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Nor can I imagine the Vatican picking up the tab for serial killings. As usual in such stories, the Roman curia is pictured as smooth, sophisticated schemers who will stop at nothing to preserve the power of the church.

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He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts..... For Brown, it isn’t enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor’s old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith.

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1. Constantine edited and selected the versions of gospels he agreed with and sought to destroy the rest.

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2. Constantine embedded several aspects of paganism into Christianity in order to make the religion appealing to the people.

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Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ’s “companion,” meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to “kiss her on the mouth” and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter’s reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that “women are not worthy of Life,” Jesus responds, “I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

That’s certainly an odd way to “honor” one’s spouse or exalt the status of women.

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1. Constantine edited and selected the versions of gospels he agreed with and sought to destroy the rest.

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No, he converted on his deathbed.

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About this time Constantine the Great, who was previously a man of no religion, is said to have embraced Christianity, being induced thereto principally by the miracle of a cross appearing to him in the heavens. But this story is liable to much doubt. His first edict in favor of the Christians, and many other things, sufficiently evince that he was indeed at
that time well disposed toward the Christians and their worship, but that he by no means regarded Christianity as the only true and saving religion; on the contrary, it appears that he regarded other religions, and among them the
old Roman religion, as likewise true and useful to mankind; and he therefore wished all religions to be freely practised throughout the Roman Empire.

But as he advanced in life, Constantine made progress in religious knowledge, and gradually came to regard Christianity as the only true and saving religion, and to consider all others as false and impious. Having learned this, he now
began to exhort his subjects to embrace Christianity; and at length he proclaimed war against the ancient superstitions. At what time this change in the views of the Emperor took place, and he began to look upon all
religions but the Christian as false, cannot be determined.

This, however, is certain, that the change in his views was first made manifest by his laws
and edicts in the year 324, after the death of Licincius, when Constantine became sole emperor. His purpose, however, of abolishing the ancient
religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little before his death, when he published his edicts for pulling down the pagan temples and abolishing the sacrifices.

That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his life, and was received
to full membership in the Church, by baptism, only a few days before his death, at Nicomedia.

But neither of these is adequate proof that the Emperor had not a general conviction of the truth of the Christian religion, or that he only feigned himself a Christian. For in that age many persons deferred baptism till near the close of life, that they might pass into the other
world altogether pure and undefiled with sin; and it is but too notorious that many persons who look upon the Christian religion as indubitably true and of divine origin, yet do not conform their lives to all its holy precepts. It is another question whether worldy motives might not have contributed in some degree to induce Constantine to prefer the Christian religion to the ancient Roman, and to all other religions, and to recommend the observance of it to his subjects. Indeed, it is no improbable conjecture
that the Emperor had discernment to see that Christianity possessed great efficacy, and idolatry none at all, to strengthen public authority, and to bind citizens to their duty.

The sign of the cross, which Constantine most solemnly affirmed he saw in the heavens, near midday, is a subject involved in the greatest
obscurities and difficulties. It is, however, an easy thing to refute those who regard this prodigy as a cunning fiction of the Emperor, or who rank it among fables; and also those who refer the phenomenon to natural causes,
ingeniously conjecturing that the form of a cross appeared in a solar halo, or in the moon; and likewise those who ascribe the transaction to the power of God, who intended by a miracle to confirm the wavering faith of the Emperor. Now these suppositions being rejected, the only conclusion that remains is that Constantine saw, in a dream while asleep, the appearance of a
cross, with the inscription, In hoc signo vinces ("By this sign thou shalt conquer"). Nor is this opinion unsupported by competent authorities of good credit.

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Thanks for the reading suggestions TAK.

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It's also a good "lesson" on how a successful religion can best stay successful—by uniting people, not just by commanding them.

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That's beautiful John. Instead of seeing the pagan roots as a sign of weakness, you've turned it into a strength for the church.

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That the Emperor was sincere, and not a dissembler, in regard to his conversion to Christianity, no person can doubt who believes that men's actions are an index of their real feelings. It is indeed true that Constantine's life was not such as the precepts of Christianity required; and it is also true that he remained a catechumen all his life, and was received
to full membership in the Church, by baptism, only a few days before his death, at Nicomedia.

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He didn't make any formal conversion gestures until he was nearly dead, did not live a "Christian" life, and as I already pointed out, actually imposed facets of his sun-worship on the church practices during his rule. It's one thing to cite the "facts" of chronoligical happenstance, but quite another to interpret them into "why" and "how" things happened the way they did. Constantine had a vision and (also), because of his mother's conversion, he legitimized Christianity as a faith in Rome. Other forms of worship were already dying out (mostly in lieu of his own sun-worship), and he did not dismantle those faiths. He had not only Christian advisors, but advisors of his own religion up until his demise. To portray Constantine as a Christian is to grossly understate the actions he took which were decidedly not Christian in nature.

Maybe this summer, I'll put together a more comprehensive, descriptive, and specific essay together for everyone to read, giving far more historical reference and fact regarding this line of thinking. Suffice to say, when looking at more than "this happened then this happened" when viewing the history of Constantine's rule clearly shows the man was not a Christian ruler until he was about to die. You guys just have to promise me that you don't steal what I write for a school thesis, as it'll probably be one I'll use later when I start taking grad-level classes.

Oh, and Beren: that's the whole point. Things don't last for thousands of years being static and unmoving. This is one of the biggest problems I have with some of the less structured atheist arguments against religion.

[ March 05, 2004, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: John L ]

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Well, if Jesus is suppose to experience all the pain and suffering of a mortal human being, his experience would not be complete if he were not married.

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"Blood, pain, sacrifice, anguish, and death."
"Sounds like marriage all right."
"How would you know?"
-- Worf, Bashir, and O'Brien

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I found Mary Magdelene in the Passion to be sorta........ er, distracting.

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Also, at one of the annointings, Judas Iscariot complained that the ointment would be better sold so the money could be given to the poor, but the author of the gospel felt Judas actually planned to embezzle the money.

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I thought there was a sermon preached somewhere in the distant past that led to that misbelief.

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Is is possible that Mary was more like one of the disciples, but was not acknowledged as such in the Gospels?

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March 11

The second in a series of lectures on "The Da Vinci Code: Mystery, Metaphor and Meaning, LDS Perspectives on the 'Da Vinci Code' " will be held at 7 p.m. in the Lied Gallery level three, at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art on campus. Tonight's lecture is " 'The Da Vinci Code': Separating Fact From Fiction." The event is free and open to the public.

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The mix-up was made official by Pope Gregory the Great in 591: "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark," Gregory declared in a sermon. That position became church teaching, although it was not adopted by Orthodoxy or Protestantism when each later split from Catholicism.

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Three decades ago, the Roman Catholic Church quietly admitted what critics had been saying for centuries: Magdalene's standard image as a reformed prostitute is not supported by the text of the Bible.

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