Holy Nail

Relics that are claimed to be the Holy Nails with which Jesus was crucified are objects of veneration among some Christians, particularly Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.

Without conscious fraud on the part of anyone, it is very easy for imitations in this way to come in a very brief space of time to be reputed originals.It is not clear whether Jesus was crucified with three or with four nails, and the question has been long debated.

Sozomen and Theodoret reported that when Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, discovered the True Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century AD, the Holy Nails were recovered too.

Helena left all but a few fragments of the cross in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but returned with the nails to Constantinople.

The other portion of the nails she ordered to be formed into the bridle of his horse, not only to ensure the safety of the emperor, but also to fulfil an ancient prophecy; for long before Zechariah, the prophet, had predicted that 'There shall be upon the bridles of the horses Holiness unto the Lord Almighty.The fifth-century Church historian Socrates of Constantinople wrote in his Ecclesiastical History, which was finished shortly after 439,[2] that after Constantine was proclaimed Caesar and then Emperor, he ordered that all honor be paid to his mother Helena, to make up for the neglect paid her by her former husband, Constantius Chlorus.