Fatum Per Annorum Milia (2)

“No, but he is part of it. Think harder.”

 

Leonard did think, for a bit. Other names rolled through his mind: Marc Antony, Augustus, Caligula, Nero, Romulus, names he remembered having learned or having had heard at one point or another in his lifetime. Then it occurred to him. Of course, it had to be the first Christian emperor, “Constantine.”

 

“Yes, good. Why?”

 

“He was the first Christian emperor of Rome.”

 

“Is that all?”

 

“Others followed him?”

 

“Yes, they most certainly did. If Constantine decided on Mithraism, for example, we wouldn’t have so many Christians today. Would we have a bunch of those that were Mithraic? It’s possible. It’s just as possible that Islam would have come in and dominated as its followers, in fact, attempted to do some time later. It’s also highly likely that another religion, one that has long since died out, would now be what people observed in spiritual matters, perhaps even the cult of Isis, which was also popular around the time of Mithraism.”

 

“That makes sense from your point of view because it seems like you are very interested in history. Although, I have to believe, I just have to believe that I would still be a Christian today. I’m sorry, but all that you say happened almost doesn’t matter.”

 

“Tssk, tssk,” the old man looked slightly annoyed. “You have to suspend your beliefs, hold your judgement, for this. Also, hold your tongue, unless you have something to contribute or ask that is related to the matter under discussion. You have already agreed to this, so please behave. In turn, I will thoroughly listen to you and all you have to say with a certain level of respect. Agreed?”

 

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

 

“You can look up most of what I am telling you on the Internet when you go home.”

 

“Only most, not all?”

 

“Yes, that’s correct.”

 

“What about the part that is not under most, where can I look that up?”

 

“You can’t. Keep in mind that you have agreed to suspend your beliefs. Destiny is on the move, and you are part of it. Also, you don’t have to continue to believe anything I tell you after we have concluded our discussion. However...someone who believes that the Earth was created in seven days, or that a man can come back to life, or any of dozens of other things that weren’t recorded in historical documents, can give me a little leeway, at least temporarily, yes?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Tell me what you think of Constantine, please,” requested the old man with a softness evident in his eyes.

 

“I suppose he was great. The Catholics have deemed him to be a saint. He is now called Constantine the Great, right?” After receiving no answer for several seconds, Leonard continued, “I think that he conquered more land for Rome, or he conquered land that Rome had lost. Most importantly, he stopped the persecution of Christians by the Romans. I think he wasn’t a Christian for his whole life, but became one later. Right?”

 

“You are partially right. When you get home, you can look up some of what I am about to tell you. Please try to look up articles written by historians, or at least use Wikipedia, before you look at religious rants.”

 

“Even if you speak badly of him, and I believe you. It won’t matter. I am well aware he was a man. Men have shortcomings. Even Christians can sin, make mistakes. If he was a horrible person, I don’t think that reflects Christianity at all. It is actually the opposite, the fact that man sins is an argument for Christianity.”

 

“We can discuss religion later because it seems that you are quite inclined to have a conversation about it. As for your notion that the Christians were persecuted by the Romans, they were. However, they were not as heavily persecuted as you might believe, and they were not slaughtered, destroyed, and oppressed by the dominant pagans in power as anywhere near as much as the Christians eventually did to them. Christianity completely eradicated much of the history and existence of beliefs that, for the most part, let them be, let them exist. If the Romans truly set out to destroy Christianity, they would have and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

 

“I am not defending the Romans from a modern sense of values, as that would be impossible. They valued might over humility, kept people as slaves, forced people to fight to the death for entertainment, and disvalued women to the point that they were in effect mostly powerless due to their gender. One thing is the same as today, money and those with the most of it, dominated the society. Roman paganism did have one thing that Christianity never had, nor never will: it allowed and accepted all religions most of the time, and even incorporated new gods into its pantheon relatively frequently, such as Isis, Mithras, and even attempts at Yahweh. Christians don’t do that, for Yahweh is a jealous god.

 

“The Romans adopted the Greek gods, giving them different names, but since the earliest times in their society they allowed other gods into the fold. There were only two reasons that Romans acted aggressively towards other religions: If the religions, or people in the religions, were perceived as conspiring against the powers that be, or if the religion disturbed the pax deorum. The pax deorum was a belief in peaceful continuity and status quo. The Romans respected the new, spreading religion, and it’s Christ god, but the Christians refused to do the same. As stated previously, Yahweh is a jealous god. The Christians openly disturbed the pax deorum and some of them did conspire against the powers that be.

 

“Now, disruption of the pax deorum wasn’t the only reason that the Romans were suspicious of Christians. Rumors of cannibalism abounded, what with the supposed eating the flesh of Christ and drinking the blood. I don’t know if you are familiar with the myth of Tantalus, but he was tortured in the Underworld, the realm of Hades for eternity for sacrificing his only son to the gods. Many habits of the Romans might seem barbaric to you, but human sacrifice and cannibalism were taboo even for them.

 

“Just imagine, for a moment, if you will, what would happen if a new, upstart religion started form in the United States. This religion openly denounced the dominant Christianity, and it appeared that they were secretly meeting at night to overthrow the government and even possibly murdering people in sacrificial rites. What would be the reaction from the dominant religion? From the people in that religion? From the government itself?”

 

Leonard wasn’t sure how to respond. “That’s not really how it happened, is it?”

 

“Not exactly, but it’s a fairly close approximation. It’s certainly the primary reason for the occasional distrust of Christians. Sure, when the people thought Nero lit Rome afire, he pushed blame unfairly onto the Christians, but for the most part, the Christians chose to ignore the pax deorum, behave quite clandestinely and suspiciously, and openly disrespect other religions, something that hasn’t even completely died in that institution to this very day.”

 

“So, Nero did start the fire?” Leonard vaguely remembered something about Nero playing his lyre while Rome burned, but he had learned of it so very long ago it was so far back in his clouded memory, that he couldn’t remember any details.

 

“No, he wasn’t even in Rome at the time. Whatever his other misdeeds and depravities were, he didn’t do that, but he did blame the Christians when suspicion fell on him. You can read of Nero later, when you have time. I wanted to briefly mention Constantine.

 

“Constantine was the first Christian emperor. You seem to believe that I am going to somehow belittle him or shed light on his faults. He did put to death both his son and his wife. The reasons don’t concern us, and he did have reasons. Although the reasons wouldn’t have such drastic retaliation for the contemporary person seeking punishment or justice. It was a different time and I am not condoning nor condemning his actions.

 

“He wasn’t actually a legitimate emperor, Constantine was a pretender for a time, certainly not what Diocletian had in mind. Rome had been divided into four areas of rule by Diocletian, who resigned in time to see his well thought out tetrarchy crumble and disband. Constantine’s father was one of the primary reasons for this, giving preference to blood instead of Diocletian’s version of Rome. You can, again, look up all the details later. Too much information is enough to confuse anyone if only briefly discussed. What Constantine did, his biggest move as emperor, was to reunite all of Rome under one emperor again. If he had retained only one quarter of the empire, and then become a Christian, it wouldn’t have been enough. He reunited Rome and gave it a new religion, a legacy that would pass on through the centuries. So, it isn’t any wonder that he is revered by the churches of Christ today.

 

“I do have to say that he used Christianity to navigate around the political world, but he wasn’t a true Christian, as you would have it, until shortly before his death, when he was baptized. That was a common practice in early Christianity, to become baptized later in life, due to the Christian belief that all sins are absolved at that point, by accepting Christ. The pagans didn’t see things that way. In ancient Rome, before Constantine, people looked toward philosophy rather than religion, to decide how to behave. Their gods had a few rules against abhorrent behavior, but you could usually do whatever you wanted, so long as you conformed to specific rituals and sacrificed to them. However, what is relevant is that he promoted Christianity, first by disallowing persecution, then later by claiming to completely accept it. He started what some people refer to as the Holy Roman Empire. After his death, only one emperor was ever a pagan and his reign was short-lived.

 

“You see, all of this had to happen. Let’s say that there are a few that made it happen, one in particular. Constantine, like any great emperor or conqueror listened to other people, took guidance when unsure. A Christian slave told him to paint the shields of his soldiers with the Greek characters representing Christos, Christ. He was told to do this after confiding in the slave that he had had a dream. The same slave, when Constantine was younger, also reassured the young man that he would be great, would reunite Rome under one ruler, which led him to attempt to do so and eventually succeed.

 

“Sometimes Destiny needs a little guidance, a little push in one direction so that the other direction is not travelled.”

 

“So, I assume I can look this up too?” asked Leonard.

 

“Well,” the old man smiled, “you can look up the slave, but you may not be privy to all the details.”

 

“So how is it you know this when others don’t?” Leonard was becoming concerned that the old fellow was doing exactly what he seemed to be claiming that religion was doing, just making things up to fit the puzzle together without really having any true knowledge of the way things occurred.

 

“I’ll get to that soon. So, I have said that Constantine was one of two people who helped to shape the Christian world into what it is today. Who do you think the second person is?”

 

“Still dealing with ancient Rome?”

 

The old man nodded. “Very much so, but the second person would never have referred to himself as Roman.”

 

“Why is everything Roman? You must enjoy studying ancient Rome, but surely there are other things that have helped make Christianity what it is.”

 

“I said earlier, ‘All roads lead to Rome.’ They do, even if figuratively here. Where does The USA get its culture?”

 

“From everywhere. We are a great big melting pot.”

 

“That’s true, of course, at least to an extent, but where does this nation get most of its culture?”

 

“England.”

 

“Very well, where does England get its culture?”

 

“The Celts?”

 

“You are trying to be obstinate.”

 

“you are discounting a lot of other cultures.”

 

“Many other cultures that also owe something to Rome.”

 

“Rome isn’t the oldest culture, not even the oldest empire.”

 

“They stood on the backs of the Greeks, who stood on the backs of other cultures, to create the centrifugal driving force of what society is today. Consider Rome to be the center of all things human. Pretend time isn’t really linear, it’s not chronological, all things lead to or from Rome.”

 

“Not China, not eastern empires.”

 

“Today, yes they do, absolutely. But, you are right, not always, but time isn’t necessarily a straight line. You don’t have to agree with me today. Pretend society is a cocktail.”

 

“I don’t drink.”

 

“That’s right, addiction problems, all right then. Pretend society is a cup of coffee with cream and sugar in it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“It’s an analogy.

 

Leonard suddenly realized something, something that had been toying with and scratching at the back of his mind for a few seconds. The man had said “Addiction problems,” when he told him he didn’t drink. “Wait a minute, why did you say something about addiction?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You said that I had addiction problems.”

 

“You told me, I think.”

 

Leonard was fairly certain he didn’t. “Okay.”

 

“People get a cup of coffee with the cream and sugar for the coffee, not the cream and sugar. People don’t order cups of cream and sugar at cafes. Rome is the coffee, cream and sugar are other influences form other societies.”

 

“You think that is a good analogy?” asked Leonard

 

“The cocktail one would have been better, but I didn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities with the mentioning of alcohol.”

 

“Okay,” Leonard sensed that the old man was getting angry, yet his countenance remained mostly impassive with the exception of a smile on occasion. “Why did you think mentioning alcohol would offend me?”

“You no longer drink because you were addicted to heroin, as part of your recovery you quit drinking as well, and found Jesus.”

 

“How do you know that?” Leonard knew that he had not mentioned his past heroin use, and was almost positive he had not mentioned any addictions.

 

“Allow me to explain that later.”

 

“You can’t have known that I was coming today, and I have never met you, so you can’t know about my past.” Leonard was getting uncomfortable on a level he didn’t usually associate with working with the church. It was a bit unnerving to go to people’s homes and talk with them about religion, knowing that many considered him to be a zealot or an idiot, or a confused person, but this was something else entirely.