and with finest workmanship. Above all in his principal banner, the labarum,' he displayed at its summit the same once accursed emblem; with a crown of gold above it, and the monogram of the name of Him who, after bearing the one, now wore the other.

We may be sure that the question was in every mouth. Why so strange an ensign? And let it not be forgotten, that besides other reasons to impress him,-as the excellence of the doctrine, the virtues of the professors, and other internal and external evidence of the truth of Christianity,-there might have been mention made of a mysterious vision of a cross of flame just before seen on the sky, in the night-watches, by the western emperor; and how he had been warned in the vision, by a voice from heaven, to adopt that ensign of the cross, with the promise added that through it he should conquer. Scepticism, as we know, has been frequent in expressing its disbelief of this asserted fact. For my own part I am unable to resist the force of Con

2

1 The labarum is described by Eusebius V. C. i. 31, as also in the passage given in the Note just above from Lactantius. I add Prudentius' description: (in Symmach. ii. 486.)

Christus purpureum gemmanti textus in auro
Signabat labarum, clypeorum insignia Christus
Scripserat ardebat summis crux addita cristis.

I append an engraving of it from a medal of Constantius, with its famous motto circumscribed. It seems that fifty men were specially appointed to guard it. V. C. ii. 8.

2 Compare Mosheim's critical but candid discussion of the story (Cent. iv. Part i. i. 9.) with Gibbon's sceptical critique, iii. 259. Mosheim's conclusion is that the vision of the cross was seen by Constantine in a dream before the battle with Maxentius, with the inscription, " Hâc vince." This agrees with Lactantius's account, "Commonitus est in quiete, &c;" given in a preceding Note : an account written by Lactantius very soon after the defeat of Maximin, and before Licinius' apostacy to Heathenism, and first war with Constantine; as appears from the concluding chapters of the work.

It may help to guide the reader's judgment on the question whether the vision. was a truth or an imposture, to compare it both in its own nature, and in the time and manner of its announcement by Constantine, with some other asserted vision of a similar character, such as was proved in fine to be an imposture; for instance, the vision of the golden lance so famous in the first crusade.

The word labarum, about the origin of which there has been some literary doubt and discussion, had been long before used as the name of a Chief Standard in the Roman armies. So Tertullian, Apol. in Gentes; "Vexillorum et labarum," on which his Editor states that it was then, in Tertullian's time, the chief standard; one borne before the emperor, and adored by the soldiers. Constantine gave it a new device, but retained the old name.

stantine's solemn declaration to Eusebius of its truth. The time, as well as solemnity of his statement,—a time when nothing was to be gained by the fiction, for it was made when life was drawing to a close,— and, moreover, the whole character of Constantine, so little prone either to credulity or to deception,-seem to me alike to forbid its rejection. If true, it satisfactorily explains to us the fact of his adoption of the cross as his ensign, otherwise all but inexplicable; and as to its miraculousness, surely the case, if ever, was one that from its importance might seem to call for the supernatural intervention of the Deity. Thus Constantine was the first crusader; and, with better reason than the Princes of the eleventh century at Clermont, might feel, as he prosecuted the war, that it was "the will of God." By this ensign thou shalt conquer." Such was the tenor of the promise. And well, we know, was the promise fulfilled to Constantine. Army after army, emperor after emperor, (for since Diocletian's division of it there were, according to the prophetic intimation, several cotemporary emperors, or "kings of the earth,") were routed, and fled, and perished before the cross and its warriors ;-Maximian,3 Maxentius, Maximin,* and, after his apostacy to the pagan cause, Licinius. A bas-relief still remaining, on Constantine's triumphal arch at Rome, represents to us the terror of Maxentius and of

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1 "Instinctu Divinitatis;" said the Inscription on his triumphal Arc, of the expedition against Maxentius. See Montfaucon iv. 108.

So Gibbon, ii. 169, after noting Diocletian's change of the government: "Three or four magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the empire, and as many Roman kings contended with each other for the vain superiority of pomp and luxury."

3 Maximian had been indeed previously besieged, taken, and imprisoned by Constantine. But as a heathen and persecuting Emperor, defeated by Constantine after the latter's known favour to the Christians, (see Note 1, p. 214) it seems not unfit to insert his name with the others.

4 I include Maximin's defeat in this list, although accomplished by Licinius; because Licinius was at that time in strict alliance with Constantine as a joint champion of the christian cause. So Eusebius speaks of the two together, as at this time duo copiλwv, and tells how Licinius seemed only second to Constantine in understanding and piety. Eccl. Hist. ix. 9, 10.

It is given in Montfaucon vii. 426; and represents Maxentius's army drowning, while pursued by Constantine and his army, in their passage across the Tiber. -This destruction of Maxentius and his host in the Tiber is compared by Eusebius to that of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea and, to express the

his army, in their flight across the Tiber after defeat in the battle of the Milvian bridge. A similar consternation attended the others also. And this was chiefly

remarkable, that it was not the terror of their earthly victor's wrath that alone oppressed them. There was a consciousness of the powers of heaven acting against them; above all, the crucified One, the Christians' God. For the war, in each case, was felt to be a religious war. In the persecution just preceding, the emperors Diocletian and Maximian had struck medals of themselves in the characters and under the names of Jove and Hercules, destroying the serpent-like hydra-headed monster Christianity; and these titles of Pagan mythology had been adopted in the same spirit by their successors.3 When Maxentius went forth to battle, he went fortified by heathen oracles ;*-the champion of heathenism against the champion of the cross. When Maximin was about to engage with Licinius, he made his vow to Jupiter, that, if successful, he would extirpate Christianity.5 When Licinius, again, was marching against Constantine and his crusaders, he, in public harangue before the soldiers, ridiculed the cross, and staked the falsehood of Christianity on his success. Thus, in all these cases, the terrors of defeat must have been aggravated by a Christians' triumph, he adopts the words of the song of Moses: "They sunk like lead in the mighty waters." &c.-It is observable that neither in the basrelief on the arc of Constantine, nor in the medals with the labarum, do the soldiers' shields appear marked with the cross. In the triumphal arc this is accounted for by the circumstance of the sculptured figures on it having been taken apparently from other triumphal Roman monuments of more ancient date. As to the fact itself, it seems authenticated beyond reasonable doubt.

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1 In a famous picture of this battle by Le Brun, the labarum, or banner of the cross, appears so prominent among the standards of the Constantinian army, and the consternation of the defeated Pagan Romans before it so strikingly depicted, that it might almost be deemed a comment on this part of the sixth Seal's prefigurations.

2 The medal of Diocletian as Jovius, striking down with his forked lightning a wretch whose form ends in the folds of a serpent's tail, is given in Walsh :-of that of Maximian as Herculius, smashing with his club a seven-headed hydra, a copy is given in a latter Part of this Work, on Apoc. xii.

3 See the passage from Lactantius, quoted p. 219 Note 2, infrà.

Lactantius M. P. 44.

5 Ib. 46. "Tum Maximinus votum Jovi vovit, ut, si victoriam cepissit, Christianorum nomen extingueret funditusque deleret."

6 V.C. ii. 4, 5. Elsewhere Eusebius calls Licinius' war against Constantine a Peoμaxia, or war against God. V.C. ii. 18.

sense of their gods having failed them; and of the power of heaven being with CHRIST, the Christians' God, against them. It was observed that wherever the labarum, the banner of the cross, was raised, there victory attended. In the war against Constantine, after Licinius' apostacy, "Licinius," says Gibbon, "felt and dreaded the power of the consecrated banner; the sight of which in the distress of battle animated the soldiers of Constantine with invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the ranks of the adverse legions." All this must needs have deepened the impression. Besides which there are to be remembered the recorded dying terrors of one and another of the persecuting emperors. A dark cloud seems to have brooded over the death-bed of Maximian, if not over Diocletian's also. The report was, that oppressed by remorse for his crimes, he strangled himself.2, Again, Galerius had from an agonizing and awful death-bed evinced his remorse of conscience, by entreating the Christians in a public proclamation, to pray to their God (i.e. Christ) for him.3 And Maximin soon after, in similar anguish of mind and body, confessed his guilt, and called on Christ to compassionate his misery. Thus did a sense of the wrath of the crucified One, the Lamb of God, whom they now knew to be seated on the throne of power, lie heavy, intolerably heavy on them. And when we combine these terrors of the death-bed with those of the lost battle-field,-which latter terrors must have been expe

iii. 258-Eusebius states that Licinius, on joining battle, bade his soldiers take care to avoid assaulting Constantine's great banner of the cross.

2 Gibbon seems to think that Maximian was put to death by Constantine, and that the report published abroad of his suicide was untrue. But he has not substantiated his representation. Nor indeed is his disbelief of the reports of Diocletian having put an end to his own life, or died raving mad, sufficiently authenticated. See his Vol. ii. p. 177, 212.-The other view is given in 'Rome under Paganism and the Popes,' ii. 83.

3 The edict is given in full by Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. viii. 17, and Lactantius, M. P. 34. Near the conclusion is the clause,-" Juxta hanc indulgentiam nostram debebunt Deum suum orare pro salute nostrâ." His death was by a horrid disease, like that of Herod described in the Acts: viz. being eaten by worms.

"Tunc demum. . . . . Deum videre cœpit candidatis ministris de se judicantem. Deinde quasi tormentis adactus fatebatur; Christum subinde deprecans et plorans ut suimet miseretur." Lactantius M.P. 49. Similarly Eusebius, (E. H. ix. 10.) Ενδίκως ταυτα της κατα το Χριστε παροινίας χαριν ὁμολογησας παθειν, την ψυχην αφίησιν.