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| How Constantine received Instruction, and read the Sacred Scriptures.
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Chapter XXXII.—How
Constantine received Instruction, and read the Sacred
Scriptures.
These things were done shortly afterwards. But at the time above
specified, being struck with amazement at the extraordinary vision, and
resolving to worship no other God save Him who had appeared to him, he
sent for those who were acquainted with the mysteries of His doctrines,
and enquired who that God was, and what was intended by the sign of the
vision he had seen. They affirmed that He was God, the only begotten
Son of the one and only God: that the sign which had appeared was the
symbol of immortality,3116
| 3116 Both Socrates (5. 17) and Sozomen (7. 15) relate that symbols of
the cross found in a temple of Serapis, on its destruction by
Theodosius, were explained by the Christians of the time as symbols of
immortality. Cf. also Suidas (ed. Gasiford, 2 (1834), 3398), s.
v. Σταυροί; Valesius on Socrates and Sozomen; Jablonski, Opuscula, 1,
p. 156– . The study of the pre-christian use of the cross is most
suggestive. It suggests at least that in some way the passion of our
Lord was the realization of some world-principle or “natural
Law.” | and the trophy
of that victory over death which He had gained in time past when
sojourning on earth. They taught him also the causes of His advent, and
explained to him the true account of His incarnation. Thus he was
instructed in these matters, and was impressed with wonder at the
divine manifestation which had been presented to his sight. Comparing,
therefore, the heavenly vision with the interpretation given, he found
his judgment confirmed; and, in the persuasion that the knowledge of
these things had been imparted to him by Divine teaching, he determined
thenceforth to devote himself to the reading of the Inspired
writings.
Moreover, he made the priests of
God his counselors, and deemed it incumbent on him to honor the God who
had appeared to him with all devotion. And after this, being fortified
by well-grounded hopes in Him, he hastened to quench the threatening
fire of tyranny. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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