It is said that a great event occurred on the farthest west corners of Asia that influenced Christianity everywhere for centuries to follow. This event was centered in Byzantium and begins with the Roman Emperor Contstantine. A church historian, Eusebius, says that Constantine recieved a vision from heaven before a major battle. This vision included the symbol "XP" which, in Greek, are the first two letters of the word Christ.
He claims to have heard the words, "In this sign, conquer." When Constantine won his battle he credited the sign of God with his victory. Until this moment many emperors persecuted the idea of Christianity, while others attempted to tolerate it. Now that this sign was considered "victory-bringing" the emblem of Christ the Savior became a worldwide symbol for Christendom.
Now that Constantine won his battle he set out search for a capital. It is said that he was a genious for choosing an ancient town in Byzantium, "Because this was an easy-to-defend base located as far east as one could go in the Roman Empire, and as far west as Asia could take him." After himself, he named the town Constantinople.
It is decided that if he would have chosen a great city in the Roman Empire, such as Alexandria in Egypt, the Byzantine Empire would have ceast to exist after the seventh century. This would have been largely due to the fact that the Arab Muslim armies were unstoppable and as they killed off the Persian Empire to the east, the town of Constantinople would have been right with it.
http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/n/byzantium_the_lost_christendom.html
I hope that you feel as fascinated as I do right now. Before this article, and my dear friend Katie, I have never given much thought about Constantine. It honestly astonishes me that the entire world can be changed because of one man claiming to see a sign from God.
Have a wonderful weekend and take a little time to think about how you have become the person you are today, because apparantly I have been influenced by a man that I knew very little about.
It does seem like Byzantium was the perfect location for a capital, because, like you say, it is in a location that is easily defensible. I wonder how the growth of christianity would have been effected if another location had been chosen for the capital and the Byzantine empire had not lasted as long as it did.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I also wrote a little about Constantine in my own blog, but I appreciate how you applied him to our own lives. You made a good point about being influenced by someone you didn't know about.
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