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Series Code: TIJ
Program Code: TIJ003126S
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00:45 He merged them into an Empire that lasted for centuries.
00:50 [Battle sounds] 01:03 This is his story. 01:05 A story of romance, intrigue, power and conquest. 01:23 [Battle sounds] 01:28 The world knows him as Constantine, the great conqueror 01:33 who managed to unite the Roman Empire and the man who turned 01:37 the religion of Rome completely on its head. 01:40 He's known as the man who propelled and obscured Jewish 01:44 sect into the global powerhouse religion we now know as 01:49 Christianity. But what most people don't know is how this 01:53 incredible man got his start. And how profoundly his 01:58 roots shaped his thinking and then the thinking of the 02:02 whole world. 02:03 He was born to a peasant girl who had to prove to a group of 02:07 soldiers that her son's father was the governor of the 02:10 Roman province of Dalmatia. A powerful and influential man 02:14 named Flavius Constantia's but once that happened 02:19 once she disputed indisputable proof that the Roman governor 02:23 was her baby's father, it started a chain of events 02:27 that rocked the whole planet and changed the course of history. 02:31 Constantine grew up to become Emperor of Rome 02:35 and his life was destined to cross that of another 02:39 great world leader Jesus Christ. 02:41 At first glance the similarities between the early lives of 02:46 Constantine and Jesus are astonishing. 02:49 They were both born under a cloud of illegitimacy 02:53 in a remote corner of the empire. 02:56 No one could have imagined their future destinies 02:59 that they would in different ways establish empires 03:03 and rule the world. 03:05 And when these empires collided, the results were incredible 03:10 the impact determined the very shape of our civilization. 03:14 But there's a strange twist to this clash of empires 03:18 there's more than meets the eye, in fact, it's one of the 03:22 biggest secrets of history. Stay with us to find out 03:26 all about it. 03:46 When we left Helena and her son Constantine 03:49 the end of episode one, they seemed to have it made. 03:53 Instead of abandoning them, Constantine's father Constantia's 03:58 had called them away from Naissus just a small town really 04:02 to come and live with him in the governor's palace. 04:05 Constantia's has actually married Helena and both she and her son 04:11 are being educated in all the arts of cultured civilization. 04:15 What could possibly go wrong? 04:18 The emperor at the time was Diocletian, he had become 04:23 emperor through some rather murky circumstances 04:26 and historians have long suspected that he had murdered 04:29 the previous emperor. 04:31 When Diocletian took the reigns of power, he soon found that 04:35 running a vast empire that stretched from England to 04:39 North Africa and from Spain to the far reaches of the 04:42 Middle East. Without the technology that we take for 04:46 granted today was a huge job. 04:49 He needed to find people he could trust to help him 04:53 run the empire. 04:54 That's why in A.D. 283 the Emperor Diocletian 04:59 divided the empire into two sections, an Eastern Empire 05:04 and a Western Empire. 05:06 Then he divided responsibility for its administration 05:10 among four men. On each side of the empire 05:13 there was an Augustus, the senior emperor, and there 05:17 was also a Caesar, the junior to the Augustus. 05:21 And so it happened that Diocletian appointed Constantia's 05:26 the governor of Dalmatia as the Junior Emperor of the Western 05:30 Roman Empire with the title of Caesar. 05:33 This had consequences for Constantine and his mother. 05:38 You see, Constantia's now had ambitions to reach the top 05:43 and he decided to get rid of Helena, 05:46 he saw her as a sub-standard wife, she was still just a 05:51 peasant really, not the right sort of companion for an emperor. 05:55 So he divorced Helena and he upgraded to a more appropriate 06:00 wife Theodosia who had powerful political connections. 06:05 She was the daughter of the Senior Emperor Maximian 06:09 a woman who was 26 younger than he was 06:13 Well although Constantia's did it for very good political reasons 06:17 you can imagine the impact this had on Helena. 06:20 When she heard that she was going to be replaced 06:22 by a much younger woman who was of noble Roman blood 06:26 many historians believe that it was at this point that Helena 06:31 had turned for comfort outside of the traditions of Rome 06:35 and embraced the Christian faith. 06:37 The implications of this was staggering. 06:41 A member of one of the highest ranking households in the empire 06:45 now belonged to a sect that the empire hated with a passion. 06:51 You see at that time it was a crime to be a Christian, 06:55 they faced severe persecution in the hands of the Romans. 06:59 Christians worship God and not the emperor and so they were 07:04 seen as a threat to the empire and faced torture, prison, 07:08 and death. Thousands were massacred and that's the faith 07:13 that Constantine's mother had adopted. 07:16 So now, let's go back to Constantine, 07:20 it's not hard to understand that Constantine 07:24 probably harbored resentment for the rest of his life 07:27 at how his mother had been treated when she was cast off 07:31 by his father Constantia's. 07:33 Now a grown man Constantine was given the rank of Centurion 07:39 and sent east to work for the emperor who was always traveling 07:43 checking on the administration of the empire and inspecting 07:47 its defenses. These twelve years he spent with the Emperor 07:51 Diocletian must have been formative, he learned how to 07:55 manage an empire by watching how Diocletian did it 07:59 and Diocletian wasn't a very nice person at all. 08:04 Around that time the Emperor Diocletian was forced to 08:08 deal with a serious threat to his power and it came from 08:12 an unlikely source, it came from a religious sect called 08:15 the Manichaean's which had a power base in Egypt. 08:19 This group had been founded by a Persian called Manni. 08:24 Now Manni called himself an apostle of Christ even though 08:28 he promoted beliefs that were at odds with Christianity 08:32 such as reincarnation. However Manni did borrow heavily 08:37 from Christianity as well as from other faiths such as 08:40 Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism. 08:45 Now the Romans didn't generally care what you believed in 08:49 as long as you didn't do what the Manichaean's did in Egypt 08:53 They staged a military revolt and at this point, 08:59 their religious beliefs suddenly became a big issue. 09:04 Diocletian brutally quashed the rebellion in Egypt 09:08 literally sending the Manichaean's to the salt mines 09:12 and Constantine was right there alongside his emperor. 09:16 Now, the Romans couldn't really differentiate between the 09:21 Christians and the Manichaean's, they couldn't tell them apart 09:24 and Diocletian's junior emperor in the east Caesar Galerius 09:29 hated Christians with a passion. 09:32 So he started putting pressure on Diocletian to do something 09:37 about these nasty Christians who were undermining the empire? 09:42 At around the same time, the pagan philosopher Palfrey 09:47 started to publish a text against the Christian faith 09:50 he was a highly educated man and his attacks were so strong 09:55 that Christians continue to defend themselves against them 09:58 long after his death. 10:00 So eventually, Diocletian decided that he needed to 10:06 do something about the Christians but he knew that 10:09 persecuting Christians in the past hadn't worked. 10:12 The more of them that were killed, the more they grew 10:15 in numbers. So he decided to start with civil penalties 10:20 first, the first thing the emperor did was to dismiss 10:24 all the Christians in the army and then all the Christians 10:28 who worked in the palace 10:29 However, when this didn't seem to have any impact, 10:33 Diocletian issued an Edict against Christians to be 10:37 enforced throughout the empire including in the west. 10:45 Christians were denied their rights so that anyone could 10:52 attack them and steal from them with impunity 10:55 they were effectively non- persons. 10:59 A few months later the leaders of the church were rounded up 11:03 and told that if they didn't offer sacrifices to the emperor 11:06 like everyone else, they would be put to death 11:09 then this edict was posted up in public places. 11:13 That same day a Christian by the name of Eleuterus lost his temper 11:18 and ripped the edict down, trampling it on the ground. 11:21 He was immediately arrested and taken before the magistrate. 11:26 When the judge told him what the likely penalty would be, 11:30 Eleuterus answered: 11:38 The judge replied: 11:51 Guards took Eleuterus, tortured him all night and when the sun 11:56 rose, they tied him to a stake and burned him to death. 12:00 It was reported that he suffered death with admirable patience 12:05 and in peace. 12:06 What the emperor Diocletian wanted was for Christians 12:11 to come to their senses according to him 12:13 and offer sacrifices to the gods, but they never did. 12:17 They refused. Eleuterus was the first victim of the infamous 12:23 Diocletian persecution, but he wasn't the last 12:27 there were many. By April of A.D. 304 merely being a 12:32 Christian incurred the death penalty 12:35 yes, it was a deadly crime to be a Christian. 12:40 In actual practice however the persecutions of the 12:44 Christians wasn't universal or uniform across the empire, 12:48 it was much worse in the east because Gularius hated 12:53 Christianity in fact, in the waste of the empire 12:57 it wasn't always so bad, that's where Constantia's was the Caesar 13:02 the second in command. 13:03 This brings us back to Constantia's and Helena 13:08 because after Constantia's divorced Helena 13:11 and married Theodosia, they had a daughter whom they named 13:15 Anastasia. Now this is significant because this is a 13:20 Christian name meaning resurrection. 13:23 Though divorced, Helena was still part of the Imperial 13:27 household, maybe this Christian name was somehow 13:30 due to her influence or perhaps it was the influence of other 13:34 Christians in the palace. We'll never really know 13:38 however, it seems obvious that Christians were influential 13:42 in the household of Constantia's. 13:45 It seems likely that Constantine had been exposed to the 13:49 Christian faith before he went to live with Diocletian. 13:52 However unlike his mother he didn't become a Christian 13:56 at that time but this might explain his later infinity 14:00 for the religion. 14:01 Shortly after his persecution of the Christians began 14:06 Diocletian did something that no other Roman Emperor 14:11 had ever done before, he decided that he was too old to rule 14:16 and so for the good of the empire, he chose to retire 14:21 while he was still at the top of his game. 14:23 Diocletian contacted the senior emperor in the west 14:28 Maximum and he suggested that they should both step aside 14:32 and promote their second in command to the top position. 14:36 Soon after this Constantine saw his opportunity 14:40 to cease power and the key to power was his father's army. 14:45 So Constantine fled the palace in Nicodemia where he was based 14:50 and traveled westward as fast as he could go. 14:53 He was so desperate to get away and reach his father 14:57 that he killed every horse along the Imperial Highway 15:00 to stop any pursuers. 15:02 Constantine and his father were reunited in Gaul where they 15:07 fought a battle together against the Pits, a fierce tribe 15:11 from the British Isles. 15:13 In that battle Constantine fought so bravely and 15:17 magnificently that they honored the request of his dying father. 15:21 And on the 25th of July A.D. 306 the men took his fathers 15:27 purple cape and claimed him as Augustus, the ruler of the 15:33 Western Empire. 15:34 But Constantine didn't just want the west, he wanted 15:38 the entire empire, but he still had powerful opposition. 15:42 Constantine was both smart and patient, he just waited for the 15:48 right opportunity to present itself and he didn't have to 15:52 wait long. 15:53 Maxentius was the son of the retired western Augustus Maximium 15:59 and he thought that he should rule the empire 16:01 so he convinced the city of Rome to rebel against Constantine. 16:06 Now Constantine was still a pagan who sacrificed to Apollo 16:12 before every battle, however the Christian influence in his 16:16 household had continued to grow. Not only his mother but now 16:21 his step-mother Theodosia had also converted 16:24 and she even kept a Christian minister right on the premises. 16:29 So now Constantine began his long march toward Rome 16:33 and his date with destiny fighting his way against 16:37 Maxientus's forces. 16:39 Constantine wasn't just a great leader, he was also an 16:44 inspirational fighter who led from the front and then he 16:48 camped a little distance out- side of Rome itself 16:51 The battle lines were drawn. 16:54 Inside Rome Maxentius made a most unusual pre-emptive strike, 17:00 he consulted the Sacred Sibling Books, a collection of pagan 17:04 prophecies to see if he could find the prophecy there 17:08 about who would win the coming battle with Constantine. 17:11 The answer he got was (and I quote.) 17:21 Maxentius was delighted because as far as he was concerned 17:26 the enemy of Rome was non-other than Constantine. 17:30 However the Sibling Prophecy also meant that there had to be 17:35 a battle the next day and Constantine was showing no sign 17:39 of attacking which meant that Maxentius would have to 17:43 strike first. Camped outside the city a messenger brought 17:48 Constantine the bad news. Maxentius claimed he had 17:53 discovered a prophecy that he would win and Constantine 17:58 would be killed. 17:59 Now the Romans were very superstitious and Constantine 18:04 saw the spirit of his men fall as the news spread throughout 18:08 his army. 18:10 Constantine knew that he needed to come up with his own 18:14 omen to bolster his men's spirits ahead of the 18:17 coming battle and that's when one of the most famous episodes 18:22 in world history suddenly unfolded. 18:25 And this is the point where Jesus and Constantine 18:29 actually began to merge. 18:32 The message of Jesus Christ was spreading around the world 18:36 and it had reached the very heart of the empire, Rome itself 18:41 it had even captured the allegiance of members of 18:44 Constantine's own family, his inner circle. 18:48 And now as he faces his greatest challenge at the gates of 18:52 Rome, and desperate for super- natural powers to protect him 18:56 from harm and bring him victory, Constantine reaches out 19:01 and embraces Christianity and the empire of Jesus Christ. 19:06 It's a clash of cultures, beliefs and faiths 19:09 but Constantine throws in his lot and aligns himself 19:15 with Christianity. And under its banner Constantine came up with 19:20 his own telesmet, the Chirho. Now the Chirho is really two 19:27 Greek letters blended together. The letter chi, which looks like 19:31 our letter X but is really a ch and the letter rho which 19:37 looks allays or P, but is really the letter I. 19:40 Its widely recognized as a Christian symbol because 19:44 together the two letters are the first letters in the word 19:48 Christ, Chr. Constantine told his men that he had seen the 19:54 symbol in a dream and that the army had to put it on 19:57 their shields because it was a guarantee that they would win. 20:02 There's a legend for which there is no evidence that exists 20:06 that while the army had still been in goal on its way to Rome, 20:10 that Constantine and indeed the whole army had seen a cross 20:16 of light superimposed on the sun attached to it in Greek 20:20 were the words, In This Sign you will Conquer 20:26 and so, through Constantine the two empires clash 20:31 and merge. 20:33 Roman Christianity become entwined and interlinked 20:37 but there's a strange twist to this merger, 20:40 there's more than meets the eye. 20:43 Because whenever politics and religion unite there's always a 20:48 very real danger that truth will suffer and be compromised 20:53 and that is evident in this new merger right from the start. 20:57 In fact, it's one of the biggest secrets of history. 21:02 You see the Cia-roh wasn't a new symbol at all, 21:06 it predates Constantine and even pre-dates Christ and 21:10 Christianity. The Cia-roh was commonly used by pagans 21:15 to mean good luck. Originally it was a pagan symbol 21:20 but it was adopted by Constantine given a Christian 21:24 connotation and at least his army now had a good omen. 21:28 A sign that the gods would help them liberate the city of 21:32 Rome from Manutius. 21:34 Constantine's conversion, it has often been said spoke more of 21:39 an expedience and superstition than genuine 21:43 religious awakening. 21:47 What happened next was the famous battle of the Milvian 21:51 Bridge. Early in the morning Manutius's army launched a 21:56 surprise attack against Constantine across the Mivian 21:59 Bridge outside Rome. 22:02 Maxentius was certain he would win, he significantly 22:07 outnumbered Constantine's army and he had the 22:10 the Sibling Prophecy on his side. 22:12 What could possibly go wrong? 22:15 But Constantine was ready, his counter-attack was deadly fast 22:20 and ferocious, he attacked Maxentius's army 22:24 before they could even get back over the bridge to safety. 22:28 In the middle of the battle Maxentius found himself 22:32 pushed off his horse and over the bridge and into the water. 22:36 His heavy armor meant he had no chance, his mud-covered body 22:42 was found lying in the reeds the next morning. 22:44 The battle was brutal and lasted all-day until mid-afternoon, 22:49 at the end of it Maxentius was dead, his army had been 22:54 crushed and Constantine was the victor. 22:58 On the 29th of October A.D. 312 Constantine and his army 23:06 rode triumphantly into the city, their shields emblazon with the 23:10 Cia-roh symbol and Constantine entered with Maxientius's head 23:15 on a spear, that was unusual. 23:19 But there was something else that was highly unusual about 23:22 Constantine's Victory Procession, the custom was 23:27 that the conquering hero would make his way to the 23:30 Capitoline Hill where he would offer sacrifices of the 23:33 Temple of Jupiter, but this time there was no sacrifice. 23:38 Jupiter didn't get the credit this time the honor went 23:44 to the Christian God. 23:45 Constantine had been influenced by his mother's religion 23:49 and embraced Christianity in his hour of need. 23:53 The two empires had always been at war but now they had clashed 23:58 in a very different way. 24:00 Now religion and politics came together in a way they never had 24:06 before and with momentous consequences, from that moment 24:11 on nothing in the Western World would ever be the same again. 24:16 Christianity had survived the persecution of the empire 24:21 but could it now survive the embrace of the emperor 24:26 and maintain its authenticity and purity? 24:29 That's the challenge we all face when it comes to matters 24:33 of faith, being genuine and being faithful because the clash 24:38 of empires continues. We experience it in our 24:40 daily lives and it's a clash that can bring apathy 24:46 and a temptation to compromise, that's why the Bible continually 24:51 calls us to be faithful. 24:53 Here's what it says in Revelation 2: 10, 11. 25:12 Have you ever wondered about the chaos and confusion 25:15 that we see in our world today? Have you ever wondered if God 25:19 is in control of our earth? Well, if you'd like to find out 25:24 more about what the Bible says concerning the clash of 25:28 two empires we see vying for power in our world today 25:31 then I'd like to recommend the free gift we have for all our 25:36 Incredible Journey viewers today. 25:38 It's the booklet Courage Under Fire. 25:43 This booklet will take you behind the scenes and give you 25:48 inside information about what's going on in our world today. 25:52 This booklet is our gift to you and is absolutely free. 25:57 I guarantee there are no costs or obligations whatsoever. 26:02 So make the most of this wonderful opportunity 26:05 to receive the free gift we have for you today. 26:09 Phone or text us at 0436.333.555 in Australia or 020.422.2042 26:19 in New Zealand or visit our website TiJ.tv to request 26:25 today's free offer and we'll send it to you totally free 26:28 of charge and with no obligation. 26:30 Write to us at GPPO Box 274, Sydney NSW 2001, Australia. 26:38 Or PO Box 76673 Manukau, Auckland 2241, New Zealand. 26:44 Don't delay, call or text us now. 26:50 If you've enjoyed today's journey through history, 26:53 as we've followed the greatest clash of empires 26:56 this world has ever seen, then be sure to join us again 27:00 next week when we will share another of life's journey's 27:04 together. Until then, join me as we pray and ask for God's 27:09 leading and guidance in our lives. 27:12 Dear Lord, We thank you that you are there 27:16 when there is a clash of empires and trouble in our lives, 27:19 help us to be the faithful people you desire us to be. 27:23 We recognize that you are stronger than all of the evil 27:27 in the world that seeks to do us harm and deceive us. 27:31 Give us wisdom to discern what is happening our world 27:34 today and teach us to trust you so that we may be overcomers 27:39 and receive your crown of life in the end. 27:42 In Jesus name, we pray. Amen! |
Revised 2022-01-06