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This coin of Crispus, son of Constantine, with a chi rho on the shield (struck c. 326) shows that the symbol mentioned by Lactantius and Eusebius was a chi rho. Emperor Constantine the Great's labarum, a standard incorporating the wreathed Chi-Rho, from an antique silver medal.
Here, Lactantius preserves the story of Constantine's vision of the Chi Rho before his conversion to Christianity. The full text is found in only one manuscript, which bears the title Lucii Caecilii liber ad Donatum Confessorem de Mortibus Persecutorum .
Eusebius then continues to describe the Labarum, [5] the military standard used by Constantine in his later wars against Licinius, showing the Chi-Rho sign. The accounts by Lactantius and Eusebius, though not entirely consistent, have been connected to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD), merging into a popular notion of Constantine ...
He followed the commands of his dream and marked the shields with a sign "denoting Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a Latin cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion. There is no certain evidence that Constantine ever used that sign, as opposed to the better known Chi-Rho sign described by Eusebius. [8]
The labarum (Greek: λάβαρον or λάβουρον [2]) was a vexillum (military standard) that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧, a christogram formed from the first two Greek letters of the word "Christ" (Greek: ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, or Χριστός) – Chi (χ) and Rho (ρ). [3] It was first used by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. [4]
Eusebius describes the sign as Chi (Χ) traversed by Rho (Ρ), or ☧ a symbol representing the first two letters of the Greek spelling of the word Christos or Christ. [ 79 ] [ 84 ] [ 85 ] The Eusebian description of the vision has been explained as a " solar halo ", a meteorological phenomenon which can produce similar effects.
Raphael's The Vision of the Cross depicts a cross instead of the Chi Rho. A fresco in the Benedictine monastery of Santi Quattro Coronati depicts Constantine offering his crown to Sylvester . Constantine the Great 's (272–337) relationship with the four Bishops of Rome during his reign is an important component of the history of the Papacy ...
The Chi Rho is formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters chi and rho (ΧΡ) of the Greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ", meaning Christ, in such a way to produce the monogram. Widespread in ancient Christianity, it was the symbol used by the Roman emperor Constantine I as vexillum (named Labarum ).