of Mahomet,
invaded Palestine. At the battle of Yermuck, the imperial forces were
totally routed, and Heraclius, downcast and dismayed, returned to
Constantinople, bearing with him, as a source of consolation, the
invaluable fragment, whose alleged miraculous powers were never exerted
for its own protection.[9] It is rarely that, when a sovereign despairs
of success, his subjects have the courage (it would, perhaps, be termed
the disloyal presumption) to prolong their resistance; but the
inhabitants of Jerusalem were animated by religious zeal and local
associations, and did not, till after a doubtful siege of several
months, yield the holy city to the Saracens. The event soon justified
the prudent foresight of Heraclius in removing the Cross from the danger
of Mahometan masters. The Caliph of Omar experienced some difficulties
in the construction of a mosque at Jerusalem: he immediately supposed
those difficulties to be supernatural, and, by the advice of the Jews,
destroyed a great number of the neighbouring crosses; so that it seems
certain that the wood of the real crucifixion could still less have
escaped the effects of his ignorant fanaticism.[10] At Constantinople,
on the contrary, it was preserved with the utmost veneration in the
metropolitan church of St. Sophia, and the honours paid to it are
attested and described by the father of English historians.[11] Never,
but on the three most solemn festivals of the year, was its costly case
unclosed. On the first day, it received the adoration of the emperor and
principal officers of state; on the next, the empress and chief ladies
repeated the same ceremony; and the bishops and clergy were admitted on
the third. While exposed to view on the altar, a grateful odour pervaded
the whole church, and a fluid resembling oil distilled from the knots in
the wood, of which the least drop was thought sufficient to cure the
most inveterate disease. This precious fluid is also mentioned by Pope
Gregory, the Great, in one of his letters to Leontius. "I have received
your present," writes the Pope, "some oil of the Holy Cross and some
wood of aloes, of which the one confers blessing by its very touch,
and the other, when burnt, diffuses a pleasant perfume."[12]

In a period of several centuries, during which this relic remained at
Constantinople we find it occasionally mentioned in the annals of the
time. It was on the Holy Cross that Heracleonas swore to cherish and
defend his ne