The Vision Of Constantine The Great Revealed!

[AlchoPwn]

The historian Eusebius provides us with an interesting episode from the history of the Late Roman Empire. On 28th October 312A.D. (a Monday btw), there was a decisive battle fought between Emperor Constantine of the Eastern Roman Empire and Emperor Maxentius of the Western Roman Empire, for control of the Milvian Bridge, a strategically important crossing point for the River Tiber. This is known as the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, and Constantine I aka Constantine the Great, emerged victorious from this period of civil war created by the unstable Tetrarchy (Division of the Roman Empire into 4 parts under 4 Emperors).

Prior to this event, in an episode celebrated by Christians, the Emperor Constantine was granted a vision from the God of the Christians, that was seen as an omen of his forthcoming victory, and that set the path for his Edict of Milan which extended tolerance to the Christians for their religion. So was this episode merely religious propaganda? A divine message sent from the Christian God or from Constantine's patron deity, the god Sol Invictus, (the Roman Sun god once known as El Gabaal, an import from Syria, along with the infamously depraved teenage playboy Emperor Elagabalus, subsequently adopted by most late Roman Emperors including effective ones like Marcus Aurelius, and Aurelian, and a good contender for being the first monotheist religion in Europe). Well, consider the possibility of a synthesis of the mysteries of the two differing religions in one miraculous symbolic unity produced by a spontaneous and magnificent but entirely natural weather event.

I give you the Sun Halo:

For those who want to know more about how Sun Halos are formed:
http://earthsky.org/space/what-makes-a-halo-around-the-moon

Remember also that Constantine's mother, the Empress Helena was a Christian who had been on pilgrimage to Judea and returned with among other things, the True Cross. While the symbol of the cross had been criticized prior to the 4th Century, post-Constantine its adoption is rapid.

Anyhow, this seems like a pretty good fit given the evidence. What do you think? In my opinion, it would have been a cold Monday. I have always been interested in Late Roman history, and when I found this image I couldn't help but reach this conclusion, as it was too good a fit for the given evidence. My little discovery left me quite excited, so I am sharing it with you.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I agree with the notion a solar halo provides the broadest set of points matching early accounts of Constantine's 'public' vision. I'm not sure how long ago I first saw this proposed as an explanation, but I'm sure it was at least as far back as the late 1980's.

It was first recorded as having occurred at midday, which is one of the times the effect is most commonly encountered.

I referred to the halo / cross in the sky vision as 'public' because it represents:

- merely one half of the mythologized back-story,a sub-component distinguishable from other elements, specifically ...

- the sole portion claimed to have been witnessed by anyone other than Constantine himself.

This daytime vision was initially reported as just that - a vision, with no interpretation or implication imputed. It carried no specifically Christian features beyond whatever an observer read into it. Indeed, some accounts frame the daytime vision in terms of (e.g.) a halo around the head of Apollo / Sol rather than emphasizing any cruciform apparition.

Furthermore, there's no contemporary, or near-contemporary, account of this daytime vision that pinpoints when it occurred. The later, condensed and glossed, derivative narratives usually attribute it to the day prior to the decisive Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 CE). Some of the earliest citations explicitly claimed it occurred sometime during Constantine's campaign through Italy prior to arriving at Rome.

The second portion of the storyline concerns a different vision - specifically, a dream of Constantine's. This vision was as 'private' as the solar omen was 'public'. It was within this dream that Constantine purportedly received or divined a message to the effect the impending battle for Rome would be won if his army were to display a symbol of Christianity.

Popular accounts attribute this dream or private vision to the evening preceding the battle. This eve-of-battle timeframe amplifies the miraculous insinuations of the story, but leaves one wondering how Constantine's army managed to add any such symbology in a single morning (or perhaps an even shorter time ... ) after he awoke and before the battle got underway.

This 'last minute' timeframe isn't widely supported in the early records.

Constantine's primary contemporary biographer (Eusebius) wrote of the campaign and battle twice - once in the wake of Constantine's victory, and circa a quarter-century later when compiling his biography of the emperor (still unfinished as of Eusebius' death in 339 CE).

He attributed the dream to an incident in Gaul at an earlier time - unspecified, but certainly pre-dating the campaign into Italy. However, Eusebius didn't record this until circa 20 years after the battle in his massive (and never completed) biography of the emperor.

It's also important to note Eusebius claimed this storyline was something Constantine related to him, and there's no evidence Eusebius had any close contacts with Constantine until a decade or more following the battle.

Furthermore, Eusebius' earlier account of the battle (one of the few actually contemporary with events) makes no mention of either the 'public' or 'private' visions.

The earliest account attributing Constantine's dream to the eve of battle was that of Lactantius, circa 2 - 3 years after the battle and circa 1 year after Eusebius' earlier account was completed. As far as I can tell, Lactantius never mentioned the solar vision incident.

The document he produced was a history / commentary on the persecution of Christians - a tribulation this line of narrative often credits Constantine for subsequently ending via the Edict of Milan (315 CE). This sidesteps the inconvenient fact that Christian persecution ceased being the law of the empire in 311 when Galerius issued the Edict of Tolerance (circa 1 year before the battle). As one of the regional 'caesars', Constantine was in effect a co-signatory of this earlier decree.

With regard to treatment of Christians the only difference between the 311 and 315 edicts is that the later one added a stipulation that property seized from Christians during the rabid persecutions of the preceding decades was to be returned to the Christians.

NOTE: Both Eusebius and Lactantius were Christians.

So, here's a summary of my bottom line opinions ...

- I don't dispute the solar halo / sundog interpretation of the 'public' vision. Indeed, I think it's the most probable explanation.

- I can't reasonably dispute the dream / 'private' vision bit, because it occurred within someone else's dream.

- I can't reasonably accept at face value the claim Constantine's army was widely displaying overtly Christian symbology in the battle. No such imagery immediately appeared in commemoration of Constantine's victory, and I've never seen any evidence of Constantine's army having marked their shields (etc.) with such purportedly Christian symbology.

- I don't accept the 'all-in-one / last-minute' combination of 'public' and 'private' visions on the eve of battle. Instead, I see this popular condensed narrative as a highly glossed and compact fairy tale that plays well with the rubes and true believers.

- IMHO both the 'public' and 'private' vision incidents represent distinct junctures along Constantine's long path toward promoting and embracing Christianity.

- Constantine's early overt embracing of Christianity had as much or more do to with socio-political maneuvering as personal spirituality, and any preference or allegiance attributed him didn't arise until years after the campaign / battle.

- The notion that Constantine was personally 'converted' to Christianity during the campaign or as a result of the battle has been sorely over-inflated and isn't supported by evidence from the short term following his victory (e.g., coins depicting Sol Invictus and construction of pagan-oriented sites continued for up to a couple of decades after he came to power).

 

[chicorea]

The discovery of what is supposed to be an early christian church near the Milvian Bridge is a kinda controversial event...

https://hyperallergic.com/453107/ar...antine-the-greats-conversion-to-christianity/

 

[chicorea]

I guess the news about the disputed interpretation about the church (Is it one, really? Is it christian? From which timeframe?) illustrate very well what @EnolaGaia is trying to explain : even on the XXIth century history can be "reinterpreted" (an euphemism for "manipulated") to fit the interpretation that one or another have already elected as "the truth". We are closer of Eusebius and Lactantius than we would have prefered to believe.

 

[AlchoPwn]

So, here's a summary of my bottom line opinions ...
1.- I don't dispute the solar halo / sundog interpretation of the 'public' vision. Indeed, I think it's the most probable explanation.
2.- I can't reasonably dispute the dream / 'private' vision bit, because it occurred within someone else's dream.
3.- I can't reasonably accept at face value the claim Constantine's army was widely displaying overtly Christian symbology in the battle. No such imagery immediately appeared in commemoration of Constantine's victory, and I've never seen any evidence of Constantine's army having marked their shields (etc.) with such purportedly Christian symbology.
4.- I don't accept the 'all-in-one / last-minute' combination of 'public' and 'private' visions on the eve of battle. Instead, I see this popular condensed narrative as a highly glossed and compact fairy tale that plays well with the rubes and true believers.
5.- IMHO both the 'public' and 'private' vision incidents represent distinct junctures along Constantine's long path toward promoting and embracing Christianity.
6.- Constantine's early overt embracing of Christianity had as much or more do to with socio-political maneuvering as personal spirituality, and any preference or allegiance attributed him didn't arise until years after the campaign / battle.
7.- The notion that Constantine was personally 'converted' to Christianity during the campaign or as a result of the battle has been sorely over-inflated and isn't supported by evidence from the short term following his victory (e.g., coins depicting Sol Invictus and construction of pagan-oriented sites continued for up to a couple of decades after he came to power).

Hi EnolaGaia, I honestly had no idea you were as interested as myself in the Late Roman Empire, because that is a good critique of the sources. I would be the first to admit that my little discovery was a bit hyped btw, I simply saw it and the whole "Wow, this must be what Constantine saw before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge" thought just popped into my head spontaneously and I felt I ought to share it. I numbered your summary points to reply to them.
1. Okay then. This was really the only point I wanted to make.
2. Yes, its inherently subjective and a long time ago, and only available to us as a tertiary source.
3. I would go even further and suggest that the Chi-Ro of the Eastern Roman empire doesn't look remotely like the solar halo either.
4. Yes, evidence is thin.
5. In fairness, if I was a Christian in Constantine's army back in the day and I saw a Sun Halo like the one depicted, I might feel as if we were fighting with divine favor. As to how Constantine spin doctored the incident, it's pure politics and propaganda. No argument.
6. Constantine's mother Helena was a very wealthy and well connected Christian. It was a bad situation for an ruling emperor to have a politically powerful mother who was devoutly involved with an illegal cult i.e. those cannibalistic pacifist Christian freaks. The martyrdom of the Theban Legion in 286 under the reign of Maximian, was also a bit of a catastrophe for Roman military morale, and definitely represented a turning point in cultural attitudes imo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Legion
Through the Edict of Milan, Constantine didn't convert to Christianity, and he certainly didn't make it the religion of the state, he merely decriminalized the cult. I completely agree with you that this had far more to do with political pragmatism than personal spirituality. My comment here is just to flesh out a few historical details in support of that.
7. I have little to no doubt that Constantine remained a faithful worshiper of Sol Invictus, perhaps accepting a deathbed conversion to placate his minions at best. When other people have said that Constantine represents the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, they are misrepresenting the facts. That happened in 380 under Theodosius I with the Edict of Thessalonica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Thessalonica
So again, I totally agree with you.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Hi EnolaGaia, I honestly had no idea you were as interested as myself in the Late Roman Empire, because that is a good critique of the sources. ...

Thanks ...

Just for the record ... I don't have any special interest or background in late Roman Empire history. If anything, it's always been a multi-century blur of imperial soap operas I've never been able to keep straight in my head.

On the other hand, I do have an interest in identifying and dissecting the ways events of that era set the stage for what we see today. No matter how far removed we are in time, one can argue we still inhabit, endure, and wrestle with socio-cultural detritus from two millennia ago.

One of the specific developments that's always interested me is the manner in which Christianity (at least according to its own version of the narrative ... ) managed to become so associated with secular powers that it would eventually lay claim to being, and / or actively serve as, a major force in shaping (distorting?) Western history.

IMHO the decisive turning point was the end of recurrent broad-based persecution and integration into the mainstream which correlates with Constantine.

I'd done some delving into this topic (which naturally has to include examination of the vision stuff) a few years ago, and I dredged up my notes from that earlier exploration.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Hi EnolaGaia, I honestly had no idea you were as interested as myself in the Late Roman Empire, because that is a good critique of the sources. I would be the first to admit that my little discovery was a bit hyped btw, I simply saw it and the whole "Wow, this must be what Constantine saw before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge" thought just popped into my head spontaneously and I felt I ought to share it. ...

Thanks for the clarification. I was initially confused as to whether you knew a solar apparition / sundog had already been proposed and debated as the explanation for the 'public' vision.

I was never able to determine how far back it was when someone first proposed this explanation. Recent academic writings on the subject almost unanimously point to a 2003 Peter Weiss article if and when they touch on the solar apparition hypothesis:

Weiss, P. 2003. The vision of Constantine. J Rom. Archaeology 16: 237- 259.

According to the first page 'teaser' at:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-constantine/7375CC7583C7EC3B11EE921789294FF3

... this is a translation and revised edition of a paper that traces back to a 1989 original and an intermediate 1993 version (neither in English).

I don't know whether the hypothesis originated with Weiss in the late 1980's.

 

[AlchoPwn]

Thanks ... ...
One of the specific developments that's always interested me is the manner in which Christianity (at least according to its own version of the narrative ... ) managed to become so associated with secular powers that it would eventually lay claim to being, and / or actively serve as, a major force in shaping (distorting?) Western history....

Not that I am in favor of Christianity, but let's go with "shaping", as at some level, even the most unbiased historian is in some way distorting the facts just by interpreting them. As language is an imprecise tool, and history is an art not a science, every ******! historian is going to spin an angle, because they are trying to make a point. It can't be helped.

The other thing is, that it is pretty easy to figure out what is church propaganda and what isn't, and for all their ship load of failings, a lot of history wouldn't have survived without the church. Of course we don't know how much history specifically didn't survive because the church edited it.

IMHO the decisive turning point was the end of recurrent broad-based persecution and integration into the mainstream which correlates with Constantine.

If we want to get super technical, Galerius also has some claim on the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Serdica
Just kidding. But he is the first Emperor to tolerate the Christians. While Christianity was certainly growing rapidly, the threat of persecution remained until it became the state religion. But hey, how long was it until it wasn't good enough to be a Christian, one had to be the right kind of Christian?

To quote Cletus of Athens WV: "Them Romans sure did love them some persecutions hyuk hyuk. I rekon they up an' invented heresy just so as they could beat folks up an' take their stuff all legal like..." (jk)

I'd done some delving into this topic (which naturally has to include examination of the vision stuff) a few years ago, and I dredged up my notes from that earlier exploration.

Sounds like a very worthwhile project. I really liked the Weiss article btw so thanks for alerting me to it. In fact the vision of Constantine wasn't really my focus of study. I was more focused on the transition from the Imperial system to Feudalism, and the economics of the period. Sounds like you were having a passionate discussion with someone about the early church perhaps? How did it go?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... 6. Constantine's mother Helena was a very wealthy and well connected Christian. It was a bad situation for an ruling emperor to have a politically powerful mother who was devoutly involved with an illegal cult i.e. those cannibalistic pacifist Christian freaks. ...

She ended up highly privileged, but only after Constantine became emperor in the west following the death of his father Constantius (circa 306). Helena came from a 'low' social background, Constantius never formally married her, and she went into a sort of internal exile (along with their son Constantine) when Constantius married another woman of higher social rank as his own status rose (sometime prior to 289).

Many summary / popular accounts emphasize Helena being a Christian, as if she were Christian all along. This isn't the case. Helena converted to Christianity after Constantine became emperor. The most defensible interpretation is that this occurred after Constantine was designated to replace his father as emperor in the west (one of the Tetrarchy) - i.e., circa 306. Some versions I've seen are vague enough to leave open the interpretation that Helena's conversion may have occurred after Constantine took Rome (312).

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_(empress)

A conversion in the 306 timeframe would fall within the period of the Diocletianic Persecution(s) - not a propitious time to be coming out as a Christian. This is one of the reasons I'm not certain when Helena's conversion occurred.

Either interpretation would suggest Constantine couldn't have been influenced by his mother's Christianity until he was already over thirty years old (i.e., circa halfway through his life).

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Of course we don't know how much history specifically didn't survive because the church edited it.

... Or deliberately destroyed it. ...
... Or scrubbed it off the pages and reused the parchment for their own writings ...

 

[AlchoPwn]

... Or deliberately destroyed it. ...
... Or scrubbed it off the pages and reused the parchment for their own writings ...

Amen, and bless you for mentioning it.

The contemporary example per excellence of just your point:
https://www.ted.com/talks/william_noel_revealing_the_lost_codex_of_archimedes

She ended up highly privileged, but only after Constantine became emperor in the west following the death of his father Constantius (circa 306). Helena came from a 'low' social background, Constantius never formally married her, and she went into a sort of internal exile (along with their son Constantine) when Constantius married another woman of higher social rank as his own status rose (sometime prior to 289). Many summary / popular accounts emphasize Helena being a Christian, as if she were Christian all along. This isn't the case. Helena converted to Christianity after Constantine became emperor. The most defensible interpretation is that this occurred after Constantine was designated to replace his father as emperor in the west (one of the Tetrarchy) - i.e., circa 306. Some versions I've seen are vague enough to leave open the interpretation that Helena's conversion may have occurred after Constantine took Rome (312).

Also a good point. I may have put the cart before the horse on that. I many have overestimated her political connections a bit drastically. Clearly you are correct though. She gained her status through Constantine I,and not before his ascension. In my defense, she was influential as a Christian subsequently, but only post facto.

I can also see the problem that if she had converted early, it would have been hard for a Christian to marry a non-Christian, even if they were noble. To be fair though, based on the wiki, the whole issue of their marriage is uncertain. Sometimes she is called Constantius' wife, sometimes his concubine, but I think they must have been married for Maxentius to insist she be divorced. One doesn't divorce concubines, one chucks them in the street with a handful of change if they become a nuisance, and make "yer mom" jokes at young Constantine until he plots to murder you.

 

[Ermintruder]

As I've mentioned previously on FTMB, I remain personally-persuaded that there could be a direct symbological transference between the logographic representation of Christianity (ie The Cross, both as a simple crucifix, & in its quasi-Celtic 'ringed' zodiacal version); and, the purported early astrological pictogram for The Sun (ie a cross, prior to a latter-day dotted circle).

Quite-aside from any possible reappropriation/adaptation of the para-pagan 'sun wheel' (the rune-like quadrantial four-season cycle:circle sonnenkreuz ), and the probable transposition of the respective astrological symbols for the Earth and the Sun (and also remembering the earlier chastisement I received regarding my flawed proposition that the spoken words Son and Sun could be anything more than just contemporary homophones): I am also inclined to accept the fundamental validity of the hypothesis that the symbolic figure of Christ, the cosmological solar star that is the Sun, and the whole Sol Invictus/Phaethon/Helios overlays...all seem to substantiate into their own unholy trinity of singularity.

And I either mean that in a non-metaphysical way: or perhaps I do impute some form of associate sub-stratum (emergently, though, before saying it is all somehow paradeterministically linked)
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/mistic/songod_sungod.htm

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Sounds like you were having a passionate discussion with someone about the early church perhaps? How did it go?

As I recall, the debate that triggered my digging wasn't about the early church per se, but rather something to do with consolidating / integrating disparate channels or venues of social power into a coherent edifice, as well as the narrative engineering required to weld the pieces together. The Roman appropriation / incorporation of Christianity is the earliest example for which we have substantive evidence for the process.

Earlier civilizations presumably worked through similar processes, but we have no substantive clues beyond the final consolidated outcomes. An obvious example of such conceptual engineering in process would be Akhenaten's unsuccessful attempt to reorganize Egyptian religion around a single deity / god / element (the Aten). However, the sparse nature of the evidence, plus the fact much evidence associated with Atenism was purged, prevents us from understanding that episode in much detail.

 

[AlchoPwn]

As I recall, the debate that triggered my digging wasn't about the early church per se, but rather something to do with consolidating / integrating disparate channels or venues of social power into a coherent edifice, as well as the narrative engineering required to weld the pieces together. The Roman appropriation / incorporation of Christianity is the earliest example for which we have substantive evidence for the process.

Just to be clear, you want to look into the Roman appropriation of Christianity? Surely that was a very two way street? As Rome and its ideological framework were being undermined, the Christians effectively appropriated Roman identity too. Rome made a habit of appropriating many religions. Isis/Osiris, El Gabaal, Mithras etc. They were all Roman fads as there was social cache in belonging to exotic religions, much as there is today in Hollywood. The difference was that with Christianity, they didn't aim for the elite, they aimed for the lowest echelons of Roman society who were used to being told what to do. While most fad cults only skimmed the cream off the top, so to speak, Christianity scooped the whole pool by starting at the bottom.

Earlier civilizations presumably worked through similar processes, but we have no substantive clues beyond the final consolidated outcomes. An obvious example of such conceptual engineering in process would be Akhenaten's unsuccessful attempt to reorganize Egyptian religion around a single deity / god / element (the Aten). However, the sparse nature of the evidence, plus the fact much evidence associated with Atenism was purged, prevents us from understanding that episode in much detail.

As you say, there is an unfortunate paucity of information on the topic. On the other hand, there is a decent amount of information about the cult of Serapis, which is a syncretic Ptolemaic Greek assimilation of Egyptian religion that had a substantial impact of Judaism and probably served as the catalyst for a lot of Christian ideas. For example the first Christ was Serapis, as "christ" means "anointed one" and every statue of Serapis had a cup on its head into which to place sacred anointing oil. In fact, in 1AD if you had asked about Bishops of Christ in the Roman Empire, you probably would have been directed to the temple of Serapis, as they had Bishops too. The more you dig, the more you find. Serapis just keeps on giving and is worth your examination I believe (it provides great "ammo" for debating Christians too).

While Akhenaten was an early monotheist, by comparison, the experiment was clearly unsuccessful as you say. Religion was the business of Egypt, and Akhenaten tried to cut the clergy out of their own scam, the counter-reaction was predictable. Really the Aten experiment was more of an attempt to make a polytheistic society monotheist within a single generation and without giving the priests and religious artisan any alternative employment. I think you were right not to make it an example of religious appropriation, because it probably isn't a great example of the process.

As I've mentioned previously on FTMB, I remain personally-persuaded that there could be a direct symbological transference between the logographic representation of Christianity (ie The Cross, both as a simple crucifix, & in its quasi-Celtic 'ringed' zodiacal version); and, the purported early astrological pictogram for The Sun (ie a cross, prior to a latter-day dotted circle).

I noted that if you squint at a light globe the light forms a cruciform. That works with the sun too naturally. The Southern Cross is visible in the Northern Hemisphere from January to October if that helps in any way. South is also the direction of the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere. Every gardener knows about South Sun, and maybe some Gardnerians know about it too. In Alchemy, a circle with a cross through it is the symbol for Earth. Sorry, I am rambling.

Quite-aside from any possible reappropriation/adaptation of the para-pagan 'sun wheel' (the rune-like quadrantial four-season cycle:circle sonnenkreuz ), and the probable transposition of the respective astrological symbols for the Earth and the Sun (and also remembering the earlier chastisement I received regarding my flawed proposition that the spoken words Son and Sun could be anything more than just contemporary homophones): I am also inclined to accept the fundamental validity of the hypothesis that the symbolic figure of Christ, the cosmological solar star that is the Sun, and the whole Sol Invictus/Phaethon/Helios overlays...all seem to substantiate into their own unholy trinity of singularity.

The notion that there is a connected mystery between the zodiac and Christian symbology is only unacceptable to the most fundamentalist Christians in my experience. As to the whole Son/Sun thing:

Sun (Noun form) Etymology
Old English sunne "the sun," from Proto-Germanic *sunnon (source also of Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German sunna, Middle Dutch sonne, Dutch zon, German Sonne, Gothic sunno "the sun"), from PIE *s(u)wen-, alternative form of root *sawel- "the sun."

Old English sunne was feminine (as generally in Germanic), and the fem. pronoun was used in English until 16c.; since then masc. has prevailed. The empire on which the sun never sets (1630) originally was the Spanish, later the British. To have one's place in the sun (1680s) is from Pascal's "Pensées"; the German imperial foreign policy sense (1897) is from a speech by von Bülow.

Son (Noun form) Etymology
Old English sunu "son, descendant," from Proto-Germanic *sunuz (source also of Old Saxon and Old Frisian sunu, Old Norse sonr, Danish søn, Swedish son, Middle Dutch sone, Dutch zoon, Old High German sunu, German Sohn, Gothic sunus "son"). The Germanic words are from PIE *su(e)-nu- "son" (source also of Sanskrit sunus, Greek huios, Avestan hunush, Armenian ustr, Lithuanian sūnus, Old Church Slavonic synu, Russian and Polish syn "son"), a derived noun from root *seue- (1) "to give birth" (source also of Sanskrit sauti "gives birth," Old Irish suth "birth, offspring").

Son of _____ as the title of a sequel to a book or movie is recorded from 1917 ("Son of Tarzan"). Most explanations for son of a gun (1708) are more than a century after its appearance. Henley (1903) describes it as meaning originally "a soldier's bastard;" Smyth's "Sailor's Word-Book" (1867) describes it as "An epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea ...."

Those two words have sounded similar in a lot of languages for quite a while. They probably chase down to a common word in one of the Paleolanguages that relates to birth, for example, the Sun being birthed from the Earth (i.e. coming out of the horizon). As you say though, they are annoying and misleading homophones.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Just to be clear, you want to look into the Roman appropriation of Christianity? Surely that was a very two way street? As Rome and its ideological framework were being undermined, the Christians effectively appropriated Roman identity too. ...

Oh, I agree about it involving reciprocal influence and / or benefits. Still, it wasn't exactly a union between interests of equivalent power. In the context of Constantine's era, it was Rome who held the decisive power in raising Christianity's status. The religious tail thus installed would not wag the secular / imperial dog until quite some time later.

 

[EnolaGaia]

...The difference was that with Christianity, they didn't aim for the elite, they aimed for the lowest echelons of Roman society who were used to being told what to do. While most fad cults only skimmed the cream off the top, so to speak, Christianity scooped the whole pool by starting at the bottom.

Thats a good point ... Christianity is configured to appeal to the masses - most particularly the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and the victimized. If one buys into the Christian version of events, it was this affiliation with the masses that fostered an administrative fear it represented a potentially revolutionary / rebellious element endangering Roman control over occupied territories.

It also benefits the Christian version of the narrative to claim the faith welled up from society's lower strata to infuse the entire hierarchy, because this reinforces the notions of divine inevitability and hence being 'in the right all along'.

I doubt this was what happened at the time from the Romans' perspective. I suspect the prime motivation had more to do with convenient indirect syncretism in the service of improved socio-political integration across an empire within which diversity had become an operational problem.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... On the other hand, there is a decent amount of information about the cult of Serapis, which is a syncretic Ptolemaic Greek assimilation of Egyptian religion that had a substantial impact of Judaism and probably served as the catalyst for a lot of Christian ideas. ... Serapis just keeps on giving and is worth your examination I believe (it provides great "ammo" for debating Christians too).

I agree that Ptolemy's sponsoring and promoting the Serapis cult represents another historical attempt at hard-wiring a more unified society via introducing a new (or newly-emphasized) belief system.

Personally, I consider this to have been another failed attempt at unification (if one assumes unification was indeed the objective).

As far as I know, Ptolemy didn't mandate adherence to the Serapis cult, so it remained just the latest among a sizable set of sects, cults, religions, etc., which were available at the time. Perhaps that's all Ptolemy was aiming for.

Perhaps Ptolemy looked back at the failed Akhenaten / Aten initiative and figured the desired outcome had to be obtained through long-term evolution / proliferation rather than instantaneous change via decree. He invested heavily in a new contender, but it never achieved the critical mass necessary to dominate the socio-cultural scene.

For that matter, perhaps Ptolemy was aiming for little or nothing more than injecting a Hellenistic element into the regional religious mix.

 

[AlchoPwn]

I agree that Ptolemy's sponsoring and promoting the Serapis cult represents another historical attempt at hard-wiring a more unified society via introducing a new (or newly-emphasized) belief system.

Unquestionably there was an ideological component involved with distinct socio-cultural aims.

Personally, I consider this to have been another failed attempt at unification (if one assumes unification was indeed the objective).

As you later suggest, there is heavy syncretism involved in the emergent religion of Serapis. The Apis bull is combined with Osiris, and with Zeus, into a single distinct deity, but with multiple aspects. One might even call them a pagan trinity. I was first clued into the issue when I discovered that the Docetists (an apparently Christian sect) had cells that potentially went back to 100BC. And who is the first figure who speaks of the Docetic belief? Bishop Serapion of Antioch (197-204AD).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism
The plot thickens, no?

As far as I know, Ptolemy didn't mandate adherence to the Serapis cult, so it remained just the latest among a sizable set of sects, cults, religions, etc., which were available at the time. Perhaps that's all Ptolemy was aiming for.

As a ruler deity, Serapis was important as an ideological symbol of the regime and its integration with the older cults of Egypt, and more importantly, with their integration into the system of mysteries and initiations. Serapis' temple in Alexandria becomes important as it is linked to the Museion (Temple of the Muses and first Museum), and by extension the Great Library which the Museion supported. This allowed the knowledge of the Egyptian House of the Dead (Egypt's medical brains trust) to merge with Greek and later Roman scholarship as Alexandria became the intellectual hub of the Mediterranean. Missionaries then spread out, taking with them the cult of Serapis, and the combined medical knowledge, calling themselves the Therapeuts. The Therapeut tradition was even successful in integrating themselves into the parochial and stand-off-ish Jews, who were considered the most barbarous and weird folk in the region as they were atheists (had no idols). This made my eyes pop a little,as I already knew about the connections between the Therapeuts and Jesus.

Perhaps Ptolemy looked back at the failed Akhenaten / Aten initiative and figured the desired outcome had to be obtained through long-term evolution / proliferation rather than instantaneous change via decree. He invested heavily in a new contender, but it never achieved the critical mass necessary to dominate the socio-cultural scene. For that matter, perhaps Ptolemy was aiming for little or nothing more than injecting a Hellenistic element into the regional religious mix.

The main thing that Aten worship lacked was gradualism. Had the process been less harshly rapid, Aten might have succeeded. The plethora of deities across the Mediterranean world were annoying to many people. For example, everyone venerated the Earth, the Sea, the Storm, the Sun, Death, etc, but they did so under different names and with different rites. Some cult leadership was inherited, some obtained through initiation, some by state appointment etc. and while Greece and Rome were tolerant of such, pretty much anyone could just invent a cult and see if they could market it. After a while the diversity became annoying and more than a little corrupt. In many ways monotheist was a way of centralizing and "unionizing" religion into a more useful instrument of social cohesion rather than confusion and disintegration, a million voices all screaming to be heard in a marketplace of faith. The first character to attempt to unify the Roman Empire under a single monotheist faith was Emperor Elagabalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus who was basically an hilarious teenage pervert, hereditary high priest of El Gabaal and effectively the author of Sol Invictus which was a surprisingly sober cult, that encouraged monolatry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolatry,
but was not the original monotheist cult of Sun worship that Elagabalus had installed as the new Roman state religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus_(deity).

What most people don't know was that the Syrian deity El Gabaal, was actually one of the Elohim ("im" is a plural ending in Hebrew, so how can a single deity be plural? It never was) the gods who were the sons of El Elyon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyon who was the supreme god of the Semitic Pantheon. And who else was in this pantheon?
Why, Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh God of the Jews. Note well the depiction of Yahweh on the coin in the link.

Thus the serpent ever writhing (writing?) comes to swallow its own tail (tale?).

 

[Cochise]

How did Mithraism fit in the Roman world? I understood it to have been a serious rival of Christianity until the end of the 4th century when it seems to have been forcibly terminated. It also was a form of sun worship (Sol Invictus)

 

[AlchoPwn]

How did Mithraism fit in the Roman world? I understood it to have been a serious rival of Christianity until the end of the 4th century when it seems to have been forcibly terminated. It also was a form of sun worship (Sol Invictus)

Mithra is a Pre-Zoroastrian deity who is incorporated into Zoroastrianism as a "yazata" which is roughly the equivalent of an "arch-angel". Mithra is a deity of stellar light and order, and was associated with keeping one's oath and doing one's duty, basically a deity of lawful behavior.

As the Roman Empire moves into the Middle East the legions come into conflict with the Parthian Empire who have thrown off the yoke of the Seleucid Empire (Greeks) and reasserted a Persian identity more in keeping with the Achaemenid Persians, and still following Zoroastrianism. The Romans and the Parthians fight across the frontier for years. During that time however, various legionaries are brought into contact with Middle Eastern religions such as El Gabaal, and Mithra, and they bring the cults home with them, where, because they are exotic they become trendy a la Hollywood cults today (Have YOU convinced your girlfriend to brand herself with a red hot iron today?(jk))
:fhtagn::exor:

As for Mithrais, to say it was a genuine competitor with Christianity is somewhat borne out by the number of buildings of the period with Mithraeums in them. On the other hand, mithraeums are generally small, and could only hold about a dozen people at a time. Mithraism was certainly practiced, but it was always a bit elitist, and never gained the mass appeal of Christianity.

Now Mithraism has very little to do with Zoroastrian Mithra worship, and seems to have been a Roman artifact more than any genuine survival of a Persian religion according to the consensus of scholars, but we cannot truly know for certain. It is possible that Mithraism was persecuted in Parthian territory and became a refugee religion, or became a way of performing espionage on Rome, before being swallowed up and completely incorporated into Roman life.

In terms of structure and ritual performance, Mithraism was a mystery cult with layers of initiation, much like Freemasonry, but with only 7 levels. Mithraism comes west with the Roman Legions and remains a primarily military cult, but with its value on keeping one's oath and doing one's duty, if becomes a means of promoting people who value civic virtues. The ranks include: The Raven, the Bride, The Soldier, The Lion, The Persian, The Sun Runner, and The Father. The actual mysteries seem to have been primarily directed towards the Zodiac, and the cultivation of one's personal daemon or "heroic spirit".