22 THIRD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590.
Italy (the spot and date are not specified), the emj)eror, whiltsi earnestly praying to the true God for light and help at thif critical time, saw, together with his army,' in clear daylight towards evening, a shining cross in the heavens above the sun, with the inscription : " By this conqy.er^'' " and in the following night Christ himself appeared to him wiiile lie slept, and directed hira to have a standard prepared in the form of this sign of the cross, and with that to proceed against Maxentius and all other enemies. This account of Eusebius, or rather of Constantino himself, adds to the night dream of Lactantius the preceding vision of the day, and the direction concerning the standard, while Lactantius speaks of the inscription of the initial letters of Christ's name on the shields of the soldiei"s. According to Rufinus,' a later historian, who elsewhere depends entirely on Eusebius and can therefore not be regarded as a proper witness in the case, the sign of tlie cross appeared to Constantino in a dream (whi(;h agrees with the account of Lactantius), and upon his awaking in terror, an angel (not Christ) exclaimed to him : '' Mog vince.''^ Lactantius, Eusebius, and Rufinus are the only Christian writers of the fourth century, who mention the apparition. But we have besides one or two lieathen testimonies, which, though vague and obscure, still serve to strengthen the evidence in favor of some actual occurrence. The contemporaneous orator ]!^azarius, in a panegyric ujion the emperor, pronounced March 1, 321, apparently at Rome, speaks of an army of divine warriors and a divine assistance which Constantine received in the engagement with Maxentius, but he converts it to the service of heathenism by
' This is probably a mistake or an exaggeration. For if a whole army consisting of ffiany thousand soldiers of every nation had seen the vision of tlie cross, P^usebiua might have cited a number of living witnesses, and Constantine might have dispensed with a solemn oath. But on the other hand the two heathen witnesses (sec below) extend the vision likewise to the soldiers.
^TovT(fi [tw (Tjjuciy] v'tKa; Ilac, or Hoc [so. .<iigno] vince, or vinees. i^uscbiua leaves the impression that the inscription was in Greek. But Nicephorus anti Zonaras say that it was in Latin.
• Hi.st. Eccl. ix 9. Corap. the similar account c< Sozomenus, II. E. i. S
§ 2. CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 23
recurring to old prodigies, such as tlie appearauce of Castor and Pollux.'
This famous tradition may be explained either as a real miracle implying a personal appearance of Christ,'* or as a pious fraud,^ or as a natural phenomenon in the clouds and an optical illusion,^ or finally as a prophetic dream.
' Nazar. Paneg. in Const, c. 14 : " In ore denique est omnium Galliarum [this would seem to indicate a pretty general rumor of some supernatural assistance], exercitus visos, qui se divinitus missos prae se ferebant," etc. Comp. Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 312, n. 11. This historian adduces also (n. 14) another and still older pagan testimony from an anonymous panegyrical orator, who, in 313, speaks of a certain undefined omen which filled the soldiers of Constantine with misgivings and fears, while it emboldened him to the combat. Baronius and J. H. Newman (in his "Essay on Miracles") plausibly suppose this omen to have been the cross.
^ Tliis is the view of the older historians, Protestant as well as Catholic. Among more modern writers on the subject it has hardly any advocates of note, except DuUinger (R. C), J. H. Newman (in his "Essay on Miracles," published in 1842, before his transition to Romanism, and prefixed to the first volume of his translation of Fleury), and Guericke (Lutheran). Comp. also De Broglie, i. 219 and 442.
^ So more or less distinctly Iloornebeck (of Leyden), Thoniasius, Arnold, Lardner, Gibbon, and Waddington. The last writer (Hist, of the Churcli, vol. i. 171) disposes of it too summarily by the remark that "this flattering fable may very safely be consigned to contempt and oblivion." Burckhardt, the most recent biographer of Constantine, is of the same opinion. He con.siders the story as a joint fabrication of Eusebius and the emperor, and of no historical value whatever (Die Zeit Constantins des Gr. 1 853, pp. 394 and 395). Lardner saddles the lie exclusively upon the emperor (although he admits him otherwise to have been a sincere Christian), and tries to prove that Eusebius himself hardly believed it.
* This is substantially the theory of J. A. Fabricius (in a special dissertation), Schroeckh (vol. v, 83), Manso, Heinichen (in the first Excursus to hised. of Euseb.), Gieseler, Neander, Milman, Robertson, and Stanley. Gieseler (vol. i. § 56, note 29) mentions similar cross-like clouds which appeared in Germany, Dec. 1517 and 1552, and were mistaken by contemporary Lutherans for supernatural signs. Stanley (Lectures on the Eastern Church, p. 288) refers to the natural phenomenon known by the name of " parhelion," which in an afternoon sky not unfrequently assumes almost the form of the cross. He also brings in, as a new illustration, the Aurora Borealis which appeared in November, 1848, and was variously interpreted, in France as forming the letters L. N., in view of the appi'oaching election of Louis Napoleon, in Rome as the blood of the murdered Rossi crying for vengeance from heaven against his assassins. Mosheim, after a lengthy discussion of the subject in his large work on the ante-Niccne age, comes to no definite conclusion, but favoi-a the hyi^othesis of a mere dream or a psychological illusion. Neander and Robertson connect with the supposition of a natural phenomenon in the skies a dream ot Constantine which reflected the optical vision of the day. Keim, the latest writer on th« subject, 1. c. p. 89, admits the dream, but denies the cross in the clouds. So Mosheim