    6

    lift

    Israel from its abject subjugation and make it the first among

    nations, giving it a prosperity and happiness that would never end.

    The followers of the populist preacher (later renamed Jesus by

    the Greeks) believed he was the long-hoped for redeemer.7  Unfortu-

    nately, the Roman overlords got wind of the sermonizer's presence,

    sensed his subversive potential and executed him.  That, however, did

    not stop his followers.  They still believed fervently that He was The

    Chosen One.  Surely, they said, He would triumph over death and

    return to them.8  In fact, He himself had predicted His resurrection.

    Any day now, the faithful told each other, He would come back,

    bringing with Him the new earthly order.9

    God never quite arrived.  Or did he?   Over the next three

    hundred years, the waiting followers of the martyred Galilean became

    a minority spread from one end of the Roman Empire to the other.

    Decent Romans spurned and mocked them.  Occasionally, they were

    the subject of vicious persecutions.

    But like a magnet, the Christian beliefs drew a steady stream of

    new converts, pulling their devotees into a mass so solid some called it

    "the body of Christ."10  By 310 AD, there were massive, well-organized

    Christian communities in every major city of the Empire.11  Despite an

    official policy of repression, Christian views were argued ever more

    openly in the corridors of power.  Finally, they reached the ears of the

    Emperor.  Apparently, these Christian notions made an impression.

    In 312 AD, Emperor Constantine was on the eve of battling a

    rival at the Milvian Bridge outside of Rome.  Tradition has it that he

    looked into the sun and thought he saw in its blazing face the sign of

    the  cross.    The  Roman  ruler  took  it  as  an  omen.    He  felt  that  in  the

    impending bloodbath, Christ would give him victory.   Constantine's

    forces won the day.  And the Emperor in the coming years made the

    religion that he felt had brought him his triumph the official creed of

    the state.12

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