| Christian symbols.The Non-Christian Cross: An Enquiry into the Origin and History of the Symbol CHAPTER VII-IX |
|
Page 1 of 3 Author: John Denham ParsonsCHAPTER VII. THE ESTABLISHER OF THE CHURCH. Having already shown not a little cause for believing that the adoption of the cross as our symbol is due to the fact that we Christians helped to secure the triumph of the ambitious ruler of the Gauls, and after receiving numberless smaller favours from Constantine during the years he was ruler of Rome but not as yet sole emperor eventually obtained from him the establishment of Christianity as the State Religion of the Roman Empire, adapting the victorious trophy of the Gauls and the various crosses venerated by them and other Sun-God worshippers to our faith as best we could, it is desirable that we should pause to trace the career of the man we hail as the first Christian Emperor. To do this properly we must commence by referring to Constantine's father, Constantius Chlorus; and to the favour shown to Constantius Chlorus by his patron the Emperor Diocletian. Finding the supreme rule of the almost worldwide Roman Empire too much for one man in ill-health to undertake successfully, Diocletian in the year A.C. 286 made Maximian co-emperor. And in A.C. 292 Diocletian followed this up by conferring the inferior position and title of Caesar upon Galerius and Constantius Chlorus. In A.C. 305 Diocletian relinquished power altogether, forcing Maximian to abdicate with him; Galerius and Constantius Chlorus thus obtaining the coveted title of Augustus, and sharing the supreme power. Galerius now ranked first, however; for it was to the ruler of Illyricum and not to that of Gaul that Diocletian gave the power of appointing Caesars to govern Italy and the East. Constantius Chlorus died in Britain A.C. 306, the year after Diocletian abdicated; and Galerius, who had married a daughter of Diocletian, naturally thought that under the circumstances he ought to become sole emperor. The legions of Gaul, however, proclaimed the son of Constantius Chlorus as Augustus in his stead; and as Constantine thus became ruler of Gaul and a power to be reckoned with, Galerius thought it best to give way so far as to grant Constantine the inferior title of Caesar. Soon afterwards Galerius conferred the title of Augustus upon Severus; and a little while after that the Eternal City was lost to Galerius through the revolt of his son-in-law Maxentius, the son of Maximian. The Senate of Rome then asked Maximian to re-assume the purple, and he and Maxentius shared the power between them, both taking the title of Augustus. Upon this Severus at the request of Galerius marched upon Rome. He was, however, defeated and slain. After being more or less expelled by his son Maxentius, Maximian in the year A.C. 308 marched to Gaul and married his daughter Fausta to Constantine; at the same time conferring upon him the title of Augustus. About this time Galerius made his friend Licinius an Augustus in the place of Severus; whereupon Maximin, the Governor of Syria and Egypt, demanded and was granted that title also. There were thus in the year A.C. 308 some half-a-dozen Roman Emperors instead of one; there being Constantine and Maximian in the west, Maxentius at Rome, and Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin elsewhere; not to mention Diocletian, who was content to remain in retirement. This decided break-up of the Roman Empire was Constantine's opportunity; and he was favourably placed, for he had a warlike and faithful people under him. Moreover by reversing so far as lay in his power as ruler of Gaul the traditional policy of Rome towards Christianity, and setting himself forward as a champion of a non-national religion which had been persecuted because it was non-national, Constantine was secure of the enthusiastic backing of all the Christians to be found in the dominions of his various rivals. In A.C. 310 Constantine either executed his father-in-law the Emperor Maximian, or caused him to commit suicide; and the first of his five rivals was disposed of. In A.C. 311 the Emperor Galerius died from disease, and Constantine's most formidable competitor, and one who undoubtedly had a better claim than himself to the position of sole emperor, thus opportunely made way for the ruler of Gaul. In A.C. 312 Constantine marched at the head of the Gauls against the Emperor Maxentius, defeated him near the Milvian Bridge outside Rome, and entered the Eternal City in triumph. Maxentius is said to have been drowned in the Tiber; and the Senate decreed that Constantine should rank as the first of the three remaining Augusti. In A.C. 313 the Emperor Maximin fought the Emperor Licinius; but his forces were defeated, and he soon afterwards died. Some ten years or so later Constantine went to war with his only remaining rival, Licinius, defeated him, and became sole emperor, A.C. 324. That despite his great qualities as a ruler the character of Constantine was not perfect, can be easily seen from the fact that, not content with executing the Emperor Licinius after accepting his submission, he murdered the young Licinius; a boy certainly not over twelve years of age, and according to some authorities two or three years younger than that. He also put his own son Crispus to death, and other relations as well. We are told that Constantine was so tortured by the memory of these and other crimes that he applied to the priests of the Gods of Rome for absolution, but that they bravely said that there was no absolution for such sins, whereupon this worshipper of the Sun-God turned to his friends the Christians and they gave him what he desired.[44] This statement seems somewhat improbable, however, as one would imagine that the Pagan priests, when called upon by one who was Pontifex Maximus and therefore their spiritual superior as well as the supreme emperor, would not have scrupled to invent some purifying rite--if they had none such--warranted to blot out the stain of every crime and thoroughly appease offended heaven. However this may have been, these terrible crimes of Constantine, all committed many years after his alleged conversion to our faith, show how badly advised we are to so needlessly go out of our way to claim as a Christian one who refused to enter the Christian Church till he was dying and possibly no longer master of himself. It is said that this refusal of his to be baptised till he was weak and dying and surrounded by Church officials who would perhaps have spread the report that he had been baptised even if they had not then at last been able to induce him to take the decisive step, was due, not to want of belief, but to excess of belief; Constantine's idea being that the longer he put off the rite in question, the more crimes would it wash out. Or, in other words, that delay would enable him to sin with impunity a little longer. This may possibly have been the case, but it should at the same time be borne in mind that whether Constantine called him Apollo or Christ, it seems probable that it was the Sun-God to whom he referred. For everything tends to show that this astute emperor, who so naturally wished to establish and mould a religion which all his subjects of whatever race or nationality might be reasonably expected to become in time willing to accept, acted during his reign as supreme ruler of the Roman World, if not from first to last, as if the Christ were but another conception of the Sun-God he was brought up to worship as Apollo and all countries venerated under some name or other. This point is not only demonstrated by the fact that upon his coins Constantine repeatedly declared that the Sun-God was his invincible guide and protector and the giver even of the victory foreshadowed by the alleged vision of the cross or Monogram of Christ above the meridian sun, but is also clearly shown by certain incidents connected with the founding towards the end of his life of the new metropolis which in less than a century equalled Rome in all save antiquity. New Rome, or, as we now call it, Constantinople, the city of Constantine, was built on the site of, and often called by the name of, Byzantium. It was not designed till A.C. 324, and was not dedicated till A.C. 330, or, as some think, an even later date: Constantine dying in the year A.C. 337. We are told that Constantinople was dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God.[45] This should remind us of the fact that long before our era, and right down to the time when Constantine selected Byzantium as the site of a new capital, that place was considered dedicated to the Virgin Queen of Heaven. Now in the central place of honour in his new metropolis, one would naturally expect Constantine to erect something or other to the honour of the God to whom he attributed his victories. Whose, then, was the statue Constantine towards the end of his life, and about twenty years after his alleged conversion to our faith, erected in the centre of the Forum of New Rome? It was a statue of the Sun-God Apollo; or, as some explain it, a statue of himself adorned with the attributes of the Sun-God. In fact, taking the career of Constantine as a whole, there is nothing inconsistent with the supposition that he was a Christian only in so far as, out of policy or conviction, he acted as if he considered the Christ to be one of many conceptions of the Sun-God. For although, as has been mentioned and will be shown in a later chapter, Constantine, upon the many varieties of coins he issued, repeatedly acclaimed the Sun-God as his companion and the author of his triumphs, he never once, except in so far as he may have considered the God we Christians worship to be the Sun-God, so attributed his victories to the Christ. |