rm of
prayer, which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the whole
army before they engaged the legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent
repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the
reason of mankind; [41] but if the dream of Constantine is separately
considered, it may be naturally explained either by the policy or the
enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day,
which must decide the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and
interrupted slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known
symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active
fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly
implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a
consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. [42] The praeternatural origin of
dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a
considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place their
confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The secret
vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and the
intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view with
careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of Rome.
The senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious
tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the
powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by
the protection of the gods. The triumphal arch, which was erected about
three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous language, that
by the greatness of his own mind, and by an instinct or impulse of the
Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman republic. [43] The Pagan
orator, who had seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues
of the conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate
commerce with the Supreme Being, who delegated the care of mortals to
his subordinate deities; and thus assigns a very plausible reason
why the subjects of Constantine should not presume to embrace the new
religion of their sovereign. [44]

[Footnote 39: Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 101.
The learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9, 10) has
collected many similar passages on t