A Coptic Version of the Discovery of the Holy Sepulchre Drake, H A Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1979; 20, 4; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 381

A Coptic Version of the Discovery of 
the Holy Sepulchre 

H. A. Drake 

THE RECOVERY of the site of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem 
is one of the major accomplishments of the reign of Con­
stantine the Great, commemorated in one of the most widely 

circulated of Christian legends-that of the discovery of the Cross by 
his mother, St Helena.! A peculiar version of this well-known tale 
survives in Coptic in a manuscript acquired early in the nineteenth 
century by the Museum of Turin and published more than 80 years 
ago by Francesco Rossi, 2 now reedited by Tito Orlandi with an 
English translation by Birger Pearson.3 In it, the Holy Sepulchre is 
discovered by neither Constantine nor Helena but by an otherwise 
unknown virgin sister of the emperor named Eudoxia. Moreover the 
persecuting Emperor Diocletian ends his days blind and begging at 
the city's gates, and his successor Constantine fights a war with the 
Persians, in the course of which he is first rescued from certain 
capture by a pillar of cloud and then achieves victory by drawing 
water from a rock in the desert with a blow from his rod. 4 

But numerous Coptic legends give similar accounts of Diocletian's 
fate, 5 and Constantine's impossible war with the Persians-including 

1 See the familiar version in Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea ed. Th. Graesse 3 

(Bratislava 1890, repro 1965) ch.68, pp.303-11. See further Bibliotheca Hagiographica 
Graeca 3 I 121-25 s.n. Constantinus imp., III 81-87 S.V. Crux D.N. Iesu Christi; Bibliotheca 
Hagiographica Latina s.n. Helena imperatrix, I 563-65; and n.18 infra. Euseb. Vita Con­
stantini 3.25-40, ed. F. Winkelmann (Berlin 1975) 94-101, gives a contemporary account 
of the recovery and adornment of the Holy Sepulchre. 

2 Museo Egizio di Torino, Cat. 63.000, Cod. Ib, fo1. IOv-41 r; trans!' F. Rossi, Mem 
Torino 2 37 (1886) 84-115, 150-62. See T. Orlandi, "Les papyrus coptes du Musee 
egyptien de Turin," Museon 87 (1974) 115-27. 

3 T. Orlandi, B. Pearson, H. Drake, Eudoxia and the Sepulchre: A Constantinian Legend in 
Coptic, Testi e documenti per 10 studie dell'Antichita, ser. copte (forthcoming, Milan 1980) 
[hereafter, ORLANDI]. 

4 Orlandi pp.9-13, 21-31. 
5 See, for instance, the panegyrics on St Claudius by Severus of Antioch and Con­

stantine of Assiout in G. Godron, ed., Textes coptes relatifs a Saint Claude d' Antioch (PO 35.4, 
1970) 491ff, 577; "Les Actes du martyre de Saint Isidore," ed. H. Munier, BIFAO 14 

(1918) 182f; the Encomium and Ninth Miracle in E. A. W. Budge, The Martyrdom and 
381 



382 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

the specific sequence of initial defeat, miracle and victory-occurs 
in a number of Byzantine sources.6 The story of Eudoxia is, by 
contrast, unique to this account. Why was it created? When and 
how? It is to these questions that this essay is addressed. 

On first reading, the origin of the Eudoxia story seems disarmingly 
obvious: it is merely a clumsy retelling of the famous legend of 
Helena and the True Cross. In her royal chambers, the virgin 
Eudoxia is summoned by a vision to rescue Christ's tomb from 
oblivion. With Constantine's enthusiastic support, she travels to 
Jerusalem and extorts from the Jews the whereabouts of one Jacob, 
a Christian presbyter who has knowledge of its location. When 
opened, the tomb reveals, among other things, the Inscription to the 
Cross-the Cross itself having already been discovered by Helena. 
Constantine wishes to take this Inscription with him, but is pre­
vented because the Lord wishes it to remain on the site until the last 
days. Instead, he constructs a replica, which thereafter precedes him 
everywhere, moving by its own power. Eudoxia stays in Jerusalem 
to build a church on the site of the tomb, after which she also endows 
the sites of Jesus' birth, baptism and arrest on the Mount of Olives, 
and adorns the rock where He washed the apostles' feet. Then she 
too returns to Constantinople. 

The imprint of the Helena legend is clear, although the author 
seems to have gotten little of it straight. Instead of the Jew Cyriacus, 
who in the Helena story holds the secret of the Sepulchre's locale, he 
introduces the Christian Jacob, thereby making the whole episode 
with the Jews curiously superfluous. He fares no better with Helena's 
endowments, correctly attributing to her surrogate, Eudoxia, only 
the church at Bethlehem.7 Most puzzling of all is the arbitrary 

Miracles of Saint George of Cappadocia (London 1888) 273, 325; ps.-Cyril, "The Discourse ... 
on the Cross," in idem, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (London 1915) 
209, 788. A similar fate is assigned by legend to Justinian's famous general Belisarius. 
But the earliest version of this story dates to the IX cent., whereas the Eudoxia legend 
appears to have been written in the VII cent. See H.-G. Beck, Geschichte der byzantinischer 
Volksliteratur (Munich 1971) 150ff, and n.23 infra. 

6 See, e.g., F. Halkin, "Une nouvelle vie de Constantin dans un legendier de Patmos," 
AnalBoll 77 (1959) 69, 83-92, 102; M. Guidi, ed., "Un moe di Costantino," RendLinc 5 

16 (1907) 316ff; Cedrenus, Hist.comp. 2830, ed. 1. Bekker, CSHB 23 (Bonn 1838) 1496. 
Theophanes also describes this war but puts Constantine's son in command: Chrono­
graphia, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig 1883) I 20. 

7 Helena did build on the Mount of Olives, but the site she commemorated was that 
of the Ascension, not Jesus' arrest. See Euseb. V.Const. 3.41-43. On her constructions in 
Palestine see H. Leclercq, "Helene, imperatrice," DACL VI.2 (1925) 2131ff. 



H. A. DRAKE 383 

separation of the discovery of the Sepulchre from that of the Cross, 
which as the author himself acknowledges had already been per­
formed by Helena. 8 In an apparent effort to compensate for this 
loss he has introduced the Inscription to the Cross as a sort of make­
shift Labarum, thereby effecting the join between this event and 
Constantine's conversion, accomplished in the traditional story by 
the discovery of the Cross itself. 

Why was this separation necessary? We must presume that for the 
author-a term used advisedly, without meaning to suggest that the 
Eudoxia story necessarily was developed by a single person sua 
sponte-this version, despite its flaws, accomplished something which 
the Helena legend did not. There is no reason in this case to believe 
that this version developed independent of or earlier than the 
Helena legend, for the author clearly is familiar with her discovery 
of the Cross. Indeed, it is more likely that the enormous popularity 
of the Helena legend kept him from tampering with this aspect of 
the event. 

But if the Helena story was so well known, how was he able to 
change any part of it? The answer, I would argue, lies in the fact 
that the author lived in the Greek East rather than the Latin West. 
Because of differences in terminology and liturgical practice between 
the two halves of the Empire, it was easier for someone in the East 
to separate the discovery of the Tomb from that of the Cross than it 
would have been for a counterpart in the West. 

The site of the Holy Sepulchre is complex, embracing several 
separate and distinct locations-not only the tomb but also the site 
of Calvary on Golgotha and an adjoining basilica ordered built by 
Constantine.9 In the East popular idiom distinguished the tomb 
from the basilica, referring to the one as the 'Anastasis' and the 
other as the 'Martyrium', whereas in the West the entire site usually 
was embraced within the single title of the 'Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre'. The result was that in the West the distinct components 
of the site, while certainly known, often became blurred in a way 

B In Orlandi p.57, Constantine vows to Eudoxia that he will do everything that the 
Lord commanded, "just as I did with my mother Helen on the day of the discovery of 
the Cross" (trans!. Pearson). 

9 H. Vincent and F.-M. Abel, Jerusalem, Recherches de topographie, d'arcMologie et d'histoire, 
II: Jerusalem nouvelle (Paris 1914-22) chs. 5-6. In matters of detail, C. Coiiasnon, The 
Church oj the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (London 1974), is preferable. E. Wistrand, 
Konstantins Kirche am Heiligen Grab in Jerusalem nach den iiltesten literarischen Zeugnissen (Acta 
Gothoburg. 58, 1952), has useful testimonia. 



384 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

that did not occur in the East. Thus in the Eudoxia story (p.54) the 
virgin tells Constantine that Christ has ordered her to "go to 
Jerusalem and discover my Martyrion and my Anastasis" -the 
popular designations for buildings which, technically, would not 
yet even have existed. By contrast, when the Western pilgrim 
Egeria wrote to describe the site to her sisters at the end of the 
fourth century she used the terms 'Anastasis' and 'Martyrium' in a 
self-conscious and confusing way, often bungling their precise 
meanings.10 

The point of this distinction is that the basilica, the 'Martyrium', 
rapidly came to be associated specifically with the discovery of the 
Cross. Its underground caverns were named the 'Chapel of St 
Helena', commemorating the place where she was believed to have 
prayed for guidance, and the 'Crypt of the Invention', believed to 
embrace the cistern where the Holy Wood itself was discovered. l1 

Indeed, the Martyrium itself occasionally was identified simply as 
the 'Church of the Cross'. 12 Thus in the East the Tomb and the 
Cross possessed separate physical identities in the Anastasis and the 
Martyrium which, as always, could have generated independent 
literary traditions.13 In the West the opposite was the case, with a 
single physical identification, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
serving further to cement the natural ties between these two parts. 

10 For instance, Egeria frequently uses some explanatory phrase with the word 
'Martyrium' as if uncertain whether her sisters would understand the word by itself as a 
reference to the particular building. Thus the phrase in ecclesia maiore, id est ad Marryrium 

(or a near equivalent) occurs at 30.2,30.3,32.1,38.1,39.2,41,43.2,45.2,46.1,46.5 and 
49.3. See also her misidentification of the Basilica at 24.8 (in basilica, quae est loco iuxta 
Anastasim,joras tamen) and 24.10 (tota basilica Anastasis). As her translator, J. Wilkinson, 
remarks, "basilica seems to be a word unfamiliar to Egeria": Egeria's Travels (London 
1971) 230. For the text, see Itinerarium Egeriae, ed. A. Franceschini and R. Weber, CCSL 
175, pp.37-90. On the much-disputed date of Egeria's pilgrimage, see now Wilkinson 
pp.237-39. 

11 Vincent and Abel, op.cit. (supra n.9) 131-34. The date of these caverns is uncertain. 
K. Conant thought they were part of the original Constantinian structure, though not 
immediately identified with Helena: "The Original Buildings at the Holy Sepulchre," 
Speculum 31 (1956) 11. However, the archaeological study conducted by Pere Coiiasnon, 
op.cit. (supra n.9) 41, has thrown this theory into doubt. 

12 Vincent and Abel, op.cit. (supra n.9) 190. Cj. the entry for the consulship of Opt at us 
and Paulinus (A.D. 334) in the Paschal Chronicle: T<X €YKa{Vta TfjC €KKA'Y/dac TOU &y{ov cTavpou, 

ed. L. Dindorf, CSHB 9.1 (Bonn 1832) 531. 
13 H. Delehaye, The Legends cifthe Saints, 4th ed. trans!' D. Attwater (New York 1955) 

29ff. 



H.A. DRAKE 385 

It is the same with the liturgy. Since the Roman calendar awarded 
only a single day to the discovery of both the Tomb and the Cross, 
the tendency in the West was to celebrate the two as part of the 
same event.14 But Eastern tradition allowed for an eight-day 
celebration, reflecting Constantine's original dedication ceremony in 
335.15 As Egeria informs us, this celebration ranked with Epiphany and 
Easter as one of the three great celebrations in the calendar of the 
Jerusalem church. 16 During these eight days, various Eastern church 
calendars came to mark the discovery of the Cross and that of the Tomb 
on separate dates, usually September 13 for the one and September 
14 for the other. 17 Here, once again, was a practice which permitted 
Eastern Christians to conceive of the two as separate events. 

Once the Tomb and the Cross are separated in this way, a dis­
tinction ordinarily not apparent to Western eyes emerges from the 
Helena legend itself, which came to focus almost exclusively on the 
discovery of the Cross. The discovery of the tomb, even when it 
is mentioneo, is incidental to this greater find; but just as often 
the discovery of the tomb is omitted. 1B A Western reader would 

14 As the Paschal Chronicle shows (supra n.12), the event originally was commemorated 
in September. But after Heraclius' restoration, commemorated as the 'Exaltation of the 
Cross', was added to that date, the celebration of the 'Invention of the Cross' came to be 
held on May 3. See the Acta Sanctorum for 3 May and 17 September, and A. Linder, 
"The Myth of Constantine the Great in the West: Sources and Hagiographic Com­
memoration," Studi Medievali 3 16 (1975) 54. 

15 The original dedication is described at Euseb. V.Const. 4.43-45, ed. Winkelmann 
pp.1O I --03. 

16 Itin.Eger. 49.1-3, CCSL 175, pp.89-90. 
17 See, e.g., the entries under 13 and 14 September in the Maronite, Melchite and 

Coptic calendars edited by R. Griveau, Martyrologes et Mlnologes orientaux (PO 10.4, Paris 
1916); Synaxarium Alexandrinum, ed. J. Forget, CSCO, Scr.arab.3 vols. 3-5, 11-13; and 
G. Garitte, ed., Le calendrier palestino-georgien du Sinaiticus 34 (xe siecle) (Subsidia Hagio­
graphica 30, Bruxelles 1958). The exact date of the split is unknown, but it had occurred 
in the Greek calendar before 572: Garitte p.330. 

18 The emphasis is evident in St Ambrose, who in A.D. 395 connected Helena with the 
Invention of the Cross in De obitu Theodosii chs. 40-48, ed. D. Caillau, Ambrosii Opera 
omnia VIII (Paris 1844) 133-36. Elaborated versions appeared soon thereafter in Paulinus 
of Nola, Ep. 31.4-5 (Migne, PL 61, 327-29), who added the interrogation of the Jews 
and a test of the wood through resurrection of a corpse. Rufinus, HE 10.7-8, ed. T. 
Mommsen (E. Schwartz, Eusebius' Kirchengeschichte II.2 [Leipzig 1908] 969ff) and Soc­
rates, HE 1.I 7 (Migne, PC 67, 117ff), offer a less spectacular proof, involving cure rather 
than resurrection. It is noteworthy that the Helena account is found in Acta sanctorum for 
3 May under the heading of 'Inventio crucis' (I [Paris 1866] 365ff). On the legend, see 
H. Leclercq, DACL nI.2 (1914) 3131-39; J. Vogt, RAG III (1957) 372-74; and, more 
recently, Linder,op.cit. (supra n.14) 84ff. 



386 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

immediately fill in this blank because he is predisposed to think of 
the two as concurrent. But to an Eastern Christian like the Eudoxia 
author this gap represented a genuine opening, which was readily 
filled by the existence of a separate structure and separate liturgy 
for the tomb. Thus it would not have seemed immediately contra­
dictory to him either to think of the two as separate events or to 
give credit to Helena's discovery of the Cross in his own account of 
the discovery of the Sepulchre. 

But the change in treatment of the Jews suggests that this was 
not the only gap which the Eudoxia legend filled. In the Helena 
legend the Jew Cyriacus is rather a heroic figure who eventually 
became the subject of a legend of his own.19 His conversion to 
Christianity after valiantly trying to protect his Jewish brothers 
charged the episode with a certain missionary purpose, which is lost 
from the Eudoxia narrative by the transfer of his part to the Christian 
Jacob. It appears that this result was not accidental, for the author 
has systematically transferred all the positive features of the Jewish 
role in the Helena legend to the Christian Jacob, leaving to the Jews 
only the negative aspects of their part in the discovery-the interro­
gation and torture. It would have been easier and more consistent 
to have omitted the Jews entirely as superfluous. Yet he kept them, 
even though by so doing he created the ludicrous circumstance of 
Jacob waiting for the Jews to reveal his existence to Eudoxia. 
Because this change entailed so many clumsy and unsatisfactory 
alterations, it probably reflects an age when hostility toward the 
Jews had so escalated that attributing any positive action to them 
was no longer acceptable. 

At the same time, internal indications suggest that the Eudoxia 
story was composed following a period of destruction in Jerusalem. 20 

Taken together with this anti-Jewish sentiment, these indications 
point to a date of composition after the Persian sack of the Holy 
City in A.D. 614-a sack which assertedly received the wholehearted 
support of the resident Jewish population.21 At the other end, 

19 BHG3 I 142 s.n. Cyriacus; BHL II 1021-22 s.n. Quiriacus. On the development of 
the Cyriacus legend,]. Straubinger, Die KreuzauJfindungslegende (Paderborn 1912) 1-81. 

20 See, for instance, the quotation of Psalm 78 (79) at the opening of the tomb: "0 
God, heathens have invaded your inheritance," etc. Zion also is emphasized in such a 
way as to indicate a desire to link it with the rebuilding of the Sepulchre: see Orlandi 
pp.82, 87, 90. 

21 Theophan. ekron. ed. de Boor, I 300411; Expugnatio Hierosolymae, ed. G. Garitte, 
CSCO 348, Scr.arab. 29 (Louvain 1974) 100, 130. 



H. A.DRAKE 387 

a fragment of the Eudoxia story on a papyrus which seems to date no 
later than A.D. 700 shows that the Eudoxia story must have been 
written at some time during the seventh century.22 For other reasons, 
this period can be narrowed considerably, and we can fairly safely 
assign a date of composition to the middle years of the seventh 
century-around 640-650.23 

This date, I believe, explains more than the author's hostility to 
the Jews. The relic of the True Cross, taken by the Persians in 614, 
had been restored by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius with elabor­
ate ceremony in 630 or 631,24 only to be removed once again shortly 
thereafter-this time to Constantinople-in the face of the Arab 
threat. Discomfited by the zeal with which sister Sees sought to take 
their relics into protective custody, the inhabitants of the Holy Land 
quite naturally wanted to protect and exalt those which they con­
tinued to possess. Hence this narrative's emphasis on the tomb­
which obviously could not be displaced-and relative disinterest in 
the Cross itself. Hence also the divine sanctions placed around the 
still-remaining Inscription to the Cross, which in the legend Con­
stantine is forced to leave in the Holy City until the last days. 

But if this was the motive for the legend, how do we account for 
the introduction of Eudoxia? There is little reason to doubt that she 
derives from the fifth-century Empress Athenais-Eudocia, wife of 
Theodosius II (the variant spelling is a common mistake, made by 
both ancient and modern authors).25 In 438 Eudocia undertook a 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem which rivaled that of Helena herself, and 

22 Rylands Coptic fragment 520. On the date, see Orlandi's introduction (supra n.3). 
23 In Orlandi p.95, Constantine's plan to remove the Inscription is thwarted in a way 

reminiscent of difficulties attributed to Heraclius at the Restoration of the Cross, indi­
cating a date post-630 (see next note). An appropriate atmosphere for the retelling of 
legends of Constantine the Great would have been created by the Constantinian revival 
fostered by Heraclius' grandson Constans II (641-668), who featured a Cross with the 
legend €Y 'TOV'TCil Y!ldj. on his coins: see P. Grierson, Catalogue if the Byzantine Coins in the 
Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whitmore Collection 1I.2 (Washington 1968) 406, 442-53. 
For further discussion, see Orlandi chAo 

24 The traditional date of 628 for the Restoration has been revised to 630, but V. 
Grumel now suggests 631 instead. See "La Reposition de la Vraie Croix a Jerusalem par 
Heraclius. Le jour et I'annee," ByzForsch I (I966) 139-49. 

25 The confusion no doubt is due in part to the fact that both Eudocia's mother-in-law 
and daughter were named Eudoxia. See A. Boyce, "Eudoxia, Eudocia, Eudoxia: Dated 
Solidi of the Fifth Century," ANSMN6 (1954) 131-42. For examples of such a slip, see 
the reference to 'Eudoxia' by the VI-cent. pilgrim Antoninus, CCSL 175, p.142, and 
A. H. M. Jones, Later Roman Empire I (Norman 1964) 180. 



388 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

some years later she returned permanently to the Holy Land, to 
remain the city's patroness until her death in 460.26 The similarity 
between these two pious benefactresses made juxtaposition of the 
one with the other virtually inevitable.27 Indeed it may well have 
been through the attraction of Eudocia that Helena was transformed 
from a simple stabularia into the learned princess which she became 
in Western hagiography.28 

One of Eudocia's benefactions was a large hospice for pilgrims 
next to the Holy Sepulchre,29 and it is not unlikely that the Eudoxia 
legend got its start from enthusiastic tour guides who allowed her 
generosity to spill over into the Sepulchre itself.30 We may find 
traces of the route this influence took in the Coptic Discourse on the 
Cross attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, in which Constantine under­
takes to discover the Cross himself, bringing with him both "his 
mother and his sister, who was a virgin." 31 In another Coptic tract, 
the Encomium on St George of Cappadocia attributed to the sixth­
century bishop of Ancyra, Abba Theodotus, this sister finds a name: 
Eudoxia.32 It is perhaps significant that in this tract Constantine 
goes not to find the Cross but to build the Church of the Re­
surrection. 

Thus we know who the prototype for Eudoxia was, and we also 
know how she was able to enter what at first seemed an exclusive 
turf. But in the story itself Eudoxia does little, on the surface, that 
Helena herself could not have done. Indeed, so little of the historical 
Eudocia survives in this account that her major endowments-a 

26 Socr. HE 7.47; Evagr. HE 1.20-22, ed. J. Bidez and L. Parmentier (London 1898; 
repro Amsterdam 1964) 28-33. 

27 See, e.g. the comparison by J. Grey, A History of Jerusalem (New York 1969) 202: 
"The Empress Helena had inaugurated this phase of the history of Jerusalem; it was 
consummated by the work of the Empress Eudocia ... " 

28 On Helena's royal descent, see Linder, op.cit. (supra n.14) 9lf; W. Mulligan, "The 
British Constantine, An English Historical Myth," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance 
Studies 8 (1978) 257-79. The tradition that Helena was a stabularia is reported by Ambrose, 
Obit. Theod. 42. 

29 DACL XIV.I (1939) 119. 
30 A pilgrim tour is, in fact, a reasonable explanation for the particular assortment of 

buildings attributed to 'Eudoxia' in Orlandi pp.102-03 (see summary above, p.382), for 
they are all linked in one way or another with either the Sepulchre itself or the liturgies 
celebrated during the week of the Encaenia. Compare the sites mentioned by the 
pilgrim Egeria, Itin.Eger. 25.8-11. 

31 In Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts (supra n.5) 794. 
32 idem, St George of Cappadocia (supra n.5) 325. 



H. A. DRAKE 389 

Church of St Stephen and new walls for the city-are ignored in the 
list of the virgin's benefactions.33 Why, then, introduce her? 
Heraclian politics may have played a part, for in the dynastic 
struggles that followed the death of Heraclius one of the rival 
factions was composed of the offspring of Heraclius by his first wife, 
also named Eudocia, and there was even a period of a few months 
in 641 when the reigning Byzantine emperor was a son of Heraclius 
named Constantine who, like the Constantine in this legend, had a 
sister named Eudocia. 34 But such political situations rarely play the 
primary role in the formation oflegend, and the real answer, as well 
as the key to this legend, appears to lie in the tangled situation 
produced in the Monophysite lands of the Middle East by Imperial 
concepts of Orthodoxy and the advent of Islam. 

As is well known, Imperial persecution ofMonophysites helped pave 
the way for the triumph of Islam in these lands. But Monophysite 
hostility to the Christian Empire can be overstated. The Chronicle of 
John, bishop of Nikiu, written late in the seventh century, provides a 
less one-sided picture of Monophysite sentiments.35 Blaming the 
doctrinal error of the emperors for the success of Islam in his native 
Egypt, 36 John (120.33) nevertheless vigorously expresses his hatred for 
Egypt's new masters-hoping, among other things, that God might 
drive them like Pharaoh of old into the sea. It is clear thatJ ohn' s loyalty 
remains with the Empire, and he in fact concludes that it would be 
better to suffer bad Christian rulers than endure infidel ones.37 

33 Evagr. HE 1.22. On Eudocia's special identification with St Stephen seeJ. T. Milik, 
"Notes d'epigraphie et de topographie palestiniennes," RBibl67 (l960) 577. The legend's 
silence may also indicate a post-6l4 date, since St Stephen's was not rebuilt after the 
Persian sack. 

34 Fabia Eudocia wed Heraclius in 610 and gave birth to a daughter, Epiphania 
Eudocia, and a son, Heraclius V€oC KwvcTaVTtVOC, before her death in 612. The son 
ascended the throne in 641 as Constantine III but died after a reign of three months. 
See G. Ostrogorsky, History tif the Byzantine State 2 (New Brunswick 1969) l12f. On 
Heraclius' daughter Eudocia see Nicephorus, Opuscula Historica, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig 
1880; repro New York 1975) 16,21,24. 

35 Transl. R. H. Charles (London 1916). 
36 At 115.9, for instance, John notes how "the hostility of the people to the emperor 

Heraclius, because of the persecution wherewith he had visited all the land of Egypt in 
regard to the orthodox faith" had weakened the Romans and emboldened the Moslem 
(transl. Charles p.184). Cf.121.2. 

37 At 117.7-8 John quotes the following with approval: "But God has been patient 
with the apostates and heretics .... How then is it not far better for us to endure patiently 
the trials and punishments which they inflict upon us?" (Charles p.187). 



390 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

This ambivalence in Monophysite thinking found its expression in 
apocalyptic literature of the seventh century, as Paul Alexander 
demonstrated in unraveling the legend of the "last Christian 
Emperor."38 This was the emperor who in the last days would lay 
down the instruments of earthly power on Golgotha after defeating 
the last of Christ's secular enemies, and thereby usher in the millen­
ium. One branch of Monophysite thinkers argued that this Emperor 
would be an Ethiopian, presumably because this was the sole Mono­
physite throne in existence. But since Ethiopia posed no immediate 
threat to Islam, this position also implied that Monophysites were 
free in the interim to collaborate with their Arab masters. By contrast, 
another camp held that the last emperor would be Byzantine, and 
this belief would have encouraged Monophysites to stand firm in 
their loyalty to the Empire, which after all had recovered earlier in 
the same century after seeming to have been as decisively beaten by 
Persia. 

Some Monophysites, therefore, had not despaired of the Empire 
in the seventh century. What they longed for was not release but a 
return of the emperors to what they considered to be the path of 
Orthodoxy, departure from which had caused all the present 
troubles. It will be remembered that reference to the "last days" is 
made also in the Eudoxia legend, and not only at the point where 
Constantine makes his copy of the Inscription to the Cross: the 
Christian Jacob is introduced with pointed references to Enoch, the 
patriarch appointed to await the last days.39 This suggests that 
the Eudoxia author not only was acquainted with this apocalyptic 
controversy but also that he used it to color the texture of his 
narrative. 

This slender thread of Monophysite leanings is what the figure of 
Eudoxia/Eudocia adds to this legend. For the great fissure of 
Chalcedon occurred during the Empress Eudocia's seclusion in 
Jerusalem, and in this break Eudocia sided with the Monophysites. 

38 "Byzantium and the Migration of Literary Works and Motifs: The Legend of the 
Last Roman Emperor," MedHum N.S. 2 (1971) 47-68. 

39 At Orlandi p.74,Jacob speaks of "Sibyl, the sister of Enoch," apparently referring to 
the Tiburtine Sibyl, who was considered Enoch's sister in Coptic tradition. See B. Pearson, 
"The Pierpont Morgan Fragments of a Coptic Enoch Apochryphon," in G. Nicke1sburg, 
ed., Studies on the Testament of Abraham (Missoula [Mont.] 1976) 239f. Later, in 76, Jacob 
describes himselfto Eudoxia in Enoch-like terms as having been ordained to live until her 
search was undertaken. 



H. A. DRAKE 391 

According to Western tradition, she eventually was restored to the 
bosom of the Church by the blandishments of Pope Leo and the 
counsel of Simeon Stylites.40 But as the same Chronicle of John of 
Nikiu shows, if such a change of heart did occur, it went unacknow­
ledged by the Monophysites. Eudocia, John says (87.45), "went to 
her rest in the holy J erusalern, full of good works and a pure faith." 
By giving a Monophysite empress a role in the great discovery myth 
of Imperial Christianity, the Eudoxia story added subtle reinforce­
ment to the Monophysite belief that Byzantine emperors had lost to 
Islam because of their lapse from the true faith. 

The apocalyptic innuendo in the narrative suggests that the 
ultimate significance of the Eudoxia legend must be seen in terms of 
this great ideological battle that raged in Monophysite lands in the 
seventh century. For a tenet of the legend of the last emperor was that 
he would be named Constantine; 41 surely it is no accident that in the 
Eudoxia legend Constantine first picks up the symbols of power 
which his legendary namesake will return to the same site to lay 
down. The Eudoxia narrative casts the opening drama of the 
Christian Empire into a form which complements and foreshadows 
the end. Constantine first picks up the instruments of power with 
significant strings attached: he cannot take with him the Inscription 
found in the tomb, because this is destined to stay in the Holy City 
until the last days. Instead he takes only a replica, which is used by 
the legendary Constantine in precisely the same manner that the 
historical Constantine used his Labarum, the chi-rho ensign which 
became the symbol of divine authority for all subsequent Byzantine 
emperors.42 

40 Theophan. Chron. ed. de Boor, I 107; Leonis Magni Ep. 123 (Migne, PL 54, 1060f); 
Cyril Scyth. Vita S.Euthymii 30, trans!' A.-J. Festugiere, Les moines d' Orient III.l (Paris 
1962) 101-03; Niceph.Call., HE 15.9, 13 (Migne PC 147, cols. 29f, 39f). Cf RAC VI 
(1966) 845; RE 6 (1907) 908£. On political effects see most recently F. M. Clover, "The 
Family and Early Career of Anicius Olybrius," Historia 27 (1978) 177. Eudocia is remem­
bered on 13 August in the Orthodox calendar: Synax.Const., ed. H. Delehaye (Bruxelles 
1902; repro 1954) col. 890. 

41 Linder, op.cit. (supra n.14) 52. 
42 See Orlandi p.98: "The king made a great cross of refined gold with a golden 

inscription fastened to it, and raised it up on the chariot on which he had put the in­
scription, and had it going before him at all times. He never again mounted it, but every 
place the king would desire in his heart to go, the chariot would go by itself until he came 
there ... " (trans!. Pearson). On Constantine's relics in Constantinople see Linder, 
op.cit. (supra D.l4) 58f. 



392 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 

A plea to preserve the relics for Jerusalem, this episode takes on 
new significance in view of Monophysite apocalyptic. For not only 
is it the Monophysite heroine Eudoxia who finds the symbol of 
power for Constantine but, since it is only a facsimile which he 
takes with him, the implication is clear that the Lord wished genuine 
authority to rest with His church in the Holy Land. Thus in a 
symbolic and figurative way, the Eudoxia narrative urges the same 
conclusion that John of Nikiu uttered more directly in his Chronicle: 
Monophysite Christians owed their loyalty to the Empire, but it was 
the duty of the Emperors to heed the teachings of the true church. 

It would be misleading to conclude that the Eudoxia author wrote 
with the conscious intent of contributing to the dialogue on the fate 
of the Empire. We must rather conclude that in the course of telling 
or, more probably, retelling a story, he constructed and embroidered 
it in such a way as to betray the influence of that dialogue on his 
thought. Although a local legend with little direct influence of its 
own, the Eudoxia narrative thus illustrates the way legend can 
reflect and reinforce major political and ideological influences of the 
day.43 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA 

September, 1979 

43 A version of this paper was read at the VIII International Conference on Patristic 
Studies, Oxford, 6 September 1979. Research was begun while I was a visiting member 
of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1976-77 under an NEH fellowship 
and was completed with the aid of the Research Committee at the University of California, 
Santa Barbara. I wish especially to thank my two collaborators, Birger Pearson and Tito 
Orlandi.