Chapter 4: The Church Is Victorious (AD 313)

“In This Sign, Conquer”
In the year 506 the Roman army in Britain proclaimed Constantine emperor. That gave him the rule over Britain, Gaul, and Spain. Maxentius ruled over Italy and North Africa, but he wanted to be emperor over the entire western part of the Roman Empire. More and more openly he showed his hostility to Constantine. Constantine decided to get ahead of Maxentius. Before Maxentius had made preparations for War, Constantine marched into Italy at the head of an army of forty thousand men. At Saxa Rubra, ten miles from Rome and a little north of it, the armies of Maxentius and Constantine met. Between Rome and the army of Maxentius was the Tiber River and, crossing it, the Milvian Bridge. The army of Maxentius was three times as large as that of Constantine, and it contained the Praetorian Guard, the ﬂower of all the Roman armies. Night fell. What the outcome of the battle would be the next day was doubtful. Constantine found himself in an extremely dangerous situation. He felt the need of supernatural help. He was a worshipper of Mithras, as his father before him had been. Mithras was the Persian sun-god, said to be a great ﬁghter and champion of truth and justice. Mithras at this time had a great many followers in the Roman Empire. Mithras was most of all a soldier’s god. On the evening before the battle, so the story goes, Constantine saw a cross above the sun as it was setting in the west. In letters of light the cross bore the Words: Hoc Signo Vinces, which means, “In this sign, conquer.”  The next day, October 28 in the year 312, the battle was joined. It was a furious battle. The Praetorian Guards fought like lions. They never gave ground, but their ranks were cut down where they stood. The army of Maxentius was completely defeated. Maxentius himself, attempting to escape over the Milvian Bridge across the Tiber River, was drowned.