had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view with careless
despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of Rome. The senate
and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious tyrant,
acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the powers
of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by the
protection of the Gods. The triumphal arch, which was erected about
three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous language, that
by the greatness of his own mind, and by an instinct or impulse of the
Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman republic. The Pagan orator,
who had seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of the
conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce
with the Supreme Being, who delegated the care of mortals to his
subordinate deities; and thus assigns a very plausible reason why the
subjects of Constantine should not presume to embrace the new religion
of their sovereign.

III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and
omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators have
sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers
has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or
appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course
of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the
Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes given
shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but uncommon
meteors of the air. Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most celebrated
orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt the glory of
Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius describes an
army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the sky: he marks their
beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the stream of light
which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience in suffering
themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and their
declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the assistance of
the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the Pagan orator
appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he was then
speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions would now
obtain credit from this recent and public event. The Christian fable of
Eusebius, which, i