Maxentius's troops fled in disarray toward the surging Tiber. When he awoke early the next morning, the young commander obeyed the message and ordered his soldiers to mark their shields with the now famous Chi-Rho. Though accounts vary, Constantine apparently believed the omen to be a word from God. As the story goes, Christ himself told Constantine in a dream to take the cross into battle as his standard. Meanwhile, Constantine saw a vision in the afternoon sky: a bright cross with the words By this sign conquer. So, bolstered by the prophecy, Maxentius left the city to meet his foe. Maxentius turned to pagan oracles, finding a prophecy that the "enemy of the Romans" would perish. But Constantine's army was already overwhelming his foes in Italy as he marched toward the capital. Maxentius, vying for supremacy in the West, waited in Rome with his Italian troops and the elite Praetorian Guard, confident no one could successfully invade the city. In the spring of 311, with 40,000 soldiers behind him, Constantine rode toward Rome to confront an enemy whose numbers were four times his own. TimelineĬhristianity made state religion of Roman Empire By the time Constantine was 31, he was in line to become emperor of the western empire-and more. 280 in Naissus, just south of the Danube. Helena, the daughter of an innkeeper and Constantius's wife, gave birth to Constantine around A.D. His father, Constantius Chlorus, was already a Roman official on the rise. Of Constantine's early years, we know only that he was born in Illyria, a region in the Balkans. Yet he clearly believed he was a Christian, and he looked back to a battle at the Milvian Bridge, just outside the walls of Rome, as the decisive hour in his newly found faith.
He knew nothing of religion without politics or politics without religion. What religion he had, many argue, was at best a blend of paganism and Christianity for purely political purposes.Ĭertainly, Constantine held to ideals we no longer share. Some think him an unprincipled power seeker. Historians now debate whether "the first Christian emperor" was a Christian at all. It is the classic image that prevailed in Eastern Christianity for more than a thousand years. The first Life of Constantine describes its subject as "resplendent with every virtue that godliness bestows." This praise-filled biography came from the hand of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and perhaps Constantine's greatest admirer. … But the Almighty God, who sits in the court of heaven, granted what I did not deserve." "I have experienced this in others and in myself, for I walked not in the way of righteousness.