Up to the end of the third century Rome had many gods. There was Jupiter, the protector of Romans in their military activities abroad, and Minerva, his daughter, the goddess of wisdom. Then there was Mars, the god of young men and their activities in war-time, whose job was taken over by Quirinus in time of peace. Janus and Vesta guarded the door and the hearth, and Lares kept an eye on the house itself. Pales kept the pastures in good order, and while Saturn protected the sowing of crops, Ceres watched over their growing (Pomona looked after the fruit), and Consus was there at the harvest. And for the ladies, Diana was there to look after their interests.
But in the opening years of the fourth century AD these gods were being challenged more and more by the rising popularity of a different religion - Christianity - and the rulers of the Roman empire were determined to put a stop to this. The Christians and their sympathizers were persecuted as never before. This persecution reached a height - 'depth' might be a better word - of cruelty as Christians were strung up on gibbets, beaten, tortured, mutilated, decapitated, made to fight unarmed against lions, or imprisoned for years in filthy dungeons. The followers of Christ were accused of every possible crime in the names of Jupiter and Minerva and the other 'immortals' who had held sway in the empire's capital for countless centuries, and they were punished accordingly.
Then, in AD3l3, it all changed. Overnight, it seemed, things became different. Christianity was legalized by the Roman Emperor Constantine. At this time Constantine had been reigning over the western portions of the Roman empire for seven years, and during this time he had not lifted so much as a little finger in defence of the suffering Christians; in fact, he had been a staunch upholder of traditional paganism. Later on, in AD337, just before he died, he himself was baptized, and abolished crucifixion as a capital punishment out of respect for Jesus. What made him change his mind and, in so doing, change the future of Europe?
Whether fact or legend, this story of Constantine's conversion, which has inspired Christians ever since, was first told by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesaria (the Roman capital city of Palestine), in his Life of Constantine which he wrote immediately after Constantine's death in AD337. On the 26th. October, AD3l2, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus and his army were poised ready to attack the city of Rome in order to wrest it from the grasp of a rival emperor, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius (whom he had already beaten twice in battle). Kneeling in prayer on a bluff above the River Tiber, he looked up into the sky and saw a flaming cross above the sun. The cross was inscribed with three greek words 'en toutoi nika' 'In this sign conquer'. (Another version of the legend says there were four words, in latin this time - 'in hoc signo vinces', which mean the same thing.) That very night Constantinus, whom we now know as Constantine the Great, had a dream in which Christ told him to go into battle behind a standard emblazoned with an X cut through with a line curled around at the top, the Chi-Rho symbol. If he did not, he would be defeated. As soon as the sun was up he ordered a standard to be painted with this monogram (or ordered a standard made of gold studded with precious jewels and bearing the monogram, depending on which version you happen to be reading), to symbolize his fealty to Christ. And behind that ensign and, so some accounts say, with a special sign of the cross painted on every shield, Constantine's soldiers marched into battle, and defeated the enemy at the Mulvian Bridge on the River Tiber. Maxentius was drowned, and Constantine entered Rome, victorious and, from that day onward, a committed Christian.
Did it really happen that way? Did Constantine really have the experience that Eusebius describes? Eusebius says that he got the story from the emperor himself, who swore in the name of God that it was true, and that not only he but the soldiers who were with him saw the radiant cross in the sky. It is a wonderful story, but there are one or two little bits that worry me. To start with, why was such a startling revelation kept secret for so long? Why wait until after the death of the emperor to tell the story? Why did he erect the Arch of Constantine (which is still one of the best-preserved and most imposing triumphal arches in Rome today) to commemorate his triumph at Mulvian Bridge and dedicate it to Rome's old deities? And why (and this is probably the most difficult to understand) after being converted to Christianity in such a speedy and miraculous way was the emperor not baptized as a Christian straight away? Why did he wait another 25 years, until the last year of his life? Mind you, he did order that Sunday rather than Saturday was to be the first day of a seven-day week, and forbade all citizens other than farmers to work on that day. The courts were also to be closed for litigation, and army commanders were to restrict military exercises so that the soldiers could worship the god of their choice. And in AD325 he convened the first major Christian council at Nicea to propose a method of calculating the date of Easter so that all Christians could celebrate on the same day.
It is true that that time was an age of superstition, and a time when the Christian Church needed to win support by every possible means. Stories about divine visions were good for business. Everybody at the time, pagan and Christian alike, believed in miracles; and the story of Constantine's miraculous conversion, as told by Eusebius, had a tremendous impact not only on his contemporaries but also on many generations to come.
The story as Eusebius told it may not be literally true in every respect. But there is no doubt that something happened to the emperor on the eve of his battle for Rome. But what? Could it have been a 'halo phenomenon'? Such things occur when ice crystals in the upper atmosphere cause interference in the light rays from the sun and rings of light appear round the celestial orb. Very occasionally, these apparent rings interlock to form a pattern that some people see as a cross. Perhaps this is what Constantine saw. Maybe this explains the vision. And we all know how things that happen during the day, even trivial things, can affect our sleep and our dreams. But no matter what happened or how it happened, it is still true that Constantine was definitely not a Christian before his victory at the Mulvian Bridge, yet he became a militant defender of the faith after it. For the rest of his life his imperial armies marched behind the sacred banner on which Constantine's monogram of Christ was inscribed. And they never failed to emerge victorious. They did, in fact, in hoc signo winces.
Bill Hutchings
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