A.D. 329. POPE 8ILVE8TEB CONFOUNDS THE JEWS. 191 standard, a sign full of terrror to the enemy ; and the barbarians coming on, fell in battle, being miserably slaughtered, and an infinite multitude of them perished. And the Lord gave the victory to Constantine by virtue of the Holy Cross. A.D. 324. Helena, the mother of Constantine, being warned by some divine visions, went to Jerusalem, and diligently looking for the cross of the Lord, instead of one she found three ; but the impossibility of distinguishing between the several crosses disturbed her joy at the success of her search. At last, of the three crosses which she had found she was made undoubtedly sure which was the true one, by means of a certain sick woman who was cured by the true cross. The nails by which the body of our Lord had been fastened to the cross, she with maternal affection brought to her son, and bade him make bridle-bits of them, to use in any doubtful war, in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, " And it shall come to pass in that day, that in the bridle of a horse it shall be called Holy to the Lord." A.D. 325. Constantine built a baptistery at Rome, of wonderful beauty, near the church of the blessed John the Baptist, which was called Constantine's church, where he had formerly been baptised ; and he also made a church for the blessed Peter, out of a temple of Apollo, and another for the blessed Paul. He also surrounded the body of each, to the height of five feet, with beautiful brass. A.D. 326. The emperor ordered a church to be built in the Soran palace, which is called Jerusalem, where he deposited a portion of the Holy Cross ; also a church to the blessed martyr Agnes, at the request of Constantia his daughter, where Constantia herself, the sister of Augustus, had been baptised. A.D. 327. The same emperor built a church in honour of Saint Lawrence the martyr, in the road to Tibur and the Veranian field, where the martyr was buried. A.D. 328. Pope Silvester enacted that the holy chrism should be reverently consecrated, not by presbyters, but by bishops. A.D. 329. A hundred and twenty of the wisest of the Jews were collected before Constantine and his mother Helena, to argue against pope Silvester, maintaining that the faith of the Christians was groundless, and invented not by God but by men devoid of reason ; whom the holy Silvester, supported by a band of twenty-four bishops, manfully resisted and confused