Re: Day of no Indecision: Battle of the Milvian Bridge (Momigliano)

mountain man wrote:
On 28 October 312 the Christians
suddenly and unexpectedly
found themselves victorious.
The victory was a miracle -
though opinions differed
as to the nature of the sign
vouchsafed to Constantine.

The winners became conscious of their victory
in a mood of resentment and vengeance.
A voice shrill with implacable hatred
announced to the world
the victory of the Milvian Bridge:
Lactatius' De mortibus persecutorum.

In this horrible pamphlet by the author of De ira dei
there is something of the violence of the
prophets without the redeeming sense of tragedy
that inspired Nahum's song for the the fall of
Nineveh.



======/quotage AM=============

Why does such a man as Momigliano use the word "miracle"?

He knew only too well that the victory, as described by Gibbon,
for example, was certainly no miracle. Constantine was
a great military commander, was very well prepared for
the military exercise, and in fact never lost a battle
in his 30 years at the top. So there was nothing at
all "miraculous" in the military victory.

It is as if Momigliano is saying "hint", "hint".
Almost "wink, wink, say no more ...".

But indeed why?

And as if to highlight this, on the following page (p.80)
of the work, Momigliano makes a second reference to
this "miracle". This only serves to highlight something
about what Momigliano is saying, or not saying. The
expanded context of this quote is as follows:

======quotage AM=============




If there were men who recommended
tolerance and peaceful coexistence
of Christians and pagans,
they were rapidly crowded out.

The Christians were ready
to take over the Roman empire,
as Eusebius made clear
in the introduction of the Preparatio evangelica
where he emphasises the correlation
between pax romana and the Christian message:
the thought indeed was not even new.

The Christians were also determined
to make impossible a return to the conditions
of inferiority and persecution for the Church.
The problems and conflicts inside the Church
which all this implied
may be left aside for the moment.

“The revolution of the fourth century,
carrying with it a new historiography
will not be understood if we underrate
the determination, almost the fierceness,
with which the Christians appreciated and exploited

the miracle

that had transformed Constantine
into a supporter, a protector, and later a legislator
of the Christian church.”

One fact is eloquent enough. All the pioneer works
in the field of Christian historiography are earlier
than what we may call their opposite numbers in
pagan historiography."


======/quotage AM=============
Pagan and Christian Historiography
in the Fourth Century A.D.
--- ARNALDO MOMIGLIANO (1959/60)

In these quoted passages:
By the language used, or at least the translation,
Momigliano implies that Christians or Christianity
existed before 312.
.

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