Christian Cruciform Symbols and Magical Charaktères Luc Renaut To cite this version: Luc Renaut. Christian Cruciform Symbols and Magical Charaktères. Polytheismus – Monotheismus : Die Pragmatik religiösen Handelns in der Antike, Jun 2005, Erfurt, Germany. hal-00275253 HAL Id: hal-00275253 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00275253 Submitted on 24 Apr 2008 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. CHRISTIAN CRUCIFORM SYMBOLS victory in Milvius Bridge, Constantine « was directed in a dream to cause AND MAGICAL CHARAKTÈRES the heavenly sign of God ( caeleste signum Dei ) to be delineated on the Communication prononcée dans le cadre du Colloque Polytheismus – Mono- shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He does as he had been theismus : Die Pragmatik religiösen Handelns in der Antike (Erfurt, Philo- commanded, and he marks on the shields the Christ[’s name] ( Christum in sophische Fakultät, 30/06/05). scutis notat ), the letter X having been rotated ( transversa X littera ) and his top part curved in [half-]circle ( summo capite circumflexo ). »4 This As everyone knows, the gradual political entrance of Christian caeleste signum Dei corresponds to the sign R 5. Strangely, however, cruciform symbols in imperial institutions is closely connected with the Lactantius does not refer to the cross. For him, this sign is only an reign of Constantine. Christian chroniclers intended — with success — to abbreviation ( compendium ) of the first two letters (X and P) of ΧριστOς find a starting point of this story in the victory of Constantine over name. But the contraction R previously had nothing to do with the Christ Maxentius in Milvius Bridge (on the Tiber, oct. 28 of 312). name 6. It appears in biblical manuscripts of the second- and third-century In the year 310, while he was still in Gaul, Constantine is said to have as a compendium for the four letters ταυρ of σταυρOς (cross) and σταυρον been visited by an apparition of Apollo accompanied by Victoria. (crucify) 7. In fourth-century manuscripts, this “staurogram” is used as an According to the panegyrist, the god was anything but the proper image of emperor himself 1. The pagan panegyrist of the year 313 does not make any 4 LACTANTIUS , De mortibus persecutorum (before 320, maybe c. 315), ch. 44, mention of Christianity. In rhetorical terms, he merely questions himself § 5-6, ed. J. MOREAU , SC 39, Paris, 1954, p. 127 (BnF ms lat. 2627, f° 13r°, l. 15- about the identity of the deus , maiestas or divinitas who gave so much 16). The manuscript gives xpo , but this form can be explained as a wrong reading ū ardor to Constantine and his army 2. He thinks the emperor being in secret for xp (= xpum = christum ). See J. ROUGÉ , « À propos du manuscrit du De mortibus persecutorum », Lactance et son temps : recherches actuelles . Actes du complicity ( aliquod ... secretum ) with a divine spirit ( illa mens divina ) the IV e Colloque d’Études Historiques et Patristiques , (Chantilly, 21-23 septembre text does not name. Similar phraseology will be engraved in the triumphal 1976), ed. J. FONTAINE and M. PERRIN (Coll. Théologie historique, 48), Paris : arch of the year 315 : Constantine « has delivered the state from the tyrant Beauchesne, 1978, p. 13-22, esp. p. 19-21. 5 [...] through divine inspiration ( instictu divinitatis ), and great wisdom H. I. MARROU , « Autour du monogramme constantinien », Mélanges Étienne Gilson , Toronto / Paris, 1959, p. 403-414, reprinted in H. I. MARROU , Christiana 3 (mentis magnitudine ) » . Tempora. Mélanges d’Histoire, d’Archéologie, d’épigraphie et de Patristique , In the years 315-320, Lactantius introduces a well-known topic : the (Coll. de l’École Française de Rome, 35), Rome, 1978. “Christian revelation” of Constantine. During the night preceding his 6 E. DINKLER - VON SCHUBERT , « CTAYPOC : Vom “Wort vom Kreuz” (1 Kor. 1, 18) zum Kreuz-Symbol », Byzantine East, latine West art-historical studies in honor of Kurt Weitzmann , Princeton, 1995, p. 29-39. M. BLACK , « The chi-rho 1 Paneg. lat . VII, ch. 21, § 4 sq. Sign ; Christogram and/or Staurogram ? », Apostolic History and the Gospel 2 Paneg . lat . IX, ch. 2, § 4 and ch. 22, § 1 [Mélanges Bruce ], Exeter, 1970, p. 319-327. 3 Ed. and transl. Richard BRILLANT in Age of Spirituality. Late Antique and 7 66 Pap. Bod. II (P , c. 200) : %%%R OUOUOU (with a continuous line above the word) Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, Catalogue of the Exhibition at the for σταυρο (Jn 19, 31) ; EEE%E%%%R ANANAN (above-lined) for σταρωσαν (Jn 19, 18). Pap. Metropolitain Museum of Art, Nov. 19, 1977 - Feb. 12, 1978 , ed. K. WEITZMANN , 75 Bod. XIV (P , beginning of the third century) : %%%R VVVYHNAIVYHNAI (above-lined) for New York, 1979, p. 67. σταυρωθναι (Lk 24, 7) ; %%%R ONONON (above-lined) for σταυρOν (Lk 9, 23 and 14, 27). autonomous ornament at the end of evangelical books. The Christogram Y, a « likeness » ( µMµηµα ) of the sign which he had seen in the heavens, and obtained by contracting the first two letters of ΧριστOς name, has been to use it as a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies. Eusebius gives developed apart from the staurogram R : it is not used by the most ancient a description of this so-called labarum 13 of which he asserts having seen a manuscripts of the New Testament, and, in the catacombs of Rome, no pre- specimen in the imperial palace of Constantinopolis14 . It was a standard constantinian Christogram is known 8. The first securely dated Christogram with two perpendicular poles — « cross-shaped » ( σταυρο σχKµατι ), in this environment is to be found in an inscription of the year 323 ( IN PACE Eusebius says — carrying a square fabric. We can easily identify this Y)9. banner with the traditional vexillum of the Roman army, in which apolo- In the ninth book of his Ecclesiastical History (before 324), Euse- gists had already recognized a close likeness with the cross 15 . At the bius does not still favour Constantine with a vision. Before his battle summit of the vertical pole of the labarum was however an undeniable s against Maxentius, the emperor merely invokes « as an ally the celestial Christian symbol, the Christogram surrounded by a crown : —| . God and his Word, Jesus Christ himself »10 . After his triumphal entrance in Numismatics shows that officialization of Christian symbols was Rome, Constantine « orders that the trophy of the Saviour’s Passion ( το not an event as unexpected as Christian historiographers would have liked σωτηρMου τρOπαιον πGθους ) be placed in the hand of his own statue » — a to make it believe. Studies of Patrick Bruun threw noticeable light on the trophy also called by Eusebius « the saviour sign » ( τN σωτKριον subject 16 . Constantinian coinage just shows the monogram Y used by local σηµεον )11 . In the Vita Constantini , a text written after Constantine’s death workshops as an issuing mark among others (stars, half-moon, palm leafs, (337), the emperor sees in the heavens, in the middle of the day, « the etc). On a very rare reverse from Constantinopolis (327), Christogram Y trophy of the cross ( σταυρο τρOπαιον ), made of light ( κ φωτOς) and placed appears at the top of a standard piercing a snake 17 . In the mid-fourth above the sun ( 3περκεMµενον το λMου ), and an inscription relating to it, saying : “Conquer by this [trophy]” ( τοτ νMκα ) »12 . The next night, the 13 Christ appears to Constantine during his sleep and commands him to make The late title of chap. 31 ( Vita Const . I) gives this latin name : Εκφρασις σταυροειδος σηµεMου, -περ νν ο ῾Ρωµαοι λGβαρον καλοσιν. Labarum occurs in fact for the first time at the end of the fourth century, in PRUDENTIUS , Contra On later periods, see A. H. R. E. PAAP , Nomina Sacra in the Greek Papyri of the Symmachum I, v. 487. First Five Century A.D. , Leyde, 1959, n os 22, 264, 271, 313, 389. 14 Vita Const ., I, ch. 31, § 1-2. 8 P. BRUUN , « Symboles, Signes et Monogrammes », Sylloge Inscriptionum 15 JUSTINUS , Apol . I, ch. 55, § 6. Christianarum Veterum Musei Vaticani , dir. H. ZILLIACUS , 2, Commentarii (Acta 16 Instituti Romani Finlandiae, vol. I, 2), Helsinki, 1963, p. 73-166, esp. p. 157. P. BRUUN , « The Christians Signs on the Coins of Constantine », Arctos (Acta philologica fennica nova series), 3, Helsinki, 1962, p. 5-35 ; ID, « The 9 E. DIEHL , Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres , 2, Berlin, 1927, n° Victorious Signs of Constantine : A Reappraisal », The Numismatic Chronicle , 3257. 157, 1997, p. 41-59. 10 Eccl. Hist ., IX, ch. 9, § 2. 17 P. BRUUN , The Roman Imperial Coinage, VII, Constantine and Licinius, 11 Eccl. Hist ., IX, ch. 9, § 10. A.D. 313-337 , Londres, 1966, p. 352 and pl. 18, n° 19 (only three examples listed). 12 Vita Const . I, ch. 28, § 2. The snake should depict Licinius (defeated in 324) or the barbarian foes. 2 century, the labarum had become the personal standard of the emperor, at forgets that the progressive adoption of these symbols would not have the bottom of which a prisoner is often kneeling. Christian symbols succeeded without a sort of mutual receptivity : it was necessary that disappeared during the reign of Julian the Apostat (361-363) and came Pagans and Christians be able to recognize each other in the choices back under Jovian (363-364).