Helena Augusta: The mother of Constantine the Great and the legend of her finding of the true cross

by Jan Willem Drijvers

This study on Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, is divided into two parts. The purpose of the first part is to ascertain the facts of Helena's life on the basis of reliable historical sources. The second part deals with the legends concerning the discovery of the True Cross in Jerusalem by Helena. Fact and fiction, which are so often confused in the secondary literature, are carefully distinguished.
The first part deals with subjects like Helena's life before the reign of Constantine, her residences in Trier and Rome, her conversion, her position at the court of Constantine, and her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The second part investigates the origin, development and function of the legends of the discovery of the True Cross, which were developed in the 4th and 5th the Helena legend, the (Syriac) Protonike legend and the Judas Cyriacus legend. An appendix deals with the portraits of Helena.

Leather Bound

First published October 1, 1991

Reviews

[Amy Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Retellings of the early fourth century are predictably dominated by Constantine and, on the Christian doctrine side, Nicaea. This monograph on Constantine's mother offers both a more expansive view of the Christianization of the Empire and a focused examination of how one woman's life can become the stuff of legend. Drijvers quite literally wrote the book on Helena Augusta and while others, such as Timothy Barnes, have challenged certain bits of Drijver's reconstruction of Helena's life, it remains the foundational work on the Augusta.

The first half of Drijvers' book accomplishes about as good of a piecing together of Helena's life as can be had. Her background and the character of her relationship with Constantius (Constantine's father) remain enticingly in the shadows and the subject of much controversy. Drijvers is quite convinced that Helena caught the eye of the future emperor as an innkeeper, which is late antique code for "low-born" and quite probably engaged in prostitution. In a more recent article (2011) Drijvers adjusts a few of her conclusions from this monograph but remains convinced on this point, while Barnes (also 2011 in a book about Constantine) offers an alternative explanation that is not as scandalously romantic. The reconstruction of Helena's life and what Drijvers convincingly outlines as the Augusta's central role in the Christianization of the empire are carefully argued and illuminating. One of the many contributions of this book is Drijvers' insistence that Helena's famous "pilgrimage" to the Holy Lands was much more than a trip fueled by devotion. Helena's devotion was evident to be sure, but her journey took her beyond displays of piety and the Holy Lands. In fact, the Augusta was on the front lines of Constantine's project of Christianization in the eastern provinces and exercised imperial authority to establish the new norm, a point not often trumpeted by early historians.

The second half of Helena Augusta traces the fascinating set of legends that erupted in the late fourth and fifth centuries involving the Augusta finding and identifying the True Cross. After some discussion on how Helena became tied to the discovery in the first place (which is most certainly fiction), Drijvers painstakingly follows each thread of the immensely popular legend as it rapidly made its way throughout the empire. Unlike many popular stories of martyrs and saints, the story of Helena and the discovery of the True Cross is what we might call "loosely based on a true story," a fact that certainly helped to propel it to bestseller status in the late ancient world and well into the medieval period.

What is so arresting about Helena is that her historical personage was just as compelling, if not more, than the legend that developed around her. Books like this one help us navigate the gaps of historical record and show us the power of storied legacy.