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it, by a miraculous healing virtue; and thus originated superstitious veneration for the cross itself, ending in gross Idolatry. The cross was not without its accompaniments, and, therefore, Pilate's title of accusation, by which he proclaimed that Jesus whom he crucified was the King of the Jews; and even the head of the spear by which he had been pierced, were at the same time restored. On this spot the Emperour, at the solicitation of his mother, built the " Church of Christ's

Sepulchre;" for "he regarded it as his duty," says Eusebius," to make that most blessed place illustrious "and venerable in the eyes of the world." Her next undertaking was to erect a second church on Mount Olivet, to mark the place of Christ's ascension; and a third at Bethlehem, the birth place of the Saviour, where, from the time of Hadrian, the rites of Adonis had been performed. These churches were adorned with every thing that piety or wealth could confer, and time has shewn that the devotion of Helena, and the powerful influence and zeal of her son, were sufficient to raise monuments transmitting the glory and fame of their memories to a late posterity.* From

(1) Socr. Sch. Ecc. Hist. Lib. i. c. 7. The truth of this account of the discovery of the cross and its accompaniments, as here given by Socrates and Cyril of Jerusalem, has justly been called in question: particularly as Euse*bius, who mentions with great exactness the buildings erected by Constantine, makes no allusion to a circumstance, which if true, he would never have omitted. The story is regarded entirely as a legend, intended to operate upon the minds of the credulous, instigating them by becoming * pilgrims to bring a greater revenue to the supporters of the fiction. It is sufficient for us to know that Helena having found the spot of the crucifixion, >there built a church.-See Clarke's Travels upon this subject.

(2) Euseb. Vit. Consti.

(3) Nicephorus, lib. iii. c. so, attributes upwards of thirty churches and chapels to have been built by her.

(4) Whatsoever might have been her mental endowments, her bodily energies,

From the time of Constantine, the city resumed its ancient name; and Jerusalem, once more redeemed, began to flourish under the auspices of that religion which she had hitherto endeavoured so strenuously to oppose,1 while the Jews, under this and the succeeding Emperours, relinquished all expectation of emerging from that obscurity into which they were now driven, till the mad ambition of Julian once again excited their expectations, by holding out an intention of invalidating the Christian Revelation by a practical argument against the truth of one of its most important predictions. With the view, therefore, secretly to ruin the Christian Church by the restoration of the Jewish worship, he determined upon re-building the Temple of Jerusalem on its old foundations; one, which should surpass the magnificence and popularity of that of the Resurrection standing on the adjacent eminence. In his letter to the community of the Jews, he says"The Holy City of Jerusalem which you have so long "desired to see inhabited, re-building by my own. labours, I will dwell in."

This

energies, at a season of life when human strength is said to be but " labour and sorrow," were superior to the weight of age, and to the fatigues of a pilgrimage sufficient to have exhausted the most vigorous youth.

Clarke's Travels, vol. 2, p. 562.

According to Theodoret, she was nearly eighty years old when she undertook this pilgrimage.-Paulo ante mortem, quam octogesimum ætatis agens oppetebat, istud, iter fecit.

Lib. i. c. 18.
(1) A. D. 327.

(2) Την εκ πολλῶν ἐτῶν επιθυμη μένην παρ' υμιν, οικεμένην πολιν ἁγιάν Ep. 25.

Η Ιερεσαλήμ ἐμοῖς καμάτοις ανοικοδομήσας οικήσω.

AND HE SHALL (THINK TO) PLANT THE TABERNACLES OF HIS PALACES. BETWEEN THE SEAS, IN THE GLORIOUS HOLY MOUNTAIN; YET HE SHALL COME TO HIS END, AND NONE SHALL HELP HIM. Dan, xi. 45.

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This intention and the overthrow of it, is thus related by Ammianus Marcellinus, a Heathen, and a General in the army of Julian; whose testimony is too strongly corroborated by indisputable authority to admit any doubt upon the subject.'-" Julian," he says, "endeavoured to re-build the Temple of Jerusalem with "immense expence, and consigned the charge of it to "Alypius of Antioch, to execute the work, and to "the Governour of the province to assist him in it: " in which work when Alypius was earnestly employed; "and the Governour of the Province was assisting, "terrible balls of fire bursting out near the founda"tions, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered "the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the "scorched and blasted workmen; and in this manner "the fire obstinately and resolutely repelling them, "the work ceased." "This

(1)" This public event is described by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the Emperour Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, who published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this præternatural event was not disputed by the Infidels; and his assertion, strange as it may seem, is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus." Gibbon's D. & F. of the Rom. Emp. vol. iv. p. 107. Marcellinus wrote the history of the Roman affairs, from Nerva to the death of Valens, A. D. 378.

(2) Ambitiosum quoddam templum apud Hierosolymam sumptibus immodicis instaurare cogitabat, negotiumque maturandum Alypio dederat Antiochensi; cum itaque rei idem fortiter instauret Alypius, juvaretque provinciæ Rector, metuendi, globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere locum, exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum.

Lib. xxiii. ab. initio. Jortin, concluding his observation upon this subject, remarks," that upon the whole, it is not a matter of any consequence whether this event, with the

"This signal event is attested in a manner that ren"ders its evidence irresistible; though, as usually 'happens in cases of that nature, the Christians have " embellished it by augmenting rashly the number of "the miracles that are supposed to have been wrought upon that occasion. The causes of this phenomenon may furnish matter of dispute; and learned men have, in effect, been divided upon that point. All, "however, who consider the matter with attention and "impartiality, will perceive the strongest reasons for

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embracing the opinion of those who attribute this " event to the almighty interposition of the Supreme 'Being; nor do the arguments offered by some, to prove it the effect of natural causes, or those alleged by "others to persuade us that it was the result of artifice "and imposture, contain any thing that may not be "refuted with the utmost facility." An

the circumstances" (here alluded to), "happened or not. If Julian did make any attempt to re-build the Temple, it is certain that something obstructed his attempt, because the Temple never was re-built. If he made no such attempt, the prophecy of our Saviour still holds good: and it surely cannot be thought to detract from the merit of a prophecy, that nobody ever attempted to elude it, or to prove it a falsehood!” Remarks, vol. i. In this, however, he indulges too much his spirit of scepticism. It is difficult to conceive what possible grounds could exist for thus doubting the testimony of Marcellinus: and far from this testimony being unimportant, it is surely of great consequence to shew, that a prophecy not only has not been falsified, but could not, by any craft of man, be so.-It is, indeed, idle cowardice thus to compliment away the testimony of a heathen to the truth of Christ's prediction.

(1) “ The truth of this miracle is denied by the famous Basnage, Histoire “des Juifs, tom. iv. p. 1257, against whom Cooper has taken the affirmative, " and defended it in his Letters, published by Bayer, p. 400. A most ingenious "discourse has been published lately, in defence of this miracle, by the learned “Dr. Warburton, under the title of Julian; or, A Discourse concerning the "Earthquake and Fiery Eruption, &c. in which the objections of Basnage are particulary examined and refuted.”

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Mosheim's Ecc. Hist. Cent. iv. part i. ch. 1.

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An instance of the same mode of the fulfilment, of that " word which shall not pass away," is exemplified. in the History of Alexander the Great, who in a remarkable manner shewed the immutable existence of a. scriptural prophecy, strongly resembling this of which we have now spoken; and it is to the testimony of a Heathen that we are again indebted for the confirmation of its unchangeable nature.'-After Cyrus had. encamped his army before the walls of Babylon, he employed the soldiers in making a wide and deep trench around that half of the city to which he was nearest by which means the Euphrates which ran exactly through the centre of it before, was drawn into this new made channel; when the troops of Cyrus, advancing under the darkness of a night dedicated to festivity, through the former bed of the river, surprised the guards and took the city by storm. All these, with many other circumstances, were precisely foretold by the prophets; and that the mighty Babylon, according to the predictions of the same holy and inspired men, might be " wiped away from the face of the "earth and be clean forgotten," no traces remained by which even its situation could be ascertained. For though it was built upon the Euphrates so as to inclose a portion of that river by its walls; yet after its course was thus interrupted by Cyrus, it ran into another channel; " so that, in Theodoret's time there was but a

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very small stream, which ran across the ruins, and

not meeting with a descent, or free passage, necessarily degenerated into a marsh. Afterwards Alexander "designing

(1) Arrian de Exped. Alex. Į. viii. (2) Jer. 1. and li. Isa. xiv. &c. (3) Euphrates quondam urbem ipsam mediam dividebat: nunc autum fluvius conversus est in aliam viam, et per rudera minimus aquarum meatus fluit. Theodoret. in Cap. i. (as quoted by Rollin.)

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