Virgin of Zapopan

Blind devotion is not a "substitute" for the facts of history - nor does it justify your "revisionit history" approach.

Lets look at the simple details you mention --

quote:
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Originally posted by BobRyan:
Further more - RC historians THEMSELVES admit that the church BEGAN using the practices of paganism centuries AFTER the NT authors died. THEY admit that it was FROM the Pagan systems that they took the statue of Zeus and made it "Peter".
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You have yet to offer "the proof" that "All RC historians but Bokenkotter" claim that the statue of Zeus in Rome WAS NOT taken over by the RCC and proclaimed as the Statue of Peter.

Rather than restating your blind devotion - prove your point.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

I'm not the one trying to prove it; you are. Therefore, you provide more than one piece of evidence. How can I prove that something DOESN'T exist? Negative information...doesn't exist!

 

I have already gone the second mile by NOT using my own non-RC historians.

You simply "claim" that if you can not demonize me or those that point out the facts of history - then you will do the same to any RC historian that is "too forthright" and go on to assert that only one could be found.

Yet - you have not shown that ANY RC historian (even one) denies that the statue of Peter in Rome is IN FACT the statue of Zeus. MUCH LESS showing your OWN claim that ALL RC historians deny it - except for Bokenkotter.

The ONLY point I needed for my argument was that NOT ONLY do non-RC historians admit to this fact BUT ALSO I find an RC historian AND BEST SELLLING AUTHOR who admits to this much of history EVEN while supporting the RCC.

IN Christ,

Bob

 

I will restate this quote from you, Bob:

Obfuscating the point that the belief in ONE God creator of all - and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - had to be the religion of Noah and of Adam and Eve and therefore shows up in several non-Christian religions, is just sidestepping the point

Please explain.

 

The point is that this is "the obvious part". Adam and Eve came first - before all pagans.

Noah came first - before all pagans.

Therefore "stories" passed down from them - even though corrupted by error over time - will have similarities.

That says nothing about reaching out for paganism and pulling it into the Christian church (like praying to the dead with incense and candles, images to the dead and even local god's turned into Apostles - as the case with the statue of Zeus used for Peter).

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob, since you have not shown that ANY SDA historian (even one) denies that Ellen White is IN FACT an "SDA godess", I can only conclude that you consider her as such. Right?

 

LOL! If there were no pagans at the time of Noah, WHY did God send the flood?!? That's just funny.

Anyway, I'm now reading Bokenkotter's book. I should be through with the first section, ironically titled "The Church Triumphs Over Paganism" in a day or so. I'll give a report of my findings then.

 

Ahhh "equivocation".

I "show" both RC and non-RC historians who "show" how paganism was incorporated into the RCC.

And then you make up an "easter-bunny" style comback about finding one SDA historian and one non-SDA historian that make claims about an easter bunny. But in fact - you find no such historian - not even one.

So ... if you are through with your rabbit trail...

Back on the subject.

The fact of RC inclusion of pagan practices is NOT ONLY documented by non-RC historians IT IS also documented IN the RCC by historians SUCH AS Thomas Bokenkotter.

And you seem to be admitting that this is not "pleasing".

But why be so sold on blind reasoning when it comes to history and your need of revisionism?

Why not just accept the truth?

In Christ,

Bob

 

Quite true - the Pagans don't think of if that way - and neither do the Christian denominations that practice those pagan teachings think of it in those terms.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Here is the late Fr. Ken Ryan - expressing full agreement with some of the "facts" we find Bokenkotter "confessing".

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob,

Please explain to me how things that do not have Christian origins, once the meaning is changed completely to Christ, is still paganism. I am very interested in your explanation of this. After all, God created the world and all in it and all who live in it. Unless the acts are, apart from their religious nature, sinful, then taking any non-sinful action and putting the meaning with Christ, I fail to see the "sinfulness" that then becomes of the action.

If you use "prayer beads" in Buddhist worship, obviously this would be sinful! But if you just "use beads," this action is not in itself sinful at all. Thus, if you "use beads to help you pray to Christ," I fail to see how it once again becomes sinful. In that logic, I can use my hands to worship an idol (sinful), and I can use my hands period (not sinful), but if I use my hands to worship the Lord it is sinful again. It's the same principle. God gave us hands; we can use them to praise him. God gave us the ability to create things; we can use these things to glorify Him. As long as the object itself is not the "object" of worship, then it is not idolatry. If God is the "object" of worship, then one is, quite simply, worshipping God! AMAZING!

 

#1. First of all - the point is to admit to the history and not to "revise it" as it pleases you.

That has been "a challenge" when dialoging with many RC members - even if the quotes are from RC historians - the response is simply to villanize the RC historian for not revising history in a way more pleasing to the RCC.

#2. Secondly - once we "discover" that the practice actually came in due to Paganism - we can "investigate it" to see just "how godly those pagans were" on that point. Is the practice being married with Christianity - "really" free "of error"? For that we need a doctrinal - Biblical - "sola scriptura" analysis.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The "challange" for you is actually getting others to ACCEPT "your conclusions" of DOUBIOUS "little bits and pieces" that you "link together" to PROMOTE "your bias".

BTW, did I get all the "quotations" and CAPS right?

What is up with that anyway?

 

Bob, let's get this straight. I have no problem with history; I have a problem with your own bias that you spin on it when you present it here. I'm reading Bokenkotter, and I will come back to that when I am finished. You are quite notorious for short quips and using quotation marks for things that are not quoted, or paraphrasing badly (e.g., Dr. Carrol). You are not a historian, after all.

Bob, be honest. You post these things TO villanize the Catholics! You do not post these things so that "we can all have a nice historical understanding of things." You selectively quote from, say, Bokenkotter, only on those points which will make YOUR point stronger. You do not present history; you present uncontextual snippets. Your goal is to show the evils of the Catholic Church, and your reflections attest to that. Thus, of course, I have a problem just openly accepting all of your information, because I know you have a strong bias!

That's worded nice and tricky. Things used by pagans are not necessarily "pagan." Candles, in general, are not pagan. Beads, in general, are not pagan. Using objects in liturgical settings are not even pagan. Much is rooted in Jewish liturgal history. It is a blind statement to say that we "discover that the practice came in due to Paganism." It is also a generalized statement.

Second, who is to judge how "godly" they were, and what does that even have to do with it? Pagans, as we are all aware, do not worship the One True God, so their devotion is false. Period. However, that does not make their STYLE of devotion NECESSARILY "ungodly." I'm sure there are some devout pagans out there; that's just a rational conclusion. I think what you have to prove to make your point is that Christianizing a pagan devotional style is still pagan, i.e., praying with the use of beads, etc. In other words, if one uses such objects to joyfully worship the One, True God, is one actually being pagan?

Well, sure! If something goes AGAINST Scripture, we have a big problem! But, that is not even the argument here. You know good and well that I, and other Catholics, can easily argue how our devotions are in accord with Sacred Scripture (just as you can say they are not, because we employ different interpretations). However, your argument from the beginning is that Catholicism is bad SIMPLY BECAUSE there are "customs" (not beliefs) adopted from the pagan world. And, of course, the pagan world is really just the gentile world, of which the Christian Church is primarily composed of.

 

I have an even bigger problem with Bob's habit of altering quotes to make them serve his need.

Once you change a quote, it is no longer a quote.

It is a lie.

 

Used for emphasis - not volume.

In Christ,

Bob

 

#1. The fact that your OWN historians do not support your attempts at revisionist history OR that they admit to REAL historic events that PROVE the non-RC point about the REAL Catholic church of history - is not "my fault".

#2. It does not "cease to be history" simply because "you don't like it".

#3. I am getting to the "salient point" of the argument rather than equoting an entire chapter of your own historian. I COULD EASILY quote NON-RC historians for the point - as well.

I am not opposed to you "reading" your own histiran to get more of the chapter included with the quote.

My point is to zero in on the "specific salient point" of the argument and "show" those specifics that most directly support the REAL view of what the RC church has done in history regarding the KEY specifics highlighted.

Obfuscation "again".

The "point" was that using those items in prayers to the dead - claiming the dead are able to hear and are not really dead - is EXACTLY what the pagans were doing BOTH with the dead AND with their gods. AS I POINTED OUT - the RC sources agreed that the Christian saints were put in as substitutes for those pagan gods AND the RC sources ALSO pointed out that this was NOT the practice of the ONE TRUE HEBREW nation church started by God at Sinai. ONLY of the pagans.

Well lets "see" if your "claim" is supported by the RC sources.

"again"

Catholic Digest 12/1994 pg 129

“The Rosary is, unsurprisingly, Not mentioned in the Bible. Legend and history place its beginning in the 13th century long After the Bible was completed. As a Pagan practice, praying on counting beads goes back centuries before Christ…

Buddhists use prayer wheels and prayer beads for the same purpose… Counting prayer beads is common practice in religious cultures”.


Cath Digest 9/1993 pg 129
Question:
“My husband has been transferred to Japan and we have been here in Hiroshima for about two months. On a site seeing tour the Japanese guide brought me to a Buddhist shrine. There were statues of Buddha everywhere. The guide told me they represented different aspects of life and that the people offer food to the Buddhas and ask for Favors. It made me think of Our Catholic praying to the saints and wonder whether they have anything like the Ten Commandments to guide them.

There were fountains at the gate where pious visitors washed their hands before entering the shrine grounds. Could this be the same as our holy water?”

Ans:
“Very probably the physical washing signifies some kind of spiritual cleansing, AS it does with Us! Some Muslims say prayers on rosarylike beads Just as We do, so there is no copyright enforced on prayerful customs among the great world religions. The Pagan Romans prayed, each family to its Own household gods, JUST as we do to our patron saints. In Old Testament times the gentile had local gods for their town or country, and our Christian Saints eventually supplanted Them!

The Hebrews, of Course, had the mission of Wiping Out such heathen worship with the worship of the one true God, and while they have always had great respect for spiritual heroes, they Never set up any of their own race as substitutes for the local pagan gods!!
They had no need to make distinctions between praying TO the saints for their intercession with god and total adoration of God as the source of everything, as we must!
..
You ask about the Buddhists having anything like the Ten Commandments to go by. The answer is that have Nine of the Ten. Only the specific seventh day being held holy would be Beyond the reach of ordinary right reason.”

Your point apparently "did not stand the test".

In Christ,

Bob

 

When Christianity conquered Rome the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the pontifex maximus, the worship of the Great Mother and a multitude of comforting divinities, the sense of supersensible presences everywhere, the joy or solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror. The reins and skill of government were handed down by a dying empire to a virile papacy; the lost power of the broken sword was rewon by the magic of the consoling word; the armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the Church moving in all directions along the Roman roads; and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Through the long struggles of the Age of Faith the authority of the ancient capital persisted and grew, until in the Renaissance the classic culture seemed to rise from the grave, and the immortal city became once more the center of summit of the world's life and wealth and art. When, in 1936, Rome celebrated the 2689th anniversary of her foundation, she could look back upon the most impressive continuity of government and civilization in the history of mankind. May she rise again.(CAESAR AND CHRIST, A history of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D.325. By Will Durant-1944)

Bye for now. Y.b. in C. Keith

 

The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Chapter XXVIII


The worship of the Christian martyrs

The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate in solemn and pathetic strains; that the temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places, which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. "The monks" (a race of filthy animals, to whom; Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name of men) "are the authors of the new worship, which, in. the place of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious death; their bodies, still marked by the impression of the lash and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the magistrate; such" (continues Eunapius) "are the gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of the people."Without approving the malice, it is natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the spectator of a revolution which raised those obscure victims of the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the Christians for the martyrs of the faith was exalted, by time and victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honours of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of those; spiritual heroes. In the age which followed the conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tent-maker and a fisherman; and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. The new capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. About fifty years afterwards the same banks were honoured by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the catholic world. The honours of the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason, were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and Jerom something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful.

General Reflections

In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model; and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.

I. Fabulous martyrs and relics.

I. The satisfactory experience that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and primitive martyrs they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous legendaries; and there is reason to suspect that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint. A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world.

II Miracles

II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid and victorious if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city, related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard, a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of Gamaliel; and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop in the presence of an innumerable multitude; The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odour such as that of Paradise was smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala; but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn procession, to a church constructed in their honour on Mount Sion; and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares that he has selected those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted or forgotten; and Hippo had been less favourably treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. If we enlarge our view to all the diocese, and all the saints, of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we may surely be allowed to observe that a miracle, in that age of superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established: laws of nature.

III Revival of polytheism.

III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis of fact and experience. What ever might be the condition of vulgar souls in the long interval between the dissolution and the resurrection of their bodies, it was evident. that the superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. It was evident (without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was proved by experience that they were capable of hearing and understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries, who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the persuasion that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic church; and that the individuals who imitated the example of their faith and piety were the peculiar and favourite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were compelled to obey. The immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects, that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favour and authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace, or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted: and the MONARCHY of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.

IV Introduction of Pagan ceremonies.

IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian, or Lactantius, had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noon-day, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favours which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses of mankind: but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

THE GREAT EMPIRES OF
PROPHECY
by Alonzo Jones

Page 361

63. Then came Constantine, the best imperial representative of the new paganism, and the most devout worshiper of the sun as the supreme and universal deity, with the avowed purpose, as expressed in his own words, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." In Constantine the new paganism met its ideal, and the New Platonism - the apostate, paganized, sun-worshiping form of Christianity - met its long-wished-for instrument. In him the two streams met. In him the aspiration of Elagabalus, the hope of Ammonius Saccas and Clement, of Plotinus and Origen, and the ambition of the perverse-minded, self-exalted bishops, were all realized and accomplished - a new, imperial, and universal religion was created.
64. Therefore, "the reign of Constantine the Great forms one of the epochs in the history of the world. It is the era of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind of Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate, a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, though as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new religion." - Milman.
65. The epoch thus formed was the epoch of the papacy; and the new religion thus created was the PAPAL RELIGION.


In A.D. 321, to please the bishops of the Catholic Church, he issued an edict commanding judges, townspeople, and mechanics to rest on Sunday. Yet in this also his paganism was still manifest, as the edict required rest on “the venerable day of the sun,” and “enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum, or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis, familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians.” — Schaff. “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. 3,sec. 75, par. 5.

“The same tenacious adherence to the ancient god of light has left its trace, even to our own time, on one of the most sacred and universal of Christian institutions. The retention of the old pagan name of “Dies Solis,’ or ‘Sunday,’ for the weekly Christian festival, is in great measure owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the ‘venerable day of the sun.’... It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution.” — Stanley. “History of the Eastern Church,” 6, par. 15.

“his coins bore on the one side the letters of the name of Christ, on the other the figure of the sun-god, and the inscription, ‘Sol invictus’ (the unconquerable sun), as if he could not bear to relinquish the patronage of the bright luminary which represented to him, as to Augustus and to Julian, his own guardian deity.” — Stanley. “History of the Eastern Church,” lect. 6, par. 14.

“The lingering attachment of Constantine to the favorite superstition of his earlier days may be traced on still better authority. The Grecian worship of Apollo had been exalted into the Oriental veneration of the sun, as the visible representative of the Deity; and of all the statues that were introduced from different quarters, none were received with greater honor than those of Apollo. In one part of the city stood the Pythian, in another the Sminthian deity. The Delphic Tripod, which, according to Zosimus, contained an image of the god, stood upon the column of three twisted serpents, supposed to represent the mystic Python. But on a still loftier, the famous pillar of porphyry, stood an image in which, if we are to credit modern authority (and the more modern our authority, the less likely is it to have invented so singular a statement), Constantine dared to mingle together the attributes of the sun, of Christ, and of himself. According to one tradition, this pillar was based, as it were, on another superstition. The venerable Palladium itself, surreptitiously conveyed from Rome, was buried beneath it, and thus transferred the eternal destiny of the old to the new capital. The pillar, formed of marble and of porphyry, rose to the height of a hundred and twenty feet. The colossal image on the top was that of Apollo, either from Phrygia or from Athens. But the head of Constantine had been substituted for that of the god. The scepter proclaimed the dominion of the world; and it held in its hand the globe, emblematic of universal empire. Around the head, instead of rays, were fixed the nails of the true cross. Is this paganism approximating to Christianity, or Christianity degenerating into paganism?” — Milman. “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 3,par. 7.

In A.D. 337 Constantine was taken with a serious illness, and being satisfied that he was about to die, he called for an Arian bishop, and was baptized. Then “he was clothed in robes of dazzling whiteness; his couch was covered with white also; in the white robes of baptism, on a white death-bed, he lay, in expectation of his end... At noon on Whit-Sunday, the 22d of May, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the thirty-first of his reign, he expired... So passed away the first Christian emperor, — the first defender of the faith, — the first imperial patron of the papal See, and of the whole Eastern church, — the first founder of the holy places, — PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN, ORTHODOX AND HERETICAL, LIBERAL AND FANATICAL, not to be imitated or admired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied.” — Stanley. “History of the Eastern Church,” end of lect. 6.

As neither Christians nor pagans could tell to which religion Constantine belonged while he was alive, and consequently both claimed him, so likewise “even after his death both religions vied, as it were, for Constantine. He received with impartial favor the honors of both. The first Christian emperor was deified by the pagans; in a later period he was worshiped as a saint by part of the Christian church. On the same medal appears his title of ‘god,’ with the monogram, the sacred symbol of Christianity; in another he is seated in the chariot of the sun, in a car drawn by four horses, with a hand stretched forth from the clouds to raise him to heaven.” — Milman. “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 4, par. 3 from end.

Such are the facts in regard to Constantine’s religious life simply as they are. No one can have the slightest difficulty in deciding that he never was a Christian in any proper sense of the word. All must agree “that his progress in the knowledge of Christianity was not a progress in the practice of its virtues;” that “his love of display and his prodigality, his suspiciousness and his despotism, increased with his power; and that the very brightest period of his reign is stained with gross crimes, which even the spirit of the age and the policy of can absolute monarch an not excuse.” — Schaff. “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. in, sec. 2, pars. 10, 11.

The synopsis of the whole question as to what was the religion of Constantine, can be no better expressed than it has already been by another: “Constantine adopted Christianity first as a superstition, and put it by the side of his heathen superstition, till finally in his conviction the Christian vanquished the pagan, though without itself developing into a pure and enlightened faith.” — Schaff. “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. 3, sec. 2, par. 6.