Constantine's dream before the battle in 312

[Congius]

Here's a new (to me, at least) possibility for the source of Constantine's dream (per Lactantius) in 312.. An astronomical reconstruction shows an unusual planetary alignment on the night of 10-27-312 that evokes the X-like symbol described by Lactantius ("Facit ut iussus est et transversa X littera, summo capite circumflexo, Christum in scutis notat.").

http://www.sacra-moneta.com/Monnaie-romaine/La-vision-de-Constantin-en-312.html

My French isn't good enough to follow the narration on the video, so I'm not sure what specific connection with Constantine's vision/dream they're suggesting, but it does seem conceivable that seeing this could consciously or not have played into Constantine's dreams that night!

Ben

[curtislclay]

But see P. Weiss, The vision of Constantine, Journal of Roman Archaeology 16, 2003, who has solved this old problem, in my estimation!

The Christogram in sky was a solar halo, seen by Constantine and his army in Gaul in 310, as described in a panegyric delivered before the emperor later in the same year.

Eusebius too, reporting Constantine's own words, says the sign appeared to Constantine and his army in the afternoon, "about the time of the noonday sun, when the day was already beginning to wane." So how could this have been a planetary alignment visible only at night?

Hence the predominance of Sol as reverse type on Constantine's coins from 310 on; the sign surrounded the sun, so at first Constantine naturally associated it with the sun god! 

On the night before the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine merely had a DREAM, as Lactantius specifically states, instructing him to place "the heavenly sign of God" on the shields of his soldiers before the battle. That was the sign he and his army had seen two and a half years earlier in Gaul, though Lactantius does not specify this.

It is Eusebius who created the problem: for after correctly describing the solar halo shaped like a cross, seen by Constantine and his army in the afternoon, he says Constantine was amazed by the spectacle and pondered long about its meaning, until night came and he dreamt that Christ told him the sign was Christ's and he should copy it and use it against his enemies. Eusebius writes as though the dream occurred on the very night after the solar apparition, but in fact two and one-half years intervened!

Is it at all likely that Constantine and his army saw TWO solar halos, one in 310 as described in the Panegyric, the second on 27 Oct. 312 as implied by Eusebius?  Wouldn't Lactantius have mentioned the actual occurrence of the heavenly sign the day before the battle, and not just the dream instructing Constantine to place the sign on his soldiers' shields?  Wouldn't Constantine have told Eusebius that he had actually witnessed TWO heavenly crosses, one in 310 and the second in 312?

I believe I have mentioned these arguments to you in other threads, and find it a shame that they apparently don't convince you!

[virtus42]

Curtis, I do find Weiss's explanation of Constantine's vision of 310 as being a Solar halo quite compelling.. I only disagree with him on the VIRT EXERC coin depicting this. It might do, but I don't rule out other interpretations either.

I find it interesting that this astronomical alignment does suggest the exact, odd, shape that Constantine described to Lactantius - it wasn't a cross or a Chi-Rho, but rather this exact X with a bent top (that we do see on some coins).

Anyway, I'm only passing this on as it was new to me and thought it may be of interest.

Ben

[curtislclay]

Ben,

The idea is of interest I suppose, but obviously WRONG, which I think one should state when presenting it!

I wouldn't put my hand in the fire for Weiss' interpretation of the VIRT EXERC type either, though I do find it much more probable than any other explanation so far offered. But that is a totally subsidiary suggestion in the article, with no relevance at all to the main argument.

Have you just changed your Forvm moniker from Congius to virtus42?

Regards,

Curtis

[Maffeo]

Just watched with interest the youtube clip.
Yet, once again, it's the kind of presentation that jumps to perhaps unwarranted conclusions.
After the reconstruction of what Constantine might have seen in the sky, it concludes "Constantine received an unequivocal sign, he will win with the help of the Christian God" (un signe univoque, il gaignerà avec l'aide du Dieu chretien).
But this is begging the whole question, because it presupposes that Constantine would have taken that vaguely  alignment of planets in the sky as a specifically Christian symbol to begin with.
But would he have? In fact this kind of argument is anachronistic, for it takes for granted that the  was unproblematically and without further ado and unequivocally recognized at that time (312) as a Christian symbol.
But this is not the case, it was as at the time still an ancient symbol with a plurality of possible meanings - it was rather equivocal (with ancient Egyptian antecedents, as a good luck sign and a symbol that in papiri simply meant "correct", and a symbol endowed with a wide variety of solar connotations).
Thus, it was only in the late Constantinian period (it hardly appears on Constantine's own coins) and especially thereafter that the  came to be seen generally as a specifically and exclusively Christian symbol - in fact archaeologists inform us that before the late Constantinian period, at the earliest, the  is practically never, if at all, to be found as a specifically Christian symbol.

Mike

[Congius]

I don't think it's at all obvious what triggered that specific dream on that particular night. I don't recall Weiss having an answer for that either, and even if he did I'd take it with a pinch of salt! It's hard enough knowing what triggered your own dreams, or factored into their content, much less the dreams of a 4th C roman emperor! I certainly don't believe it's "obviously wrong" that what Constantine saw in the night sky that night may have factored into his dreams or imagination.

Let's note that per the original accounts there is zero connection between Constantine's vision of Apollo in 310 (which Weiss interprets as witnessing a Solar halo), and the dream he had of a Christogram on the night before battle in 312 as recorded by Lactantius. If Constantine's powerful "vision" figured into his dream, Lactantius was unaware of it, and the curiously detailed description of the Christogram he had dreamt about came absent of any hint of it being similar to anything revealed to him in real life!

Now, Weiss is likely right that Eusebius's account of Constantine's midday "hoc signo" vision was based on a conflation of these two events (vision of Apollo + dream), but to me that doesn't imply any genuine connection between the two... Lactantius's sober and contemporary version of the dream seems to me much more reliable than any additional detail one might try to deduce from Eusebius's later willful perversion of history! Maybe Constantine, or Eusebius, later saw a connection between the dream and vision, but that is irrelevant to what was stirring Constantine's imagination on the night before battle.

So, to my mind one can accept Weiss's explanation of vision as halo, accept his explanation of Eusebius's fiction as conflation of dream and vision, and still be left wondering why Constantine was dreaming of THAT Christogram on THAT night. That's the void that the astronomical alignment may be able to fill.

Ben

P.S. No, I didn't change my moniker - that's an old one that I created for testing a different browser, and apparently it's still associated with that browser. I used it acidently.

P.S.S. Mike - I just saw your reply. As mentioned, my French is not up to the narration, so I'm just reacting to the astronomical reconstruction itself rather than how the people in the video are tying it to history.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Solar halos aren't rare - mostly they go unnoticed - so it's not impossible for Constantine to have seen two. Two with the distinctive cross-like shape is unlikely though, so Eusebius was probably rewriting history.

As Curtis said, a night-time phenomenon would go against all the evidence we have. Constantine saw something during the day, and turned aside to the Temple of Apollo, a solar deity. He then issued coins by the million, identifying himself with Sol Invictus. All that goes right against a nocturnal vision, and the only thing said to have happened at night is a dream.

Constantine appears to have been a monotheistic sun worshipper, so a solar symbol would have been appropriate on the shields. The army would have been largely pagan, with a Christian minority. We don't know how large the latter was, but Diocletian wanted to purge Christians from the army, suggesting that there were enough to worry the more zealous pagans who were pushing him to persecute. Some, perhaps many, Christians were syncretists, and we know from a letter of Leo the Great in the following century that some doubled up as sun worshippers. Most likely the symbol on the shields was a simple sunwheel, with radiating lines running from the centre out to the circumference. A simple modification would turn this into a chi-rho. If this was already recognised by Christians (and we don't know), then Constantine would have had a symbol which would have been acceptable to both. That's completely in line with his subsequent policy, which increasingly made space for Christians within a pagan empire, and laid the groundwork for its later Christianisation.

[curtislclay]

Ben,

The solar halo was, in Weiss' interpretation, a sign of victory from the start, first of all  because it incorporated a circle interpretable as a wreath of victory, and second because the restoration of peace along the Rhine was announced to Constantine, after making his detour to the temple of Apollo, at precisely the spot where he and the army had witnessed the halo the previous day. They had been marching posthaste north because the Germans had taken advantage of his absence to invade the Roman province!

On 27 October 312 he was facing a crucial battle the next day, certainly cause enough, I would say, for him to dream about his sign of Victory! The upcoming battle triggered the dream, no need to imagine Constantine inspecting the night sky and happening to expand the line of the three planets into a Christogram, certainly not an obvious shape among the thousands of stars.

I don't understand your arguments about Lactantius and Eusebius.

Lactantius does not contradict Weiss' interpretation, but supports it: only a dream in 312, but regarding a "heavenly sign of God" that was obviously already known to Constantine, Lactantius doesn't say from where.

And how has Eusebius "created fiction and perverted history"?  On Weiss' interpretation, all he is guilty of is recounting the halo of 310 and the dream of 312 as though they took place in the course of a single day and night.

[*Alex]

Most likely the symbol on the shields was a simple sunwheel, with radiating lines running from the centre out to the circumference.

It has long been my belief that an interpretation of this is exactly what is depicted on the VIRT EXERC coins. i.e. the artist is reproducing the symbol that was scratched on the shields.

Alex.

[curtislclay]

Ben,

In the video the planetary configuration of 27 Oct. 312 is presented as THE caelestial vision of Constantine, meaning "In this sign you will conquer" as described by Eusebius, not as just a supplementary vision which made him dream of the Christogram that night.

So the video, as I said, is most definitely wrong: Constantine's caelestial vision certainly took place in daytime and was centered on the sun!

Yours,

Curtis

[Congius]

Curtis,
As already noted, I was not reacting to the views of the presenter, only to the interesting astronomical alignment of that night. Clearly the night sky can't account for Eusebius's account (nor, sadly can the Solar halo reality), since it doesn't have text messages scrawled across the sky! ;-)

I will reply properly to your earlier post, but in the meantime, quite by coincidence, I just received this piece depicting the infamous event. It was issued in 1913 on the 1600th anniversary of the Edict of Milan.

Ben

[curtislclay]

Not a bad depiction of the solar halo, but the artist was mistaken to add the Milvian Bridge to the scene!

[Congius]

Well, only partially. The reverse is marked (at the bottom - hard to see) CCCXII (the obverse is marked CCXIII & MCMXIII), so clearly this is Eusebius's version in every way! Presumably he was at least on the outskirts of Rome on the night before the battle.

Ben

[zeid]

Ben,

In the video the planetary configuration of 27 Oct. 312 is presented as THE caelestial vision of Constantine, meaning "In this sign you will conquer" as described by Eusebius, not as just a supplementary vision which made him dream of the Christogram that night.

So the video, as I said, is most definitely wrong: Constantine's caelestial vision certainly took place in daytime and was centered on the sun!

I guess the the planetary configuration  hypothesis of 27 Oct. 312  is plausible from one angle.

 it could be originally an Astrological omen or sign seen by ancient Roman  Chaldeans then reinterpreted later by Christian historians as a Day time miraculous "christian"event.
 
9 years later Constantine himself after his conversion,started a crusade against ancient Astrology  .In 321 Constantine issued an edict threatening all Chaldeans, Magi, and their followers with death.

coincidence ...I am not sure

The same conflicting relationship between ancient Astrological events and Religious
re-interpretations can be found with The wise men "star" or the Star of Bethlehem

Although magi (Greek μαγοι) is usually translated as "wise men," in this context it probably means "astronomer" or "astrologer". The involvement of astrologers in the story of the birth of Jesus was problematic for the early Church, because they condemned astrology as demonic; a widely cited explanation was that of Tertullian, who suggested that astrology was allowed 'only until the time of the Gospel'.

The magi linked the appearance of a star to the birth of a "king of the Jews." In Hellenistic astrology, Jupiter was the king planet and Regulus (in the constellation Leo) was the king star. As they traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, the star "went before" the magi and then "stood over" the place where Jesus was. In astrological interpretations, these phrases are said to refer to retrograde motion and to stationing, i.e., Jupiter appeared to reverse course for a time, then stopped, and finally resumed its normal progression.

In 3–2 BC, there was a series of seven conjunctions, including three between Jupiter and Regulus and a strikingly close conjunction between Jupiter and Venus near Regulus on June 17, 2 BC. "The fusion of two planets would have been a rare and awe-inspiring event", according to a paper by Roger Sinnott. This event however occurred after the generally accepted date of 4 BC for the death of Herod. Since the conjunction would have been seen in the west at sunset it could not have led the magi south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

Astronomer Michael Molnar has proposed a link between a double occultation of Jupiter by the moon in 6 BC in Aries and the Star of Bethlehem, particularly the second occultation on April 17. This event was quite close to the sun and would have been difficult to observe, even with a small telescope, which had not yet been invented. Occultations of planets by the moon are quite common, but Firmicus Maternus, an astrologer to Roman Emperor Constantine, wrote that an occultation of Jupiter in Aries was a sign of the birth of a divine king. "When the royal star of Zeus, the planet Jupiter, was in the east this was the most powerful time to confer kingships. Furthermore, the Sun was in Aries where it is exalted. And the Moon was in very close conjunction with Jupiter in Aries", Molnar wrote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem




http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Sky_Jerusalem_South-7BC-11-12.gif



The night sky as it appeared looking south from Jerusalem on Nov. 12, 7 BC, 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.



 Divus Iulius  Vs  Divi filius

[Robert_Brenchley]

Here's a different view of the star.

http://www.josephus.org/starOfBethlehem.htm