Soon after he became sole emperor, Constantine decided to erect a church over the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. According to Eusebius,[720] the heathen had filled up the place with rubbish, raised the level of the ground, and built a temple to Venus on the site. This was now destroyed, the rubbish removed, and deep under the surface the cave of the Holy Sepulchre was discovered.[721] The emperor’s letter to Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem concerning the building of the church is given in full by Eusebius. The erection of the building was undertaken at once, and Eusebius has given us a full description of it.[722] At this point Eusebius begins to speak of Helena, and relates how she came to the East and visited the holy places, and on this occasion she gave rich presents to the churches which her son had built both in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives.[723] Whereupon Eusebius relates the death of Helena, but of her discovery of the Holy Cross he says not one word; it is only in his Commentary on the Psalms (lxxxvii. 11; cviii. 29) that certain mysterious expressions are found which may refer to it.[724] This silence is all the more remarkable since Jerusalem belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Cæsarea, and Eusebius must in any case have known of the event. Later historians and writers, beginning with Socrates and Sozomen,[725] have a great deal to say upon the subject. According to them, the cross of our Lord, and those also of the two thieves, along with the title written by Pilate, were all found deep under the surface of the ground; but the cross on which our Lord suffered could not be distinguished from the other two. Bishop Macarius solved the difficulty by obtaining a miracle from God, in answer to his prayers; the three crosses were laid, one after another, upon a sick woman, in the belief that she must be cured when touched by our Lord’s cross. And so it happened, as the third cross touched her body, she recovered. This healing of a sick person has become in later writers, as, for example, in Paulinus of Nola,[726] a resurrection from the dead, showing in this, as in other cases, the development of the legend. In addition, the nails of the cross were also found, and these, along with half of the cross, were sent by Helena to her son in Constantinople; the other half was preserved in Jerusalem in a silver shrine in a chapel specially built for its reception. Socrates, from whom these details are taken, places these events after his account of the Nicene Council; many writers place them in the year after the Council, but this is incorrect, since in that year Helena died; the Alexandrine Chronicle alone, which in such matters is very reliable, gives the day and the year for these events, _i.e._ 14th September 320.[727] Other authorities give a yet earlier date; indeed, a Syrian legend relates that a certain Protonika had discovered the Holy Cross during the reign of Tiberius.[728]