He was withdrawn from her sight, and she loved him with an ardent love, for his affection toward her combined the devotion owed by both parents—since he had no father. She would never leave his side, whether on a journey or at home.

She was, as one poet said:
“I once thought an hour’s separation was itself like death—
then what of a parting whose next meeting is the Day of Gathering?”

Ishāq ibn Bishr reported on the authority of Mujāhid ibn Jabr (1) that when the Jews crucified the man who had been made to resemble Jesus to them—thinking him to be the Messiah, and most Christians, in their ignorance, going along with them—they turned against his followers, killing, beating, and imprisoning them. News of this reached the ruler of the Romans, the king of Damascus in those days.

It was said to him: “The Jews have attacked the followers of a man who claimed to be a Messenger of God, who raised the dead, cured the blind and the leper, and performed wonders. They assaulted him, killed him, humiliated his companions, and cast them into prison.”

He therefore summoned them, and they were brought before him—among them John son of Zachariah, Simon, and others. He questioned them about the Messiah, and when they told him, he pledged allegiance to them in their religion, championed their cause, and the truth prevailed over the Jews so that the word of the Christians became dominant. He ordered the crucified body to be removed from its beam, and the beam on which that man had been crucified was brought to him, and he venerated it (2).

Hence the Christians came to magnify the cross, and from that point Christianity entered the realm of the Romans (3).

Yet this account calls for scrutiny from several angles:

First: John son of Zachariah was a prophet, and a prophet would never consent to the claim that the crucified man was Jesus, for he is safeguarded from error and knows the truth of what took place.

Second: The Romans did not adopt the religion of the Messiah until three hundred years later, in the time of Constantine son of Constans (4), founder of the city that bears his name, as we shall mention.

Third: When the Jews crucified that man they threw him away with his wooden beam and made the site a dumping ground for refuse, filth, carcasses, and abominations. It remained so until the era of the aforementioned Constantine, when his mother Helena of Harran, an innkeeper, excavated the site, believing it to contain the Messiah. They found the beam on which the man had been crucified, and it was said that no one afflicted with an ailment touched it without being cured. God knows best whether this was in fact so, and whether it was because