Was Constantine the Great's heavenly sighting cooked up after the event? By Patrick Maloney June 2011 Fortean Times, 275

Outside the south door of York Minster, there is a statue of a seated man. He looks pensively at the sword he holds, point down, in his left hand. The tip has broken off. The sword has become a cross. The man represented is Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, who was, on 25 July 306, declared Emperor of Rome within a few yards of his modern statue. He was the man who converted Rome to Christianity, the man who would be declared both a saint and a god after his death. On the base of the statue are the words “Constantine. By this sign conquer”. This refers to one of the defining moments in the history of Western civilisation: the vision that led Constantine to victory at the battle of Saxa Rubra, when his forces defeated those of one of his rival emperors, Maxentius. This in turn led to Constantine‟s acceptance of Christianity and his imposition of it on the whole Roman Empire. This is such an important moment that it bears closer examination. There are two sources for the vision of Constantine. One is Lucius Cæcilius Firmianus Lactantius, the Christian tutor of Constantine‟s eldest son, Crispus. The other is Eusebius Pamphilus of Cæsarea. The most famous and dramatic account is that of Eusebius, who relates in his panegyric to the deceased Constantine, Vita Constantini, that the day before the battle of Saxa Rubra (27 October 312), Constantine was praying, and begging God

to reveal Himself. As he prayed, at around midday, a “most marvellous sign” appeared in the sky. A cross of light appeared, above the Sun with the inscription In hoc signo vinces (By this sign, conquer). Constantine and his entire army of close to 100,000 men were amazed at the sight.[1] That night, Eusebius reports, Constantine had a dream. In his dream, Christ appeared to him and ordered that Constantine make a “likeness of that sign which he had seen in the heavens” and use it as a protective in all his future battles. So what was it that Constantine saw? Artists through the ages have attempted to depict the scene, but have done so in only the most fantastical way. The most obvious solution is that it was a particularly bright parhelion (a Sun dog or mock Sun). The specific association that Eusebius makes with the Sun might support this. These images are caused by ice particles high in the atmosphere and are relatively common. Given clear skies, they can be seen on average about twice a week, if looked for carefully.[2] Very bright parhelia are rarer, yet should still have been known to Constantine, who would have spent far more time outdoors than we do today, and would consequently be more familiar with aerial phenomena. Recently, the drama-documentary TV series Ancient Rome[3] espoused the theory that Constantine and his army witnessed a meteorite strike, the smoke from the blast curling into a slight (and unconvincing) Chi-Rho shape. Both armies would surely have witnessed either event – signs in the sky are not meant for one man, but for all. There are two other versions of the events of that day, both written closer in time to the actual events, neither of which refer to a vision, and one of which was written by Eusebius himself. Eusebius‟s first account appears in his Ecclesiastical History (c325). Here, the battle is described in somewhat mystical terms, the hand of God being more visible than the sword of Constantine. Maxentius is accused of sorcery, but there is no mention of a vision or a dream.[4] The final account is that of Lactantius. In his book On the Death of the Persecutors, he writes: “Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle.”[5] No mention of any vision. But note the use of the phrase “heavenly sign” – usually taken to mean the Chi-Rho monogram. Could Eusebius have interpreted this as a “sign” actually seen “in the heavens”? For despite his claiming that Constantine saw a vision, there is simply no mention of it anywhere else, not even in his own works. Only the Life, written some time after Constantine‟s death, mentions it. Interestingly, however, Constantine did once claim to have seen a vision. This was much earlier, before a battle in Gaul, and was of Sol Invictus, the martial emperors‟ god of choice.[6] Here again we find a close association with the Sun. The conclusion seems clear. Eusebius, living in a time when visions and miracles were an accepted part of everyday life, saw that Constantine‟s momentous turn

towards Christianity should have been accompanied by a suitably dramatic divine vision. It is a slight matter to transpose Constantine‟s earlier vision of a false god to where it should have happened, and to modify it to a vision of the true God; and yet that association with Sol remains as a tantalising hint of the origins of the story. All the ingredients of the vision story preceded its first telling – it just took Eusebius to „correct‟ history to suit the new Christian regime. Notes 1 Eusebius: Life of Constantine, bk 1, ch 28. The dream reference is in ch 29. 2 Atmospheric Optics. _http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/parhelia.htm 3 Ancient Rome – Constantine, BBC, 2006. 4 Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, bk 9, ch 9. 5 Lactantius: On the Deaths of the Persecutors, ch 44. 6 John Julius Norwich: Byzantium: the Early Centuries, Penguin, 1990, p42. http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=30697.0 __________________________________________________________________

The following evidence I would like to submit as a footnote, so that Patrick

Maloney's readers may think more about Constantine's association with

Sol with which he enticingly concludes his thought-provoking essay.

1. Sun Crosses have been venerated from pre-historic times

A Neolithic Sun Cross Sun Wheel pendants, dating to the late

2nd

Millennium BC (found in Zurich)

2. A Sundog, mentioned in Patrick Maloney's study, resembles a Sun

Cross and would have been regarded as portentous by solar devotees

3. In Imperial Rome Mithraism was a cult of the Sun

This ornate plate, in Sun Cross form, was found in a Mithraeum: despite

intermediate radial wedges that might suggest a Sun Wheel, it is a beautiful and

surprisingly accurate representation of a parhelion (Sundog or Mock Sun).

4. There is no denying that in the Roman Church a cult of the cross

did develop, monstrances being strongly suggestive of Sun Crosses

There are many videos evidencing syncretism within the Church of Rome,

such as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erlIoFmz_AU

5. What we must be careful to avoid doing if we are exploring the

impact of Mithraism on early Christianity

Despite the strength of Mithraic sun-worship in the Roman Empire, the

original Nazarene creed of the first believers (1 Cor.15:3-8), which Paul

learned from the disciples who had been key eye-witnesses to Jesus's ministry,

death and resurrection, owed nothing to, and had imported nothing from,

paganism*.

Please watch this honest video on the alleged similarities between early

Christianity and Mithraism, which argues that any CREEDAL borrowing must

have been by Mithraists from Christianity, not vice versa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahLm6jmxDTo.

In addition, this site (essential reading to counter cynics, even of Catholicism),

Evidence for Jesus and Parallel Pagan "Crucified Saviors" Examined,

refutes sceptical claims that Christ's life and death had been modelled on the

lives of pagan gods which had similarities:

http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/JesusEvidenceCrucifiedSaviors.htm

You may also want to read this briefer debunking of the Jesus/Mithras

connection at http://www.sullivan-county.com/bush/travilocity1.htm

________________________________________________________________

* However, there is no denying the fact that Christ was NOT born on 25th December,

but on the first day of Tabernacles or Sukkot. It was the Mithraic celebration of the

birthday of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus) that fell on 25th December, that is

commemorated in the Catholic celebration. Solid scriptural proof that Christ's birth

occurred during the feast of Succoth (Sukkot) is provided by Greg Killian in his

excellent paper at http://www.betemunah.org/birth.html

6. An apologist puts his case for Constantine's genuine conversion

A coin struck in 313, depicting Constantine as the companion of Sol Invictus

“If Constantine truly worshipped Sol Invictus, even portraying the icon on his coinage, why does the Church insist that he converted?”

http://www.churchhistory101.com/feedback/constantine-sun-worship.php

7. So what was “The Vision of the Cross”? A Sundog!

In “The Vision of the Cross” by Raphael (1520-24) (above), Constantine is

wearing the glory crown of a devotee of Sol (the origin of the use of haloes in

Roman Catholic artwork). Maloney writes that Constantine had witnessed a

parhelion on the eve of a battle in Gaul, years before the Milvian Bridge

confrontation with Maxentius's forces on 28 October, 312 AD. Being a practical

military man, Constantine would hardly have seen it as signifying the presence

of the supernatural. Parhelia were public knowledge, having been mentioned by

Cicero (On The Republic, 54-51 BC) and brought to the attention of the early

Senate as meteorological phenomena worthy of note in their own right. Yet

portentous meaning might well have been ascribed to it for military reasons,

since Mithras, who was honoured by the Legions as the patron of loyalty to the

Emperor, was identified with the Sun. So perhaps Constantine marked his men's

shields with Sun Crosses () on that previous occasion in Gaul.

Eusebius's mention of the whole army being witness to the spectacle suggests a

Sundog. This counter-evidence prevails over Lactantius's allusion to a crypto-

gram by God's hand being seen: such a prodigy would have been widely report-

ed, and yet Eusebius' first account of the Battle of Milvian Bridge (Eccles. Hist.

ca. 325) made no mention of a dramatic heavenly vision – nor any other writing

of the period! We agree with Paul that Church initiatives undertaken on the

basis of preposterous delusional claims always signal apostasy (2 Thess.2:3-12).

Caligula's imposture of deifying himself in God's temple had been his clue as to

how future Caesar types in the Church would avenge themselves on the sobriety

of Jewish monotheism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-69KEIMtyZ8

8. Constantine's Chi-Rho monogram was first described by Lactantius

“Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delin-

eated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He did as

he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter X, with a

perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top (P),

being the cipher of CHRISTOS. Having this sign, his troops stood to arms.”

– Lactantius (On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 44.5)

9. A monogram, formed from the first two Greek letters of the epithet, Chrestos (XPHCTOS, kindly good), of Osiris, god of earthly regeneration in the power of the Sun, matches Lactantius’s description and predates Christ

Chi-Rho (XP) on a coin from the reign of Ptolemy III (ca. 246-221 BC)

CHRestos Osiris (Underworld King) CHRestos Mithras (Province Ruler) *

* “The Romans via the Persians worshipped the sun

under the title Chrestos Mithras” (Torah Institute).

http://www.fossilizedcustoms.com/christian.html

The title Sol Invictus, Osiris's XP and honorary tag were

transferred to Mithras for imperialist ends. Cicero wrote,

"By reverence and religion we have subdued all nations."

This is robbing God of the right to supremacy on earth.

“Chrestos was one of the epithets traditionally ascribed to Osiris” (Picknett and

Prince's, Templar Revelation, p.372). In addition, according to J.B.Mitchell in

the excerpt below, the Chi-Rho was the “chrestomathic mark of the ancients”:

https://archive.org/stream

/chrestosareligi00mitcgoog

/chrestosareligi00mitcgoog

djvu.txt

CHRESTOS (pp. 19-20)

“It was in Egypt (later ruled

by the Greek-speaking Ptole-

mies) that the part played by

the (Egyptian) epithet <Xpr-

joro> was most prominent.

There the whole land was full

of the worship of the Good

God, Hesir-Onnofri, King of

Kar-neter (Hades) and Judge

of Souls; and hardly was there

to be found an inscribed tomb

of any importance without his

name and distinctive title of

the Good, the Excellent, the

Gracious, expressed by the

sign J. Thanks to Champollion

and his many eminent

successors, nothing is more

certain in the whole range of

Egyptology than the consecra-

tion to Osiris, in his mystic

character of Ruler in the realm

of the departed and Judge of

Souls, of the special title of

the Good, Bonus, XPHCT0S.

Even before the art of deciph-

ering the hieroglyphical chara-

cters had been acquired, this

could be made out from Plu-

tarch's treatise, "De Iside et

Osiride." It is therein stated

that "Osiris was the Good

Deity, the beneficent king,

who was able to conquer the

world by persuasion alone"

("De Is.et Os.", xiii.); and

again: "Osiris and Isis were

the Good Divinities" (Ibid.,

xxviii). That <Xprjoro> was

the conventional as well as

the accurate rendering of the

Egyptian term, as applied to

Isis and Osiris, we have evid-

ence in an inscription publish-

ed by Boeckh and beginning

ISIAI XPHCTH. (" Corp.

Inscr.," t ii., p. 245, n. 2,300).

No one has better described

the career of Osiris in his

special character of the Good

God, than Wilkinson. "Osiris,"

he says, "was called the

manifester of Good." (Manners

and Customs of the Ancient

Egyptians," by G. Wilkinson,

vol. iii., p. 69; Lond.,1878).

CHI-RHO (pp.34-36)

Until quite recently it was

generally supposed that the

cross in one form or another

had served the primitive

Christians as the emblem of

their faith. But the researches

of De Rossi, Le Blant and

others have made it certain

that the monogram, composed

of X and P, which are the two

initial letters of both XPICTOS

and XPHCT0S, preceded

every purely crucial emblem.

This was the sign which Cons-

tantine adopted and placed on

the imperial standard or laba-

rum by divine command, at

the time of his conversion to

Christianity. The so-called

monogram of Christ, however,

is neither more nor less than

the ordinary chrestomathic

mark of the ancients, standing

for "good, excellent", which it

was customary to put on the

margin of manuscripts to indi-

cate noteworthy passages.

That Constantine should have

adopted a sign which had long

previously been in use to

denote chrest is full of signifi-

cance enhanced by the fact

that Constantine's conversion

was in a great measure due to

the representations of an Egy-

ptian (Zosimus, Hist.Nov., lib.

ii, c. 29). The influence that

was exerted by the unwitting

transference to Christ of the

signification of the word

Chrestos (good, excellent,

beneficent, gracious) – for it

means all that, but especially

the "goodness of God" (Rom.

ii., 4) – was probably greatly

increased by the circumstance

that, as the aim of Christian

morality was the practice of

"that which is good" (Rom. ii.,

10), so the “highest good”,

Summum Bonum (Cic. De

Fin.,5.6) was the ethical

objective of devout Pagans

and more particularly Stoics,

among whom (it) was a

familiar expression.”

Moving on from Chrestos Osiris and Chrestos Mithras, we come to...

Chrestos Christos!

“It is not likely that there was any essentially marked or significant difference

between Chrestos and Christos. They may have been used more or less

interchangeably. But the insatiable tendency of the ancient mind to devise

constructions that would graphically pictorialize basic principles, laws and

truths took form seemingly in this instance in seizing upon the two names,

Chrestos and Christos, as descriptive of the two stages of incarnating and

resurrected Messianic Deity. This is the one inescapable theme of ancient

religious writing. It would match the other two-fold designations such as Sut-

Horus, Horus the Elder-Horus the Younger, Osiris-Horus... and other pairs that

represent the two opposite phases of Deity, the God in matter, the Karast, and

the God restored to heaven, as the Christ. Much Christian thought even makes

the distinction between Jesus the man and Christ the God. It was in all

probability the case that the religionists referred to Jesus as the Chrestos, or

“good man” who was to be through and after his initiations and transfigura-

tions reborn into the true Christos. The reason, then, for the indicated tendency

for the Christians to change the term Chrestos over to Christos is plainly seen.

It was their obvious purpose to establish the claim that their divinely prophesied

and celestially-born Messiah had indeed become the fully deified Saviour.... But

it is of no little weight to establish the datum that the term Chrestoi, meaning

“good people”, full of sweetness and light, was pre-extant to Christianity.”

The above has been extracted from page 162 of this masterly treatise:

Who Is This King of Glory?: A Critical Study of the Christos-Messiah Tradition

By Alvin Boyd Kuhn

The Roman historian Tacitus believed that

followers of the Nazarene called

him Chrestos. In his Annals, Book 15, chap.

44, produced in 109 , he wrote “Chrestian”,

rather than “Christian”. But a Greek copyist

has obviously edited “XPHCTIAN” in the

second Medicean Manuscript to read

“XPICTIAN”. I have added this to

corroborate Alvin Kuhn's thesis above.

http://historum.com/ancient-history/24520-

chi-rho-symbol-chrest-archeology-chrest.html

10. Other gods, besides Osiris and Mithras, not only had the Chrestos

epithet but were assigned a birthday on the solstitial date of 25th

December

With the introduction of the Greek mystery religions, the Chrestos cognomen

was applied to more gods with solar attributes, just like Osiris (god of

resurrection and fertility, commanding nature's cycles in the power of the

endlessly reborn Sun) and Mithras (all-seeing divinity of the truth, protector of

contracts, cattle, the harvest and the waters, identified in Rome with Sol

Invictus). Pagans found similar reasons to apply the Chrestos epithet to Apollo

(patron of rationality and intellect, god of light, truth, oracles, music and

healing, http://www.truthbeknown.com/apollo-chrest.html), Dionysus,

considered by Plutarch to be Osiris's twin (god of wine, joy, theatre, revelry,

ritual madness and religious frenzy), Hermes (patron of invention, art, artifice,

literature, animal fables, travel, trade, god of heralds, shepherds, athletes and

feasts, http://www.truthbeknown.com/suetoniuschresto.html) and Heracles

(mankind's strong protector and patron of childrens' games,

http://www.gardinersworld.com/?p=78), because, like the Sun, they all banished

evils and gloom from the Earth.

We might expect that these pagan rays of sunshine would all share the same

birthday as Horus (the Egyptian sky god who incorporated the Sun) and Mithras

(Sol's offspring) – 25th December; and they do. Prometheus (stealer of fire from

the gods, symbolizing the progress of civilisation) and Adonis/Tammuz (god of

beauty and desire) join Dionysus, Bacchus, Hermes and Heracles, who all had

their birthdays three days after the Winter Solstice. Apollo, however, despite

being the Sun's imaginary charioteer, was not feted with the other gods on this

day according to one expert, but on 4th March:

http://cosmoquest.org/x/365daysofastronomy/2009/03/04/march-4/

I conclude this roll of honour of pagan solstitial gods by pointing out the

disconcerting fact that will not have been lost on the reader, that the archetype

that fits most closely with the celebration of Christ's Nativity by the unbelieving

world today is the way the ancients emulated the quintessentially beneficent

and fun-loving nature of their adopted gods, Hermes, Dionysus and Heracles on

this festive occasion – even naming them Chrestos!

Plus ça change...

http://www.honortheson.com/home/holidays/323-december25th.html.

____________________________________________________________________

P.S. The Mithraic rites of Sol Invictus centred on the sacrifice of “demon” bulls.

Mithras's slaying of a demon bull was re-enacted by initiates as a militaristic

test of masculinity, stamina and strength in a rite known as the taurobolium.

Mithras became so identified with the display of martial power that Aurelian

made him the principal patron of the Empire in 274.