remain undecided. According to the heathen
Zosimus, whose statement is unquestionably false and malicious, an
Egyptian, who came out of Spain (probably the bishop Hosius of Cordova,
a native of Egypt, is intended), persuaded him, after the murder of
Crispus (which did not occur before 326), that by converting to
Christianity he might obtain forgiveness of his sins.

The first public evidence of a positive leaning toward the Christian
religion he gave in his contest with the pagan Maxentius, who had
usurped the government of Italy and Africa, and is universally
represented as a cruel, dissolute tyrant, hated by heathens and
Christians alike. Called by the Roman people to their aid, Constantine
marched from Gaul across the Alps with an army of ninety-eight thousand
soldiers of every nationality, and defeated Maxentius in three battles;
the last in October, 312, at the Milvian bridge, near Rome, where
Maxentius found a disgraceful death in the waters of the Tiber.

Here belongs the familiar story of the miraculous cross. The precise day
and place cannot be fixed, but the event must have occurred shortly
before the final victory over Maxentius in the neighborhood of Rome. As
this vision is one of the most noted miracles in church history, and has
a representative significance, it deserves a closer examination. It
marks for us on the one hand the victory of Christianity over paganism
in the Roman empire, and on the other the ominous admixture of foreign,
political, and military interests with it. We need not be surprised that
in the Nicene age so great a revolution and transition should have been
clothed with a supernatural character.

The occurrence is variously described, and is not without serious
difficulties. Lactantius, the earliest witness, some three years after
the battle, speaks only of a dream by night, in which the emperor was
directed (it is not stated by whom, whether by Christ, or by an angel)
to stamp on the shields of his soldiers 'the heavenly sign of God,' that
is, the cross with the name of Christ, and thus to go forth against his
enemy. Eusebius, on the contrary, gives a more minute account, on the
authority of a subsequent private communication of the aged Constantine
himself under oath--not, however, till the year 338, a year after the
death of the emperor, his only witness, and twenty-six years after the
event. On his march from Gaul to Italy (the spot and date are not
specified), the emperor, while