On the Death of Theodosius (De obitu Theodosii)

Theodosius I died in 395, and Ambrose, bishop of Milan, preached this sermon at his funeral rites. Praising the Christian emperors, he turns to Helena. She came to the holy places, he says, was moved by the Spirit to look for the wood of the cross, dug at Golgotha and found three gibbets lying in confusion. She knew the Lord’s by the title that Pilate had set over it. She also found the nails, and had one made into a bridle and another worked into a diadem for her son (43–47).

Ambrose spoke sixty to seventy years after Helena’s journey and does not say where he had the story. Eusebius, who describes her visit to Palestine and the uncovering of the tomb, has nothing of it. The passage is part of a sermon, and its point is the cross set on the heads of emperors. It is evidence that the story was being told in the West by 395.