Chapter 6

Concerning the Statue of Constantine Holding a Cross and the Inscription, Chapter 40

“He commanded them to erect a tall statue holding in its own hand a spear in the form of a cross in a public place in Rome, and to engrave on it this very inscription in the Roman language: By this saving sign, the true proof of courage, I have delivered and liberated our city from the yoke of tyranny; moreover, I have liberated the Senate and the Roman people and restored them to their ancient glory and splendor.”

Concerning the events after the defeat and overthrow of Maxentius, the same historian Eusebius recounts in his Ecclesiastical History 9.9 that “having hymned in deeds the all-sovereign God who was the cause of his victory, he entered Rome in triumph, while all together—infants and women alike, those from the senatorial council and the other most distinguished persons, along with the entire Roman populace—received him with joyful eyes and with their very souls, as a deliverer, Savior, and benefactor, with acclamations and insatiable joy. But he, as one possessing piety toward God by nature, in no way shaken by the shouts nor lifted up by the praises, being fully conscious of the help from God, immediately commanded that the saving trophy of the Passion be set up beneath the hand of his own statue. And so they set him up holding the saving sign of the Cross in his right hand in the most public place in Rome, and he commanded that this very inscription be set in these very words in the Roman tongue: ‘By this saving sign, the true proof of valor, I freed our city, delivered from the yoke of the tyrant; moreover, I also liberated the senate and the Roman people and restored them to their ancient glory and splendor.’” (Compare also Lactantius, book 9, chapter 9, concerning Constantine about to fight against Maxentius.) The historian Socrates, recounting the same miracle in his Ecclesiastical History 1.1, says: “About the midday hours of the sun, when the day was already declining, he saw in the heaven a pillar of light in the form of a cross, on which were letters saying, ‘In this, conquer’” (Compare Zosimus, Ecclesiastical History 1.1.3.4.8).

And the historian Cedrenus says: “The Precious Cross appeared to him at the sixth hour of the day, having an inscription fashioned from light through stars: ‘In this, conquer.’” Zonaras says: “A cross-shaped figure appeared to him in the sky at midday through stars, and an inscription around the Cross in Roman letters also formed by stars and reading, ‘In this conquer’” (vol. 3, 8. Cf. also “Life of the Holy Fathers Antros and Athanasios in Photios,” reading 256 = Pomponius Laetus on Constantine the Great, ser. 1408).

The historian Nikephoros, in his Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 30, says: “And again a cross appeared, fixed by stars in the sky, and an inscription in a circle around it proclaimed these words: ‘By this sign you will conquer all your enemies.’” The historian Philostorgius, recounting the conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity, says: “He records that the cause of Constantine’s change from the Hellenic religion to Christianity was the victory over Maxentius, during which the sign of the cross was seen extending for a very great length toward the east, with a dazzling radiance taking shape and stars running around it in a circle, like a rainbow, and arranging themselves into the form of letters, which in the Roman tongue said, ‘In this conquer.’” [Philostorgius. Eccl. Hist. I. 6. Cf. Niceph. Callist. Eccl. History VIII. 3.

Just as the sign of the Precious Cross once appeared resplendent in the sky to Constantine the Great, so also it will appear again with all glory at the second coming of the Lord to all the faithful and as a rebuke even to the lawless themselves, according to what is written: “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear, coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). Interpreting this passage, Saint John Chrysostom says: “Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven”; That is, the Cross, which is brighter than the sun. (Likewise in Homily 83, vol. 5, p. 161 of the Eton edition, and 160, a homily in the same volume, p. 767).

Theophylact, interpreting the same passage, says: “The Cross will then be seen in heaven, shining brighter than the sun, to convict the Jews. For as one who possesses the greatest vindication, the Lord comes against the Jews bearing the Cross, just as someone who has been struck with a stone might display the stone. He calls the Cross a sign, like a trophy and royal standard.”

Eusebius in his Life of Constantine the Great (Book 3, chapter 49) writes the following concerning the sign of the Precious Cross and the depiction of images of scenes taken from the Holy Scriptures.

“You would have seen, fashioned on the midst of flocks in relief, the symbols of the Good Shepherd, a contemplation for those who draw from the divine oracles. And Daniel with the lions, fashioned in bronze and gleaming with plates of gold. So great was the divine love that had taken hold of the Emperor’s soul that in the palace of the imperial residence, in the most excellent hall of all, in the very center of the gilded coffered ceiling of the roof, with a very large panel spread out, he had set the symbol of the saving Passion, composed of various and costly stones worked in much gold. This seemed to the God-beloved emperor to have been made as a safeguard of his own reign.”

The symbol of salvation, the Cross, called by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 6.11) the Lord’s sign, was honored from ancient times among Christians in a certain pre-eminent manner. Forming the sign of the Cross with their hand, Christians signed themselves both in the morning and in the evening, and before every sacred rite and sacred action (Cf. Tertulliani Apologet. c. 16, and Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit §27). In the preceding chapters 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29, Eusebius speaks about the discovery of the holy tomb of the Savior Christ and about the order of Constantine the Great for the erection of a house of prayer worthy of God around the saving cave, at lavish and imperial expense.

Theodoret, after the letter of Constantine the Great to Macarius of Jerusalem, which Eusebius records in chapters 47 and 44 of the history of the life of Constantine the Great, records the discovery of the Precious Cross by Saint Helen and the text of the letters of Constantine the Great to both Macarius and Dracilianus.