The Queen of Sheba refused to pass over on that tree, declaring that it would one day occasion the destruction of the Jews. Solomon commanded that the predestined beam should be thrown into the probationary pool (Pool of Bethesda), and its virtues were immediately communicated to the waters. When Christ had been condemned to suffer the death of a malefactor, his cross was made of the wood of that very tree. It was buried on Golgotha, and afterwards discovered by St. Helena. It was carried into captivity by Chosroes, king of Persia, delivered, and brought back in triumph to Jerusalem, by the Emperor Heraclius. Being afterwards dispersed in a multitude of fragments throughout the Christian universe, countless miracles were performed by it; it restored the dead to life, and gave sight to the blind, cured the paralytic, cleansed lepers, put demons to flight, and dispelled various maladies with which whole nations were afflicted, extinguished conflagrations, and calmed the fury of the raging waves. “The wood of the cross was born with the world, in the terrestrial paradise; it will reappear in heaven at the end of time, borne in the arms of Christ or of his angels, when the Lord descends to judge the world at the last day.

1676