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TO THE

MOST REVEREND

THOMAS,

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

MY LORD,

As the foregoing volume had the advantage of appearing under the patronage of a name so highly respected and esteemed, I beg leave to present this also to your Grace, for whom alone it ever was intended.

The church of Christ increasing in splendor, and decreasing in virtue; the origin and progress of superstition and spiritual tyranny; the unhappy controversies which signalized the fourth century; the councils called to compose these disputes, and never answering the purposes for which they were designed; the character of the ecclesiastical historians who have transmitted to us the memory of these events; the laws of the first Christian emperor, which, like himself, had a mixture of good and bad; the accomplishment of the prophecies in the destruction of the persecutors of Christianity; the state of the Jews ever since their rejection, and

the hopes which Christians entertain that God in his appointed time will show mercy and favour to his once chosen people; These are the subjects which I have endeavoured to examine and discuss, without adulation or dissimulation, with sober liberty and disinterested inquiry, and which I offer to your Grace, with gratitude, respect, and affection, as to a most candid and impartial judge; wishing, with the public, that your health may be established, and that you may long continue an ornament and a blessing to the church and state.

I am, my Lord,

Your Grace's most obliged

and obedient humble servant,

JOHN JORTIN

REMARKS

ON

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

1

A. D. 811. CONSTANTINE being disposed to protect and embrace Christianity, which his father had greatly favoured, and about to fight Maxentius, prayed to God for his assistance. As he was marching, he saw in the afternoon, in the sky, over the sun, a shining cross, with this inscription, Tour vína, joined to it. The sight astonished him, and the army which accompanied him.

This he related to Eusebius with his own mouth, and sware to the truth of it, at a time when many of the soldiers were living. Au μεσημβρινὰς ἡλίου ὥρας ἤδη τῆς ἡμέρας ἀποκλινούσης, αὐτοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἰδεῖν ἔφη ἐν αὐτῷ οὐρανῷ ὑπερκείμενον τοῦ ἡλίου σταυροῦ τρόπαιον ἐκ φωτὸς συνιστάμενον, γραφήν τε αὐτῷ συνῆφθαι, λέγουσαν, τούτῳ νίκα. ''Horis diei meridianis, sole in occasum vergente, crucis tropæum in cœlo ex luce conflatum, soli superpositum, ipsis oculis se vidisse affirmavit, cum hujusmodi inscriptione: Hac vince. Euseb. Vit. Const. i. 28.

Concerning this story there have been these opposite opinions:

That it was a miracle, wrought in favour of Constantine and of Christianity:

That it was a pious fraud, a mere stratagem of Constantine, to animate his soldiers, and to engage the Christians firmly on his side.

Fabricius, as an honorarius arbiter,' comes between both, and allows the fact, but ejects the miracle. Bibl. Gr. vi. 8.

There is, says he, a natural appearance, a solar halo,' which sometimes represents a lucid cross; and this is so rarely seen, that it is no wonder if Constantine, and they who beheld it with him, accounted it miraculous, especially at that juncture.

If this were no miracle, yet it tended to the service of Christianity, and to bring about the great revolution which then happened.

There are in historians, antient and modern, and in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' descriptions of such phænomena, and also of lucid circles or crowns accompanying them. Fabricius gives an account and a representation of some.

Thus far all goes well enough: but the great difficulty is the inscription, TCUT vína, for which Fabricius offers this solution, that papa means a picture,' as well as a' writing,' and that eye, when applied to a picture or image, means to denote' or 'imply,' and that the words of Constantine and Eusebius may be thus interpreted: To the cross was adjoined a picture or image, intimating that by this he should conquer; which image was a lucid crown, a representation or symbol of victory.

To this I add, that Eusebius, by not using the words

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Eusebius uses ypac for a picture,' speaking of the cross represented in a picture of Constantine. Ὁ μὲν δὲ καὶ ἐν ΓΡΑΦΗΣ ὑψηλοτάτῳ πίνακι πρὸ τῶν βασιλικῶν προθύρων ἀνακειμένω, τοῖς πάντων ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρᾶσθαι προὐτίθει, τὸ μὲν σωτήριον ὑπερκείμενον τῆς αὐτοῦ κεφαλῆς ΤΗ ΓΡΑΦΗ, παραδούς· τὸν δὲ ἐχθρὸν καὶ πολέμιον θῆρα, τὸν τὴν ἐκκλη σίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ διὰ τῆς τῶν ἀθέων πολιορκήσαντα τυραννίδος, κατὰ βύθου φερόμενον ποιήσας ἐν δράκοντος μορφῇ. διὸ καὶ βασιλεὺς ὑπὸ τοῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν αὐτοῦ ποσὶ, βέλει πεπαρμένον κατὰ μέσου του κύτους, βυθοῖς σε θαλάσσης ἀπεῤῥιμμένον, διὰ τῆς κηροχύτου ΓΡΑΦΗΣ ἐδείκνυ τοῖς πᾶσι τὸν δράκοντα.ὸν καὶ δυνάμει τοῦ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς ανακειμένου σωτηρίου τροπαίου, κατὰ βυθῶν ἀπωλείας κεχωρηκέναι ἐδήλου. Quinetiam in sublimi quadam tabula ante vestibulum palatii posita, cunctis spectandum proposuit salutare quidem signum capiti suo superpositum infra vero hostem illum et inimicum generis humani, qui impiorum tyrannorum opera ecclesiam Dei oppugnaverat, sub draconis forma in præceps ruentem-Idcirco imperator draconem telis per medium ventrem confixum, et in profundos maris gurgites projectuin, sub suis suorumque liberorum pedibus cera igne resoluta depingi proponique omnibus voluit :-quem salutaris illius tropæi quod capiti ipsius superpositum erat, vi ac potentia in exitii barathrum detrusum esse significabat.' Vit. Const. iii. 3.

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