temple of Venus, erected on the summit of Calvary, would not prevent the
Christians from visiting that holy mount; rejoicing in the idea, as the
historian Sozomen expresses it, that the Nazarenes, when they repaired to
Golgotha to pray, would appear to the public eye to be offering up their
adoration to the daughter of Jupiter. This is a striking proof that a
perfect knowledge of the sacred places was retained by the church of
Jerusalem in the middle of the second century. At a somewhat later period,
when exposed to persecution, if they were not allowed to build their
altars at the Sepulchre, or proceed without apprehension to the scene of
the Nativity, they enjoyed at least the consolation of keeping alive the
remembrance of the great events connected with these interesting monuments
of their faith; anticipating, at the same time, the approaching ruin of
that proud superstition by which they had been so long oppressed.

The conversion of Constantine gave a new vigour to these local
reminiscences of the evangelical history. That celebrated ruler wrote to
Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to cover the tomb of Jesus Christ with a
magnificent church; while his mother, the Empress Helena, repaired in
person to Palestine, in order to glue a proper efficacy to the zeal which
animated the throne, and to assist in searching for the venerable remains
of the first age of the gospel. To this illustrious female is ascribed the
glory of restoring to religion some of its most valued memorials. Not
satisfied with the splendid temple erected at the Holy Sepulchre, she
ordered two similar edifices to be reared under her own auspices; one over
the manger of the Messiah at Bethlehem, and the other on the Mount of
Olives, to commemorate his ascension into heaven. Chapels, altars, and
houses of prayer gradually marked all the places consecrated by the acts
of the Son of Man; the oral traditions were forthwith committed to
writing, and thereby secured for ever from the treachery of individual
recollection.[4]