OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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distinct consideration of the standard, the dream, chap.

and the celestial sign; by separating the histo-.

rical, the natural, and the marvellous parts ofthis extraordinary story, which, in the composi-tion of a specious argument, have been artfullyconfounded in one splendid and brittle mass.

1. An instrument of the tortures which were Th <“ ^fa-inflicted only on slaves and strangers, became stan’dardofan object of horror in the eyes of a Roman C j_ theci0sstizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and ofignominy, were closely united with the idea ofthe cross.* The piety, rather than the huma-nity, of Constantine , soon abolished in his do-minions the punishment which the Saviour ofmankind had condescended to suffer ; f but theemperor had already learned to despise the pre-judices of his education, and of his people, be-fore he could erect in the midst of Rome hisown statue, bearing a cross in its right hand ;with an inscription which referred the victoryof his arms, and the deliverance of Rome , tothe virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol

e Nomen ipsum cruets absit non modo a corpore civiura Romano-rum, sed etiam a cogitatione, ocnlis, auribus. Cicero pro Raberio, c. 5.The Christian writers Justin, Minucius Felix , Tertuliian, Jeroni, andMaximus of Turin , have investigated with tolerable success the figureor likeness of a cross in almost every object of nature or art; in the in-tersection of the meridian and equator, the human face, a bird flying,a man swimming, a mast and yard, a plough, a standard. See . dec. &c.See Lipsius de Cruce, 1. i, c. 9.

f See Aurelius Victor , who considers this law as one of the example*of Constantine's piety. An edict so honourable to Christianity deserved a place in the Theodosian Code , instead of the indirect mention ofit, which seems to result from the comparison of the fifth and eighteenthtitles of the ninth book.