ON ST. CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
ROMAN EMPEROR
A.D. CCCXXXVII
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
On his cult, baptism, conversion, image, Consular coins.
Constantine the Great, Emperor, at Constantinople (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
CHAPTER ONE
Burial and cult of the Saint at Constantinople and elsewhere.
[1] After Constantine the Emperor, truly Pious, truly Great, had completed the course of his Empire in two and thirty years, says Eusebius in his Life book 4 chap. 53, excepting a few months and days, but the span of his life nearly twice as long, or as Eutropius has it in the XXXI year of his Empire, the LXVI of his age, but in CCCXXXVII of the vulgar Era, on the solemnity of the venerable and most sacred Pentecost about midday he passed to the Lord, leaving to mortals indeed his mortal part, but joining to his God that part of the soul which had been endowed with the intelligence and love of God… After the first offices of funeral lamentation in the same place in which he had died, namely Achyron the public villa of the suburb of Nicomedia, were splendidly performed by the Tribunes and the army; a The body of the dead exposed at CP. in the Palace, the soldiers having taken up the body from the bed placed it in a golden coffin, and that being covered with a purple garment they bore it to Constantinople, and in the chief chamber of the Imperial palace placed it on high. Hence with golden candelabra with lights everywhere kindled above, an admirable spectacle was offered to those beholding, such as in no mortal ever from the very foundation of the world had been seen on earth. For in the middle of the chamber the Emperor's funeral, in the golden coffin lying on high, with royal insignia, namely purple and diadem, adorned, many surrounding by night and by day kept watch as guards. The Generals of the whole army moreover, the Counts also and the rest of the Judges, who were also formerly accustomed to adore the Emperor, in no way changing the observance of the former custom, [b] and frequented with the accustomed honors, at fixed hours entered, and the Emperor placed in the coffin, just as living and breathing, with knee bent after death they saluted. After those chief men however, the same thereafter both the Senators and all the honored men entering did. Then an innumerable multitude of the common people, with boys and women, came to the spectacle of this matter. And these things were continually done over a long span of time; since the soldiers had decreed that the funeral lie and be guarded in this manner, until the sons of the Emperor coming there themselves should follow their father's funeral for the sake of honor…
[2] [c] (the Romans also painting him as holy) But at Rome in the Royal city the Senate and people, having learned of the Emperor's death, considering this most grave news and bitterer than any calamity, made no measure to grief… All proclaimed the Emperor blessed, dear to God, and altogether most worthy of the Empire: nor did they declare these things only by bare voice, but with dedicated images they honored the dead just as if living: in which when they had expressed the likeness of heaven on a tablet, themselves above the heavenly vaults in an ethereal abode resting they painted: nay even… with great clamor they demanded, that they might have the funeral of their Emperor among them, and burying him in the royal city deposit him. But the second of [his] sons Constantius when he had arrived, into the Constantinopolitan city led it, himself preceding the obsequies. Going before through troops and ranks arranged the military orders, behind followed an innumerable multitude of men: d it is borne into the church of the Apostles, but the spear-bearing shield-bearers surrounded the very body of the Emperor in the middle: and after they had come into the church of the Apostles of our Saviour, they deposited the coffin there… But when the new Emperor with the military orders withdrew, the ministers of God with the crowds and the whole people of the faithful went forth into the midst, and the ceremonies of divine worship they performed with prayers. And the blessed Prince indeed, lying on a high platform, was then celebrated with praises: but an innumerable people, together with the Priests of God, not without groaning and tears offered prayers for the soul of the Emperor to God, exhibiting a most grateful office to the pious Prince. Moreover in this also God declared his liberal benevolence toward his servant… that he granted him a place near the memory of the Apostles; namely that the tabernacle of his most blessed soul might enjoy the partnership of the Apostolic name and honor, and be associated with the people of God in the church, and might deserve to obtain divine ceremonies and the mystic sacrifice and the communion of holy prayers.
[3] So far Eusebius of Caesarea book 4 of the Life of Constantine in the last Chapters: but earlier when he had described the said church of the Apostles, [e] which he himself had built for himself for burial, and its whole fabric and ornament, This place, he says, he designated for himself after death, foreseeing with incredible alacrity of faith, that the tabernacle of his body might receive a common appellation with the Apostles, namely that of the prayers, which were to be celebrated there in honor of the Apostles, even when dead he might be partaker. Since therefore he had erected there twelve coffins, as certain sacred columns, in honor and memory of the Apostolic college; he placed his own coffin in the middle, which had six coffins of the Apostles arranged on either side. Paul the Deacon and the Ms. Catalog of royal sepulchres in du Cange book 4 of Constantinopolis Christiana cap. 5, f and is enclosed in a porphyry sepulchre, indicate that that sepulchre was Porphyry: and the Catalog indeed adds, placed in the first place toward the East. But Gillius in the Topographia Constantinopoleos book 4 chap. 2 says, that along the way which extends through the back of the promontory to the temple of Sophia to the gate of Adrianople (near the place where he had said before that the temple of the Apostles was) today is shown a chair made of porphyry marble, but empty and lacking a cover, ten feet long, five and a half high, which the Greeks and Turks say is of Constantine the Great. And he indeed doubts about it, because Eusebius and Socrates mention a golden coffin: but nothing forbids, indeed it was fitting, that this be enclosed in stone.
[4] From the same Gillius, in the place already cited, it seems to be understood, that Mahomet who occupied the City destroyed that temple for this reason; [g] whence once removed that he might dissipate all the Royal monuments, with the bones themselves which were contained within, with this design, that the Empire of the Greeks should be believed utterly extinguished, without any hope of ever rising again in that place, where it would not even be possible to find the sepulchres of the former Emperors. But that he might demonstrate the new Empire of the Turks there constituted by him, from the very material of that temple and other neighboring sacred buildings, a most ornate shrine of his superstition he built nearby, above the cistern which supplied water to the Apostolic basilica; he also planted a garden surrounded by walls, in the middle of which he built a most magnificent sepulchre for himself, lest he should do anything less or different from Constantine the Great, which perpetual Flamens there sitting day and night observe. But what was done with the sacred bones of Constantine we do not know, unless perhaps they were translated into Calabria, about which below. These, when formerly Macedonius, the Constantinopolitan Arian Bishop, because the church of the Apostles seemed to threaten ruin, had transferred to the temple of S. Acacius, the citizens vainly resisting, especially the orthodox; Constantius the Emperor was angered, that without consulting him the corpse of his father had been moved from the place, and that not without the slaughter of many. Whether he ordered it to be replaced, Socrates and Sozomen do not say; [h] and soon restored, yet it is credible that he ordered it, at least after caution against the dreaded ruin had been applied. For all who henceforth mention the burial of Constantine, speak of it as existing among the Apostles, nor does anyone mention a later transfer; which if cared for by some later Emperor would not have lacked its memory in the Greek Fasti. Justinian indeed, when he had restored this church almost from the foundations, is said to have restored and adorned the Imperial monuments, placed in its outer portico: but about the sepulchre of Constantine which was within, nothing is read to have been innovated; having been preserved with more diligent care, as a certain sacred thing, equally with the cenotaphs of the Apostles placed around.
[5] [i] There he was venerated with annual feast For when, as Eusebius says, finishing the books on the Life of Constantine, alone of Roman Emperors he had worshipped God the King of all with a certain excellent piety, and alone had preached the doctrine of Christ with free voice to all; and had increased the Church of God in honor and glory in so much, as none before; and had alone overthrown the error of men worshipping many gods, and refuted all the rites and modes of such superstition; his memory was received by the Christian Church, chiefly the Eastern, not only as of an Emperor of the best deserts, but also as comparable to the Apostles, and worthy of a common veneration with them, together with the memory of his most Christian and most religious mother Helena, about whom with the Latins we shall treat on August XVIII. The Greeks however make the feast of both on the day XXI of May; I do not know why not rather XXII. For since in the year CCCXXXVII Pascha was celebrated on the day III of April, it is necessary that the Pentecostal festivity, by which carried to midday Constantine died, shone one day later: [k] May 21
Thus after the Chronicle of Idatius is read in Sirmond and Labbé, that under Felicianus and Tatianus Coss. Constantine the Augustus was translated to the heavenly kingdoms on the XI Kalends of June, and so it is inscribed in the Auctaria to Usuard of Greven and Molanus, and also in the German Martyrology of Canisius. Others on that day celebrate the Elevation of S. Helena at Rome, with the Translation of the body into the Gauls: but the Greeks believe they have the body of the mother joined to the son, perhaps brought from Rome on the XII Kal. of June; and this was the beginning of that sacred and annual cult, by which the Greeks until today pursue The Memory of the holy, glorious, [l] together with the mother Helena. crowned by God, and equal to the Apostles Emperors, Constantine and Helena.
[6] To the elogium of the same to be recited from the Synaxaria this distich is prefixed in the Menaea: As they had in common the crown of the Earthly King, They have also in common the crown of the pole. By which it is indicated that they are partners of the heavenly crown, who were of the earthly. But the Canon composed for both, clearly ancient (as one which is bound neither by an Acrostic, nor has the author's name attached to itself) in alternating strophes nearly now names the son now the mother, and the beginning of the ninth Ode in it is this. The sepulchre in which lies thy holy and venerable body, Constantine, [m] Renowned for miracles done at that coffin, pours forth openly the splendors of divine healings to all coming from every side against all kinds of diseases. The same is asserted in fewer words at Vespers, in one of the Tones thus ending, Pray for our souls, Constantine equal to the Apostles, from whose coffin healings emanate. The Tone also preceding the Prophetic Lessons, is concluded by praying, that he not cease to supplicate Christ for those celebrating his memory, as having confidence of obtaining anything from him, and to ask for them remission of sins, and that great mercy, which Psalm L teaches to ask. Finally S. Methodius the Patriarch subjoins to the Office of the whole day this conclusion: King of Kings and God, who adorns the worthy of himself with copious gifts, by the sign of the Cross from heaven gained thee for himself, [n] is invoked as a saint Constantine, just as venerable Paul of old, saying, In this conquer thy enemies, that thou afterwards seek him with thy most wise mother. With her therefore intercede for the orthodox Emperors, and the Christ-loving army, and all faithfully celebrating thy memory, that they may be preserved from every plague. It is also notable that the Gospel is prescribed for the Liturgy or Mass from John X. Amen, amen I say to you, who does not enter through the door, and ending; I am the door, through me if any enter, he shall be saved.
[7] But there is celebrated, as the Synaxaria teach, his holy festivity in the most holy great church, [o] in three places of the city; and at the Holy Apostles, and in his own divine temple which is in the Cistern of the monastery; the Patriarch together with the Emperor and Senate going there in supplication, and completing the divine liturgy: where du Cange thinks the Mocesian Cistern is to be understood: near which the monastery of S. Constantine was situated: and on this monastery perhaps depends, in the way that with us the Priorate on Abbeys, the Metochion of S. Constantine in the Arcadians, which Leo the Grammarian mentions, on occasion of Nicholas the Syncellus there buried. For although the interpreter has rendered estate; rightly however du Cange observes, that by that word is denoted a monastery of this kind of second rank, or (as the Latins would call) Cell, in Pachymeres and similar writers of the middle age. Elsewhere it is not so easy to find sacred buildings consecrated to this holy Emperor: [p] likewise in England, in Britain however, where he is believed by the English to have been born, that several churches and altars were once dedicated to him is judged by Witford, author of the English Martyrology printed in the year 1608: and that one still very beautiful remains there he affirms. In Sicily also, as Giovanni Battista de' Grossi writes in his Catana Sacra, [q] Sicily Chord 2, Module 16, under the name of S. Constantine is known a pious assembly of men, instituted in a Confraternity of Disciplinanti from the year MCCCVI, of whom clothed in vile sacks and sharply scourging themselves a procession on the night of Parasceve goes forth, the expenses being contributed by the Senate of Carana, by permission of the Royal ministers, expedited under the date of the year MDCXV. Moreover in the outermost part of greater Greece or Calabria there is a village of S. Constantine, [r] Calabria, pertaining to the diocese of Mileto, distant from Mount S. Leon by only IV M. P.: where the feast of the holy Emperor is held on the second day of May, with the Office of the Common of a Confessor not Pontiff, we know through letters given from our College of Mount Leon. At Bova likewise between Hierax and Reggio the same festivity is held, on account of Relics there preserved, as from the Chronicle of Calabria Ferrarius writes in the Catalog of Saints of Italy: but in the Notes he adds that there are some who doubt, whether the Constantinus whom the Bovenses venerate, is not some citizen of theirs, of whom no more distinct memory now remains, so that thence with the Emperor of his name he is confused. At Prague also in Bohemia there is some cult of S. Constantine the Great, [s] Bohemia on account of a notable part from a smaller bone of the arm, uncertain whence and when brought, indicates Pezzina de Czechorod in the Diary of the Metropolitan church of S. Vitus. From the Greeks also to the Muscovites the cult of SS. Constantine and Helena passed, [t] Moscow, as in their Ephemeris depicted before the first tome of May it is allowed to see. In the Arabic-Egyptian Martyrology also, which Gratia Simonius the Maronite made Latin for us, the same feast of both is noted, and this Collect: The sign of thy Cross Constantine saw in heaven; and, like Paul, [u] Syria. he had not his calling from man, who is thy Apostle, O Lord: and the city built in thy hands he placed, which thou hast always freed in peace, by the prayers of the Mother of God: free us, O Lover of men. In Belgium also somewhere that the same holy Emperor is venerated the Ms. Florarium makes credible to us, where the name is noted on the day XIX of April, in any case scarcely common to others.
CHAPTER II.
The controversy on the Baptism of Constantine discussed.
[8] These things being proposed which are beyond all controversy, as abundantly sufficing to prove the consensus of the whole, especially Eastern, Church, around the pious and holy memory of the Emperor Constantine, which also God is believed to have confirmed with many miracles; I pass to his Baptism, not described in the same way everywhere, as to place, time, and minister. [a] Constantine seized with sickness after Easter celebrated, The aforesaid Eusebius, after in chap. 60 of book 4 of the Life of Constantine he had set forth, with what end the Emperor caused the temple of the Apostles to be built, persuading himself for certain that the memory of these, in that place, where his body after death was to be deposited, would bring no little usefulness to his soul; Nor truly, he says, did God frustrate him of his prayer and expectation. For when he had performed the first exercises of the Paschal feast, and the day of our Saviour itself, joyful and cheerful both to himself and all others, had returned; God, by whose help he was performing all these things, intent on these matters, and persisting in works of this kind even to the end of life, deigned at last opportunely to translate him to a better lot. [b] At Helenopolis he is initiated by the imposition of hands, In the beginning indeed an unequal intemperance of the body, after these things sickness invaded him. And so going forth to the warm waters of his city, thence he was conveyed to Helenopolis, the city named with his mother's name: and there in the temple of Martyrs long abiding, he offered supplications and prayers to God. And when he felt the last day of life now imminent on him, he reckoned that the time was now at hand, when the offenses of his whole life he should expiate, most firmly believing, that whatever he had humanly sinned by the efficacy of mystic words and the saving laver should utterly be deleted.
[9] When he had reckoned these things with himself, with bent knee falling upon the ground, he asked pardon as a suppliant from God, confessing his sins in the Martyrium itself. In which place the imposition of hands, with solemn prayer first he deserved to receive. Hence to the suburbs of Nicomedia having gone, the Bishops being called together he made these words to them: This was the time, which I had long hoped for, when I burned with incredible desire, and with all vows desired, to obtain salvation in God. [c] and in the suburb of Nicomedia foreseeing death Now is the time, that we also receive that sign which confers immortality. It is time that we be made partakers of the saving signaculum. Indeed I had once decided to do this in the river Jordan, in which the Saviour himself for our example is recounted to have received the laver: but God, who best knows what is useful for us, deigns to exhibit this very thing to us in this place. Therefore let all doubt be removed: for if indeed God, the arbiter of life and death, here shall wish me to live longer life, and that be once decreed, that hereafter I be mingled with the people of God, and adscribed into the Church with all the rest become partaker of prayers; those laws of living I promise to prescribe to myself, which are worthy of God. When he had said these things, they performed the divine ceremonies with solemn rite; and having enjoined upon him whatever were necessary, they made him partaker of the sacred Mysteries. Alone therefore, [d] he asks for and obtains baptism; of all who ever were Emperors, Constantine in Christ's martyria was reborn and consummated; and endowed with the divine signaculum exulted in spirit, and was renewed, and filled with divine light. And in mind indeed he took the greatest pleasure on account of the excellence of the faith; but the most evident magnitude of the divine power he marveled at astonished.
[10] After all things were duly fulfilled, with white and royal garments shining like light he was clothed, and on a most white bed he reclined, nor would he touch the purple any more. After these things lifting up his voice higher, in prayer he gave thanks to God, and the prayer ended he subjoined these things: Now I know that I am truly blessed, now worthy of immortal life, now made partaker of divine light. He also said wretched and unhappy were those who would be deprived of such great goods. And when the Tribunes and Generals of the military forces having entered mourned their lot, [e] and full of joy that he was leaving them bereft and prayed for longer life for him; to these also responding, he said now at last he had attained true life: and that he alone best knew, of how great goods he had been made partaker: therefore he was hastening, and would by no tergiversation defer his departure to his God. [f] in Pentecost he dies, Then individually at his own arbitrary he disposed: and to the Romans indeed inhabiting the Royal city he bequeathed certain annual gifts; but to his sons the Empire, as a paternal inheritance, he left, constituting all things as it seemed good to himself. Moreover all these things were done in that great solemnity of the venerable and most sacred Pentecost, which adorned with the sevenfold number of weeks, by unity is sealed: in which both the ascent of the common Saviour into the heavens, and the descent of the holy Spirit on the earth, the sacred letters testify to have happened.
[11] These things Eusebius, by S. Jerome himself, although otherwise most hostile because of the defense of Origen, [g] according to Eusebius: in ecclesiastical history held in such esteem, that he judged no part of it ever to be censured even with the slightest word, indeed translated various opuscules pertaining to it into Latin, and in Epistle 65 to Pammachius asks, who can be found more prudent, more learned, more eloquent than him? Not only Jerome, but the whole East and West always held Eusebius greatly, everywhere venerating him as the parent of ecclesiastical history: whence Gelasius II Roman Pontiff in Ep. 3 to the Bishops of Istria also asks: what among Historiographers can be found more honorable than Eusebius: and Gelasius of Cyzicus in book 2 chap. 1 calls the same the most outstanding plowman of the Ecclesiastical field, most studious of truth and among the ancient writers of Ecclesiastical history most worthy of trust. I know indeed that Eusebius, not only before the Nicene Synod, but also after he assented to subscribing to it or feigned to assent, so favored the Arians, that among their Leaders he is not undeservedly numbered, whatever excuses him Valesius: I know that he could have added much and great praise to Constantine by integrally and sincerely narrating what he did against the perfidy of the Arians and for the Nicene profession, and so not even fully fulfilling the office of a panegyrist. But if he was cautious, [h] who in these things can scarcely be presumed to have wished to lie, not to insert into the work of the Life of Constantine those things, which he knew would displease Constantius the Arian Emperor and Eusebius of Nicomedia and his followers; on the contrary with no less zeal he seems to have been cautious, not for their favor to write anything which could be convicted of falsity. For if he had not wished to take this caution, I beseech thee, how many other things according to their mind he could have written about the cause of S. Athanasius, which to be affirmed and commonly believed mattered infinitely more to the Emperor and the whole Arian faction, than what he wrote about the baptism of Constantine, contributing little or nothing to the sum of the matter which was being conducted by them with most ardent zeal? But that he should have wished to feign, how could he in a thing done in the presence of so great a multitude of Courtiers, not in the moment of one hour, but over the course of many days or even weeks? [i] or could have done so with impunity. Was no one in the whole number of Bishops, following Constantine moving his camp against the Persians, sincerely orthodox, who would have detected the trick of the Eusebians (for they then did not yet bear themselves as Arians, but feigning to hold the Nicene faith only persuaded that abstinence be kept from the Homoousion appellation) was no one, I say, in so great a number found, who would have publicly made known the most shameful falsehood; and pronounced the historian, who afterward dared to subscribe to it, unworthy of all trust?
[12] As to the present question, two of the chief Latin Doctors gave faith to Eusebius, Jerome and Ambrose. And Jerome indeed even more than was fitting, when he wrote in the Chronicle, that Constantine, [k] Jerome and Ambrose assent in the last time of his life, baptized by Eusebius the Bishop of Nicomedia, declined into the Arian dogma: for he does not say that he was baptized by Eusebius, or embraced the Arian dogma; but Jerome believed this to be a consequence. Ambrose better in the funeral of Theodosius says: Now Theodosius of August memory is for himself a King, when he is in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he receives his son Gratian… when his Placilla cleaves to him, when he cleaves to Constantine, to whom although the grace of baptism in the last moments he obtained, dismissed all sins, yet because as the first of Emperors he believed, and after himself left the inheritance of faith to Princes, he found a place of great merit. That Jerome and Ambrose moreover gave Eusebius credit, investigating nothing further in such a matter, although it is difficult to believe (since both long had dwelt at Rome, and the contrary, if it was true, must have heard a hundred times) yet let us believe it. Let us also believe S. Athanasius, so sagacious an explorer of all things which were being done with bad faith by his and the Church's enemies, in this point, as it were less pertaining to himself, was plainly incurious. Who would believe the entire Synod of Western Bishops, gathered at Rimini, would have said the same about the baptism of Constantine, if it had been performed not first at Nicomedia, but long before at Rome? I will not bring forward the words of the Synod, as in Theodoret, Socrates and Sozomen they are read (for Baronius takes exception against them), but from Athanasius in his book on Synods, in whom he thinks they are read entirely and sincerely: [l] and the whole Synod of Rimini thus they are read, without any difference in eight Codices of MSS. from which was composed the Greek-Latin edition of the year MDC. Greek text. It seems unbecoming and unjust to change anything of those things, which have been rightly and justly defined, and at Nicaea commonly constituted, in the presence of the most glorious Constantine, thy father (they address Constantius) and Emperor… Then again: Since we know also Constantine, after death also worthy of memory, to have set forth the faith composed with all diligence and deliberation; and so it would be absurd, after he, about to depart, was baptized and passed to the rest due to him, to innovate anything.
[13] [m] in Athanasius read in Greek. These things, you will say, thus in Athanasius? Who therefore even by Baronius himself as judge, would not understand the cause must be adjudicated to Eusebius, nor any place remaining for the defense? These things, however, as I said, Athanasius in eight Greek Manuscripts, of which the interpreter Nannius had three and no others in his Latin edition of the year MDCLXIV. But he, by I know not what carelessness having lapsed, in the second place named Constans instead of Constantine; perhaps suspecting it would be more efficacious, if after the example of the Father to Constantius were proposed also the example of the Brother, although younger; nor considering that to him, the words of the Synod little fit, who was carried off by violent death, and perhaps long before baptized. Nor have you reason to say that the repeated mention of Constantine would be superfluous. For first his authority is alleged for the resolution formed at Rimini; then a reason is given for the things previously Acted in the Council of Milan against Ursatius and Valens, from the same regard for Constantine. Mention is made of the Nicene faith of one having immediately died baptized. Meanwhile Baronius is to be pardoned, that to the authority objected from that letter of Rimini, otherwise as he confesses peremptory, he believed he had obtained from Athanasius a fitting response through Nannius, himself unskilled in the Greek tongue, perhaps also not having Greek copies at hand which to another knowing how to read he might exhibit.
[14] See now whether those things, from which it is pretended that long before Constantine was baptized at Rome by S. Sylvester, [n] The Acts of S. Sylvester contrary to those either by authority or by antiquity can be compared with Eusebius, and to those Latin and Greek witnesses of the same and the following century who second him. First in opposition are brought forward the Acts of S. Sylvester the Pope, as indeed they are now had often by Baronius himself confessed depraved in some, indeed stuffed with most absurd fictions, yet ancient, and which Pope Gelasius, in years after the death of Constantine only CLVIII, by many in the Roman city Catholics testifies to be read, because by ancient use many churches imitate. [o] must be esteemed as the writings on the Finding of the Cross: Yet from this you would not rightly conclude, that those Acts in the age of Gelasius were not laboring under the same vices as now: for also the writings on the finding of the holy Cross, immediately named after the Acts of Sylvester by Gelasius, as those which some Catholics then read, were no less then, than now, fabulous, as is plain from the Catalog of Pontiffs published by us before April, since collected a little after the Pontificate of Gelasius. Who in the Acts of S. Sylvester seems to have believed S. Gregory of Tours and others after him, similarly believed the writings on the Finding of the Cross: nor can anything probable in reason be devised for the ones, [p] nor does the assent of more recent ones avail. which cannot also be applied to the others by the same right, so that to that extent no more can be believed of the ones than of the others, against the evident consensus of more ancient authors and of those who in the matters themselves were more closely engaged. Nor does it matter that more recent Greeks in the ninth and tenth centuries allowed themselves to be brought to the opinion of the Westerners, then everywhere believing that the monument of the Constantinian baptism done at Rome was the baptistery, joined to the Constantinian Basilica of the Holy Saviour and to the Palace of the same name. For it was easy on the occasion of the name commonly used for the opinion to grow strong, as if Constantine had been baptized in the porphyry vessel which is there, which yet not even Baronius himself believes.
[15] [q] in those is disapproved the hiding-place of Sylvester, Much here Baronius vehemently labors, to prove that in the year XI of Pope Sylvester, the XIX of Constantine, some more vehement, although not long-lasting storm of persecution could have come upon the Christians, even with so many most favorable laws promulgated, after the Empire stabilized with Maxentius vanquished, adorned and strengthened by Constantine. But when not even one Martyr is named then having suffered at Rome, nor is found the example of any other Roman Pontiff who yielded the city to raging tyrants however great, after Peter, lest he do this, divinely warned; I do not know how it can seem credible, that danger so great, which compelled Sylvester to seek hiding-places on Mount Soracte XVIII M. P. from the city of Rome. The leprosy also which Constantine compelled to recall the Pontiff into the city, for the sake of receiving health through baptism from him, unknown to those more ancient writers, becomes the more incredible, the more confidently Julian the Apostate objected to the Christians, that their baptism does not take away leprosy from a leper. [r] and the leprosy of Constantine. For if with so recent a memory leprous Constantine had wiped away the filth of leprosy by baptism, to Cyril of Alexandria about to refute that in book 7 against Julian, his successor and son-in-law, what could be offered more specious and more powerful for his conviction? Nothing of this kind however Cyril: but when he had said that Christ also cleansed lepers, he excuses that his baptism for cleansing filth, not of body, but of soul, was instituted. What in the Cresconian Collection of Canons, written about the year DCC, from I know not what Acts of Liberius is said, that he came into hatred with Constantius, because he had said that his father had been cleansed from leprosy when he was baptized by Sylvester; this we believe so much the less, as from better authors more certainly we know the cause of the persecution moved against Liberius: and rightly suspect is the book of Sylvester, into which such Acts of Liberius are said to be interwoven. But about these things to the very Natal day of S. Sylvester, the same the last [day] of the sacred year, our posterity will be allowed to dispute.
[16] It remains to satisfy Theophanes, moved into the opinion of the Westerners chiefly by this reason, that if Constantine was not baptized in the Nicene Synod, [s] neither by these is it proved before death therefore neither was he a participant of the divine mysteries, nor did he pray with the holy Fathers: but this seems to him most wicked
both to say and to think; Baronius and others add, that by Eusebius's own testimony in more than one place both are refuted. I have weighed accurately all the chapters that are alleged, and from all of them I could conclude nothing else, than that the pious Emperor, who had prescribed to soldiers not yet initiated a form of common prayer, to which on Sundays they should convene in the open fields of the suburbs; the same in his Palace (as is read book 4 chap. 17) had set up a kind of church of God, [a] intervened in the mysteries of the Christians, where with all gathered with him, with diligence and alacrity he led the way, himself leading the assembly within, and having taken books in hand, applied his mind to the consideration of sacred words, then performed solemn prayers, with those who filled the Royal house, indeed taking books in hand he beforehand applied his mind to the contemplation of the divinely-inspired words, then he delivered lawful prayers together with those filling the royal house. There (as is said cap. 21) at fixed times daily alone with God alone he treated as some partaker of sacred mysteries, as if some who would truly be partaker of divine mysteries, that I may render the mind of the author paraphrastically. There therefore he held the celebration of Easter, in the way which in the following chapter is narrated: nowhere however is it found a word, by which to the sacred assemblies of the churches (although also even these, except in the time of sacrifice, admitted the non-initiated) he is understood to have intruded himself.
[17] [b] granted he sat with the Fathers at Nicaea, As to the assemblies of the Nicene council pertains, to which we know that even Gentile Philosophers were admitted, why the Fathers should have excluded him from pouring forth prayers with them there, who made for them both this faculty of meeting, and the liberty of bearing sentence, and went before them by his own zeal also for stabilizing the faith? This will be testified by his Oration delivered to the assembly in Gelasius of Cyzicus, which yet is undeservedly objected, as if in it he says more, than that he holds and preaches the Christian faith, to which he refers all his felicity received, and for the stabilizing of which he had likewise come there with them: [c] by profession of faith Christian for which reason also he was everywhere believed and called Christian: as he truly was, having a firm purpose of receiving baptism at the opportune time. And this entirely I believe he would have done much sooner, if to the meditated expedition to the holy places adorned by his mother new and new impediments had not intervened from time to time, Eusebius perhaps of Nicomedia somewhat contributing to it, lest of those things which against Athanasius had been wrongly done in Syria he might more certainly learn present. [d] and with the proposal of receiving baptism: But when the expedition undertaken into Persia led him there as if of itself; scarcely is there doubt to me, that with such a counsel he wished to have Bishops in the war beyond custom as companions, that by their presence his baptism might be honored. But death prevented the man, still strong and robust, called by poison (as is believed) by paternal uncles, certainly by God permitted, that more quickly he might receive the fruit of so many of his good works, and think of recalling Athanasius to his See, as he did, and that in the presence of Eusebius, says Theodoret, understanding the Nicomedian, and greatly dissuading lest this be done, as the principal author of his banishment.
[18] In that banishment although Constantine some more recent writers vehemently blame, easily however from all graver fault is excused the man who, as the same Theodoret says, [e] excusable also in the cause of Athanasius. believed Bishops, hiding their malice, and otherwise clear and illustrious. But what did he believe? That Athanasius was not sufficiently orthodox, or guilty of crimes of which he had been delated through calumny? By no means. Neither did Eusebius and his accomplices pretend the cause of faith against Athanasius, and they knew that the Emperor was most persuaded of his innocence; but only suggested, that by his immoderate zeal of preaching the Homoousion he had incurred so great hatred of all, that unless that one were banished peace could not be restored to the Churches, indeed nor otherwise be consulted for the life of Athanasius himself. This having been done, however, by no other graver cause moved seems to have been Jerome, when using that harsher style of his, in the Chronicle he wrote, that Constantine in the last time of his life, baptized by Eusebius the Bishop of Nicomedia, declined into the Arian dogma, that is, he was seen to incline to the opinion of those, [f] and from communion with Eusebius not yet openly heretical, who judged that abstinence be kept from the word Homoousion, not as heretical, but as new, and therefore generating scandal among those who professed to adhere altogether to the Nicene faith, and persuaded the Emperor to believe, that those who were called Arians, with that word suppressed, would return to concord. Of such, not however of the Arians themselves, the chief then was that Eusebius, after the death of Constantine only more openly transferred to the parts of the Arians in the conventicle of Antioch of the year CCCXLI. In a similar way elsewhere Jerome wrote, on account of the received Catholic-seeming confession of Valens and Ursacius, that the world groaning marveled that it was Arian. The Caesarean Eusebius indeed does not name expressly the minister of the Constantinian Baptism; but on account of this his silence, so far is it from that I should suspect him to have been Eusebius of Nicomedia, to whose praise that would have redounded, and so by his friend by no means must have been kept silent; that on the contrary it seems to provide a fitting argument for asserting (which as from the history of Gelasius of Cyzicus Photius reports in the Bibliotheca Cod. 88) that Constantine about to die was tinged with baptism by an orthodox Priest and sacred rite, not, as some have transmitted, by some one of the heretics. And this Priest to have been Hosius from Spain, as one of greatest authority with the Prince and frequent in his retinue someone might opine, when in Zosimus to be refuted below he reads, that ascribed to the persuasion of a certain Egyptian from Iberia, for so the calumnious idolater could have called Hosius, by the name of Egyptian understanding Magus. But let us grant the Bishop of Nicomedia, in whose diocese because the matter was being conducted to his right it would seem to pertain, to have been the minister of the Sacrament: yet that would not have contaminated the baptized, since to communicate then with Eusebius was not yet to communicate with a heretic.
[19] Hence moreover is understood to be vain the attempt of certain few, [g] much less by re-baptizing, who about to reconcile both opinions about the baptism of Constantine, say that at Rome indeed he was baptized by Sylvester; but at Nicomedia rebaptized by Eusebius. That rebaptization was attempted by the Arians before the times of the Vandalic persecution no one with foundation will say, nor ought it in the silence of all antiquity to be received: much less that already from the time of the Emperor Constantine it was usurped. For who while he was living would have dared to affirm the professors of the Nicene faith, which he always and everywhere observed and altogether wished kept whole and sound, to be heretics, whose baptism therefore would be believed invalid? But that the Arians, even then in secret had dared something of the kind being granted, it could not yet be said that Eusebius, the mark of Arianism striving with all effort then still to remove from himself, had part in that impiety. There had indeed troubled in the previous century not lightly the Church that question about the baptism of heretics, Cyprian denying it valid with most of the African Bishops: but Stephen the Roman Pontiff affirming and defending the truth with the most invincible shield of tradition, by his decree the faith was constituted; nor with Cyprian dead, was it any more called into doubt in that III century. But neither in this IV century did the Arians do that so quickly, however clandestinely, is it probable: for the contrary is persuaded by the silence of SS. Athanasius, Lucifer, Hilary, indeed also of Jerome and Ambrose, none of them objecting any such thing anywhere, although in this they could not lightly have argued them. In vain therefore the Catalog of ancient Pontiffs, which I said above and showed to be polluted with fabulous interpolations, [h] since neither did the Arians rebaptize. for establishing the antiquity of a second baptism among the Arians someone will allege, when there it is said that Liberius consented to Constantius the heretic, yet not rebaptized. For there it is also said that Felix declared, Constantius a heretic and rebaptized for the second time. And yet most certainly it is established from S. Athanasius and others, that Constantius stuck in the order of Catechumens even to the year CCCLXI, which after the expulsion of Felix is the second; how then could this one have condemned him as rebaptized? If you ask whence the author of the Catalog took it; I shall reply that from some apocryphal martyrdom of S. Felix, now indeed lost, formerly however sufficiently common, from which a much fuller context others described, whom Anastasius the Bibliothecarian followed. These however all read and wrote Constantius, and added, son of Constantine, [i] for that Constantius is said to be rebaptized, yet manifestly slip back to Constantine the Great son of Constantius, when they subjoin rebaptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, near Nicomedia in Aquilo the villa. But who shone before all of them the author of the apocryphal Martyrdom which I said, the continuator of Eusebius Jerome altogether seems to have had before his eyes. For he writes thus to the last year of Constantine, which is the year of Christ CCCXXXVIII: Constantine in the last time of his life baptized by Eusebius the Nicomedian Bishop, declines into the Arian dogma… Constantine… in Achyron the public villa near Nicomedia dies. But that author of the Martyrdom, in the age of Damasus not yet beginning to be heard, [k] is taken from a depraved reading of Jerome. and in the fifth century at most first devised by the disciples of the Luciferians, not yet plainly eliminated from Italy; from both those passages of the Hieronymian Chronicle the words received wishing to fuse into one sentence (for he did not doubt that both passages were of one and the same, and absurd seemed to understand both of Constantine) he understood and substituted Constantius for Constantine, caring little to which year these were read in the Chronicle. Unless we prefer to say, that depravation is more ancient; for although our codex, written in the year DCXXIII, distinctly in both places names Constantine: in that however which Scaliger used, written about the year DCXXVII, in the first place is written Constantius: and so he edited it, and there were perhaps other much more ancient codices in which in both places it was thus read. Whatever about this be, the words of Jerome, either by him first or before by some smatterer turned into the name of Constantius, the author used, composing the Martyrdom of S. Felix, and where Jerome originally had written Constantine baptized, he wrote Constantius rebaptized, the custom of the Arians of rebaptizing, known in his time, badly transferring to times to which it by no means fitted.
CHAPTER III.
On the conversion of Constantine the Great to the faith of Christ.
[20] When I wished to proceed from the better-known and more certain to the less certain and explained, I was forced to invert in this place the order of time, which we are otherwise accustomed to follow, and to treat last, what otherwise should have been first; [l] Successor to his Father in Britain in 306, because the question about the place of the Cross shown to Constantine in heaven, if we wish to confess the truth, is altogether conjectural. Eusebius explaining the matter most distinctly, about the place was silent: it helps to hear him speaking in book 1 of the Life of Constantine; where after the related death of Constantius the father, [m] the provinces committed to him being pacified, and the elevation of his son by the army
made in Britain in the year CCCVI on the day XXV of July; First, he says in chap. 25, Constantine began to look to the Empire of his fathers transcribed to him from his father, surveying all with the highest humanity; namely the British, Gallic and German Provinces: but also the barbarians, who at the Rhine and the Western ocean had dared to stir up new movements, all subjecting to his dominion, from wild he rendered tame: others indeed content to repress, like wild beasts from the borders of his Empire he frightened off… which things being completed according to the wish of his mind, meanwhile indeed against the British peoples, situated in the inmost recess of the Ocean, he crossed: them indeed when he had subdued, to other parts of the world his eyes he turned…
[21] But at length to extinguish the tyranny, by which at Rome Maxentius was raging, [a] about to move against Maxentius girding himself; when he understood how badly that had turned out for Galerius Maximian the Emperor and Caesar Severus, who with a multitude of Gods to battle had set out… he judged that only the God of his parent was to be worshipped by him. The aid of him therefore he began to implore, praying and beseeching that he show himself to be known by him, and to the present matters extend a helping hand. To the Emperor praying and supplicantly asking these things, a certain admirable sign sent from God appeared, which if it were said by some other, hardly would the hearers have given credit. But since the Victorious Augustus himself, to us who write this history, long after, … reported it, and the speech with the religion of an oath affirmed, [b] he saw in heaven a luminous Cross who after this would doubt to give credit to this narration?… At the midday hours of the day, the sun verging to its setting, the trophy of the Cross in heaven composed of light, placed above the sun, with his very eyes he affirmed he had seen, with inscription of this kind: BY THIS CONQUER. With it seen, both himself and all the soldiers, who were following him on I know not what journey, and who were spectators of the miracle were vehemently astonished. Meanwhile he himself, [c] and Christ himself in dreams, as he said, began to doubt in mind, what indeed this spectre wished to him: but to him thinking, and long and much pondering with himself, night came on. Then truly Christ of God appeared to him sleeping, with that sign which had been shown in heaven; and ordered that with a military standard, fashioned to the likeness of that which he had seen in the heavens, as a saving guard he should use in battles…
[22] Then astonished by the admirable vision, when he had decided that no other besides him whom he had seen God should be worshipped by him, the Priests, instructed in the mysteries of that arcane doctrine, he summoned to himself, and asked who that God was, and what the vision of that sign meant to him. They said this was God, the only Son of the one and only God: and trophy of victory, which he formerly conversing on earth had brought back from death: likewise the causes of his coming they taught him, giving him the accurate account of the Incarnation. But he desirous of learning listened to these discourses; moreover he was held by admiration of the divine presence exhibited to his sight. And when the heavenly vision and the interpretation of the Sacerdotal discourses he had compared with each other, he was confirmed in mind, holding for certain that the cognition of these things by the magisterium of God himself was being transmitted to him. Thence he himself appointed to give time to the reading of the divine books; and when he had taken the Priests of God for his assessors, that God whom he had seen with all observance to be worshipped he reckoned. [e] four times he routs the enemy, After these things fortified by the good hope, which he had placed in him, the conflagration of the tyrannical fury he undertook to extinguish… And although Maxentius all the places around the city of Rome and all of Italy, the towns, regions with an innumerable multitude of armed men and armies arranged for ambush on every side had fortified; into the first, second, and third line of the tyrant the Emperor borne, all in the very first attack scattered and put to flight, into the inner parts of Italy he penetrated. So far Eusebius, from chapter 24 of book 1 to chapter 38 contracted into fewer words, and soon subjoining the final victory, in the sight of the Roman city had at the Mulvian bridge, on the day XXIV of September in the year CCCXII.
[23] Where the three earlier victories were had we would not know, unless Nazarius taught in his Panegyric, that at Susa, [f] as before he had routed the confederate barbarians, Turin, and Verona it was fought. But also from the same Nazarius we know, that in the very beginning of his glorious yet perilous expedition Constantine had to fight against the Bructeri, Chamavi, Cherusci, Vangiones, Alamanni, Tubantes, who all individually, then likewise armed, by the conspiracy of a confederate society had blazed,… but by one attack of Constantine scattered, while they prepared their collected force, brought a swift victory. And this, by Eusebius more obscurely said or even passed over, having happened also after the Cross was seen, the more probable could seem, that Nazarius, although about the Cross the heathen man is silent, prefaces yet to this victory, as a thing turning In the mouth of all the Gauls, that armies were seen, which carried themselves as divinely sent..,.. They blazed with something fearful I know not what, flashing with shield-boss, [g] but I would say this happened before the Cross was seen, and the terrible light of heavenly arms burned… this was their conversation, this they bore among the hearers, We seek Constantine, we go to the help of Constantine. I judge nonetheless this battle with the barbarians to have been joined, before that Cross appeared, or that Constantine moved at all from the Rhine; yet in the very preparation for the Italian war, after he had spent the winter at Trier with the army. For indeed to barbarianism so great, although once vanquished, by no means to be trusted the Emperor reckoning; before he should cross the Rhine, with the legions to be led into Italy, the very limit he fortified with armies arranged, indeed even with fleets (as writes the author of another Panegyric coeval but uncertain) more solicitous about the Empire than his own security: and the forces being divided to that matter, he believed himself with few sufficient for the city to be liberated. [h] but the [Cross itself was seen before he moved from the Rhine,] With scarcely a fourth part of his army, against a hundred thousand armed men, leading about twenty-five thousand (as is gathered from Zosimus)..,… so quickly from the Rhine to the Alps he flew, that those who under their very ridges holding a town most fortified by wall and site, namely Susa, dared to resist and close the gates, did so not believing him present, on account of the incredible swiftness of his coming: So that author, no mention of any battle between the Rhine and Susa made.
[24] Indeed if you consider the names of peoples indicated by Nazarius, it will appear that nearly all that barbarianism conspired, which between the Rhine and the Elbe, the German Ocean and the Danube is enclosed in a square. But that so many peoples that in Alemannia, [i] in an uncertain place, of all the regions which the confederates inhabited nearer to Italy, are said to have convened (which is altogether uncertain), nothing else would follow, than that in Alemannia there was fighting at that time, which flowed between the winter quarters at Trier and the care expended on fortifying the Rhine: nothing else would also follow, than that the Cross appeared while the Emperor surveying the Rhenish fortifications, from place to place sedulously ran, not with the army, but with an unencumbered cohort of praetorian soldiers. For only is it said that that apparition drew into admiration of itself him and the whole soldiery, who indeed accompanied him as he was about to march somewhere and were spectators of the miracle, it drew, I say, into admiration him and all those soldiers, who him on some journey accompanying followed, and were spectators of the miracle. About the Rhine therefore acting Constantine the Cross was offered, but in a place as uncertain as that is long, whatever others may please to conjecture in favor of their country. The Priests, moreover those Christians, [k] and there the Emperor taught about the faith, whom Eusebius calls initiates of the words of God, whether they were Bishops, or (which I rather believe) Presbyters called from the nearest villages, seem to have been heard by Constantine in no other place than where he had spent the next night, which it would be equally vain by conjecture to seek. Those however did not make the Emperor a Catechumen, as the author of the titles distinguishing the books of Eusebius seems to wish, not Eusebius himself, expressly writing that this was done long after by the imposition of hands at Helenopolis by Bishops; but only gave him the first knowledge of the Lord's Incarnation. This knowledge moreover by his own zeal and reading he so increased and advanced, that gradually he came forth most knowing of Christian doctrine, as demonstrates that Oration, which composed by him Eusebius subjoins to his work, inscribed To the Assembly of Saints; and another, which pronounced before the Fathers of the Nicene Council Gelasius of Cyzicus exhibits.
[25] But these things long after. But on the morning following the saving vision of Christ himself, [l] [who already had ordered the standard to be made distinguished by the name of Christ] even before the aforesaid Priests were present, rising at dawn Constantine, the whole secret he set forth to his friends. Then having called together craftsmen of gold and gems, sitting in the middle of them, he depicted to them the appearance of the sign in speech, and ordered them in gold and gems the likeness of it to express: which we also several times to have seen we remember, says Eusebius, explaining its form in chapter 31 thus. A longer spear, covered with gold, has a transverse yardarm in the manner of a cross. Above on the very top of the spear was affixed a crown, woven with gems and gold: in this the saving appellation's sign, namely two letters that designated the name of Christ with the first apices, the letter P in the middle of itself crossed ; which letters the Emperor in his helmet to wear after these things also was accustomed. [m] on account of a square cloth affixed to the spear Moreover from the yardarm, which obliquely through the spear was thrust, there hung a certain veil, namely woven of purple, with precious stones joined together and with the brilliance of their light striking the eyes covered, and with much interwoven gold offering a certain inexplicable appearance of beauty to those gazing. And this veil affixed to the yardarm had its breadth equal to its length. But the very straight spear, from its lowest part for a great length extended, in the upper part under the very Sign of the Cross, up to the very top of the veil painted with various colors, bore the golden image of the Emperor dear to God and of his children, rising as far as the breast. Thus this place, far more accurately than the others, Valesius rendered, about the name of the sign itself he said nothing, because Eusebius did not express it. [n] it is called Labarum from a German word. There is indeed a form of this kind not unknown even to the Augustan age, as appears from coins struck from his age up to Constantine; and among the military standards representing a square veil pendent from a spear; which I believe were called vexilla by the Romans, since no other word suitable now occurs in writers. But in Constantine's age they began first to be called Labbara or Labara; about whose etymology many have said many things, ingeniously rather than solidly: rightly du Cange, that of the Germans they are as the invention, so the name: For Lap or Lab, a piece of cloth, bare a litter, a long pole, a staff, are said by all the peoples at the Rhine;
so that Lab-bare is a pole bearing a cloth pendent from itself; and even by the very name be understood among the Germans first fashioned that, which with a far more august appearance and the added sign of Christ Constantine ordered to be fashioned; and others to its likeness expressed to be borne before all subsequent armies: than which nothing is more frequent in his and his successors' coins.
CHAPTER IV.
Fictions contrary to the things already said, and certain new opinions founded on them.
[26] We have given on the day IV of May from four MSS. and Mombritius, the above-mentioned Writings on the finding of the Holy Cross; and how those are in every manner fabulous we have demonstrated. Yet because certain new and from ours very different opinions are found built on them, as on monuments not entirely to be despised; the part which pertains hither seems again to be referred here, and so to confirm what we have said, that it is no wonder, if, [a] The aforesaid fabulously altered in the writings on the Finding of the H. Cross as these things in so brief a time after the deed could be feigned and believed, so could also be feigned and believed those which are in the Acts of S. Sylvester written in nearly the same age. Those after the Prologue begin thus: In the two hundred thirty-third year, after the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the venerable worshipper of God, the great man Constantine reigning, in the sixth year of his reign, a great people of barbarians was gathered above the Danube, prepared for war against Romania. It was announced to King Constantine. Then gathering also himself a multitude of an army, he set out to meet them; and found them who had laid claim to the parts of Romania, and they were beside the Danube. Seeing however that the multitude was innumerable, he was saddened, and feared even unto death. But on that night a most splendid man coming raised him up, and said: Constantine, fear not, but look up into heaven, and see. And gazing into heaven he saw the sign of the Cross of Christ, constituted of clear light, and from above written in letters the title, In this conquer. With this sign seen, King Constantine made a likeness of the Cross, which he had seen in heaven: and rising made attack against the Barbarians, and made the sign of the Cross go before. And coming with his army upon the barbarians, he began to slay them at the next light: and the barbarians were afraid, and gave flight along the banks of the Danube, and a not small multitude died: and God gave on that day victory to King Constantine through the virtue of the holy Cross. But King Constantine coming into his city, called together all the Priests of all the gods or idols: and asked of them whose or what this sign of the Cross was, and they could not tell him. But certain of them answered, and said: This sign is of the heavenly God. But hearing this a few Christians, who were at the same time, came to the King, and evangelized to him the mystery of the Trinity and the coming of the Son of God, how he was born, and crucified, and on the third day rose. But King Constantine sending to Eusebius, Bishop of the city of Rome, made him come to him, and he catechized him in the faith of Christians and all the mysteries: and baptized him in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and he was confirmed in the faith of Christ. But he ordered everywhere churches to be built, but the temples of idols to be destroyed.
[27] That the sixth year of the Emperor Constantine fell in the year of the vulgar era CCCXI, is now plain from what has been said. [b] long ago condemned for falsity That Eusebius the Roman died some months earlier, in the year CCCX, is well known. Certain also, that before Constantinople was founded, there was none which from it as another Rome was called Romania. That into this, that is into ancient Thrace or with the name more broadly taken into Pannonia or Illyricum, the Sarmatians about to break in having crossed the Danube, were routed by Constantine in the year CCCXIX, is admitted: nor does it seem possible to be doubted, that this victory the author so ineptly joined with the apparition of the Cross, as with the finding of the same Cross made in the year CCCXXVI he joined the Pontificate of the Roman Eusebius, who is fictitiously said to have ordained the indicator of the wood of life Quiriacus Bishop of Jerusalem. Nevertheless Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius our Vesontionensian, [c] suggested the Vesontionensian Eusebius for the Roman to Chiffletius, having before his eyes a certain writing of the Church of his country much more recent, which he himself confesses proceeds according to the above-rejected, in the Dissertation he recently published, on the place, time, and other adjuncts of the Conversion of Constantine the Great, hoped to prove to the world, that the apparition of the Cross was earlier than the victory of Constantine over the barbarians named by Nazarius, although he makes them, not at the Danube, but at the Rhine in the field of Brisach to clash. By what counsel however? Namely to persuade that, in place of the Roman Eusebius is to be substituted the Vesontionensian, by whom along the way Constantine was instructed about the faith, having proceeded by the swiftest journey from Brisach to Vesontio with the army; and to the gates of the Alps almost in this order of stations and stages: Vesontio, Urba, Lausanne, Agaunum, Augusta Praetoria, Mount Cinisius, Susa.
[28] [d] on occasion of his successor Hilarius To be praised indeed is the zeal for adorning one's country, but I know not whether by anyone is it to be moderated more than by a historian; for unless he do this, the more learned he is, the more inclined he will be to defending fatherland traditions of whatever kind more spiritedly and confidently, nor will he be able to recognize how badly founded those are. The Vesontionensian tablets indeed had nothing about Eusebius, but named his successor Hilarius, with whom about the church to be built at Vesontio Helena dealt, following the footsteps of her Imperial son going against Maxentius, meanwhile while the pledge of victory is offered to the son to be seen from heaven. But how could Chiffletius persuade himself, [e] with whom S. Helena is said to have dealt. that Constantine, whom he knew to have flown from the Rhine to the Alps so quickly, that the Susanians could not believe him present, had set up his journey through Burgundy, by passing what he could have avoided the Vosges mountains, with a useless circuit of more than a hundred Italian miles; when far shorter way nor more hindered was through Helvetia and Savoy, leaving Vesontio far to the right? But what concerns Helena's encounter with Hilarius, he must defer it for some time, unless he wishes to confess her Christian before Constantine was, which the Vesontionensian writing altogether supposes; but Eusebius denies, a witness more worthy of trust, in book 3 of the Life of Constantine cap. 46, praising the piety of the Emperor even from this, that his mother, when she had not before been a worshipper of God, he made so pious and religious, as to seem to have been instructed by the common Saviour of all.
[29] [f] But she repudiated in 291 and left in Bithynia About to treat of S. Helena with the Latins on August XVIII, we have no need now to dispute more laboriously about her birth; meanwhile we hold, that she was not British, but Bithynian, and probably from that city, which afterwards her son in honor of his mother restored and wished to be called Helenopolis. There Constantius still a private man, about the year CCLXXIV, under the reign of Aurelian, took her as wife, as some wish, certainly made her mother of Constantine; and either her or another (if he had any married with more legitimate nuptials) he was forced to dismiss in the year CCLXXXI, when he was created Caesar, and married Theodora the daughter of Maximianus Herculius; from whom he begot other children named in history, Constantius the grandfather of Julian the Apostate, Anaballianus, Gallus, and Constantia later wife of Licinius. [g] she could not have seen the Gauls except after 312. It is therefore not credible that Helena followed Constantius the Caesar, already joined to another wife, into Britain two years later, and there clung to him; but rather, that in her country quietly she settled, until her son at length having obtained the free Empire, after Maxentius was extinguished, either into Italy summoned his mother, or himself crossing into Asia took her with him and made her Christian. That her then he should have sent with his son Crispus into Gaul and Belgium, that at Vesontio and Trier she herself dwelt for some time (which writers of both cities contend) as foundress and endower of notable churches in both places, I would not deny; it is enough if I have persuaded that, in too foreign a time is referred what at Vesontio she is said to have treated with the Bishop of that city Hilarius: nor from there can anything be had, by which either that Constantine passed through Vesontio, or that with that city's Bishop before Hilarius, Eusebius, dealt is proved.
[30] How many things then, for the Church and the Christian Religion, [h] The lies of Zosimus on the conversion of Constantine, piously and equally powerfully the Emperor did and decreed, through the whole rest of book one and book two pursues Eusebius of Caesarea: he is silent however on the sad things which intervened in the year CCCXXIV about his son Crispus and wife Fausta. These the Gentile historian Zosimus in book 2 thus exaggerates, that he gave Baronius occasion to establish, what from any kind of Acts of Sylvester he had received about the persecution of Christians about the same time, and the leprosy and baptism of Constantine following it. The very words of Zosimus, although full of slander and calumny, exacted to the fidelity of the Greek text, let them be brought into the midst. Thus then he has. After Licinius having been vanquished the universal Empire returned to the power of one Constantine; he no longer covered the malice implanted in him by nature, but acted all things by imperial command: for he who had used the ancestral sacred rites until then, not for the sake of honor, but of utility; and had believed the diviners, having experienced them truthful in all things which had happily predicted to him about the future; when he came to Rome, full of all arrogance, from his own domestic hearth he thought the beginning of impiety must be taken by him. And so his son Crispus, adorned with the title of Caesar (as I said before), having been brought into suspicion as if he had had relations with his stepmother Fausta, no account of natural law being had, he removed from the midst: and when his mother Helena bore so great a calamity with grieving mind, and an intolerable grief from the slaughter of the youth perceived, about to console her Constantine, healed evil with greater evil: for when he had ordered a bath to be heated above measure, and in it shut Fausta, dead he drew her out. [i] [by which it is feigned that he sought expiation from the Christians, denied by the Gentiles,] Of these things himself conscious, and besides of contemned sacraments, he came to the Priests, asking expiations for his crimes. But these answering, that no mode of expiation handed down was found, by which so great crimes could be expiated; a certain Egyptian from Iberia brought to Rome, and made familiar to the palatine women, encountered Constantine; and to him affirmed, that the faith of Christians was expurgative of any sin; since to it had been promised, that even the impious receiving it would at once be placed outside the guilt of every fault. This discourse since Constantine had readily received, and the ancestral sacred rites indeed had dismissed, and given himself to those things which the Egyptian taught, he made the beginning of impiety, by holding divination suspect. For because many prosperous things through it had been predicted to him, and obtained their event in fact; he feared lest to others also, about to consult it against him, what was about to happen would be predicted: and therefore he turned himself to abolishing all such things. But a certain ancestral festival approaching, on which it was necessary the army go up to the Capitol, the ascent of this kind impudently exploding, and the sacred religion treading underfoot,
he incurred the hatred of the Senate and people. Not bearing the reproaches cast almost at himself by all, he sought a city to be made equal to Rome, in which he might constitute a palace for himself… and went over to Byzantium.
[31] Things similar to these and almost the same having often heard at the same time as Zosimus, a hundred years after the matter was done, Sozomen writing book 1 chap. 5, thus responded. [a] already heard before from the Gentiles I know indeed the Gentiles commonly were accustomed to narrate, that Constantine, when he had killed certain men nearest in kin, and had consented to the slaying of his son, led by penitence about expiation of his crimes consulted Sopater the Philosopher, who at that time held the succession of the Plotinian school; that he however responded, that there was no expiation of such crimes; by which repulse the Emperor disturbed, fell upon Bishops, who promised that by penitence and the laver of baptism they would purge him from every crime. To these therefore, since they had answered according to the desire of his soul, he delighted, looked up to their religion, and not only was himself made Christian, then impelled subjects to do the same. But these things to me seem to be fabricated by those, who study to vilify the Christian religion. For Crispus, on whose account Constantine they say to have needed lustration, [b] Sozomen refuted, in the year of his father's Empire the twentieth met death; who while still alive, as obtaining the second place of the Empire, and adorned with the dignity of Caesar, many together with his father had passed laws for the Christians, as the marks of times subjoined to individual laws and the names of legislators still testify. But that Sopater in the first place is in no way probable to have come into colloquy with Constantine, who at that time in those parts only, which are placed about the Ocean and the Rhine, possessed the Empire… Nor at all credible is it that he was ignorant, that Hercules son of Alcmena, after the slaughter of his children and after the killing of Iphitus, whom although a friend and guest he had iniquitously slain, was expiated by the rites of Ceres at Athens. That the Gentiles therefore promised expiation of crimes of this kind, those things which I have said sufficiently establish; and at the same time convict of falsehood those, who Sopater affirm pronounced the contrary; nor would I dare say that those things were unknown to a Philosopher, who for the sake of erudition was held among the Gentiles in that age most noble.
[32] [c] as Baronius rises in favor of Zosimus, This so reasonable response of Sozomen would have satisfied no one, I believe, except Baronius, sailing with his prejudices about the Roman Constantinian baptism, found by what means to defend [his] convenience, arising from Zosimus's calumny drawn into his parts, when he believes the Egyptian newcomer from Iberia to have been carried from Spain Hosius the Cordovan Bishop, an Egyptian, that is, a Magus, believed by the Gentiles, who persuaded baptism to be sought from Sylvester. Therefore he first accuses Sozomen of incredible stupidity, [d] of stupidity, who denies Crispus killed by his father, by the one argument, that Crispus living reached even to the twentieth year of his father's Empire, meanwhile passing many laws with him. But I see Sozomen did not even doubt about the slaughter of Crispus; but from the laws, which at that time he passed for the Christians with his father, most rightly argued against the Gentiles, that this was not the cause for Constantine to change religion, who long before was proved a Christian. Against the Gentiles, I say, not against those who from the beginning indeed would say Constantine had been Christian, but long after the faith taken up returned again to the rites of the Gentiles indeed and to persecuting Christians, brought back by the horror of that unhappy deed, to seeking baptism till then deferred: for such future ones at some time Sozomen could not divine, who about that Roman Baptism had heard nothing, or at least believed nothing.
[33] [e] of ignorance of history, Then Baronius pities Sozomen, opposing Zosimus, that Sopater could not have spoken with Constantine, acting so far away, at the beginning of the Empire; as if Zosimus had said, that Crispus then was killed, who expressly refers it after Licinius was vanquished: and Behold, he says, into what windings of errors ignorance of things and times has cast him. But with the words and pardon of Baronius the same as he himself asks from Sozomen, I would say, what is more insipid or inept than this: to feign Sozomen responding to Zosimus, who at the same time as he, in a different region living and writing, perhaps never even heard the name of Zosimus; and naming Sopater unknown to Zosimus refutes those things, which the Gentiles were commonly accustomed to narrate, not what he had read in some author: for besides Zosimus, more prudently measuring the times, no one is known to have written such things about the Conversion of Constantine, no more in this worthy of trust, than in that he lies that he up to that time used divinations. But how the common crowd of Gentiles could so dote, as to confound the slaying of Crispus with the beginnings of Constantine, in which to have been made Christian could be established to them; will not ask he who has seen, how also Christians, in the same century in which Sozomen wrote, could dote about the history of the finding of the Cross and the Acts of Sylvester.
[34] Finally Baronius accuses Sozomen of inadvertence or oblivion, he did not think, that this school from the discipline of Plato held, that with divine justice watching over men, who had perpetrated slaughter; would not otherwise obtain pardon from the gods, unless they themselves suffered the same which they had inflicted on others; wherefore if without such expiation souls were freed from the body, they would suffer punishments among the infernal regions, and again be cast down into new bodies, that necessarily they undergo the same which before they had perpetrated on others. But these things to Sozomen reproaching Baronius, forgets or does not himself notice, that a few lines before from Eunapius he had written about Sopater, that being by nature appetent of sublime things, in mind great and fierce, scorning to spend his age in the rest of the crowd, with great speed ran to the court of the Emperor, as if about to subdue the purpose and impulse of Constantine and overcome by reason: certainly to such estimation and power he came, that the Emperor charmed and captured by the man, publicly had him as assessor at his right hand: a thing incredible to hear and see. This man of such kind Baronius could believe to have been so scrupulous, that he would not have dissimulated that peculiar dogma of his one school, the occasion offered so much desired and so certain of recalling the Emperor to ancestral superstitions? so even little politic that he did not see, how easily he could from that sublime grade of favor be cast down, if with a harsher response he should sadden the Prince, when courtly chiefs, broken with envy, that the Royal one was learning Philosophy, would omit nothing which by intrigue would be convenient for removing him? The same of the Priests of idols, whom Zosimus mentions, and with much greater right believe to have been said; who without controversy the desired expiation and familiar to their rites would at once have promised, if they had been required. [g] with no small injury to Constantine, Meanwhile it seems very incongruous, that he who by so notable a miracle of the Cross in heaven and Christ appearing through vision was led to the Christian faith; in worshipping the same made languid, or rather apostatizing from the same, by such authors should have been as it were compelled to laugh at the same. And this should have been considered by the most learned Baronius before that he so much should contend for Zosimus, in other things manifestly mendacious, against Sozomen. But this we readily pardon to his pious affection toward the opinion, more useful (as he thought) for the Roman Church; let only in turn be pardoned to me, that I have preferred the now most received opinion of Cardinal Perron and of nearly all the learned men through Gaul, to his authority, otherwise to be venerated by me.
[35] Now what concerns the so exaggerated cruelty of Constantine, exceedingly defecting from the best beginnings, which also could and ought to have fallen on a Christian the same Baronius contends; and which gave occasion to someone, of publishing this most biting Epigram, Who would seek the golden ages of Augustus? [h] whose certain harsher Acts These are gem-set, but Neronian. This was the petulance of the Gentiles, reproaching Constantine for domestic griefs, because they grieved that their sacred rites under him were being abolished. But let Christians excuse the Christian Emperor, with Eusebius book 4 chap. 14, and say, that the humanity and goodness implanted in him, and the sincerity of faith and morals, led him to this, that he believed the piety feigned in appearance of those men, who either for Christians were held, or sincere benevolence toward him with a cunning mind simulated. Whom he when he himself had believed, sometimes perhaps fell into things little becoming, the envy of a malign demon scattering this as it were a stain on his other praises. And this indeed he generally about all in which Constantine in any way to some seemed culpable: but about the slayings if he had wished to render an account in particular, [i] could and ought to be excused, he would have said perhaps with Baronius himself, that Licinius the Younger, born from his sister Constantia, although the cause was commonly unknown, probably yet had been an accomplice with his father; in his son Crispus, unhappy more than guilty; in his wife Fausta, even a just Judge to be called. The numerous friends, whom successively killed Eutropius writes book 10, according to the most ancient edition of the year 1545, and whom Baronius (his pen erring, as we believe, by imprudence) calls innumerable, most I would believe deserved it, that by the excessive easiness of the Prince at last they were detected to have been abused, on account of their exuberant malice, as Eusebius speaks, and insatiable cupidity; such without doubt was that Sopater the Philosopher, at length by the action of Ablavius killed; and that by the just dispensation of God, because he had attempted to alienate Constantine from true religion. [k] certainly they had no connection with the faith. But of those very few perhaps, or even none, in that year underwent death, in which Constantine is more pretended to have raged; truly as I said successively were removed from the midst, even long after the death of Crispus and Fausta, and that which is pretended the Roman baptism: for neither does Eutropius mark the time. And though more than at other times then had been killed by that account; what does this pertain to the Christian faith, and the name of persecutor must be impinged on Constantine, when not even one is named, to whom for that cause even a hair of the head was touched?
[36] These things written there came into my hands the notable work of Selected chapters of ecclesiastical history, published at Paris by R. P. Natalis Alexander of the Order of Preachers, where Dissertation 22 and 23 are wholly on the Baptism and always orthodox faith of Constantine, and accurately are refuted even the most minute of Baronius's instances, and the fabulosity of the Sylvestrine Acts is more evidently demonstrated; also is exploded Anselm the Bishop of Havelberg book 3 of the Dialogues, which he dedicated to Eugene III in the year MCXLV, the first asserter of a baptism repeated by Constantine, as a stranger in the history of the Arians. Finally from more recent assertors of this our opinion he alleges Aeneas Silvius in the Dialogues, published two years before the Pontificate undertaken, and Cardinal Cusanus book 3 of the Concordantia Catholica chap. 2. I indeed do not think that either scrutinized this question ex professo: neither however could have been ignorant of the common opinion, nor could contradict the same unless he judged, that whatever was alleged of authority or tradition for it was of no moment, compared with Eusebius, Jerome, and Ambrose, whom contrary
they knew to have written. The Reader will be able to find all these things, in the aforesaid work of Selecta more fully explained, and not unprofitably to compare with ours, since they will receive and give light mutually. He moreover who wishes to know more distinctly the things done throughout the whole world by Constantine, besides Eusebius, attempting to write a panegyric rather than an ordered history, and dissimulating very many things; and besides the Greek authors and their Latin interpreters, [a] More about him to be sought elsewhere he has the Ecclesiastical Annals, collected with the greatest zeal by Baronius, in which for his time the chief subject is Constantine, equally as for other more recent zealous students of ecclesiastical antiquity of this and the previous age. The temples in Old and New Rome (of which the one he yielded to the Roman Pontiff, the other he himself built for himself) erected magnificently with Constantinian liberality, Anastasius the Bibliothecarian in the Life of Sylvester, and Codinus in the Origines Constantinopolitanae diligently enumerate. But lest the reader curious of numismatic erudition, from so fertile a field of such delights, should complain of being sent away altogether empty, it pleases here to subjoin a double Parergon for a coronis, as the last testament of Alexander Wilthemius ours, a man most knowing of sacred and profane antiquity, celebrated indeed by one specimen alone while he lived, that which is inscribed Diptychon Leodiense and Appendix to it; [b] here two Parerga are given. but more to be celebrated after death, if some day are brought to light the long-prepared Annals of San-Maximianum and the Antiquitates Luciliburgenses. The first to be printed at Antwerp about the year MDCLXXI Constantine had given occasion, in the frontal image before the new edition of the Trier Annals expressed in a far different scheme than was fitting. The last will give the latest Annotations published at Liège in the year MDCLXXVII, after which to write anything more was not allowed by impeding paralysis.
PARERGON I
Images of Constantine the Greatest and D. Helena Augusta, illustrated from their coins by Alexander Wilthemius S. J.
BY THE AUTHOR WILTHEM.
[37] There are no images of souls, says C. Pliny the Younger; which if there were, it would indeed be more excellent to paint them than of bodies, and a good man would often prefer to be known, than to be seen. Now in the place of the soul, what could of man, [a] The author seeks images depraved, art has transferred face and visage into tablets, with figures most similar thus propagated for an age. But inscience at once inflicted injury on the most noble invention with lying images, license so much indulging itself, that even into monsters it converts the most beautiful animal made to the likeness of God. It adds to the injury another crime, with clothing and adornment placed around, in which there is discrimination neither of person, nor of place, nor of time.
[38] The true image of Constantine the Greatest, his innumerable coins had preserved. The unskilled sculptor could hence have drawn an example, [b] also of Constantine: to whom is affixed a barbaric scheme, who in place of Constantine the Greatest proposed to us some Geta, or Scythian, or a Knight of the games, which they call tournaments, in a scheme altogether ridiculous. See indeed the monster of the image. The face bearded, and (unless sight deceives) the lips bristling with mustache. A Scythian turban on the head: around it, a radiate crown, with heron's plumes infixed. In the right hand, a lance of the games, which I said, equestrian: in the left, a shield with the face of Gorgon: at the side, a Persian acinaces. Cuirass, breeches, greaves, such as in tournaments, of perpetual iron plate. The paludamentum plainly huge, given to airs and winds, as if in this Roman dress ignorance is exulting. Is this Constantine the Greatest, half-Geta, and half tournament Knight? O fashioner (for who would call you painter), o fashioner, I say, exquisite! [c] such as would not even befit Athalaric the Goth. What if you had undertaken to fashion some Goth from old history? What if Athalaric, or Vitiges, or some prince of that barbaric people? What prodigies you here would patch together! At least Athalaric, if you should clothe him in barbaric dress, you would err the whole heaven away. I have his coin, to be seen among few, which by way of prelude I have brought into the table. What is on the reverse part is a womanly head with crested helmet, professing itself by its title, except that the truncated word TA, must be filled out, and to be read INVICTA ROMA: as also is inscribed on the money of Attalus and Theodoric. But the coin turned over behold Athalaric. See how in dress and habit he has stood entirely Roman! For his mother Amalasuintha, with the morals and discipline of the Romans had taken care that he be imbued from childhood, as Procopius is the Author. But you, I judge, would have made him a Sarmatian, or a Helvetian, or I know not what. But have your fictions to yourself. [d] That [image was to be taken from coins.] The iconic image of Constantine the Greatest, that is the true image, receive, whoever love truth; true, I say, because from his coins. For on coins the Romans imposed the faces of Princes from the true. Whence that law of those skilled in Roman money, even with the money lightly inspected, from the face of Caesar at once to pronounce, whose it is. But Constantine's coins no other shall I propose, than those struck at Trier; not because elsewhere stamped is of dissimilar form, but because those are more to the matter.
[39] Of these moreover the observation of Constantine's coins is twofold, in the face, in the dress. The former always the same, the latter varied. The face shining, especially of one already older; an aquiline nose, a shaven beard. Nor have Cedrenus and Nicephorus described otherwise; with thick neck, hair not dense, beard sparse, nose somewhat curved, leonine eyes. The dress, threefold; ordinary, military, [e] coin I exhibits Constantine in ordinary dress and consular. In the first coin Constantine in ordinary and daily dress is clothed, laurel surrounding the head. For he used this in the earlier years of the Empire, in later (as Aurelius Victor hands down) adorning the royal habit with gems, and the head with a perpetual diadem; and there is a coin among ours P. Const., that is, struck at Constantinople, in which Constantine [is] with diadem. The cause of the perpetual diadem brings forward Patmeus Silvius in the laterculus, which he composed under the Coss. Postumianus and Zeno in the year of the vulgar epoch CCCCXLVIII, and published the following year, under Consul Protogenes. For thus about Constantine, A diadem to his head, [f] with a vow of many Birthdays, on account of the hairs flowing back from the forehead (for which thing the perfumed concoction of soap of the same name is) by which they would be bound, he invented, whose custom today is preserved. The reverse face of this coin, within the wreath of laurel contains these letters PLUR. NATAL. FEL, which I judge are to be read thus: Plures natales felices, or feliciter More birthdays happy, or happily; a formula, before this day (so far as I have ascertained by reading) never heard, and so worthy to be examined.
[40] In that excellent Calendar of Philocalus, which from the library of my grandfather John Brenner received the most learned man Aegidius Bucherius gave to the public, two birthdays of Constantine the Greatest are noted, one on the XIII Kal. of March, the other on the VIII Kal. of August, of which birthdays one to pertain to our coin, easily is said; not the same, which of the two. As to the first day is asked, is that one in which D. Helena brought forth Constantine into the light by a most happy birth. [g] This however is double: of Life XIII Kal. March. Certain this from the beginning of the Calendar, of which this is the title: Birthdays of the Caesars. Then are subjoined distributed into months the days, on which each of the good Emperors was born; and about Constantine indeed in the month of February it is so written: D. Constantini, XIII Kal. Martii; on entirely the same day, as in the Calendar, which has thus; XIII Kal. Martias Nat. D. Constantini C. M. XXIV that is, the Birthday of the Divine Constantine. Circus games. Twenty-four courses. Nor little did he err from the truth, who applied this birthday to Constantine the Younger, son of the Greatest. For the appellation Divine stands in the way; which Constantine the Younger could not deserve, after he, having declared civil war on his brother Constans, in the battle at Aquileia fell with miserable slaughter. But Father Constantine received into heaven, not history only, but also coins profess. And though this reason were lacking, the excellent authority of the Fasti of Hydatius and the Laterculus of Silvius suffices for utterly removing the error. In the Fasti thus it is, Gallicanus and Bassus Coss. Under these Coss. three Caesars were elevated, Crispus, Licinius, and Constantine, on the day… Kal. of March. The number of the day passed over in the Fasti, or sunken in a lacuna, Silvius thus represents: III Kal. of March. Birthday of Constantine. But these are not to be received concerning the day of the natal of the empire of Constantine the Younger, since also the other birthday of him Silvius noted, in this manner, VII Ides of August. Birthday of Constantine the Younger. For since this day to the rise of his Empire, as previously said things demonstrate, cannot pertain; it remains, that it be the birthday of life; and hence other than the genuine birthday of Constantine the father; for thus with Silvius I would call the day, on which we are born. Since indeed about the born Placidius Valentinian, he notes thus: VI Non. of July, the genuine Birthday of the Lord Valentinian. And about the same day, thus Marcellinus Comes in indiction II under Monaxius and Plinta Coss.: Valentinian the Younger at Ravenna father Constantius and mother Placidia, V. * Non. of July was born.
[41] [h] of the Empire, VIII Kal. August. I come to the other birthday of Constantine the Greatest, noted in the Calendar of Philocalus, of which this is the formula, in nothing differing from the former: VIII Kal. Aug. Nat. D. Constantini C. M. XXIV. This is the birthday of the Empire. For when Constantius Chlorus the father of Constantine at York in Britain about to die was lying down, as heir of empire and successor he named Constantine the Pious, with Chrocus especially striving, King of the Allemanni, who was then in his stipends. Continually the soldier raised Constantine, although resisting, as Caesar. This was done VIII Kal. Aug. under Constantius and Galerius VI Coss. in the vulgar year CCCVI. Thus Constantine created Caesar, soon for constituting the affairs of the Empire crossed into Belgium. There were repressed the barbarians threatening the Rhine: Augusta Treverorum began to be restored. Constantine staying here came to from Italy Maximianus Herculius, and gave his daughter Fausta as wife, and with the wife the title of Augustus; from which day Constantine, the appellation of Caesar laid aside, Augustus began to be named. They hand down moreover Eusebius and Zosimus, that for the interval of one year Constantine bore himself only as Caesar, modesty conquering ambition. And within this space of time (as this first I shall define) was struck our coin, on which Constantine is inscribed NOB. C. that is Nobilis Caesar.
[42] [i] On its anniversary But about the day (which is most asked) this also is beyond controversy, by no means could be struck and brought into public on VIII Kal. of August, on which day Constantine at York resisting, and trying to flee with spurs subjected to his horse (as the Panegyrist hands down) the soldiers as Caesar, not so much made, as compelled to be. It remains therefore, that on the first yearly Birthday of the Empire entered upon by Constantine, that is, VIII Kal. of August in the year CCCVII, it seems to have been promulgated, with vow of more thereafter happy Birthdays. For although no other than quinquennial, decennial, quindecennial, vicennial, tricennial, and the like days of begun Empire used to be celebrated (as history and coins demonstrate) yet credible, this first yearly birthday of the Empire of Constantine, performed with a singular zeal of the people, not only with Circus games then exhibited, but also in perpetuity
decreed, and that matter publicly placed in the tables of the Fasti and calendars; and that to the celebrity of that day might accede, the published money of Constantine, with vow of more happy Birthdays, whence that our coin exists.
[43] To me however by I know not what taste of his own otherwise to savor seems the formula of the coin, [a] whether the coin was struck at Trier? altogether singular, and not enough fitting for vows of the Birthdays of the Empire, accustomed to be repeated through quinquennia and decennia only. Indeed if the quinquennial and decennial, and other votive coins of that kind you should attend to, you would not easily see any with the word of Birthdays. So that to me it is nearly persuaded, that the Birthdays inscribed on our coin, are truly that, which they sound, that is, the first anniversary days of life. For that is the simple and obvious interpretation. Hence I would believe Constantine, after VIII Kal. of August in Britain he was made Caesar, the barbarian enemy soon vanquished at the Rhine, thence at Trier appearing, received with the highest congratulation of all in winter quarters, and on the next day XIII of the Kalends of March, his Birthday, on which he was brought forth by Helena, with the joy still fervent of the Empire entered upon and recent victory, not only celebrated, but even in perpetuity decreed with the spectacle of Circus games, and with vows publicly conceived and inscribed on money, that this most happy day of Constantine born, more times thereafter on annual spaces should recur; whence into Calendars the same day with games of the Circus was relayed, and from that money then stamped that coin came to us, with the formula of vows of more happy Birthdays. This is my opinion: to others, what shall be pleasing, to opine be entire and free. To the other coins of Constantine I proceed.
[44] [b] Coin II and III the military dress, Of the second coin and the third, the dress is military; varied not in kind, but in form. For with a shield sometimes the left hand is fortified, with a spear the right: the breast always cuirassed, and the head helmeted: the crest imposed on the helmet, now is raised and spreads in the appearance of a fan, now bent according to the curve of the highest helmet verges to the back of the head. Memorable, that on the helmet of the first coin and on the reverse face of the second, are seen the monograms of Christ's name. The fourth coin has Constantine as Consul in the Trabea, [c] IV represents the Consular. bearing the eagle-bearing sceptre according to custom in his hand, with laurel still surrounding the head, and with hairs as if into ringlets curled veiling the upper forehead, by the art, as I judge, of the barber, on account of the rarity and falling out of his hair, about which above. [d] V the Prince of youth. Let him also be seen as the Prince greatest with the whole body. Military standards to him in each hand: the paludamentum restricted, not in the manner of a swelling sail: the cuirass, extended to the knees. Arms, moderately beyond the elbow; legs, to the calves, nude, with jeweled boots. Princes of youth in the Roman republic were those, who in the equestrian descent (they called it Troy) led the column. Afterwards Caesars sometimes sought this office, and held it for great, to be inserted in their Imperial titles the Principate of youth, as here Constantine already Augustus, but adolescent, his youthful face on the coin proving it.
[45] [e] The coin of mother Helena to be distinguished from Helena wife of Julian. So Constantine being restored to himself in image, to his mother's image also let us write claims: for also for this not unlearned men have substituted another. And although Jacobus Chiffletius had already provided for this evil, a man most clear in erudition, having proposed three coins of Helenas, of Constantine the Greatest's mother, of the wives of Caesars Crispus and Julian; not however enough was this noted by following writers, in whom Alfordus, with Helena wife of Julian substituted for the Divine Helena mother of Constantine. But these troubles dispel even the coins alone, well inspected. Behold therefore the money of Theodora Augusta, the second wife of Constantius Chlorus. Compare this for a little with the coin of D. Helena, his first consort, who brought forth Constantine the Greatest. You note I think with entirely the same adornment dressed and fashioned the head of each, with a moderate fold of hairs let down to the ears and curls hanging down on the forehead; in this only difference, that laurel encircles the hair of Theodora, while a band or diadem surrounds the head of Helena; perhaps because the religious woman repudiated the laurel dedicated to Apollo. Most worthy moreover of observation is the Cross, which the two coins manifestly represent in the reverse part.
[46] Contemplate now also the money of Helena wife of Julian. You see hair composed far otherwise; namely tight and smoothly combed, with no fold of hair let down to the ears. A band indeed crowns the hair crosswise, [f] from the adornment of the head. but besides this another from the middle of the forehead reaches the crown, whence inclined to the back of the head makes that adornment, which it is to discern in the money of Aelia Flaccilla and Galla Placidia, consorts of Theodosius the Great. By the dressing therefore and adornment of the head all dispute is resolved, with no doubtful trust, that she must be Helena mother of Constantine, who has equal adornment of head with Theodora: but to whom similar with Flaccilla and Placidia, must be Helena wife of Julian, who to those later Augustas is near in time. Distinguish therefore, learned men, and the two Helenas one from the other separate, nor exchange their supposititious images in turn.
Annotated* Read VI.
PARERGON II
The Consular coins of Constantine and his sons illustrated by the same Alexander Wilthemius S. J.
[47] [g] The form of the Consular Trabea By comparing in chapter five our Diptychs and several Consular coins of Emperors, I seem to have effected that they should give each other no small light. To increase this I now bring forward other Consular coins of the Caesars. Whereas therefore Trabeas, or painted Togas of later Consuls, I noted have departed much from the old Toga, that already from the times of Probus Augustus to have prevailed I find, and indeed in a form far different from that which is in our Diptychs of Anastasius and Astyrius. For the Toga of these from the old retains a twin fold: that without nearly any fold from the shoulder hangs, in nearly the same image, in which are those, which we now in sacred dress call Cope. Such moreover Trabeas it is to see in many coins. [h] from Consular coins to be learned: We have eleven kinds of Probus, of Diocletian one, of Maximianus three kinds; and on one indeed of these is inscribed his decennial Vows, corresponding to the Consulate of himself and Constantius Chlorus, of the year CCXCIV; one of Galerius, one of Constantine the Greatest, of Crispus and Constantine his sons one each; in all which money are the faces of Princes to the breast, surrounded at the shoulders with a magnificent Trabea like the one coin of Constantine the Younger excepted, in which he is without sceptre, but only with the Trabea veiling the shoulders, and with radiate crown bound about the head; to denote perhaps, that he then ruled the Empire of the West under his father, and so was both Consul and Caesar, and King. Therefore both this, and all the coins which I have enumerated, I say are Consular, or struck in their Consulates. Add to these the coin of Licinius the elder, among the Arschotans by Henry Rubenius exhibited, similarly with his trabeated image; but in place of a sceptre, with a mappa rolled up of the Circus placed in the left hand. From ours it helps to propose for inspection the coins of Constantine the Greatest and his sons Crispus and Constantine, painted by the most elegant hand of Alexander Leclercq, most studious of antiquities, my friend.
[48] [i] Of these certain are of Constantine and his sons, You see on these three coins inscribed Vicennial Vows; which to have been of Constantine the Greatest, [k] inscribed to Vicennial Vows: with the honor of those solemnities communicated to his sons, come now let it be shown. Constantine the father held Vicennial twice: first at Nicomedia, then at Rome. Of the Roman Vicennial of Constantine Hydatius mentions at his VII Consulate and of Constantius Caesar his son, in the year CCCXXVI. Under these consuls Crispus was killed, and Constantine published Vicennial at Rome; namely in the twentieth year of his Principate; since indeed under Constantius the father and Galerius VI Consuls, in the year CCCVI, at York in Britain, on VIII Kal. of August he was created Caesar. With Hydatius on the time of the Roman Vicennial of Constantine, agrees the Chronicle of Eusebius; as I will soon say. All things therefore square well; namely the same year both of the Roman Vicennial, and of the Consulate of Constantine the Greatest, with both expressed by one and the same coin, that is, with the Vicennial vows of him inscribed on the altar, and with the image of the same fashioned in Consular dress. It is therefore plainly that coin Consular, struck under Constantine as Consul, and at his Roman Vicennial. [l] some pertain to the Vicennial celebrated at Rome. Besides these of Constantine the Greatest at once Consular and Vicennial coins, struck for his Roman Vicennial, there are also others in our Library Constantinian coins, merely Vicennial, and of three kinds. Of one kind are those, in whose front face is the face of Constantine helmeted, in military dress: another kind exhibits Constantine in ordinary Imperial dress: each kind on the back face has imposed on an altar a globe, with the title of Vicennial Vows, and the circumscription Beatæ tranquillitatis. The third kind has Constantine engraved, in the same ordinary Augustal dress, and circumscribed, Constantinus Maximus Augustus: but on the reverse part within a laurel wreath are noted Vicennial vows, and around in a circle Domini nostri Constantini Maximi. All which Vicennial coins, since they represent Constantine without Consular ornaments, to his Vicennial of Nicomedia, at which time he himself was not Consul, must be referred I think.
[49] [m] The coins of his sons to the Nicomedian. But, what about the money of Crispus and Constantine his sons, which I also placed above? Is it also itself Consular? It is. Not indeed struck for the Roman Vicennial of Constantine, but for the Nicomedian. Let credit be added to the statement. About the time of Constantine's Vicennial of Nicomedia, until now perplexedly and variously handed down by the ancients. Eusebius, in book 4 of the Life of Constantine chap. 4, both in the title and in the chapter itself, hands down that the Vicennial of Constantine were celebrated at the time of the Nicene Synod, that is, in the year CCCXXV. To which year also in his Chronicle, as in Latin published it D. Jerome, it is so written: Vicennial of Constantine at Nicomedia held, and the following year at Rome celebrated; which words Prosper and Cassiodorus Senator seized; and the former indeed appended under Consuls Constantine VII and Constantius, that is, in the year CCCXXVI; the latter however under January and Justus, that is in the year CCCXXVIII: badly each and unseasonably. Eusebius moreover needs interpretation. For in the year CCCXXV, [n] Were these celebrated in the year 325, on VIII Kal. of August, Constantine began the XX year of his principate, when already then at Nicaea from XVII Kal. of July the Fathers had come together in council. And hence, if account of years only is had, must be subscribed to Eusebius: for it was truly that year CCCXXV, the rising twentieth of the Empire of Constantine, and so deservedly (which the same Eusebius hands down) prayers and vows on account of that year were offered, and indeed in the City, as the same Eusebius speaks, surnamed of victory, that is at Nicaea; although also of Nicomedia it can be said. To Eusebius accedes the author of the Alexandrian chronicle, thus writing of Constantine at the Consulate of Paulinus and Julian, that is at the year often-said CCCXXV, And at the same time he celebrated the Vicennial.
[50] But the question is not concerning the vows and prayers offered throughout the whole world in various places and times for the Vicennalia of Constantine; or rather in the year 324, but concerning those solemn vows, which were thereafter referred into the public Annals and into the Fasti for the sake of eternal memory, which were those of Nicomedia and of Rome, concerning which Eusebius does not treat in the books on the life of Constantine. It remains therefore that we dig out their time, especially that of Nicomedia, from elsewhere; yet not from the Hieronymian Chronicle of Eusebius, and much less from Prosper and the Senator, whom it is manifest to have erred; although the fault of the Hieronymian Chronicle is the less, as that which came nearer to the true year of Constantine's Nicomedian Vicennalia, which is 324. A new matter, you say, and hitherto handed down by no one; in which his sons bore the Consulship. I add, however, a true one. For this the coins of Crispus and Constantine the Younger prove, on which those two Caesars are in the dress and habit of Consuls, and inscribed upon the altar the Vicennalian vows. For since that Consular dress doubtless makes those coins Consular money, and accordingly stamped under Crispus and Constantine the Younger as Consuls; it must surely be confessed that the Vicennalian vows noted upon the same Consular money pertain to the Consulship of Crispus and Constantine the Younger, and were performed in the same Consulship, that is in the year 324. But they themselves never held their own Vicennalia. Wherefore (since these Vicennalia are not, nor can be, theirs) it certainly follows that they are the father's Vicennalia, Constantine granting this to the Consulship of his own children, that it might be honored by the pomp and celebrity of his Vicennalia. But since the Roman Vicennalia of Constantine, as is established from Hydatius, were performed under Constantine himself for the seventh time and his son Constantius the Caesar as Consuls, that is in the year 326, it remains that the Vicennalia of the same Constantine the Great put forth under Crispus and Constantine the Younger as Consuls are those of Nicomedia, of the year 324, not of the year 325; in which the consuls were not Crispus and Constantine the Younger, but Paulinus and Julianus.
[51] But you fight against it: So then, you say, the Vicennalia of Constantine the Great in the year 324, Anticipated vows also are found on coins, that is one year before he should begin the twentieth year of his Empire? What would you do, if the coins, irrefragable witnesses, compel it? Although the Emperors were not always so religious, that to the begun or completed years of Empire they should make the Quinquennial, Decennial, Vicennial vows, and the rest in succession, correspond to perfection; but, as they were truly vows, and accordingly regarded future rather than past times (for no one vows or wishes for things past) they often anticipated the day of the begun or completed Empire; nay, they sometimes even conceived their vows of years which they did not even attain by living. Let it be permitted to bring forth our coins in testimony. Of Probus, on which within a laurel garland is this writing: VOTIS X. PROBI AUG. ET XX. when he himself not only did not pass a vicennium, but not even a decennium in the purple, slain below the seventh year of his empire. Galerius scarcely attained the eighth year of his empire, yet his coin has inscribed Decennial vows, in this memorable form VOT. X. F. K. that is, in Decennial vows fortunate Carthage. So on our coin of Maximian Herculius is read SALVIS AUGG. ET CÆSS. FEL. KART. or, the Augusti and Caesars being safe, fortunate Carthage. Severus, under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian with Constantius Chlorus scarcely four years a Caesar, displays on a coin the Decennalia. Magnentius and Decentius the brothers scarcely extended their tyranny into the third year, and yet their coins are with Quinquennial vows. Julian the Apostate, having held the Principate only of eight years, inscribed on a silver coin Tricennial vows, to be multiplied with Quadricennial. A few months saw Jovinian Augustus, and his coin has struck upon it Quinquennial vows. So far were those vows not always either discharged or conceived in their own years.
[52] But you take up arms again, and again you fight. What have the father's Vicennalia to do with Crispus and Constantine the Younger? Why do their coins, of Caesars only and not yet of Augusti, display Vicennial vows, and make them equal in this matter to the father, the Augustus, the vicennial Prince? Opportunely! For thus by fighting you furnish to truth the material of conquering. The Roman Vicennalia inscribed on the coins of Crispus You deny therefore that the Vicennial vows of Constantine the Great pertain in any way to his sons Crispus and Constantine the Younger, and accordingly you ask why the father's Vicennalia are inscribed on their coins. But I have rendered the reason, and have said, that it was done for the sake of honor, the father honoring the Consulship of his sons by the issue of coins, which should have inscribed upon them his own Vicennalia of Nicomedia, celebrated under the aforesaid Consulship of his sons. But there is no need of reasoning, the things themselves speaking for themselves. Lo, behold this coin of Crispus.
You discern clearly inscribed on it the Vicennial vows of our Lord Constantine the Great, Augustus. Our library preserves a coin of the same form and figure of Constantine the Younger, noble Caesar, on which are likewise inscribed the Vicennial vows of our Lord Constantine the Great, Augustus. The image of the coin, had not age corrupted the figures, the letters only being safe, you could have beheld.
[53] But what now of you? Will you persist to deny after his Consulship, that the Vicennalia, inscribed on the foregoing coins of Crispus and Constantine the Younger, are the Vicennalia of their father at Nicomedia, and do not pertain to them, or, since they do pertain to them, will you demand it to be evinced by reasoning? I think not: but just as in this coin of Crispus you see with your eyes the Vicennial vows of Constantine the Great; so you will understand with your mind that the Vicennalia of the foregoing coins are of Constantine the Great; with this distinction, that those of the coins are the Vicennalia of Constantine the Great at Nicomedia, when the Consuls were Crispus and Constantine the Younger, whence also they are fashioned in Consular dress on those same coins: but the Vicennalia, which are on this coin of Crispus, are the father's Roman Vicennalia, in which the father Constantine himself was Consul, wherefore Crispus on this coin lacks consular ornaments. And lest anything be wanting to this matter, I admonish, who also himself inscribed his own Decennalia on coins. that Crispus and Constantine the Younger, besides that they shared in the honor of the father's Vicennalia on coins, themselves also celebrated their own Decennalia, which this money of theirs demonstrates.
[The dress on these coins and on the preceding does not most exactly correspond to the original: with slight loss. It is enough that in others it correspond to the exact nail.] You read that there are inscribed the Decennial vows of our Caesars, namely of Crispus and Constantine the Younger. But the tenth year begun, from which Crispus and Constantine the Younger were adorned with the title of Caesars, corresponds to the year 326, famous for the father's Roman Vicennalia. Since under the Consuls Gallicanus and Bassus, that is in the year 317, the Caesars were raised, Crispus, Licinius, and Constantine, on the day of the Kalends of March, says the most accurate Hydatius. And so Crispus and Constantine the Younger in the same year celebrated both the father's Roman Vicennalia, as partakers of the paternal honor, and their own proper Decennalia, the money struck in memory of that matter being appended just above, on which those Princes are beheld without Consular attire, because not they themselves then, but Constantine the father and Constantius their brother shone forth in the Consulship, as has been said.
[54] Why on the former coins was inscribed Beata tranquillitas? Let the sum now be drawn together, and what has been disputed be pronounced under heads. First, the coins, on which from Probus down to Constantine the Great, the Princes are beheld with the eagle-bearing scepter and the trabea, are all Consular, stamped in their Consulships. Next, the Nicomedian Vicennalia of Constantine the Great were performed under Crispus and Constantine the Caesars, each for the third time Consul, in the year 324, a little after the last of Constantine's enemies, Licinius, was vanquished, who hitherto had held Nicomedia the metropolis of Bithynia for a royal seat. And since, Licinius being subdued, who among the rival Princes of Constantine was the last, the highest peace everywhere followed, and the whole tranquillity of the Roman Empire; hence deservedly on those Consular coins of Constantine and of his sons is inscribed BEATA TRANQUILLITAS; which title hitherto I have seen on no Imperial coins (and I have seen almost innumerable) except on these Consular ones of Constantine's Vicennalia. Thirdly, the same Caesars Crispus and Constantine, with their father the Augustus as Consul, held the Roman paternal Vicennalia, and their own Decennalia, in the year 326. And this new light received for history, if it please, refer henceforth, ye learned, to the Liège Diptych, from whose Anastasius, adorned with all the Consular ornaments, we have learned to recognize those Consular coins, and hence the times of Constantine's Vicennalia. Besides these Consular coins of Constantine, others still equally consular, by the benefit of the Liège Diptychs we learn to know, by few or by none perhaps hitherto understood.
[55] or not also anticipated vows? Thus far our most learned Wilthemius: who, while I prepare these things for the press, in the year 1681 so far restored to himself, that he can not only see and understand (which he could always) but also answer something to one asking; will not take it amiss, if I ask him, Why it will not be permitted me to hold the opinion of Eusebius, Prosper, and Cassiodorus, concerning the Nicomedian Vicennalia being referred to the year 325, by saying that the coins struck under Constantine and Crispus as Consuls in the year 324, equally as those concerning which he himself asserts it, expressed vows preludial to the Vicennalia, to be celebrated in the following year: this might have become pious sons toward the best of parents, by whom they had been declared Consuls, that in that magistracy of theirs of striking money they should prelude to the Vicennalia most longed for by the whole Empire. May the excellent old man live, integral in the eyes of mind and of body, until he can read the question proposed to him printed in type, according to his indulgence toward a disciple and son; and with the highest candor of mind far from obstinacy, and with a great facility not unwillingly inclining to the opinions of others, perhaps he will even suffer this to be changed, that the time of the Nicomedian Vicennalia be not moved from that place where he fixed it, who could best know and remember it, because he also was bound to, Eusebius.