Section 424
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 393 batants and guards about him, sunk into the depths like a stone, when he fled before the power of God that was with Constantine, and passed through the river in his way, over which he had formed a bridge by joining boats, and thus prepared the means of his own destruction. Here one might say, " he digged a pit and opened it, and he fell into the ditch that he made, his mis chief shall fall upon his own head, and his iniquity descend upon his own pate." Thus, then, the bridge of boats over the river being broken, the crossing began to cease, and immediately the vessels with the men sunk, arid were destroyed, and the most impious tyrant himself first of all, then the guards that he had around him, just as the divine oracles declare, sunk like lead in the swelling floods. So that justly might those who obtained the victory from God, if not in word, at least in deeds, similar to those whom that great servant of God, j^oses led on, sing and say the same that they sang against that impious tyrant of old. " Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider he hath cast into the sea : the Lord is my helper and defender, and he is become my salvation. Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods ; who is like unto thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders." Such, and the like expressions, did Constantine sing to God, the universal sovereign and author of the victory by his deeds, as he entered Rome in triumph. All the senate and others of illustri ous rank, together with their wives and infant children, with the whole Roman people, received him as their deliverer, their saviour, and benefactor, with cheerful countenances and hearts, with bless ings and unbounded joy. But he, according to the piety deeply implanted in him, neither exulting in the shouts that were raised, nor elated by the plaudits bestowed upon him, well perceiving the assistance which he had received from God, immediately commanded a trophy of the Saviour's passion to be placed in the hand of his own statue. And when they had erected his statue, thus holding the salutary sign of the cross in his right hand, in the most public place at Rome, he commanded the following in scription to be written, in the Roman tongue, as follows : " By this salutary sign, the true ornament of bravery, I have 3D