Editing Eusebius (section)

==== Conversion of Constantine according to Eusebius ====
{{Main|Constantine the Great and Christianity}}
Writing after Constantine had died, Eusebius claimed that the emperor himself had recounted to him that some time between the death of his father – the ''augustus'' [[Constantius Chlorus|Constantius]] – and his final battle against his rival [[Maxentius]] as ''augustus'' in the West, Constantine experienced a [[Vision (spirituality)|vision]] in which he and his soldiers beheld a Christian symbol, "a cross-shaped trophy formed from light", above the sun at midday.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|last1=Bardill|first1=Jonathan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUK5cQW2EUwC|title=Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age|last2=Bardill|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-521-76423-0|pages=159–170|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">Eusebius of Caesarea, ''Vita Constantini'', 1.29</ref> Attached to the symbol was the phrase "by this conquer" ({{langx|grc|ἐν τούτῳ νίκα|label=none|translit=en toútōi níka}}), a phrase often rendered into Latin as "''[[in hoc signo vinces]]''".<ref name=":02" /> In a dream that night "the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign which had appeared in the sky, and urged him to make himself a copy of the sign which had appeared in the sky, and to use this as a protection against the attacks of the enemy."<ref name=":1" /> Eusebius relates that this happened "on a campaign he [Constantine] was conducting somewhere".<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":02" /> It is unclear from Eusebius's description whether the shields were marked with a [[Christian cross]] or with a ''[[Chi Rho|chi-rho]]'', a [[staurogram]], or another similar symbol.<ref name=":02" />

The Latin text ''De mortibus persecutorum'' contains an early account of the 28 October 312 [[Battle of the Milvian Bridge]] written by [[Lactantius]] probably in 313, the year following the battle. Lactantius does not mention a vision in the sky but describes a revelatory dream on the eve of battle.<ref>Lactantius, ''De mortibus persecutorum'', 44.5–6</ref> Eusebius's work of that time, his ''Church History'', also makes no mention of the vision.<ref name=":02" /> The Arch of Constantine, constructed in AD 315, neither depicts a vision nor any Christian insignia in its depiction of the battle. In his posthumous biography of Constantine, Eusebius agrees with Lactantius that Constantine received instructions in a dream to apply a Christian symbol as a [[Heraldic device|device]] to his soldiers' shields, but unlike Lactantius and subsequent Christian tradition, Eusebius does not date the events to October 312 and does not connect Constantine's vision and dream-vision with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.<ref name=":02" />