    52

    10. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,  pp. 28, 118, 127, 139, 141. For St. Paul's

    invention of the phrase, see Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p. 370.

    11. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin edition, pp.

    309-315.

    12. The story of Constantine's vision of a cross in the sun goes back to Bishop

    Eusebius of Caesarea.  Twenty five years after the battle at the Milvian Bridge,

    Eusebius, a contemporary of Constantine's, declared that the Emperor had

    mentioned seeing the vision of the cross in the sky.  On that cross, Eusebius

    reported, were the words "By this conquer" (per Roland H. Bainton, Christianity, p.

    90).  Eusebius should have known what he was talking about.  He had dinner with

    Constantine during the Council of Nicaea, delivered the eulogy to Constantine that

    opened the official deliberations, and sat at the Emperor's right hand during the

    Council's sessions. (Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers, p. 572.  And Bainton,

    Christianity, p. 96.)  On the other hand, Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the

    Roman Empire, claimed that the  story of Constantine's vision was a fairy tale

    (Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Penguin edition, p.

    383).  Gibbon felt Constantine's conversion to Christianity was a more gradual

    process.  But whether the Emperor had visions or not, Constantine not only made

    Christianity the Empire's official religion, he took to presiding over doctrinal councils

    and made himself the virtual head of the Christian church.  (See also: George

    Ostrogorsky,  History of the Byzantine State, (trans. Joan Hussey), Rutgers

    University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1969, pp. 46-48; and Robin Lane

    Fox, Pagans and Christians, pp. 613-622.)

    13. H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, p. 337.

    14. Abu 'Ali al-Muhassin al-Tanukhi, "Ruminations and Reminiscences," excerpted

    in William H. McNeill and Marilyn Robinson Waldman, The Islamic World, p. 102.

    15. Tad Szulc, Fidel, pp. 80-86.

    16. Even the august third century Christian theologian Origen--who felt the notion of

    a flaming furnace beneath the earth was a fantasy-- had to admit that  hellfire was a

    devilishly convenient tool for keeping the faithful in line.  (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans

    and Christians, p. 327.)

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