The conversion of Constantine – part 2

Constantine the Great

I was born about 10 years after the battle of Milvian Bridge, when my father had grown out of his urge to fight, and had settled down to marry. He married a Christian girl, from a family who had been Christian for several generations. My mother would tell me stories of members of her family who had been arrested and imprisoned. Some had been tortured to make them deny their faith. Others having refused to recant had been thrown to the lions. My mother had on several occasions been forced to leave Rome when it became too dangerous for Christians there.

My mother thought that the reign of Emperor Constantine was an odd time to be a Christian. We were no longer being persecuted, but neither were we accepted by many in the Imperial household. Many members of the household still worshipped the old gods, and were inclined to be rather rough on those new members of the household who belonged to the Christian Church that the Emperor himself flirted with.

As a christian, my father was chosen to travel with the Empress Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, when she went on her trip to the holy land where the Lord Jesus was born, lived and died. My father was away from Rome for over three years between the years 326 to 328 after the death of the Lord Jesus. It was his role to catalogue and carefully pack the many artefacts of the life and death of the Lord Jesus, that the Empress was able to find, and wanted to send back to Rome.

He was there when she tested three pieces of wood, which she had been told were parts of the true cross. When the Imperial party arrived in Jerusalem they found that the Emperor Hadrian had built a temple to Venus on the site of the crucifixion. Empress Helena ordered the temple to be destroyed. While they were taking it down, three crosses were found. In order to test whether any of them were the cross on which the Lord Jesus died, Helena had a woman near death brought to her. When the dying woman touched the first cross, nothing happened, likewise with the second. When she touched the third cross she became well again. The Empress sent the cross back to Rome, to her son.

She also found the nails used on the cross, and sent those back to Rome with instructions that one should be placed in the helmet of the Emperor and another in his horse’s bridle, to protect him from danger. They must have been very powerful protection, for Emperor Constantine ruled the Roman Empire for 31 years, and died a natural death in his own bed. His was the longest reign since the first Emperor, Augustus who died over 300 years ago. There were many, many other stories my father told of other relics that she found, as she travelled round both in the land of the Israelites and the land of the Egyptians.

Some members of the Imperial party on this trip were surveyors and architects. Their job was to raise churches to glorify God, and they had the resources of the Imperial treasury at their command. No expense was to be spared in glorifying the God of the Emperor. They raised one church at the site of the birth of the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem, and another on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem. After receiving the true cross from his mother, the Emperor ordered a church to be built on the site of the discovery. It is known to this day as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

I have recorded 14 Emperors in the Roles of the imperial palace since the death of Constantine the Great. Some ruled the East of the Empire, some the West part, and some were strong enough to hold the whole of the empire. Now with the elevation of Theodosius, the Empire is beginning to settle down to a degree of stability that it has not seen in a while. Through all the changes of Emperor, and all the troubles we have seen, I and my fellow scribes have quietly remained at our posts administering the Empire and trying to make sure the borders are safe and everyone has enough food.

In times of peace the community of Christians were tolerated, but in times of trouble people turned back to the old gods and blamed the Christians for all the ills that came their way. It has, in my lifetime, still been difficult to be a Christian. In a week or two I will retire after a lifetime of service to the Emperors of the Roman Empire. Emperor Theodosius has generously given me a grant of land and a pension from the Imperial treasury. I am looking forward to spending the remainder of my days watching over my citrus trees and raising cattle and hens to keep me in food. My son has long been a scribe working alongside me, so I know that the imperial household will continue to be well administered. I look forward to using some of my pension to build a small church on my land, where I and my family will be able to worship the one true God, freely and openly for the first time in my life.

The conversion of Constantine – part 1

For a change this year, on second Sundays of the month, I have decided to use stories around significant changing points in Christian history. The first one was about St Paul, this is the second.

Constantine the Great

Today, on this 27th February in the 380th year since the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, a humble clerk in the Imperial court, placed before my Emperor, Theodosius I, what he has named the Edict of Thessalonica. He penned his signature and now it is law. Paganism is outlawed and Nicene Christianity the official religion of the whole Roman empire. At last not only are we Christians not persecuted, but the truth of our faith is now acknowledged to the whole world. Praise be to God. It has been a long journey and a difficult and dangerous one for many who believe in the Lord Jesus. The story of my own family is fairly typical.

My father fought in the army of the Emperor Constantine. He was with him on the 28th October in the year of our Lord 312 at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. When I was growing up, after he had had a few beakers of wine, he could always be persuaded to tell the story of that faith changing event. Early on the morning of the battle, Constantine came out of his tent, and ordered that all of his soldiers should carry a new and special sign on their uniforms and battle standards. Constantine had seen this sign in his dreams. In the dream it was while his army were carrying that sign, that they won out over their enemies and were victorious in battle. It was a strange symbol to most of the soldiers, a letter X with a letter P overlying it. In his rallying speech to them before the battle, Constantine explained that this symbol was the symbol of the God of the Christians, and that he had promised to lead his army, Constantine’s army, to victory.

It was a great victory. The army of the Emperor Maxentius, whom they were to fight, was twice the size of my father’s army, yet when my father and his fellow cavalrymen charged, it seemed as if a great force was moving with them. They swept their enemies before them, and threw them into the Tiber. Constantine’s army rode victorious into Rome. My father would tell stories of women hanging out of windows throwing flowers over them, and in the evening men in bars giving them drink after drink. There were women there for the taking, but my father always said, at least in my mother’s presence, that he had never taken what was on offer.

Having seen and experienced the power of the God of the Christians, Constantine, who was now proclaimed Emperor of the whole Roman Empire and the most powerful man in the world, promised to become a Christian. He took lessons and had many discussions with leaders of the Christian community, but although he claimed to believe in the Lord Jesus, he resolutely set his face against being baptised into the community until he considered it to be the right time. I believe that he found some of the prohibitions about not killing, and loving your enemies to be too difficult to keep to. As Emperor he wanted to have a bit of flexibility! He wanted to wait until he was no longer in a position to sin, then as he had been taught, Baptism would wipe away all of his sins. I remember when I was newly a scribe in the royal household myself, that Constantine became ill and died. I was one of many scribes who wrote out the proclamation of his death and the announcement that the emperor had been baptised on his death bed, and had been forgiven all his many sins.

My father had no such qualms. Having seen and felt the power of the God of Christ, he became a Christian soon after the battle. He was an educated man, and was able to find work in the Imperial household helping to manage the vast machinery of people and lands which make up the Roman Empire. The symbol that had appeared on Constantine’s battle standard began to appear in many places in the imperial household. When my father took instruction before being Baptised as a Christian, he asked about the battle standard and was told that it was comprised of two Greek letters Chi and Rho which form the first three letters of the word ‘Christ’. It was one of the many signs which Christians used in times of persecution to identify each other.

Saul of Tarsus – part 2

St Paul

Saul and I hurried to the place of the skull, where executions take place. Unlike the rabbi, Stephen was to be stoned to death. Saul and I were just standing there, watching what was happening. Saul, I think, was hoping Stephen would say something that he could take offence at. Some of the Priests of the Sanhedrin led Stephen out. Noticing us standing there, they threw their coats at our feet, and ordered us to watch them, while they carried out the execution. Then they began to pick up large rocks from the ground and lob them at Stephen. As the stones began to hit him, standing there tethered like a goat for the slaughter, he toppled over, and landed on his knees in an attempt to save himself. As he reached his knees he lifted his face to heaven and began to pray, asking God to forgive those throwing the stones. This made them all the angrier. Just before one large stone finally knocked him unconscious, he commended his soul to God’s care. The Priests surrounded him and finished off the job with one final very large rock which it took two of them to lift. Saul watched all of this impassively. I knew that the stoning had changed something in him.

The following day he was not sitting at the feet of The Master. I heard that he had gone to the Sanhedrin and had offered to go and find all the followers of Rabbi Jesus, and present evidence to the Sanhedrin against them. They found him fierce in his condemnations, and subtle in finding those who followed the Rabbi. People began to fear his name, and the prisons were full of those he had condemned. I was not surprised when I heard that he had set off on a journey to Damascus to find more followers there.

It was a long time before I heard any more news about him, and what I heard shook me to the core. The story was that he had had some sort of experience of God, just as the prophets did of old, and was now a follower of the dead Rabbi Jesus. As the years passed by, I heard snippets of stories about voyages he had been on, and the fierce debating that had taken place in several Jewish communities around the known world. I heard that he had been put in prison, and had used his citizenship to request a transfer to Rome to plead his case before the Emperor.

I always wished that he would come to visit me, on the few occasions when he returned to Jerusalem, but he was probably too busy working with the members of the Messianic Sect. There were two things which I wanted to debate with him. I had heard him argue many times that Torah shows us that Yahweh will send us a Messiah. What was it about Rabbi Jesus which made him believe that he was the chosen Messiah? Rabbi Jesus died on a cross, executed as a traitor at the behest of the High Priest and the Sanhedrin. How could someone who died on a cross be the Messiah? He had always believed that the Messiah would come at the head of an army to release his people. Rabbi Jesus had died rather than cause a single death in battle.

The other question I wanted to ask him was if he believed Rabbi Jesus was the Messiah, the chosen one of Israel, why was he preaching and converting gentiles across the known world, and aggravating the local Jewish communities in the places where he stopped to teach and preach. He and I had always believed that as a Jew we were of a race singled out by Yahweh, chosen by him. Yahweh had made a covenant with our ancestor Abraham. If we would make him our God and worship him only, he would give us land, this land, the promised land. We have fallen short of Yahweh’s ideals, and are at the moment a conquered people living oppressed in our own land, but we are different, we are special. Why has he changed his mind about this? And he has changed his mind to the extent that he no longer believes that the laws that he and I used to debate so fiercely are the only way to Yahweh. He has allowed Gentiles to become part of the Messianic Sect without being circumcised and without keeping the ritual dietary laws, without which no Jew, no matter of which sect, will live. He has written letters, which I have seen, where he states that gentiles need only to believe in Rabbi Jesus to have eternal salvation, for in his death we are all forgiven, and can by grace, rather than by any works we do, come to faith.

I will never get a chance to ask him now, as the news has come today on a ship from Rome, that he has been beheaded. His body has been spirited away by his Messianic followers, and buried where the Roman authorities are not going to find it. I have read many of his letters over the years, for I have friends among the Messianic Sect, but in the end I cannot get over the fact that I am a Jew, as my ancestors were Jews, and in that I will trust when I come before my God.