his enemies to insult him, and caused Mardesanes, whom he
would have crowned, and all the rest of his children, to be murdered
before his eyes. In this manner was the old king treated for five days
together, during which time he was frequently shot at and wounded with
arrows but not mortally, that his death might be the more lingering. He
expired on the fifth day of these wounds. Thus, by God's just judgment,
perished Chosroes II by the hands of an unnatural son, having himself
mounted the throne by imbruing his hands in the blood of his father
Hormisdas, and filled not only his own kingdom, but all the East, with
murders and desolation, during a reign of thirty-five years. Siroes
concluded a firm peace with Heraclius released all the Roman prisoners,
and among the rest, Zachary, patriarch of Jerusalem restored the provinces
which the Christians had lost, and, among other spoils, the true Cross,
which had been carried into Persia fourteen years before by Sarbazara,
when he took Jerusalem.
The emperor brought this precious relic with him to Constantinople, where
he made his entry with a most splendid triumph. In the beginning of the
spring of the following year, 629, he embarked to carry the cross again to
Jerusalem, and to return thanks to God in that holy place for his
victories. He would carry it upon his own shoulders into the city, with
the utmost pomp; but stopped suddenly at the entrance of the city, and
found he was not able to go forward. The patriarch Zachary, who walked by
his side suggested to him that his pomp seemed not agreeable to the humble
appearance which Christ made when he bore his Cross through the streets of
that city; "You," said he "walk in your gaudy imperial robes; he was
meanly clad. You have on your head rich diadem; he was crowned with a
wreath of thorns. You go with your shoes on; he walked barefoot." Hereupon
the emperor laid aside his purple and his crown, put on mean clothes, went
along barefoot with the procession, and devoutly replaced the Cross where
it stood before. It still continued in the silver case in which it had
been carried away, and the patriarch and clergy finding the seals whole,
opened the case with the key, venerated it, and showed it to the people
The original writers always speak of this portion of the Cross in the
plural number calling it the pieces of the wood of the Cross which shows
that it consisted of different pieces. This solemnity was performed with
the most devout thanksgiving, and honored with miraculous cures of several
sick persons. The ceremony of exposing this sacred relic, as the most
lively memorial of the sufferings of our divine Redeemer, to the
veneration of the faithful, on this and several other days, was very
solemn, and is often mentioned both before and after the recovery of this
part of the Cross from the infidels. With what pomp and respect the like
was done with the part of the Cross that was kept in Constantinople, and
with what devotion and order the emperor, his court, the clergy and all
ranks among the people assisted at his religious act, is described at
length by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogeneta both on this feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross, and on certain other solemn days.
"About seven days before the 1st of August the holy Cross (i.e. that large
portion which Constantine the Great deposited in the imperial palace at
Constantinople) was taken out of the holy treasury in which it was kept
with other precious relics and rich holy vessels between the third and
sixth ode of matins then singing. It was laid on the ground that the
Protopapa or chief priest of he palace might anoint it all over with
balsam and precious perfumes. Then it was set up in the church of the
palace of Our Lady of the Pharos, or opposite to the Pharos, exposed to
the veneration of the people. After matins, the clergy of the palace
assembled before it, singing hymns in praise of the Cross, called
Staurosima, or, of the Cross. Then the princes and lords came to venerate
it before they assisted at the Sunday's procession, in which they attended
the emperor not every Sunday and holy day to the divine service in the
church of the palace, or on certain great festivals to some other
principal church in the city. The chief priest then took up the Cross on
his head, having on a purple cassock and over it a rich scaramangium (or
great cope which covers the whole body), and, attended by the clergy and
others in procession, carried it through the golden hall, before the
oratory of St. Basil, placed it to be venerated by all the senate, then
proceeded to the palace of Daphne, and exposed it in the church of St.
Stephen. On the 28th of July the priests began to carry the Cross through
all the streets and to all the houses and afterward round the walls of the
city that by the devotion of the people, and their united prayers, God
would, through the Cross and merits of his Son, bless and protect the city
and all its inhabitants. On the 13th of September it was brought back to
the palace, and placed on a rich throne in the chrysotriclinium, or golden
hall, where the clergy sung the hymns in praise of the Cross during its
Exaltation there. It was afterward carried through all the apartments of
the palace; then deposited in the chapel of St. Theodorus. In the evening
it was delivered back to the keeper of the sacred treasure. Next morning
it was carefully cleansed by the Protopapa and the keeper, and again
deposited in the rich ease in the treasury." (See the emperor Constantine
Porphyrogeneta, 1. 2, c. 8). In the eleventh chapter he writes with what
devotion and pomp the three great crosses kept in the great palace were
taken out in the third or middle week of Lent, and exposed to veneration;
one in the new church of this great palace, another in the church of St.
Stephen in the palace of Daphne, the third in the patriarchal church of
St. Sophia. All were brought back on Friday in the same week with a
procession, torches, adoration of the princes, senate, and hymns as above.
Our divine Redeemer is the spiritual king of our souls; and it is by the
love and spirit of his cross that he must reign in them. By this happy
instrument he has rescued us from the power of sin, and conquered death
and hell. But do not our sloth and malice still hold out against him? Have
the boundless excess of his love, and the omnipotent power of his grace,
yet triumphed over our hearts? Is his holy cross planted there? Does it
daily grow and spread itself in our affections? The spirit of the cross,
or of Christ crucified, is the spirit of that perfect humility, meekness,
charity, patience, and all other virtues, which he preaches to us by his
cross. So long as self-love, pride, sensuality, or impatience finds any
place in us, we are so far strangers to this spirit of Christ, and enemies
to his cross. We justly glory in this holy and sweet mystery of love, in
this most tender and precious memorial of our infinitely amiable God and
Savior, and of the price by which he has redeemed us, and made us by so
many new strict titles, his own. But can we look on a crucifix, or form
the cross on our foreheads, without being pierced will grief, and covered
with shame and confusion to see ourselves so little acquainted with it and
its happy fruits; so filled with the contrary spirit of the world. Let us
most earnestly and assiduously conjure our loving Savior, by his holy
cross, and by his infinite love and mercy, to subdue our obstinacy, to
extinguish in us whatever opposes his sweet reign, perfectly to form his
spirit in our hearts, and entirely to subject all our power and affections
to himself. He promised that when he should be exalted on his cross he
would draw all things to himself. Is it possible that the malice of our
hearts should be able to resist so wonderful a mystery of love Let us beg
that he fulfill his gracious word to us, and that his spirit of humility,
meekness, and pure love may at length triumph in us. Then we shall begin
to taste the most sweet hidden manna that is found in the cross, that is,
in the devout remembrance and contemplation of that mystery and in the
participation or imitation of it by patient suffering. Then shall we under
stand the glory, the happiness, and unspeakable advantages and treasures
that are its portion.
(C) |
