^^t (i- e. Christos — Alpha (^ and Omega, the beginning and the end), and similar forms, of which Miinter (Sinn- bilder der alten Christen, p. 36 sqq.) has collected from ancient coins, vessels, and tombstones more than twenty. The monogram, as well as the sign of the cross, was in use among the Christians long before Constantine, probably as early as the Antonines and Hadrian. Yea, the standards and trophies of victory generally had the appearance of a cross, as Minucius Felix, TertuUian, Justin, and other apologists of the second century told the heathens. According to Killen (Ancient Churchy p. 317, note), who quotes Aringhus, Eoma subterranea, ii. p. 567, as his authority, the 28 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. also put upon the shields of the soldiers. To this cross- standard, which now took the place of the Roman eagles, he attributed the decisive victory over the heathen Maxentiiis, Accordingly, after his triumphal entrance into Rome, he had his statue erected upon the forum with the labarum in his right hand, and the inscription beneath : " By this saving sign, the true token of bravery, I have delivered your city from the yoke of the tyrant." ' Three years afterwards the senate erected to him a triumphal arch of marble, which to this day, within sight of the sublime ruins of the pagan Colosseum, indi- cates at once the decay of ancient art, and the downfall of heathenism ; as the neighboring arch of Titus commemorates the downfall of Judaism and the destruction of the temple. The inscription on this arch of Constantine, however, ascribes his victory over the hated tyrant, not only to his master mind, but indefinitely also to the impulse of Deity ; ^ by which a Christian would naturally understand the true God, while a heathen, like the orator IsTazarins, in his eulogy on Constantine, might take it for the celestial guardian power of the " urbs aeterna." At all events the victory of Constantine over Maxentius was a military and political victory of Christianity over heathenism ; the intellectual and moral victory having been already accomplished by the literature and life of the church in the preceding period. The emblem of ignominy and op- pression' became thenceforward the badge of honor and do- famous monogram (of course in a different sense) is foimd even before Christ on coins of the Ptolemies. The only thing new, therefore, was the iinion of this symbol, in its Christian sense and application, with the Roman military standard. * Eus., H. E. ix. 9 : Tout^ tc^ ffwTTjpiuSei {sahitari, not sinpilari, as Rufinus has it) ffT]fj,fi(fif T^J a\7]diva} iKeyxv ttjs a.v5pias, T'fjv irSXiv v/j-UV airh ^vyov tov Tvpdvvov Staaw^uaav eAeu&epcoffa, k. t. \. Gibbon, however, thinks it more probable, that at least the labarum and the inscription date only from the second or third visit of Constantine to Rome. ' " Instinctu Divinitatis et mentis magnitudine." Divinitas may be taken as an ambiguous word like Providence, " which