the universal monarchy which he was planning to build, and he had the courage and energy to accomplish this union against all traditions of Caesarism."

E. Krebs, in the Papers edited by Dölger, writes that all the steps taken by Constantine toward Christianity were but secondary causes of the acceleration of the victory of the church; the main cause of it lay in the supernatural force of Christianity itself.10

11

P. Batiffol defends the sincerity of Constantine's conversion,1 and more recently J. Maurice, a well-known scholar in the field of numismatics of the time of Constantine, makes an attempt to accept as a matter of fact the miraculous element in his conversion.12

Boissier notes that to deliver himself into the hand of the Christians, who constituted the minority and were of no political importance, would have meant for Constantine, the statesman, to experiment with something unknown; and if Constantine changed his faith not because of political reasons, then it must be admitted that he did it through conviction.1

13

But we must not consider this "conversion" of Constantine as his real conversion to Christianity, which he actually adopted, as we know, in the year of his death. During his entire reign he remained the pontifex maximus; he never called Sunday anything but "the day of the sun" (dies solis); and by the "invincible sun" (sol invictus) people of that period usually meant the Persian god Mithras, whose worship was widely spread throughout the empire, in the East as well as in the West. At times this cult of the sun was a serious rival of Christianity. It is certain that Constantine was a supporter of the cult of the sun; but what god in particular he worE. Schwartz, Kaiser Constantin und die Christliche Kirche (Leipzig-Berlin, 1913),

p. 2.

10 "Konstantin der Grosse und seine Zeit," Gesammelte Studien, herausgegeben von F. Dölger (Freiburg i. Br., 1913), p. 2.

"P. Batiffol, La Paix Constantinienne et le Catholicisme (Paris, 1914), pp. 256-59 (in connection with the discussion of O. Seeck on the same subject).

12 J. Maurice, Constantin le Grand. L'Origine de la civilisation chrétienne (Paris, 1925), pp. 30-36.

13 Boissier, I, 28; also H. Leclercq, in the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (Paris, 1914), III (2), col. 2669.

shiped under the name of the "God of the Sun" is not known. It may have been Apollo.

Granting Constantine's leaning toward Christianity, we must keep in mind his political schemes; these were bound to have a dominating influence upon his attitude to Christianity, which could be helpful to him in many ways. He understood that in the future Christianity would be the main unifying element among the different races of the empire. "He wanted to strengthen the unity of the empire through a unity of the church."14

The conversion of Constantine is usually connected with the famous story of the appearance of the luminous cross in the sky during one of the days of the struggle between Constantine and Maxentius; an element of miracle is thus introduced as one of the causes of the conversion. However, the sources relating to this event rouse much disagreement among historians. The earliest account of this miracle belongs to a Christian contemporary of Constantine, Lactantius, who, in his work On the Death of the Persecutors (De mortibus persecutorum), speaks only of the warning Constantine received in a dream to inscribe on his shields the likeness of the divine sign of Christ (coeleste signum Dei).1 Lactantius says nothing about the heavenly vision which Constantine was supposed to have seen.

Another contemporary of Constantine, Eusebius of Caesarea, tells of the victory over Maxentius twice. In his earlier work, the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius remarks only that Constantine, starting out to save Rome, "invoked in prayer the God of Heaven and his Word, Jesus Christ, the Savior of all." Apparently nothing is said here about the dream, nor about signs on the shields. Later, the same Eusebius, in another work, The Life of Constantine, written about twenty-five years after the victory over Maxentius, relates that the Emperor himself told and confirmed by oath the famous story of how during his march on Maxentius he saw above

14 E. Trubezkoy, Religious and Social Ideals of Western Christianity in the Fifth Century (Moscow, 1892), I, 2 (in Russian).

15 Lactantii, De mortibus persecutorum, 44.

16 Eusebii, Historia Ecclesiastica, ix, 9, 2. See Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2d Series, New York, 1890), I, 363.

the setting sun a luminous cross, with the words "By This Conquer!" (TOUTŲ víka). He and his legions were awe-struck at this vision. The following night Christ came to Constantine in his dream, bearing the same sign, and bade him to make a likeness of the cross and with it march against his enemies. As soon as dawn broke the Emperor communicated to his friends the marvelous dream, and then, calling together artificers, he described to them the outlines of the vision he had seen and ordered them to execute the banner," which is known as the labarum. The origin of the word is debatable.18 The labarum was a long cross formed like a spear, from the transverse bar of which hung a silk cloth adorned with precious stones, bearing the images of Constantine and his two sons and embroidered in gold; at the peak of the cross was a golden wreath surrounding the monogram of Christ.19 From the time of Constantine the labarum became the banner of the Byzantine Empire. Reference to the divine apparition and to armies marching in heaven, which were sent by God to aid Constantine in his struggle, may be found in the works of other writers. The information on this point is so confusing and contradictory that it cannot be properly evaluated from a historic point of view. Some writers go so far as to say that the miracle took place, not during the march against Maxentius, but even before Constantine's departure from Gaul.

The Edict of Milan.-During the reign of Constantine the Great Christianity received official permission to exist and develop. The first decree favoring Christianity was issued by Galerius, who had been one of the most ferocious persecutors of Christianity. This decree, issued in 311, declared that the Christians were pardoned all their former stubborn resistance to government orders aiming to turn the Christians back to paganism, and announced that the Christians had a legal right to exist. The edict of Galerius proclaimed, "that Christians may exist again, and may establish their meetings, yet so that they do nothing contrary to good order. Wherefore, in accordance with this indulgence of ours, they will be

17 Eusebii, Vita Constantini, I, 28-30.

18 It may be borrowed from the Celtic. See Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Vol. XII (1925), col. 241 (Grosse).

19 The image of the labarum may be seen on the coins of the epoch of Constantine. See, for example, J. Maurice, Numismatique Constantinienne (Paris, 1908), I, Plate IX, 2.

bound to pray their God for our good estate, and that of the commonwealth, and their own."20

Two years later, after his victory over Maxentius and an agreement with Licinius, Constantine met Licinius in Milan, and after a consideration of the state of affairs in the empire, they issued the very interesting document which is somewhat incorrectly called the Edict of Milan. The original text of this document has not come down to us, but it has been preserved by Lactantius in the form of a Latin rescript of Licinius sent to the prefect of Nicomedia. A Greek translation of the Latin original is given by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History.

The question of the relation of the texts of Lactantius and Eusebius to the contents of the original Edict of Milan has a long history and literature of its own, and no definite conclusions have yet been reached on this problem.

According to this edict the Christians and people of other religions were given full freedom to follow whatever faith they have chosen. All measures directed against the Christians were declared null. The edict declares:

From now on every one of those who have a common wish to observe the Christian worship may freely and unconditionally endeavor to observe the same without any annoyance or disquiet. These things we thought good to signify in the fullest manner to your Carefulness (i.e. the Prefect of Nicomedia), that you might know that we have given freely and unreservedly to the said Christians authority to practice their worship. And when you perceive that we have made this grant to the said Christians, your Devotion understands that to others also freedom for their own worship and observance is likewise left open and freely granted, as befits the quiet of our times, that every man may have freedom in the practice of whatever worship he has chosen, for it is not our will that aught be diminished from the honor of any worship."

This edict also ordered that the private buildings and churches previously confiscated from the Christians should be restored to them gratuitously and incontestably.

On the basis of this text of the Edict of Milan the conclusion must be made that Constantine gave Christianity the same rights as 20 Lactantii, De mort. persec., 34, 4-5; Eusebii, Hist. Eccl., viii, 17, 9–10.

21 Lactantii, De mortibus persecutorum, 48, 4-8; Eusebii, Historia Ecclesiastica, x, 5, 6-9. English translation in H. Gwatkin's Selections from Early Writers (1897), p. 52.

were enjoyed by other faiths, including paganism. In Constantine's time we cannot yet speak of the triumph of Christianity; it could only be anticipated at that time. To Constantine Christianity seemed compatible with paganism. The great significance of his act lies in the fact that he not only allowed Christianity to exist, but actually placed it under the protection of the government. It was an extremely significant moment in the history of early Christianity. The Edict of Milan does not give any basis for the claim made by some historians that during the reign of Constantine Christianity was placed above all other religions, which were only tolerated,22 and that the Edict of Milan proclaimed, not a policy of religious toleration, but the predominance of Christianity.23

In 1891 the German scholar, Seeck, advanced a theory that no Edict of Milan was ever issued, but the only edict which ever appeared was the toleration edict of Galerius in 311 A.D. Modern historians do not share this view of Seeck's.2 24

Thus, when the question of dominating or equal rights of Christianity is raised in connection with the Edict of Milan, the decision must be in favor of equal rights. "In reality, without any unnecessary exaggeration, the importance of the Edict of Milan remains unquestionably great, for it was an act which ended the illegal position of the Christians in the empire and declared at the same time complete religious freedom, thus reducing paganism de jure from its former position of the only state religion to the rank of all other religions."25

22 A. Lebedev, The Epoch of Christian Persecutions (3d ed., St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 300-301 (in Russian).

23 N. Grossu, The Edict of Milan, pp. 29–30, in the publications of the Spiritual Acad. of Kiev, 1913 (in Russian).

"O. Seeck, "Das sogenannte Edikt von Mailand," Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, XII (1891), 381-86; also the same author's Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt (Berlin, 1897), I, 2. Aufl., 495.

25 Brilliantov, Emperor Constantine the Great and the Edict of Milan (Petrograd, 1916), p. 157 (in Russian). Cf. M. A. Huttmann, The Establishment of Christianity and the Proscription of Paganism (New York, 1914), p. 123: While we may regard Constantine as the first Christian Emperor and the first to put Christianity quite on a par with paganism, he was not the first to make Christianity a legal religion, for Galerius had done that in 311 ("Studies in History, Economics and Public Law," edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University, Vol. LX, No. 2).