No written testimonies of an earlier date remain, but these appear to be fully sufficient, as they are the expression of an oral tradition well known to every one. As for the idea that such a relic as this could have been _invented_ in those ages of conscience and of faith, it is wholly inadmissible. The crown was not found with the cross and nails on Mount Calvary, nor is it probable that it was there buried with them, but that, when Joseph of Arimathea took down the body of Jesus from the cross, he would have preserved it apart. That no mention of this remains to us is easily accounted for by the silence and the exceeding precautions necessary so long as the persecutions by Jews and pagans continued. During this time the relics of the Passion which had been in the custody of the Blessed Virgin, or by her entrusted to others, could not, for reasons of safety, have been distributed to the various churches, but were honorably preserved in private dwellings, to be brought forth and publicly acknowledged when peace was granted to the church by the conversion of Constantine. Then it was that St. Helena sought with pious eagerness for every memorial that could be found of the Crucifixion, and distributed them chiefly among the churches of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome.[5] An apparent difficulty still remains, which obliges us to inquire into the nature and form of the sacred crown, with respect to which ancient authors differ from one another, some asserting that it was formed of reed (_juncus palustris_), about which, however, there are no points of any great sharpness; while others maintain it to have been made from the branches of a shrub belonging to the genus _Rhamnus_, several species of which, especially the _Zizyphus Spina Christi_, or the thorn of Christ, are furnished with exceedingly long, hard, and sharply-pointed thorns, exactly similar to those venerated in several churches, but bearing no resemblance whatever to the holy crown at Paris, which is, in fact, of reed. How is this diversity to be accounted for? Thanks to the learned researches of M. Rohault de Fleury,[6] it is fully explained. The crown at Paris is a circle formed of small reeds bound together, and from which only a small number of particles have been taken. The opening is large enough to encircle the head and to fall rather low over the brow. But this circle is only the support or foundation, so to speak, of the painful crown of our Lord. The branches of those thorns of which we have been speaking were twined alternately within and without, and twisted across in such a manner as to form of these sharp spines not only a _circlet_ but a _cap_, as it were, of torture, which covered the Redeemer’s head.