Hansen Bible Study

On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

On this day · October 28

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge

October 28, 312 · Rome, Italy

The setting

For centuries Christians had suffered waves of persecution in the Roman Empire, the most recent and severe under Diocletian. In 312 two rivals, Constantine and Maxentius, were fighting for control of the West.

The story

Lactantius, a Christian teacher who served at Constantine's court, gives the earliest account. Constantine marched on Rome and camped opposite the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber. The battle came on the anniversary of Maxentius's rule, which Lactantius gives as "the sixth of the kalends of November"; historians usually date it October 28, 312.

Lactantius writes that Constantine was told in a dream to mark a heavenly sign on his soldiers' shields. He had them marked with the cipher of Christ, the Greek letters Chi and Rho. Maxentius's army crossed the bridge, and the two armies fought hard. Maxentius was defeated, and Constantine entered Rome.

“Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle.”

Lactantius, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, ch. 44

What happened next

The next year Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius ended the persecution and granted Christians freedom of worship. Lactantius quotes their decree in the same book, ch. 48. Within a century Christianity had moved from a persecuted faith to the empire's favored one, which brought new freedoms and new temptations.

Why it matters: The church went from the arena to open worship almost overnight, a turning point every later Christian inherits.

Source: Lactantius, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, trans. William Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 7 (1886), Chapter 44. Public domain.

← Back to today

Church Family Tree

One church, many branches →

Nine eras of church history, a family tree of the major traditions, and how the Pentecostal revival, fed by many Protestant streams, produced the Assemblies of God.

Other days

On This Day in Church History | Hansen Bible Study