Re: Locutorium Virtuale Scholae

On Jul 5, 8:50=A0am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Caligula" <caius.calig...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
> news:486f58f0$0$21145$7a628cd7@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > Ed Cryer a =E9crit :
>
> >> The usual word was simply "signum".
>
> > Yes, it was. Like the password given by the christian's god to
> > Constantine...
>
> > In hoc signo vinces.
>
> > --
> > Caligula
>
> Yes indeed. So C had it emblazoned on his soldiers' ****elds and banners,
> and then marched into battle. And according to writers of the time
> (Christian, of course) it threw dread and fear into the enemy.
> I guess the "chi-rho" was as powerful as the sign of the fish had been
> earlier.
>
> It is noticeable that "signum" was also the word used for a Roman army
> standard.
>
> Ed


I agree that tessera and signum are far choicier words for 'password'
than the Graeco-Latin crytographema, which is unattested anyways.

I disagree with Caligula's interpretation of the Constantinian oracle
as cryptographemic (forgive my audacity) or as conveying a password.
You do not need a password to conquer anybody, whereas displaying the
monogram of Christ on your military standard might help. In which
case, the "signum" (in "in hoc signo vinces") might actually refer to
the image on a standard or to the standard itself--which seems to be
the way Constantine understood the mysterious message. Hence, the Chi-
Rho standard was known as the "labarum Christi", or, in the poetic
words of Venantius Fortunatus (6th cent.), as the "Vexilla Regis".

Rodericius