“For
if Constantine should be seen as a new Moses, how should Christian subjects
then catch the spirit of their own part? An audience acquainted with Paul’s use
of the Israelites as negative examples in 1 Corinthians 10 (where the wayward
followers of Moses were destroyed in the wilderness) … would
probably not be slow to hear Constantine’s reference to the Moses narratives as
a dire warning to themselves concerning internal discord”.
Finn Damgaard
Constantine [I]
has, for his part, been compared with Moses - even described as “a new Moses”.
…. Propaganda Against Propaganda: Revisiting Eusebius’
Use of the Figure of Moses in the Life of Constantine
Introduction
In the last two decades there has been
an increasing interest in the literary aspects of the Life of
Constantine (VC) and a number of recent studies have touched on
Eusebius’ use of the figure of Moses in this work. [1] In the
introduction and commentary to their translation, Averil Cameron and Stuart G.
Hall show a keen interest in the parallels between Constantine and Moses and
even call these parallels “the most obvious device used by Eusebius in the Life of
Constantine to bring home his ideological message.”[2] In a similar way,
Claudia Rapp has called these parallels a Leitmotif in the work. [3] Several recent
studies have also sought to explain why Eusebius chose precisely the model of
Moses for his term of comparison. According to Cameron and Hall, the comparison
between Constantine and Moses “was perfectly suited to the work’s apologetic
purpose.”[4] By portraying
Constantine as the successor of Moses, Eusebius provided a precise and detailed
demonstration of how God’s plan for Christian government on earth was realized. [5] Michael J.
Hollerich also stresses the apologetic purpose of Eusebius’ use of Moses.
According to Hollerich, however, Eusebius was not only drawn to Moses as a
biblical exemplum for Constantine in order to stress his divinely inspired
mission and his example of a godly life, he also invoked the figure of Moses in
order “to sanction behavior that appeared to contradict traditional Christian
views on the taking of life.”[6] Taking a somewhat
different approach, Sabrina Inowlocki has suggested that: “Eusebius’ portrayal
of Moses also testifies to the ambiguity of the legislator in Christianity.”[7] According to
Inowlocki, Eusebius skilfully exploits the ambivalence of Moses in order to
achieve apologetic purposes. Thus Eusebius compared Constantine with Moses in
order to identify him as a figure de l’entre deux. According to
Inowlocki, Moses himself is portrayed as a figure de l’entre deux in Eusebius’
thought as being both a Hebrew and the founder of Judaism. Referring to
Eusebius’ apologetic works, the Praeparatio Evangelica and the Demonstratio
Evangelica, Inowlocki demonstrates that Moses appears as an
ambivalent character whose different facets are exploited according to the
context. On the one hand, the figure of Moses is continuously glorified in the
pagan-Christian debate described in the Praeparatio Evangelica. On the other
hand, the description of Moses is far less enthusiastic in the Jewish-Christian
debate described in the Demonstratio Evangelica. According to
Inowlocki, Eusebius thus implicitly identifies Constantine as a figure
de l’entre deux by choosing Moses as an exemplum for
Constantine.
What is common to these suggestions is
that they all take for granted that the comparison with Moses was invented by
Eusebius himself. In this article, I shall suggest another approach, namely
that it was actually Constantine (or his near advisers) who originally
fabricated the comparison with Moses as part of his propaganda. As we shall
see, Eusebius’ use of the comparison probably reuses much material from
Constantine’s Moses propaganda, but he also seems to have reshaped some parts
of it in order to promote his own interests. Moreover, I shall argue that
Philo’s portrait of Moses as a model ruler in his Life of Moses
was an important source for Eusebius’ idealized portrait of Constantine and his
revision of Constantine’s Moses propaganda.
Moses
in Constantine’s own Political Propaganda
Interestingly, it is in the speech that
Eusebius attaches to the Life of Constantine that we come upon
Constantine’s own use of Moses. In order to support his paraphrase of
Constantine’s speeches (VC 4.29.2–5), Eusebius promises to append to the Life of
Constantine an example of one of the emperor’s own speeches which
he refers to as “To the Assembly of the Saints” (VC 4.32).
[8] The authenticity
of the speech was long in doubt, but is now generally considered to be
authentic by the majority of scholars. [9] The speech seems
to address a Christian audience—most likely bishops—but the date as well as the
venue and occasion for the speech are still in question. I shall come back to
this issue later.
As Mark Edwards has argued in the introduction
to his new translation, the speech should probably be read as a “manifesto of
ambition.”[10] The speech does
not have Christianity per se as its focus; rather Christianity seems a means of
persuading the Christian audience of the emperor’s right to rule. Constantine’s
appeal to Moses at approximately the middle of the speech is a particularly
illustrative example of this. In his attack on the fallen ideologies of
Christianity’s enemies, Constantine suddenly hints at his own experience when
he claims that he himself has been “an eyewitness of the miserable fortune of
the cities [Memphis and Babylon]”[11]
(Oration to the Saints 16). By claiming
himself to be an eyewitness, Constantine succeeds in drawing a parallel between
himself and Moses, since it was Moses who desolated Memphis when he:
[. . .] in accordance with the decree
of God shattered the arrogance of Pharaoh, the greatest potentate of the time,
and destroyed his army, victor as it was over many of the greatest nations and
fenced round with arms—not by shooting arrows or launching javelins, but just by holy
prayer and meek adoration.
Oration to the
Saints 16, my emphasis
Though Constantine does not explicitly
cast himself as a new Moses, he seems to imply this when, later in the oration,
he claims that everything has also turned out “according to my
prayers—acts of courage, victories, trophies over my enemies” (Oration
to the Saints 22, my emphasis) and finally concludes:
Now in my view a ministry is most
lovely and excellent when someone, before the attempt, ensures that what is
done will be secure. And all human beings know that the most holy devotion of
these hands is owed to God with pure faith of the strictest kind, and that all
that has been accomplished with advantage is achieved by joining the
hands in prayers and litanies, with as much private and public
assistance as everyone might pray for on his own behalf and that of those
dearest to him. They indeed have witnessed the battles and observed the war in
which God’s providence awarded victory to the people, and have seen God
co- operating with our prayers. For
righteous prayer is an invincible thing, and no-one who pays holy adoration is
disappointed of his aim.
Oration to the
Saints 26, my emphasis
Constantine could of course hardly
claim to have won by conquest without having “shot arrows or launched
javelins,” but he might have hoped that his audience would catch the parallel
to Moses when he piously claims that his palm of victory was similarly based on
prayers and God’s co-operation. Also the fact that Constantine does not dwell
on priestly or visionary aspects of the Moses figure, but rather turns the
figure into a military and political leader suggests that
Constantine constructed Moses as his own model: [12]
What could one say about Moses to match
his worth? Leading a disorderly people into good order, having set their souls
in order by persuasion and awe, he procured freedom for them in place of
captivity, and he made their faces bright instead of blear.
Oration to the
Saints 17
As Michael Williams has recently
suggested, “It is difficult to read this as anything other than a kind of
idealised portrait of the first Christian emperor—that is, as a portrait of
Constantine himself.”[13] Williams’
suggestion is, I believe, right on target. There are, however, some rather
important political motives for Constantine’s use of Moses that Williams does
not examine, probably because he regards the speech as a conventional defense
of Christianity. [14] For if Constantine
should be seen as a new Moses, how should Christian subjects then catch the
spirit of their own part? An audience acquainted with Paul’s use of the Israelites
as negative examples in 1 Corinthians 10 (where the wayward followers of Moses
were destroyed in the wilderness) [15] would probably not
be slow to hear Constantine’s reference to the Moses narratives as a dire
warning to themselves concerning internal discord. Thus, Constantine continues
his panegyric of his predecessor by describing how the Israelites “became
superhumanly boastful” though Moses was their sovereign. If Constantine had
only referred to Moses in order to legitimize his own rule, he would probably
not have touched on the Israelites’ acts of disobedience in the wilderness.
Like Paul, Constantine seems, by contrast, to exploit the Moses narratives in
order to control his Christian audience. Thus, when he reminds his audience
that “no people would ever or could ever have been more blessed than that one
[the Israelites], had they not voluntarily cut off their souls from the Holy
Spirit” (Oration to the Saints 17), he makes a convenient agreement
between the Holy Spirit and Moses, since it was of course Moses who had set
their souls in order in the first place. By appending the Oration
to the Saints to his Life of Constantine, Eusebius provides
us with a fascinating glimpse of Constantine skilfully making use of the
example of Moses in order to advance his own political agenda, namely to
control the bishops.
Playing
Constantine’s Game
The first time Eusebius himself invokes
the Moses narratives in relation to Constantine is in the well-known passage in
the ninth book of the Ecclesiastical History (HE) probably
composed in 314 or 315. [16] In this passage,
Eusebius compares Constantine’s victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in
312 with the defeat of Pharaoh at the Red Sea (HE 9.9.2–8). Though the passage
seems to be Eusebius’ own invention, he could actually have been inspired by
Constantine’s Oration to the Saints if we accept an early date of
delivery. According to Girardet, the speech was delivered by Constantine in
Trier or Rome at Easter 314. [17] With Girardet and
Edwards, I take the field “prepared for battle” mentioned in chapter 22 to be
the battlefield of the Milvian Bridge, and Constantine’s reference to the
tyrant of the most dear city “who was suddenly overtaken in a fitting manner
worthy of his atrocities” (Oration to the Saints 22) as referring
to Maxentius. [18] Though Constantine
does not himself compare the battle at the Milvian Bridge explicitly with the
battle at the Red Sea, he refers to the defeat of Pharaoh earlier in the speech
and even in a context that, as we have seen, might be viewed as an implicit
comparison of Constantine with Moses. As Girardet has argued, the speech was
probably also sent out as a circular letter to all bishops in Constantine’s
part of the empire and therefore also translated into Greek at the same
occasion in order to address congregations in places such as South Italy and
Sicily. [19] If the speech had
received such a wide distribution, Eusebius could have learned about it as he
composed the ninth book of the Ecclesiastical History. [20] Eusebius’
comparison of Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge with the battle at
the Red Sea might thus develop a potential in Constantine’s own speech. [21] However, while
Constantine would probably approve Eusebius’ comparison in the Ecclesiastical
History (and perhaps even regret that he had not developed it
himself), I shall argue that not all Eusebius’ parallels between Constantine
and Moses in the Life of Constantine would play
Constantine’s game. On the contrary, some of Eusebius’ parallels might be read
as an attempt to turn Constantine’s own Moses propaganda upside down.
Revisiting
the Use of Moses in the Life of Constantine
Eusebius’ portrait of Constantine in
the Life of Constantine has often been seen as only an
encomiastic portrait of the deceased emperor, and several of his comparisons
with Moses in the Life of Constantine are certainly
flattering. The comparison known from the Ecclesiastical History between
Constantine’s victory over Maxentius and the defeat of Pharaoh is for instance
turned into an even more complimentary comparison, since Eusebius now compares
Constantine explicitly to Moses (VC 1.39.1). Also Eusebius’ portrait of
Constantine’s childhood told in close connection to Moses’ upbringing (VC
1.12.1–2) seems to be written by a servile panegyrist. Thus, Eusebius claims
that Moses’ youth resembles the youth of Constantine, since Constantine, like
Moses, “sat at the tyrant’s hearth, yet though still young he did not share the
same morality as the godless”[22] (VC 1.12.2). Very
little is known about Constantine’s involvement at Diocletian’s court and his
role in the great persecution. The fact, however, that Constantine was present
at Diocletian’s court during the persecution may have given rise to Christian
criticism. Thus, Constantine seems to make an effort to dissociate himself from
the persecutors when, in a letter against polytheistic worship which Eusebius
included in the Life of Constantine, he stresses that he
was just a boy (VC 2.51.1) when the persecution began—even though he may have
been about thirty. [23] In his comparison
of Constantine’s presence at Diocletian’s court to Moses’ stay at the court of
Pharaoh, Eusebius also seems to acquit Constantine of blame. Like the
Constantinian letter, in his own narrative Eusebius stresses that Constantine
was still young when he sat at the tyrants’ hearth like Moses, whom Eusebius
claims was still in his infancy (VC 1.12.1). [24] And just as the
book of Exodus implicitly describes Moses as being in opposition to Pharaoh’s
policy, since Moses observed the Hebrews’ toil and struck down one of the
Egyptians who was beating one of the Hebrews, [25] so Constantine,
says Eusebius, conducted himself in the same way as Moses (VC 1.19.1). Just as
Moses withdrew from Pharaoh’s presence because Pharaoh sought to kill him as a
result of his murder of the Egyptian, [26] so Constantine
“sought his safety in flight, in this also preserving his likeness to the great
prophet Moses” (VC 1.20.2). Constantine’s “flight” was due in part to the
circumstance that those in power devised secret plots against him based on envy
and fear, [27] since “the young
man was fine, sturdy and tall, full of good sense” (VC 1.20.1). [28]
Eusebius does not, however, follow the
lead of Constantine in all of his Moses parallels. Thus, for instance, his
portrait of Constantine differs from Constantine’s self-portrait in the Oration
to the Saints. In his description of Constantine’s miraculous
vision before the battle with Maxentius, Eusebius claims that Constantine
decided to venerate his father’s God (VC 1.27.3) though Constantine claims that
he had not been raised a Christian (Oration to the Saints
11). [29] Eusebius probably
changed this, because he wanted to enhance the parallel between Constantine’s
vision and Moses’ vision in Exodus 3:6 where God identifies himself to Moses as
“the God of your father.”[30] But there may also
be another and more important reason for the change, namely Eusebius’ wish to
turn Constantine into a convenient model for his own sons. As most scholars
agree, the Life of Constantine should probably be read as a “mirror for
princes.” Perhaps Eusebius, who had recently hymned Constantine (as he himself
notes in the very first lines of the work, cf. VC 1.1.1), might even have
planned to take the liberty to present copies of his Life of
Constantine to the new Augusti. [31] In presenting to
Constantine’s sons a portrait of their father as a Christian emperor, Eusebius
was in the privileged position that such a portrait was without precedent. Thus
he was in a sense free to claim a particular action as characteristic of a
Christian emperor and thereby bring his influence to bear on what did and did
not fall within the sphere of Christianity. [32] When Eusebius
implicitly claims that Constantine had been raised as a Christian and that he
turned to his “father’s God” at a crucial point in his career, Eusebius has
probably the three brothers Augusti in mind. Thus, in Eusebius’ version, the
scene is laid for Constantine’s sons imitating their father (like Constantine,
cf. VC 1.12.3) in order for them to adhere to the God of their
father.
Actually, however, Eusebius’ use of the
figure of Moses seems somewhat misplaced in this context, since Christians
hitherto had used the figure of Moses to argue against succession through
descent. In his homilies on Numbers (22.4.1–2), Origen, for instance, praises
Moses because he did not pray to God in order to have his own kin appointed
leaders of the people. The interpretation seems to derive from Philo’s Life of
Moses, which Eusebius had probably used as an inspiration for some
of his comparisons between Constantine and Moses. Thus in the famous passage of
the Life of Moses where God requites Moses the kingship of the
Hebrews, Philo keenly stresses that Moses subdued his natural affection for his
own sons and avoided promoting them as his heirs (Life of Moses
1.150). Eusebius could hardly have failed to notice the telling difference
between Constantine’s and Moses’ attitude to dynasties. While Philo seems to
reproduce and imitate a Roman aristocratic and senatorial opposition to
dynasties probably in polemical contrast to the degeneracy of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty, Eusebius, by contrast, flatteringly describes Constantine’s
sons as “new lamps” (VC 1.1.3) and “as virtuous and God-beloved sons” (VC
2.19.3) who succeeded Constantine by law of nature (VC 1.9.2). Despite these
panegyrical titles, the Life of Constantine reflects a latent
sense of unease concerning the continuation of the Roman Empire under the
direction of the new Augusti. Thus, for instance, Eusebius took pains to stress
that the Augusti had really been instructed in “godly piety” by Constantine
himself:
Sometimes he [Constantine] encouraged
them [his sons] while they were with him with personal admonitions to copy him
and taught them to make themselves imitators of his godly piety. Sometimes when
communicating with them in their absence about imperial matters he would
express his exhortations in writing, the greatest and most important of these
being that they should prize the knowledge of God the King of all and devotion
to him above all wealth and even above Empire. By now he had also given them
authority to take action for the public good by themselves, and he urged them
that one of their prime concerns should be the Church of God, instructing them
to be frankly Christian.
VC 4.52.1–2
The agreement between this passage and
the introduction to the Life of Constantine is rather
significant. At the beginning of the work, Eusebius provided the reader with
the basic threads of the work, namely the contrast between Constantine and his
rivals and the likeness between the life of Constantine and the lives of the
God-beloved men as recorded in Scripture—in particular, the life of Moses. Here
Constantine is claimed to be a present “example to all mankind of the life of
godliness” (VC 1.3.4) and “a lesson in the pattern of godliness to the human
race” (VC 1.4.1). By claiming agreement between how Constantine had presented
himself to his sons and the way Eusebius now presents him to “all mankind,”
Eusebius probably hoped to oblige the Augusti to comply with his picture of
their father. For if they would choose another line of action than suggested in
Eusebius’ portrait of Constantine, they would find themselves in conflict with
the way they had purportedly been instructed by their own father. From the
biblical narratives, Eusebius would know that succession through descent was a difficult
undertaking. However, by reusing Constantine’s comparison with Moses, Eusebius
was able to stress that good kingship was not based on descent, but on
godliness. Ironically, Eusebius pays Constantine back in his own coin, so to
speak. For just as Constantine used Moses to control the bishops, so Eusebius
uses the same figure to promote his own view of how Constantine’s sons should
rule.
Constructing
a Christian Dynasty
As H. A. Drake reminds us in his Constantine
and the Bishops, praise is a means of control, and panegyrics could
be an effective “means of indicating the actions that would delegitimize an
emperor.”[33] Far from being
innocent analogies, Eusebius’ comparison of Constantine and Moses represents a
wish to influence the Constantinian dynasty by controlling and defining the
imperial role and by presenting an imperial model that the Christian bishops
could support. According to Eusebius, a Christian emperor would, for instance,
“shut himself at fixed times each day in secret places within his royal palace
chambers, and would converse with his God alone with the alone (monos
monôi, VC 4.22.1)”[34] and in so doing,
he would imitate Moses whom the Lord used to speak with “face to face (enôpios
enôpiôi), as if someone should speak to his own friend.”[35] Though
Neoplatonists such as Numenius and Plotinus had also used the expression monos
monôi in relation to their metaphysics and mystical philosophy, [36] I find it more
likely that Eusebius may have alluded to Exodus 33:11, given the fact that
Philo also rephrases the same biblical passage in this way (Life of
Moses 1.294; 2.163). [37]
Also Eusebius’ emphasis on the close
affinity between piety and philanthropy in government seems to construct an
imperial portrait characteristic of a Christian emperor. As is well known,
Eusebius puts great emphasis on piety in the Life of Constantine. According to
Eusebius, Constantine’s physical bearing was indicative of his piety: “his fear
and reverence for God [. . .] was shown by his eyes, which were cast down, the
blush on his face, his gait, and the rest of his appearance” (VC 3.10.4). His
piety led him to write statutes forbidding private sacrifice and favoring the
building of churches (VC 2.45.1–2) and to repeal a law that had forbidden
childless couples to inherit property (VC 4.26.2). He piously acknowledged God
as the author of victory at his adventus into Rome (VC 1.39.3, see also
1.41.1–2, 46; 2.19.2; 3.72; 4.19); and at the end of the work, Eusebius claims
that no other Roman emperor could be compared with him in exceeding godly piety
(VC 4.75). In close connection with Constantine’s piety, Eusebius also stresses
his philanthropy. According to Eusebius, Constantine:
[. . .] traveled every virtuous road
and took pride in fruits of piety (eusebeias) of every kind. By the
magnanimity of his helpful actions he enslaved those who knew him, and ruled by
humane (philanthrôpias) laws, making his government agreeable and
much prayed for by the governed.
VC 1.9.1
Similarly, Eusebius later claims that
Constantine’s decrees were not only full of philanthropy: they were also a
token of his piety towards God (VC 2.20.1). In sum, philanthropy is said to
have been Constantine’s most conspicuous quality (VC 4.54.1).
Though both virtues are, of course,
stock virtues in encomiastic literature of antiquity, the insistence on the
close affinity between them cannot be found in other ancient writers such as,
for instance, Plutarch, who is otherwise well known for his extensive reference
to philanthropy. [38] In his insistence
on the centrality of these virtues in government, Eusebius probably again
constructs Constantine as a new Moses. Indeed, Philo had also singled out Moses
as the one who has embodied both virtues to the highest degree. [39] According to
Philo, piety and philanthropy are the queens of virtue (On the
Virtues 95) and Philo stresses time and again how essential they
are to the Mosaic legislation (On the Virtues 51–174). [40] Thus, in the Life of
Moses, he claims that Moses was the most pious of men ever born (Life of
Moses 2.192; see also 1.198; 2.66); and, as for philanthropy, Philo
asserts that Moses was the best of all lawgivers in all countries (Life of
Moses 2.12) because he acquired all the legislative virtues, among
which philanthropy is the one mentioned first (Life of Moses
2.9). In the inquiry devoted to philanthropy in On the Virtues
(51–174), which Philo regarded as a supplement to the Life of
Moses (On the Virtues 52), he also stresses
the connection between philanthropy and piety. Thus Moses:
[. . .] perhaps loved her
[philanthropy] more than anyone else has done, since he knew that she was a
high road leading to piety, [and he accordingly] used to incite and train all
his subjects to fellowship, setting before them the monument of his own life
like an original design to be their beautiful model.
Eusebius and Philo also both employ topoi
typical of philanthropy, for instance the sparing of the lives of prisoners of
war (Life of Constantine 2.10.1, 13.1–2, Life of
Moses 1.249). [42] In addition, like
Philo, Eusebius adds to the classical definition of philanthropy the idea of
the king’s kindness toward widows and orphans. [43] Eusebius’ repeated
references to Constantine’s gifts to the poor, widows, and orphans thus
resemble Philo’s emphasis on the benefit of Moses’ philanthropic legislation
for the needy and unfortunate. For both authors, such generosity is equated
with piety and philanthropy (On the Virtues 90–95, Life of
Constantine 1.43.1–3; 2.20.1). [44]
In his use of Philo’s figure of Moses
as a model for his own portrait of Constantine, Eusebius shows himself to be
more like an independent biographer than a servile eulogist. By using Philo’s Life of
Moses as an inspiration for his idealized portrait of Constantine
as a Christian emperor, Eusebius revises Constantine’s Moses
propaganda in order to influence those with influence at court—not least
Constantine’s sons themselves.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Constantine himself
already appeals to Moses and the Exodus narratives in his Oration
to the Saints. Eusebius was accordingly not the first to compare
Constantine and Moses; on the contrary, the comparison probably came into being
in Constantine’s own propaganda machine. Eusebius, however, not only reproduces
the propaganda, he also adapts the comparison to his own agenda. Thus, whereas
Constantine used the comparison to issue a subtle warning to his audience of
bishops concerning their divisive behavior, Eusebius, by contrast, focuses on
the similarities between Constantine and Moses in order to control and define
the character of the Constantinian dynasty.
In addition to the figure of Moses, the
Life of Constantine also offers other comparisons with
heroes of myth and history as is typical of the genre of the basilikos
logos. Thus, Eusebius contrasts Constantine with Cyrus and
Alexander the Great (VC 1.7–9) [45] and later with the
rivals from whom he had delivered the empire (VC 3.1–3). [46] Apart from the
tetrarchs who as Constantine’s rivals could hardly be ignored, Eusebius did not
compare Constantine with Roman emperors before him such as Trajan, Hadrian, and
Marcus Aurelius, who all featured in Late Antique panegyric. [47] In this way,
Eusebius divorced Constantine “almost entirely from the society which seemed to
have produced him.”[48] By consigning the
history of imperial Rome to oblivion, Eusebius claims that a new beginning has
taken place. Constantine and his dynasty were more on a par with Moses than
with their Roman predecessors. Symptomatically, even when Eusebius ends the Life of
Constantine with a brief comparison with “all the Roman emperors,”
he actually once again compares Constantine with Moses:
He [Constantine] alone of all the Roman
emperors has honoured God the All-sovereign with exceeding godly piety [. . .]
and surely he alone has deserved in life itself and after death such things as
none could say has ever been achieved by any other among either Greeks or
barbarians, or even among the ancient Romans, for his like has never been recorded
from the beginning of time until our day.
VC 4.75
Compared with the Greeks, the
barbarians and even the ancient Romans, Constantine was, so Eusebius
flatteringly asserts, without peer; and yet, the message of the Life of
Constantine is that Constantine was only second to none, because he
actually followed in the footsteps of a figure equal to himself, namely Moses. [49] ….
[End of quote]
Milvian bridge
Episode
and defeat of
Pharaoh
We find Eusebius’s comparison of
these events at, e.g.:
….
[Constantine now
devoted himself to the study of Christianity and the Bible,] and he made the
priests of God his councilors and deemed it incumbent upon him to honor the God
who appeared to him with all devotion. After this, being fortified by
well-grounded hopes in Him, he undertook to quench the fury of the fire of
tyranny.
[Meantime
Maxentius at Rome was giving himself utterly over to deeds of cruelty and lust,
and on one occasion caused his guards to massacre a great multitude of the
Roman populace.]
In short it is
impossible to describe the manifold acts of oppression by which this tyrant of
Rome oppressed all his subjects; so that by this time they were reduced to the
most extreme penury and want of necessary food, a scarcity such as our
contemporaries do not remember ever to have existed before at Rome.
Constantine, however, filled with compassion on account of all these miseries,
began to arm himself with all warlike preparations against the tyranny, and
marched with his forces eager to reinstate the Romans in the freedom they had
inherited from their ancestors. . . . The Emperor, accordingly, confiding in the
help of God, advanced against the first, second, and third divisions of the
tyrant's forces, defeated them all with ease at the first assault, and made his
way into the very interior of Italy.
Already he was
close to Rome, when to save him from the need of fighting with all the Romans
for the tyrant's sake, God Himself drew the tyrant, as it were by secret cords,
a long way outside the gates. For once, as in the days of Moses and the Hebrew
nation, who were worshipers of God, He cast Pharaoh's chariots and his host
into the waves of the Red Sea, and at this time did Maxentius, and the soldiers
and guards with him, sink to the bottom as a stone, when in his flight before
the divinely aided forces of Constantine, he essayed to cross the river [the
Tiber] which lay in his way, over which he had made a strong bridge of boats,
and had framed an engine of destruction—really against himself, but in hope of
ensnaring thereby him who was beloved by God. [But God brought this engine to
be Maxentius's undoing:] for the machine, erected on the bridge with the
ambuscade concealed therein, giving way unexpectedly before the appointed time,
the passage began to sink down, and the boats with the men in them went bodily
to the bottom. And first the wretch himself, then his armed attendants and
guards, even as the sacred oracles had before described "sank as lead in
the mighty waters." [So Constantine and his men might well have rejoiced,
even as did Moses and the Israelites over the fate of Pharaoh's host in the Red
Sea.] ….
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