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In Hoc Signo Vinces: The Original Context of the Vision of Constantine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Richard M. Price
Richard M. Price*
Affiliation:
Heythrop College, University of London
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Extract

Of all the signs and wonders, real or imaginary, in the history of Christianity one of the most celebrated is the ‘Vision of Constantine’ – a vision or dream in which Constantine, meditating an attack on his rival Maxentius in AD 312, was instructed to entrust his fortunes to the Christian God and the sign of the cross, the experience which, supposedly, converted the emperor to the Christian faith.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 41: Signs, Wonders, Miracles Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church , 2005 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2005

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References

1 Eusebius, Life of Constantine [hereafter: VC], transl, with introduction and commentary by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall (Oxford, 1999), contains a discussion of the vision at 38–9 and 204–13. For an extensive bibliography see Rudolf Leeb, Konstantin und Christus: Die Verchristlichung der imperialen Repräsentation unter Konstantin dem Grossen als Spiegel seiner Kirchenpolitik und seines Selbstverständnisses als christlicher Kaiser (Berlin, 1992), 129, n. 1. I am grateful to Professor Stuart Hall for helpful comments on an early draft of this paper.

2 See Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum [hereafter DMP], ed. and transl, by Creed, J. L. (Oxford, 1984),xxxiii–iv Google Scholar.

3 E.g., Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth, 1986), 613–14, and H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: the Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore, MA, 2000), 180.

4 Ramsay MacMullen, Constantine (London, 1970), 72–7, Manfred Clauss, Konstantin der Grosse und seine Zeit (Munich, 1996), 36, and Arnaldo Marcone, Costantino il Grande (Rome, 2000), 42, are representative of many in dismissing Eusebius’ account as later propaganda. Contrast J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford, 1979), 277–8, who is impressed by the distinctiveness of Eusebius’ story.

5 T. G. Elliott, ‘Constantine’s Conversion: Do We Really Need It?’, Phoenix 41 (1987), 420–38; idem, The Christianity of Constantine the Great (Scranton, PA, 1996), vii: ‘This book had its origins in my sudden realization some years ago that Eusebius’ story of Constantine’s conversion was a fiction or a mistake, based upon the emperor’s own story of how God told him to make the labarum

6 Elliott’s separation of the vision from the conversion is not discussed either in Drake or in Averil Cameron and Stuart Hall’s edition of the VC.

7 DMP 44, Creed, 62–4.

8 DMP 46, Creed, 66.

9 For a similar analysis of Lactantius see Joachim Szidat, ‘Konstantin 312 n. Chr.’, Gymnasium 92(1985), 514–25, esp. 518–19.

10 Eusebius Werke, I/I, Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantins, ed. Friedhelm Winkelmann (Berlin, 1991), 28–32 (Cameron and Hall, 79–82; all my quotations are taken from their translation).

11 This is more familiar in the traditional Latin translation, ‘In hoc signo vinces’ (‘with this sign you will conquer’).

12 Cp. I. 42. 1 (Cameron and Hall, 86): ‘He took them [bishops] with him whenever he set out on campaign, trusting that in this too the one they worshipped would be present at his right hand’. But at the time of the vision Constantine, according to Eusebius, was not yet a Christian.

13 VCII. 8.2, 9.3 (Cameron and Hall, 98).

14 Eusebius met Constantine on only four occasions: in 325 at Nicaea, at 327 at Nicomedia, in 335 at Jerusalem, and in 336 at Constantinople (see Leeb, Konstantin und Christus, 138).

15 The reference to ‘sons’ depicted on it (31.2) implies a date after 317, when Crispus and Constantine II were made Caesars.

16 For the campaign of 323 see Timothy Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, MA, 1982), 75. Leeb, Konstantin und Christus, 44–6, similarly dates the creation of the labarum to 324.

17 See especially the letter to Anullinus of 313 in Eusebius [Historia Ecclesiastica, X. 7. 2: Die Kirchengeschichte, ed. Eduard Schwartz and Theodore Mommsen, rev. Friedhelm Winkelmann, GCS ns 6.2, 3 vols (Berlin, 1999), 2: 891] and that of 313/4 to Aelafius in the Appendix to Optatus III, in S. Optati Milevitani libri VII, ed. Karl Ziwsa, CSEL 26 (Vienna, 1893), 204–6, transl. P. R Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church, 3 vols (London, 1966), 1: 54–6.

18 Elliott, The Christianity of Constantine the Great, 18, 23.

19 Eusebius, VC III. 47.2 (Cameron and Hall, 139). Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, I. 18. 1: Kirchengeschichte, ed. Léon Parmentier, rev. Felix Scheidweiler, GCS 44.19 (2nd edn, Berlin, 1954), 63; The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret, transl. Blomfìeld Jackson, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second series, 3 (Grand Rapids, MI, 1975), 54 (as I. 17).

20 VC II. 49.1 (Cameron and Hall, 112).

21 Elliott, The Christianity of Constantine the Great, 24.

22 For Constantius’ religion see further Mark D. Smith, ‘The Religion of Constantius I’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 38 (1997), 187–208.

23 VCII. 28. 2 and II. 49–53 (Cameron and Hall, 105–6, 112–3).

24 Panegyrici Latini VII/VI. 21, in Panégyriques Latins, II: Les panégyriques Constantiniens (VI-IX), ed. and transl. É. Galletier (Paris, 1952), 71–2, and XII Panegyrici Latini, ed. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1964), 201–2.

25 For the vision of Apollo see B. Saylor Rogers, ‘Constantine’s Pagan Vision’, Byzantion 50 (1980), 259–78.

26 That the conversion consisted of several stages over several years is argued by Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 187–91.

27 See Thomas Grünewald, Constantinus Maximus Augustus: Herrschaftspropaganda in der zeitgenössischen Überlieferung (Stuttgart, 1990), 78–86, who lists and criticizes other scholars who have tried to make Constantine a Christian virtually from childhood.

28 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, IX 9. 10–11: Die Kirchengeschichte, ed. Schwartz, Mommsen and Winkelmann, 2: 832. This part of the work is dated to c.313/4 by T. D. Barnes, ‘The Editions of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 21 (1980), 191–201.

29 Leeb, Konstantin und Christus, 29–42.

30 The etymology of the word labarum is too obscure to reveal anything, as noted by Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 616 and 766, n. 25. To the discussions he refers to add M. Sulzberger, ‘Le Symbole de la Croix et les Monogrammes de Jésus chez les premiers chrétiens’, Byzantion 2 (1925), 337–448, esp. 419–24.

31 Panegyricus Latinus IX/XII. 2. 4, ed. Galletier, 124; ed. Mynors, 272.

32 Oration to the Saints 26, in Mark Edwards, Constantine and Christendom (Liverpool, 2003), 61. The date of the speech is disputed: Edwards dates it to 313 (ibid., xxix), while Lane Fox had argued for 325 (Pagans and Christians, 643).

33 Tricennalian Oration 18, in Eusebius Werke I, ed. I. A. Heikel (Leipzig, 1902), 259. See too VC II. 12 (Cameron and Hall, 99–100) for divine guidance in battle.

34 VC II. 55 (Cameron and Hall, 113): see their annotation at 246–7.

35 Dagron, Gilbert, Emperor and Priest: the Imperial Office in Byzantium (Cambridge, 2003), 139–41 Google Scholar. For Constantine as a priest-king representing Christ, see 132–3.

36 Eusebius in his account of the baptism at VC IV. 61–4 (Cameron and Hall, 177–9) makes Constantine say, ‘I shall now set for myself rules of life that befit God’ (IV. 62.3), which implies that he felt a clash between the rule of life incumbent on the baptized and his own role as emperor. But it would be dangerous to build on this pious sentiment of dubious historicity, as is noted by Cameron and Hall, 342.

37 Is. 44, 28–45, 5; Ezra 1, 1–4.