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THE name of this story I'm going to put at the end, for you wouldn't know what it means, anyway, until you have heard the story, and so it's no use looking ahead.
All through the years since Christ was crucified, some people who said they believed in Christ had been terribly treated— persecuted, we call it—because they were Christians. They had been flogged; they had been stoned; they had been torn with iron hooks. They had been roasted and burned to death. Yet, strange as it may seem, in spite of this terrible treatment, more and more people were becoming Christians every day. They believed so strongly in life after death, and they believed that they would be so much happier after death if they died for Christ's sake, that they seemed even glad to suffer and to be killed. At last the emperor himself put a stop to all these persecutions. This is how it happened.
About the year 300 A.D. Rome had an emperor by the name of Constantine. Constantine was not a Christian. His gods were the old Roman gods. He probably did not put much faith in them, however.
Well, once upon a time Constantine was fighting with an enemy when he dreamed one night that he saw in the sky a flaming cross. Beneath this cross were written the Latin words, In hoc signo vinces. In English this is, “In this sign thou shalt conquer.” Constantine thought this meant that if he carried the Christian cross into battle, he would conquer. He thought it would at least be worthwhile to give the Christian god a trial. So he marked the sign of the cross on the shields carried by his soldiers, and he did win the battle. To celebrate his victory, the Roman Senate built the Arch of Constantine, a triumphal arch with three openings, in the Forum of Rome. After this, Constantine made Christianity a legal religion in the Roman Empire. It is believed that he was baptized just before he died. From that time on, all the Roman emperors who came after Constantine—all except one—were Christians.
Constantine's mother was named Helena. She became a Christian. Then she gave up her life to Christian works and built churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. It is said that she went to Palestine and found the actual cross on which Christ had been crucified three hundred years before and sent part of it to Rome. When she died she was made a saint. She is now called St. Helena.
Constantine built a church over the spot where St. Peter was supposed to have been crucified. Many years later, this church was torn down so that a much larger and grander church in honor of St. Peter might be built there.
Constantine did not care for Rome. He preferred to live in another city in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. This city was called Byzantium. So he moved from Rome to Byzantium and made that city his capital. Byzantium was called New Rome, and then the name was changed to Constantine's city. In Greek, the word for city is polis. We see the word used in Anna polisand Indiana polis. Constantine's City became Constantinopolis, and then shortened to Constantinople.
Hardly had the Roman Empire become Christian before a quarrel arose between those Christians who believed one thing and those who believed another. The chief thing they quarreled about was whether Christ was equal to God the Father or not equal to Him. Constantine called the two disagreeing sides together at a place called Nicaea to settle the question. There the leaders of each side argued the matter hotly. Finally, it was decided that the Christian Church should believe that God the Son and God the Father were equal. Then they agreed to put what they believed in words. This was called a creed, which means believe, and because it was made at Nicaea it was known as the Nicene Creed, which many Christians still say every Sunday.
Before the time of Constantine, there were no weekly holidays in the Roman Empire. Sunday was no different from any other day. People worked or did just the same things on Sunday as they did on other days. Constantine thought Christians should have one day a week for the worship of God—a holy day, or holiday, as we call it—so he made Sunday the Christian day of rest, a holy daysuch as Saturday is for Jews and Friday is for Muslims.
Although Constantine was head of the Roman Empire, there was another man whom all Christians throughout the world looked to as their spiritual head. This man was the Bishop of Rome. In Latin he was called Papa, which means the same thing in Latin that it does in English, father. So the bishop of Rome was called Papa, and this became pope. St. Peter was supposed to have been the first bishop of Rome. For many centuries the pope was the spiritual ruler of all Christians everywhere, no matter in what country they lived.
As now you know what the name of this story means, I'm putting it here:
In Hoc Signo Vinces.
这个故事的题目我要放到最后才说，因为直到听完这个故事，你才会明白题目的意思，所以提前看题目也没有用。
自从耶稣在十字架上被钉死后的很多年，那些声明自己信仰基督的人都遭到了残酷的虐待——我们称之为“受逼迫”——因为他们是基督徒。他们被人鞭笞，被人用石头砸，被人用铁钩子撕裂。他们还被放在火上烤，乃至活活烧死。然而，说来似乎很奇怪，尽管受到这样的迫害，成为基督徒的人却与日俱增。他们坚定地相信有死后的世界，并且认为如果他们为基督而死，那死后他们会更加幸福，因此，他们似乎甘愿吃苦受难。最终，罗马皇帝自己下令制止这些迫害。事情是这样发生的：
大约公元300年，罗马有个皇帝名叫君士坦丁。君士坦丁不是基督徒，他敬奉的是古罗马那些神灵。不过，他大概对这些神灵也并没有多大信仰。
有一次，君士坦丁带兵和敌人作战，一天晚上，他做梦看到天空中有一个正燃烧的十字架。十字架下方写着一行拉丁文字“In hoc signo vinces”，意思是“靠此神迹，你将征服”。君士坦丁认为，这就意味着如果他带着基督教的十字架进入战斗，他就一定能征服敌人。他想，基督徒的神是否灵验至少值得试一试。于是，他在士兵们拿的盾牌上做了个十字架标记，这次他果然打了胜仗。为了庆祝这次胜利，罗马元老院就在罗马的广场上建了一座君士坦丁凯旋门，这座凯旋门有三个拱顶通道。之后，君士坦丁让基督教成为罗马帝国的合法宗教。据信，君士坦丁在临死时，受洗成为基督徒。从那以后，君士坦丁之后的所有罗马皇帝——只有一个除外——都是基督徒。
君士坦丁的母亲叫海伦娜，也成为了基督徒。她把毕生的精力都奉献给了基督教的事业，还在伯利恒和橄榄山都建造了教堂。据说，她去了巴勒斯坦，找到了三百年前钉死耶稣的十字架，将其中一部分送到罗马。她死后被封为圣徒。现在，人们都称她为圣海伦娜。
君士坦丁在据称是圣彼得受难的地方建了一座教堂。许多年后，这座教堂被拆除，是为了在原地建造一座更大、更宏伟的教堂来纪念圣彼得。
君士坦丁不喜欢罗马城，他更愿意住在罗马帝国东部的另一个城市，这个城市叫拜占庭。于是，他从罗马搬到拜占庭去住，并把那里作为他的都城。拜占庭城又叫新罗马城，之后改名为“君士坦丁之城”。在希腊语中，表示“城市”的词叫“波利斯”。我们看到，在“安纳波利斯”（美国马里兰州首府）和“印第安纳波利斯”（美国印第安纳州首府）中都有“波利斯”。君士坦丁之城也就变成了“君士坦丁波利斯”，后来又简化为“君士坦丁堡”。
罗马帝国刚成为信仰基督教的国家，基督徒内部就产生了一场争论，争论的双方在信仰认识上有分歧。争论的主要焦点是耶稣基督是否等同于圣父上帝。君士坦丁就把争论的双方召集到一个叫尼西亚的地方来解决这个问题，在这里双方的领头人就此问题展开了激烈的争论。最后，终于确定基督教教会都应坚信圣子和圣父是等同的。这时，他们同意把他们的信念用文字记录下来。这被称为“信经”，意思是“基本信条的陈述”，因为是在尼西亚制定的，所以被称为《尼西亚信经》，现在很多基督徒在每个礼拜日还会念诵它呢。
在君士坦丁时代以前，罗马帝国每周都没有假日。星期天和其他日子没什么区别，星期天人们和平时一样工作、做事。君士坦丁认为，基督徒应该每周有一天专门礼拜上帝——有一个“圣日”，我们现在叫“假日”——所以，他把星期天定为基督徒的休息日，也是基督徒的“圣日”，就如星期六是犹太人的“圣日”，星期五是穆斯林的“圣日”一样。
虽然君士坦丁是整个罗马帝国的首领，但是还有一个人，世界上所有基督徒都把他视为精神领袖。这个人就是罗马主教。拉丁文中他被称为“爸爸”，这个词在拉丁文里的意思跟英语里的“父亲”一样。所以，罗马的主教就被称为“爸爸”，后来演变为“教皇”。圣彼得被认为是第一代罗马教皇。几千年来，教皇一直是世界各地所有基督徒的精神领袖，无论这些基督徒居住在哪个国家。
现在你知道这个故事名字的意思了，我就把名字写在这儿吧：
靠此神迹，你将征服.