    7

    In Constantine's eyes, Christ was a god of war.  The nearly

    illiterate emperor had the cross emblazoned on his soldiers' shields and

    banners.13  The real Jesus, a country preacher of peace, would have

    been horrified.  But that scarcely mattered now.  Christianity took over

    the Roman armies, administration and wealth.  In coming years, it

    would go farther still, absorbing one barbarian tribe after another.

    And, indeed, the church's glory would outlive the Roman Empire.  As

    the Christian congregation grew to engulf Europe, its key figures

    would prosper with it.  Christianity's Pope would become one of the

    wealthiest and most powerful men on the Continent--a figure capable

    of overawing kings and humiliating emperors (as Pope Hildebrand did

    to Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV).  Its cardinals and bishops would

    bedeck themselves in a splendor so regal that earls and barons would

    turn green with envy.  And Christians by the millions would take upon

    themselves the privilege of killing, torturing and raping those who

    weren't members of their triumphant creed.

    Christ may have failed to arrive with a band of angels to

    transform the ravaged lands of Israel into a paradise.  But the belief

    preached in His name had lifted the humble and given them glory.  It

    had elevated believers from their lowly status as contemptible cultists,

    placing some in thrones and palaces, and making them the lords and

    masters of nearly all they surveyed.  For the Christian elite, life did

    indeed become a bit of heaven on earth.

    Meanwhile, the growth of the Mohammedan superorganism in

    the East brought a similar shower of heavenly rewards.  As the Empire

    of Islam grew in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, so did the

    wealth and power of   its adherents.  Every time the soldiers of the faith

    conquered a new city, the treasures of the defeated metropolis poured

    into the coffers back at the center of the Empire.  Former small-time

    merchants from a dusty desert town moved into the palaces of the

    conquered cities as the new overlords.  And these nouveau riche

    religionists showered their wealth and good fortune on their families

    back home.  Descendants of the backward traders of Mecca and

    Medina, along with great grandchildren of desert chieftains who had

    thrown their lot in with the new religion, became as gods on earth.

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