Life of Constantine 1.27.1–1.56.1

Knowing well that he needed help more powerful than military force, because of the wicked and magical sorceries zealously practiced by the tyrant, he sought God as his helper. He put the resources of armed men and a host of soldiers in second place (for he considered them able to do nothing without the help of God), and said that what comes from God's cooperation is irresistible and invincible.

He considered, then, what god he should enlist as his patron. As he searched, a thought came to him: of the many who had previously laid hold of power, those who had hung their hopes on many gods and served them with libations, sacrifices, and offerings were first deceived by flattering divinations and oracles that promised them favorable things, and then met an unfavorable end; nor did any of the gods stand at their right hand to keep them from being subjected to disasters sent from heaven. Only his own father had taken the opposite course to theirs and condemned their error; and having honored the God beyond all things throughout his life, he had found him the Savior and Guardian of his empire and the provider of every good.

He weighed these things in himself and reasoned well: those who trusted in a multitude of gods had also fallen into many destructions, so that neither family nor offspring nor root, neither name nor memory of them was left among men; while his father's God had given his father clear and very many proofs of his power. He also considered those who had already marched against the tyrant before him, who had drawn up their battle array with a multitude of gods and met a shameful end: one of them withdrew from the encounter in disgrace, having achieved nothing, and the other was slain in the midst of his own troops and became a mere incident of death. Gathering all these things together in his mind, he judged it folly to trifle with gods who are nothing and to go astray after such a proof, and thought that he must honor his father's God alone.

So he called upon this God in prayer, beseeching and imploring him to show him who he was and to stretch out his right hand to help in the task before him. As the emperor was praying thus and earnestly supplicating, a most extraordinary sign from God appeared to him. If someone else had told of it, it would perhaps not be easy to accept; but since the victorious emperor himself told it to us who are writing this account, long afterwards, when we were deemed worthy of his acquaintance and company, and confirmed the story with oaths, who could hesitate to believe the account? Especially since the time that followed has borne true witness to the story. 2 About the midday hours of the sun, when the day was already beginning to decline, he said that he saw with his own eyes, in the sky itself, above the sun, a trophy of a cross formed of light, and attached to it a writing that said, “By this conquer.” Amazement at the sight seized him and the whole army, which was accompanying him on a march he was making somewhere and became a witness of the miracle.

He said that he was perplexed within himself as to what the apparition might be. As he pondered and reasoned about it at length, night overtook him. Then, as he slept, the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign that had appeared in the sky, and commanded him to make a copy of the sign seen in the sky and to use it as a protection in engagements with the enemy.

At daybreak he rose and told his friends the secret. Then, summoning workers in gold and precious stones, he sat in their midst, described the shape of the sign, and ordered them to reproduce it in gold and precious stones. The emperor himself once deemed us worthy to see it with our own eyes, God granting this too.

It was made in the following form. A tall spear overlaid with gold had a transverse bar forming the shape of a cross. Above, at the very top, was fixed a wreath woven of precious stones and gold, and within it the symbol of the Savior's title: two letters indicating the name of Christ by its first characters, the rho being crossed [by the chi] exactly in the middle. These letters the emperor was also accustomed to wear on his helmet in later times. From the crossbar fixed across the spear hung a cloth, a royal fabric covered with a variety of precious stones set together and flashing with rays of light, and richly interwoven with gold, presenting to the beholders a beauty [beyond description]. This banner, hanging from the crossbar, was of equal length and breadth. The upright spear, extending a long way upward from its lower end, bore beneath the trophy of the cross, near the top of the fabric described, the golden portrait of the God-beloved emperor from the chest up, and likewise those of his sons. This saving sign the emperor always used as a defense against every opposing and hostile power, and he ordered copies of it to lead all his armies.

But this was a little later. At the time mentioned, struck by the extraordinary vision and resolving to worship no other god than the one who had appeared, he summoned those initiated in his teachings and asked who this God was and what was the meaning of the sign that had been seen. They said that he was God, the only-begotten Son of the one and only God, and that the sign that appeared was a symbol of immortality, a trophy of the victory over death which he had once won when he came upon earth; and they taught him the reasons for his coming, setting out for him the exact account of his dispensation among men. He was instructed in these teachings, and he marveled at the divine manifestation granted to his eyes; comparing the heavenly vision with the interpretation of what was said, he was confirmed in mind, persuaded that the knowledge of these things had come to him taught by God. He himself now resolved to devote himself to the inspired writings. And making the priests of God his counselors, he thought he must honor the God he had seen with every form of worship. Then, fortified by good hopes in him, he set out at last to quench the threat of the tyrant's fire.

For the man who had earlier seized the imperial city there was busily engaged in impieties and unholy deeds, so that he left no outrage of foul and impure conduct undared. He separated lawful wives from their husbands, abused them most shamefully, and sent them back to their husbands; and this not to obscure or undistinguished people, but in drunken insolence toward those who held the first rank in the Roman senate. Though he shamefully abused countless freeborn women, he could find no way to satisfy his incontinent and licentious soul.

But when he assailed Christian women too, he could no longer find means for his adulteries; for they would sooner yield their life to death than their body to him for corruption.

One woman, the wife of one of the senators there who held the authority of prefect, learned that those who served the tyrant in such matters were standing at the house (she was a Christian), and knew that her husband, out of fear, had told them to take her and lead her away. She asked for a brief delay, as if to put on her usual adornment, went into her chamber, and, alone, plunged a sword into her breast. Dying at once, she left her corpse to the procurers; but by deeds louder than any voice she showed to all people, present and to come, that the self-control celebrated among Christians is the only thing unconquerable and indestructible. Such, then, was this woman.

All cowered before the man who dared such things, peoples and magistrates, eminent and obscure alike, and were worn down by a terrible tyranny. Even when they kept quiet and bore their bitter slavery, there was still no escape from the tyrant's murderous cruelty. On one occasion, on a slight pretext, he handed the people over to his guards for slaughter, and countless multitudes of the Roman people were killed in the middle of the city itself, not by the spears and armor of Scythians or barbarians but of their own countrymen. As for the murder of senators carried out to get hold of their property, it is impossible even to count it, countless men being put to death on one invented charge after another.

The crowning point of the tyrant's evils drove him to sorcery. By magical devices he would at one time rip open pregnant women, at another search the entrails of newborn babies, slaughter lions, and put together certain unspeakable rites for summoning demons and averting the war; for he hoped by these means to secure the victory. While he was thus tyrant at Rome, it is impossible to say what he did to enslave his subjects, so that they were reduced to the extremest scarcity and lack of necessary food, such as our contemporaries remember never to have occurred at Rome at any other time.

But Constantine, taking pity on all these people, armed himself with every preparation against the tyranny. Setting before himself as protector the God over all, and calling on Christ as Savior and helper, he placed his victorious trophy, the saving sign, at the head of the soldiers and guards about him and led on with his whole army, winning back for the Romans the freedom of their ancestors. Maxentius, trusting more in the devices of sorcery than in the goodwill of his subjects, did not dare to go even outside the city gates, but fortified every place, district, and city under his yoke with countless armed men and innumerable companies of troops. The emperor, however, relying on alliance with God, attacked the tyrant's first, second, and third battle lines, overcame them all with ease at the very first onset, and advanced through the greater part of Italy.

He was now very near Rome itself. Then, so that he would not be forced to make war on the Romans because of the tyrant, God himself dragged the tyrant, as if in chains, very far from the gates. And the things done of old against the impious, which most people disbelieve as told in the manner of a myth, but which are trustworthy to believers, being recorded in the sacred books, he confirmed by actual events to all, in a word, believers and unbelievers alike, who saw the wonders with their own eyes. For just as once, in the time of Moses himself and the God-fearing race of the Hebrews, “Pharaoh's chariots and his army he cast into the sea, and his chosen riders, his captains, he drowned in the Red Sea,” so too Maxentius and the soldiers and guards around him “sank into the deep like a stone,” when, turning his back before the power from God that was with Constantine, he crossed the river that lay in his path. He himself had joined it with boats and bridged it well, and so had built a device of destruction against himself, hoping by it to catch the friend of God. But the God of the one stood at his right hand, while the other, wretched man, was constructing secret devices against himself. So one could say of him, “He dug a pit and hollowed it out, and he will fall into the hole that he made. His trouble will return upon his head, and his wrongdoing will come down upon his crown.” Thus, at God's nod, the mechanisms on the bridge and the ambush hidden in them came apart [at an unexpected moment]; the crossing gave way, and the boats went down at once, men and all, into the deep, first the wretch himself, and then the shield-bearers and guards around him, as the divine oracles had foretold: “They sank like lead in mighty water.” So those who had won the victory from God might fittingly, if not in words then in deeds, like those with the great servant Moses, hymn and say the very words sung against the impious tyrant of old: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea; he became my helper and protector for salvation,” and “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord, who is like you? Glorified among the holy ones, marvelous in glories, doing wonders.”

Having hymned these and similar things, in deeds themselves, to God, the Ruler of all and the cause of the victory, just as the great servant had done in his time, Constantine rode in triumph into the imperial city. All together, members of the senate and the others there who were eminent and distinguished, as if freed from prison, along with the whole Roman people, received him with beaming eyes and with their whole souls, with acclamations and insatiable joy; men, women, and children, and countless crowds of slaves, hailed him with unrestrained shouts as redeemer, savior, and benefactor. But he, having an inborn piety toward God, was neither puffed up by the shouts nor elated by the praises, but, conscious of the help from God, at once offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the author of the victory.

With a loud voice and by inscriptions he proclaimed the saving sign to all people, setting up this great trophy over his enemies in the middle of the imperial city, and expressly engraving it in indelible characters as the saving sign, the safeguard of the Roman government and of the whole empire. At once, then, he ordered a tall spear in the shape of a cross to be set up beneath the hand of a statue made in his likeness, in the most frequented place in Rome, and this very inscription to be engraved, in these words, in the Latin language: “By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I saved your city and freed it from the yoke of the tyrant; moreover, having set them free, I restored the senate and people of Rome to their ancient distinction and splendor.”

So the God-beloved emperor, made glorious by his confession of the victorious cross, with all boldness made the Son of God known to the Romans themselves. All the inhabitants of the city together, with the senate itself and the multitudes of the people, as if they had drawn breath again after a bitter and tyrannical domination, seemed to enjoy rays of purer light and to share in the rebirth of a fresh new life. And all the nations bounded by the ocean toward the setting sun, freed from the evils that had formerly gripped them, kept holiday with bright festivals and continually hymned the glorious victor, the godly one, the common benefactor; and all confessed with one voice and one mouth that Constantine had shone forth, by the grace of God, as a common good for mankind. An imperial letter was also published everywhere, granting to those whose property had been seized the enjoyment of their own, recalling to their homes those who had suffered unjust exile, and releasing from chains and from every danger and fear those whom the tyrant's cruelty had subjected to them.

The emperor himself summoned the ministers of God, held them in the highest honor and regard, and showed kindness in deeds and words to the men as consecrated to his God. They shared his table, men humble in the appearance of their dress but not so regarded by him, since he thought he beheld not the man seen by most, but the God honored in each. He took them with him wherever he traveled, trusting that in this way too the God they served would be at his right hand. Indeed, he also gave rich help from his own resources to the churches of God, enlarging the houses of prayer and raising them high, and adorning the sanctuaries of the church with very many offerings.

He made all kinds of distributions of money to the needy. Besides these, he showed himself kind and beneficent to outsiders who came to him. For the wretched and outcast beggars in the marketplace he provided not only money and necessary food but also decent clothing for the body. To those who had been well born but had fallen into misfortune through a change of fortune he supplied more generous help, and with imperial magnanimity gave splendid benefactions to such people: to some he gave estates, others he honored with various dignities. He cared for the orphaned in a father's place, and relieved the helplessness of widows, looking after them with personal concern, so that he even gave in marriage to wealthy men of his acquaintance girls orphaned by the loss of their parents; and he did this by giving the brides beforehand what they needed to bring to their husbands in the partnership of marriage. And as the sun, rising over the earth, freely shares the rays of its light with all, so Constantine, coming forth from the palace together with the rising sun, as if rising with the heavenly luminary, shone on all who came into his presence the rays of his own goodness. It was simply impossible to come near him without receiving some benefit, and those who hoped to obtain his help were never disappointed.

Toward all in common, then, he was such. But to the church of God he gave special care. When some were at variance with one another in various regions, he, like a common bishop appointed by God, convened synods of the ministers of God. He did not disdain to be present in the midst of their proceedings and to sit with them, taking part in their deliberations and arbitrating for all what makes for the peace of God. He sat in their midst as if he were one of the many, having dismissed his spearmen, soldiers, and every kind of bodyguard, clothed with the fear of God and surrounded by the most loyal of his faithful companions. Then those whom he saw persuaded by the better counsel and disposed to a stable and harmonious course, he warmly welcomed, showing that he rejoiced in the common concord of all; but he turned away from the disobedient.

Some who were even harsh toward him he bore with patience, bidding them, quietly and with a gentle voice, to be sensible and not factious. Of these, some were ashamed at his exhortations and desisted; those who were incurably deaf to sound reasoning he let go, leaving them to [God], never himself planning anything painful against anyone. Hence it naturally came about that those who were quarreling in the region of Africa were driven to such a pitch of violence that they even ventured on some reckless deeds, a wicked demon, as it seems, envying the abundance of present blessings and urging the men on to outrageous acts, so as to rouse the emperor's anger against them. But envy made no headway, for the emperor laughed at what was done and said he understood that the impulse came from the evil one. For what they dared, he said, was not the act of sensible men but of men wholly deranged or goaded by the evil demon, who ought to be pitied rather than punished; and he himself was in no way harmed by the madness of the senseless, except so far as he sympathized with them out of his exceeding humanity.

In this way, then, the emperor served God, the overseer of all, in every action, and made untiring provision for his churches. And God, repaying him, subjected all the races of barbarians under his feet, so that everywhere he raised trophies over his enemies; he proclaimed him victor among all and made him fearsome to enemies and foes, though he was not such by nature, but the gentlest, meekest, and most humane of men, if anyone ever was.

While he was so engaged, the second of those who had laid down the imperial power was caught stitching together a plot for his death, and came to a most shameful end. His were the first honorific pictures, statues, and all such things customarily set up in honor, that were pulled down everywhere on earth, as those of an unholy and impious man.

Then after him others of his family were caught weaving secret plots against him, God wonderfully revealing all their designs to his servant through visions.

For indeed he often granted him manifestations of God, a divine vision appearing to him most wonderfully and furnishing all kinds of foreknowledge of things to come. The indescribable wonders of God's grace, which God himself deigned to grant his servant, it is not possible to put into words.

Fortified by these, he thereafter passed his life in safety, rejoicing in the goodwill of his subjects, rejoicing too to see all under him leading a cheerful life, and delighting above all in the bright prosperity of the churches of God.

While things stood so, the tenth year of his reign was completed. On this occasion he held public festivals and sent up prayers of thanksgiving to God, the King of all, like sacrifices without fire or smoke. But while he continued to rejoice in these things, he did not rejoice at what he heard by report about the nations being worn down in the east.

For there too, it was reported to him, a terrible beast lay in wait for the church of God and for the other inhabitants of the provinces, the wicked demon, as it were, vying to accomplish the opposite of what the God-beloved man was doing; so that the whole Roman empire, divided into two parts, seemed like night and day, darkness overspreading those who had the east as their lot, while the brightest day shone on the inhabitants of the other portion.

While countless blessings were being dispensed to the latter by God, the sight of what was happening was unbearable to envy, the hater of good, as it was also to the tyrant oppressing the other part of the world. His rule was prospering, and he had been deemed worthy of a marriage alliance with so great an emperor as Constantine; yet he fell short of imitating the God-beloved man and emulated the wickedness of the policy of the impious, and he chose to follow the counsel of those whose ruin he had seen with his own eyes rather than the friendly right hand of the better man.

So he [took up] an implacable war against his benefactor, respecting no laws of friendship and keeping in mind no memory of oaths, kinship, or treaties. For the most humane emperor, giving him tokens of true goodwill, had thought him worthy to share in his ancestral kinship and ancient royal blood by joining his sister to him in marriage, and had granted him authority to enjoy rule over all the peoples of the east. But he, minded the opposite way, contrived all kinds of devices against the better man, devising now one mode of plotting, now another, so as to repay his benefactor with evil. At first, pretending friendship, he did everything by deceit and trickery, hoping to escape notice in what he dared; but God made the plots devised in darkness manifest to the other. When he was caught in his first schemes, he went on to second deceptions, now offering the right hand of friendship, now confirming treaties with oaths. Then suddenly he broke what had been agreed, and again sought terms through embassies, and again disgraced himself with lies, until finally he declared open war, and in his madness set out to array himself against God himself, whom he knew the emperor worshiped.

First of all he quietly harassed the ministers of God under him, who had never committed any offense against his rule, hunting for malicious pretexts against them. Finding no charge and having nothing to accuse the men of, he sent out a law ordering that the bishops were in no way to have communication with one another, that none of them was permitted to visit a neighbor's [church], and that they were not to hold synods, councils, or deliberations about matters of common benefit. This was a pretext for abusing us. For either we had to break the law and be subjected to punishment, or obey the order and undo the ordinances of the church; for it is impossible to settle great questions otherwise than through synods. Indeed, the divine ordinances have laid down that the ordinations of bishops take place in this way and no other. And besides, the God-hated man issued such orders because he was set on acting contrary to the God-beloved. For the one, out of honor for the sacred law, brought the priests of God together, leading them in peace and concord; the other, contriving to undo what was good, tried to scatter their harmonious agreement.

Then, since the friend of God thought fit to receive the servants of God within the palace, the God-hated man, minded the opposite way, drove all the godly under him out of the palace. He sent into exile especially the most faithful and loyal men about him; he ordered those who had received honor and rank from him for earlier brave deeds to serve others and perform the tasks of household slaves; he seized everyone's property as if it were a windfall; and he now threatened death to those who bore the saving name. He himself, having a passionate and licentious soul and committing countless adulteries and unspeakable obscenities, despaired of the adornment of chastity in human nature, using himself as a bad test case.

So he laid down a second law, ordering that men must not attend the prayers to God together with women, that women must not go to the holy schools of virtue, and that bishops must not instruct women in godly teaching, but that women should be chosen as teachers of women. When these orders were laughed at by all, he devised another measure for the destruction of the churches, saying that the customary assemblies of the people must be held outside the gates in open country; for the air outside the gates, he said, was far better for a crowd than that of the houses of prayer in the city.

When he found no one obeying him in this either, he at last ordered openly that the soldiers in the cities be dismissed from the governors' units unless they chose to sacrifice to the demons. So the ranks of godly men were stripped of their dignities in every province, and the lawgiver himself was stripped of their prayers, depriving himself of holy men. Why should I mention how he dealt with those outside, how he ordered that no one should show kindness by sharing food with those suffering in prison, nor pity those in chains perishing of hunger, nor, in short, that anyone be good, nor that those drawn by nature itself to sympathy with their neighbors should do any good? This law was utterly shameless and most lawless, surpassing every savage nature; and a penalty was added to it, that those who showed pity should suffer the same as those they pitied, and that those who did humane service should be shut up in chains and prisons, undergoing the same punishment as the afflicted.

Such were the ordinances of Licinius. Why should one enumerate his innovations concerning marriage, or his novelties regarding those departing this life, by which he dared to set aside the ancient, well and wisely established laws of the Romans and introduced barbarous and savage ones in their place, devising countless pretexts against his subjects? Hence he devised remeasurements of land, so that the smallest plot might be reckoned larger by the measure, out of greed for excessive levies. Hence he entered in the registers country people who no longer existed but had long been lying among the dead, providing himself with shameful gain from this. For his meanness had no measure and his greed knew no satiety. So, having filled all his treasuries with gold and silver and a boundless quantity of goods, he groaned and bewailed his poverty, his soul tormented with the suffering of Tantalus. What banishments he devised against those who had done no wrong, what confiscations of property, what arrests of well-born and distinguished men, whose wedded wives he handed over to vile slaves for shameful outrage; how many married women and virgin girls he himself assailed, though already aged in body — there is no need to dwell on these things, since the excess of his last deeds made the first seem small and nothing.

At last, in the height of his madness, he armed himself against the churches and went after the bishops, whom he regarded as his chief opponents, and considered as enemies those who were friends of the God-beloved great emperor. Therefore he sharpened his anger especially against us, turned aside from sound reason and plainly out of his mind. He did not take to heart the memory of those before him who had persecuted Christians, nor of those whose destroyer and avenger he himself had been appointed because of the impieties they pursued, nor of what he himself had witnessed, when he saw with his own eyes the ringleader of the evils, whoever he was, struck by a scourge sent from God.