<P> Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine, describes how the site of the Holy Sepulchre, once a site of veneration for the Christian church in Jerusalem, had been covered with earth and a temple of Venus had been built on top . Although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of Hadrian's reconstruction of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 135, following the destruction during the Jewish Revolt of 70 and Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132--135 . Following his conversion to Christianity, Emperor Constantine ordered in about 325--326 that the site be uncovered and instructed Saint Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to build a church on the site . In his Life of Constantine, Eusebius does not mention the finding of the True Cross . </P> <P> Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full description of the discovery that was repeated later by Sozomen and by Theodoret . In it he describes how Saint Helena, Constantine's aged mother, had the pagan temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses and the titulus from Jesus's crucifixion were uncovered as well . In Socrates's version of the story, Macarius had the three crosses placed in turn on a deathly ill woman . This woman recovered at the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol . Socrates also reports that, having also found the Holy Nails (the nails with which Christ had been fastened to the cross), Helena sent these to Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor's helmet and the bridle of his horse . </P> <P> Sozomen (died c. 450), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives essentially the same version as Socrates . He also adds that it was said (by whom he does not say) that the location of the Sepulchre was "disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance" (although Sozomen himself disputes this account) and that a dead person was also revived by the touch of the Cross . Later popular versions of this story state that the Jew who assisted Helena was named Jude or Judas, but later converted to Christianity and took the name Kyriakos . </P> <P> Theodoret (died c. 457) in his Ecclesiastical History Chapter xvii gives what had become the standard version of the finding of the True Cross: </P>

What kind of wood was the cross made out of