Was Jesus' cross found

Answer 1

No. If there ever was a cross of Jesus, it would have been reused to crucify others, until it was no longer possible to say which was which. And it would have been destroyed, or just rotted away, almost wo thousand years ago. Yet, there are some who say it has been found.

The first and most important "True Cross of Jesus" was allegedly found by Emperor Constantine's mother Helena on a pilgrimage to Palestine, where she found the cross of Jesus and those of the two robbers, all still intact, as well as uncovering the places of Jesus' birth, crucifixion and burial, and various other important relics. When Helena left Palestine, she took several pieces of wood from the True Cross.

The custody of the True Cross was entrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem, who gratified the devotion of the pilgrims by the gift of small pieces, which they enchased in gold or gems and carried away to their respective countries. As the commerce would soon have depleted what remained of the cross, it was found convenient to suppose that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation, and that its substance, though continually diminished, remained entire and unimpaired.

By the end of the Middle Ages so many churches claimed to possess a piece of the True Cross, that John Calvin (Traité Des Reliques) said "There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poictiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it."

Answer 2

Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, visited Palestine and began to search for relics of Jesus. She located, to her own satisfaction, all the spots where every important event in the recorded career of Jesus at Jerusalem supposedly took place. She arranged for each of these places to be dug up, and promptly identified what was found there to her own satisfaction.

Local Christians told Helena that the True Cross was hidden under a shrine to the goddess Aphrodite. She ordered that the site should be excavated, whereupon, according to St Ambrose, three crosses were disinterred. Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem undertook, with prayer for God's help, to place a sick woman on each of the crosses in turn, so that it could then be seen what happened to her on each of the three occasions. When she was placed on the first two crosses, nothing happened. When she was made to lie on the third cross, she was healed. That, it was concluded, must have been the True Cross on which Jesus had met his death. Helena returned from Palestine with her some pieces of wood from this cross. In a single event, Helena and Macarius had ensured the destruction of an important pagan temple, the recovery of the True Cross and the addition of a further miracle to the story of Christianity.

Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) says the cross was entrusted to the custody of the bishop of Jerusalem and displayed on Easter Sundays. The devotion of the pilgrims could be gratified by the gift of small pieces, which they enchased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective countries. Gibbon tells us that as this gainful commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose that the marvellous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation, and that its substance, though continually diminished, remained entire and unimpaired.