Parable: Unveiling Constantine's Conversion | Secrets Of Christianity

History tells us that the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century. But did Christianity conquer Rome or did pagan Rome conquer Christianity?

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[TabithaElkins]

I'm studying church history at FAU in Erlangen. This is entertaining but a bit sensationalistic, as if the journalist has discovered something that the scholars did not know. I want to clear up some things. Firstly, the theologians, church historians and archaeologists are not all agreed about the extent of Constantine's so-called conversion, which was described by the church father Eusebius in a clearly biased manner. We simply do not have unbiased written accounts from this period! We can, however, look at the laws he created, and his actions. Constantine did make a lot of laws regarding the churches, donated huge sums of money to build churches, outlawed crucifixion and gladiator death matches, granted all Romans freedom of religion and overall was one of the best emperors. However, he also killed his wife and son, and did not officially become a Christian till just before his death.

He did not "convert the whole Roman world" to Christianity, but merely legalized and promoted it. Actually, he was unpopular among the pagans because he put so many Christians in high places. There were many religions in the Roman Empire, some were illegal (like the cult of Dionysus), but Constantine legalized Christianity and returned the goods plundered by previous emperors. Christianity did not officially become a state religion until the reign of Theodosius at the end of the century.


Constantine also did not "create" Christianity, as some suppose. He did make Dies Sol Invictus (Day of the sun) an official holiday for all Romans, but the Christians had been meeting on Sundays for a long time, so this created a syncretized form of Christianity. Most Christians were converted heathens, so they kept many of their cultural practices and bit by bit adapted them to their "new faith", including adding 25 December, birthday of Mithras, to the Christian calendar as Jesus' birthday. Early Christian theologians such as Justin Martyr and Eusebius saw Mithraism as a satanic counterfeit of Christianity and preached against this heathen cult. Sadly, Constantine was antisemitic towards Jews (mainly due to the political revolts by Jews), and brought Christianity further from its Jewish roots. He also brought some shady theology into it, as well, like the idea that God wanted him to be emperor (otherwise, why did he win the battle). This kind of deterministic triumphalism has afflicted Western Christianity ever since.

There really is very little that Yeshua shares with Mithras or Mithraic relgion, except for the imagery (rays of light), the concept of a god having a son (which all Roman religions had) and some pagan rituals which were kept and "christianized" like Christmas. The video talks about Mithras shedding the "eternal blood" of the bull being similar to Jesus shedding his own blood. Well, that really is a stretch. All pagan religions killed animals and shed their blood. Guess which other religion did this? Judaism. Bulls and sheep were killed and the blood "saved" the people from their sins. Most importantly, during Passover, the blood of the lamb saved the people. This is why St. Paul, a Jew, describes Yeshua as a lamb. Eating a communal meal was also a part of Roman paganism (the meat and wine was first offered to their gods). Jewish Christians understood the Eucharist as a form of the Passover Last Supper, but the pagan Christians related it to their background. So, in short, if Mithraism shared some compoenents with Christian rituals, it's because some rituals (prayers, offerings, common meals, words like "eternal", "sacrifice", "immortal", "resurrection") are found in MANY religions, and that Hellenistic Roman culture shared certain elements, including artistic depictions and cultural themes.

[isaacs.]

It’s crucial to remember that Christianity existed for nearly 300 years before this, a lot of the fellow commenters are seemingly forgetful of that.

[suzanensosie]

Its a shame how a music video of 3 minutes will have about 100 million views while good documentary like this is on 1 million views

[evangelosdiamantopoulos]

ABSOLUTE NONSENSE!!!
The guy deliberately ignores the most important historical facts, and distorts others.
1. St.Constantine did not turn to the Christian Faith after his vision.
He was brought up by his Greek and Christian mother Helen.

2. Christians in Western Europe where he ruled, were a tiny small minority.
He had no reason to present himself as a fervent supporter of this religion, as he would probably be hated by his army and his subjects.

3. The arch of Constantine was decorated by fragments of previous destroyed arches.
Therefore there are no secret symbolic meanings, apart from the obvious point that Constantine was a victorious and promising monarch.
The supposed Mithra priests statues, are actually Persian officers in chuckles.

4. The overwhelming majority of the empire's population were pagans.
Rome had an official state religion, the one of the Invincible Sun, an Constantine as emperor, was Pontifex Maximus.
There was no way he could declare his Christian faith openly without causing massive reaction or even rebellion.
Actually he was secretly baptised at the palace in Constantinople, shortly before his death.
He did though something great :
He transferred the Capital = the heart of the empire, from Old pagan Rome, to New Rome ( Constantinople), within a Greek and Christian culture.

5. Similarities between Mithra and Jesus Christ, are tottaly fictitious, and were claimed by dome 19th century anti Christian scholars, without the slightest historical evidence.

6. Constantine was so eager to mix up religions, that he called the 1st Ecumenical Council, with the participation of over 300 bishops, in order to clarify the doctrines of the Christian Faith.

7. A church in Rome was constructed upon a Mithra temple.
What a discovery!!!
Hundreds of Churches were constructed upon pagan temples.

8.The Nativity was placed on December 25, when pagan feasts were held.
That was known right from the beginning, and it was done deliberately, so that it would supplant Roman Saturnalia.

9.The new capital of the empire was named New Rome .
It was the people, that gave gradually the name Constantinople to the City.

10. The column in the square of Beyaziyt mosque, was topped by Theodosius statue, not Constantine's, therefore it was called forum of Theodosios.

11. Ravena mosaics were constructed 200 years after Constantine.

12. Constantine couldn't be buried in Holly Apostoles church, as this was built by Justinian 200 years later, and contained real relics of the 12 Apostoles.

[gabrielalexanderkhoury]

Jesus did not rebel against the Romans but rather criticised the religious authorities of his time. So many errors in this video. Apolo was the Greek Sun God. Sol was the Roman Sun God. Constantine did not found Constaninople city, , but adopted a Greek city Byzantium as his capital, thereafter named after him.

[jameshill]

I definitely believe Constantines "religious epiphany" was him realizing Christianity would be a far more efficient method of controlling the masses than brute force alone

[denseone]

Lesson: To destroy something, don’t fight people, fight their ideas.

[GodSoLoved.Yeshua]

I don't think it matters if he was a true Christian or not. Christians as a religion were no longer persecuted in Rome. Sounds like a win to me.

[hubertodecena]

You do not mention Constantine's Mother = "HELEN". What role did she have in his reign? his ideas? his decrees?

[StaceeMassey]

"Since Satan cannot destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction or substitution."
J.C. Ryle

[yacobthehebrew]

Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth knows His sheep and His sheep know Him 🌾🌿

May the Love of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus The Messiah) be with you that is reading this.

Your brother
Yacob

[naijatradeinvestmentinfo]

Before we dug deep into who Constantine was, it is wise to know the Host, sponsors, their aims and objectives.

[robertbricker]

An interesting mix of historical perspectives and exaggerated speculations. It's pretty clear that Constantine's Milvian Bridge story is at the very least his own revisionist perspective, years later, told in the company of Christian clergy and almost certainly tailored to that audience. I can also imagine him equating Mithras and Jesus Christ, religiously, and reimagining and reinterpreting what he'd experienced years earlier. He clearly wasn't actually Christian until later in his life, and by most accounts, Constantine didn't convert to Christianity formally until the time of his death. But much of the other speculations in this video - of Constantine seeing himself as divine and possibly the replacement of Jesus is just typical Roman Imperial stuff. All the Roman emperors either actively sought to promote the idea of their own divinity or had it done anyways by the populace (remember Vespasian's comment to his son Titus as he was dying - wryly remarking that he felt like he was 'becoming a God'?). So the video's portrayal of this aspect as somehow unique to Constantine - that he was uniquely self-centered among the Emperors in seeing himself as Godlike - can't be taken seriously. That's what they all did. All-in-all though quite interesting, particularly the detailed analysis by the professional guests of the arch and other artwork and archeological findings.

[nonalino]

Love the comments. Especially of those of you, who met Constantine personally and know first hand his motivation and reasons why he did what he did.

[cassadycampbell]

Constantine just mixed a tiny bit of Christianity with a lot of paganism. All you need to do is read the Bible to find out Catholicism is false.

[Rockjamify]

It would seem that the Roman Empire was struggling to survive as a viable state at the time Emperor Constantine decided to find a way to shore up a broken, decadent empire.
After all, the Romans had spent a lot of time trying to wipe out Christianity, by means of: torture; imprisonment; mass murder; repression of communal worship, etc. At the end of this effort, the faith was actually growing, instead of being destroyed.
Certainly, Constantine must have thought, 'if you can't beat them, join them.' Here was a community of people who had defied all the odds, while maintaining their morals, and other values, something lacking in Imperial Rome at this time. Simply incorporate this strong community into the weakening Roman culture by means of the law, and Rome would last forever. Or, at least, that was how the story should have gone.

[nelqui]

Constantine noting that he had to unite the two armies the army he used and the conquered army of the enemy he had to unite the two with some form of belief emerging at the time in case Christianity, he was just opportunist all along.
...thus, controlling the entire empire, with some form of unified belief...

[gabrielalexanderkhoury]

Constantinople was not a new "city" but an existing Greek city called Byzantium. He made it his capital.

[Alephkilo]

The Mithraic religion highlighted the movement of the Sun across the elliptical. The movement
from the constellation of the Bull ( Taurus) to the constellation of the Ram ( Aries) took place at about 2, 100 bc. Prior to that Spring commenced in the constellation of Taurus for about 4200 Bc to 2100 bc. The fact that Mithraism Was a secret and elitist religion is not because it was different from the Roman religion per se, but it added an esoteric spin to the Roman Greco religion, particularly from
About 200BC, because the constellation of Aries matched the sign of Aries due to the precession of the equinox.


In Persia, where the magi originated from .. the lamb was known as the Ram.. so the author gets it wrong here .. the symbolism of the cap was from the Zoroastrian faith, where it is mandatory for Zoroastrians to wear a cap. This practice Was adopted by the Jews and Muslims later. The Mitraic religion is influenced Mitra of the Indo - Zoroastrian faith.

Going back to Astronomy, sign of Aries, which is symbolised by the Sun bcoz Sun reaches it zenith or exhalation point in Aries and that explains the reference to Mithras as the Sun God.


No doubt, Constantine had motives in combining Christianity with the Mithraism and this can be seen by the church adopting Easter corresponding to Sun’s move into Spring
Equinox which coincided with so called the rite of spring celebrations which later on became Easter. The’s sun movement into Capricorn or the winter solstice on 22nd December was adopted as the birthdate of Jesus to make it easier to combine the Greco Roman customs into Christianity.

[mcLynguist]

He was so humble he named the city after himself lol