Constantine : (288?-337), Roman emperor who converted to Christianity, turned his empire into a Christian Western & Byzantine medieval state, & ordered the compilation of Christ’s teachings. Sri Aurobindo: “Sons of Light come, the earth denies & rejects them; afterwards, accepts them in name to reject them in substance. Only a small minority grows towards a spiritual birth, & it is through them that the Divine manifesta¬tion takes place…. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline…. The King of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all who were not Chris¬tians & thus succeeded in establishing Christianity! It is not kings & emperors that keep alive spirituality but people who are really spiritual that do so…. The same thing happened to Mohammedanism (see Islam).” [Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, A.B. Purani, 2007, pp. 576-79]
... Bridge (near Rome) in 312. Just before the battle Constantine is said to have had a vision of a cross in the sky surrounded by the words in hoc signo vinces ("in this sign shalt thou conquer"). Convinced that the Christian God had helped him to victory, he ordered his troops to carry Christian insignia from that time on. Soon, in 313, Constantine (and the remaining co-emperor who still ruled with... elaborate provisions for an orderly succession were soon disregarded, and a series of civil wars put five different generals in control of various parts of the Empire. One of these generals was Constantine, who completely reversed Diocletian's policy of persecuting Christians. Scholars have long argued about the reasons for and the sincerity of Constantine's conversion to Christianity. His mother... he had some idea of the doctrines and the power of the religion before he became emperor. On the other hand, he had held command in Gaul, where Christians were neither numerous nor influential. Constantine cannot have believed that there were enough politically active Christians in his part of the Empire to make any difference in the struggle for power with rival generals. When he invoked the help ...
... the free Soul lodged in the vijñâna , and the legend "In this sign thou shalt conquer," which is appropriate, Page 233 but has the disadvantage of being borrowed from Christianity and Constantine. It would perhaps be better if you could find a Sanscrit equivalent or substitute. K. [23] Jan 2. 1920 Dear M— I write today only for your question about Manindranath and the other ...
... the Nicene Creed. Thus Jesus Christ is the Saviour of humanity. Such an interpretation of 'messiah' remains unacceptable to both Judaism and Islam. (c) Nicene Creed: In 325 CE, the Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicea to decide and establish the nature of Christ and his mission to humanity. From the earliest times after the Crucifixion, its meaning and the nature of Jesus as the Christ ...
... Charlemagne or, let us say, with Constantine? Is it because he only mentions his sanguinary conquest of Kalinga in order to speak of his remorse and the turning of his spirit, a sentiment which Charlemagne massacring the Saxons in order to make good Christians of them could not in the least have understood, nor any more perhaps the Pope who anointed him? Constantine gave the victory to the Christian... strove though not with a perfect success to follow the path laid down by Buddha. And the Indian mind would account him not only a nobler will, but a greater and more attracting personality than Constantine or Charlemagne. It is interested in Chanakya, but much more interested in Chaitanya. Page 252 And in literature also just as in actual life it has the same turn. This European mind finds ...
... significant characters are the cult of the inquiring, defining, effective, practical reason and the cult of life. The great high tides of European civilisation, Greek culture, the Roman world before Constantine, the Renascence, the modern age with its two colossal idols, Industrialism and physical Science, have come to the West on the strong ascending urge of this double force. Whenever the tide of these ...
... its explanation. We cannot ignore for instance the bloodstained and fiery track which formal external Christianity has left furrowed across the mediaeval history of Europe almost from the days of Constantine, its first hour of secular triumph, down to very recent times, or the sanguinary comment which Page 175 such an institution as the Inquisition affords on the claim of religion to be the ...
... living by the breath of the Holy Spirit, how are we to account for its disgraceful, bloodstained history? We have already suggested that the root-sin of the Church has, ever since the conversion of Constantine, been its betrayal of its spiritual mission in the interests of worldly power, and its total loss of Christ's gift of love, which was made manifest in its mad and criminal career of persecution and ...
... thinking that it started with a backing of force. St. Paul, whose epistles are our earliest Christian documents, was not the initiator of any "jihad". The backing of force came only with the arrival of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to be converted. Till then the Christians were at the wrong end of the stick, though the Roman persecution has been considerably exaggerated. This persecution was not on ...
... Revolt right up to the first quarter of the fourth century there was no claim to knowledge of the place where Jesus had been buried. Even those who fled to Pella transmitted nothing. Suddenly, when Constantine became Christian Page 215 as well as emperor, Christians came to believe that the "Holy Sepulchre" lay beneath Hadrian's temple of Venus. They razed the temple and with Con ...
... If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual, it would have been much better for real Buddhism. That is always the case with spiritual things. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline in its substance. The King of Norway, about whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all the people who were not Christians and thus succeeded in establishing ...
... that it became all-powerful. Sri Aurobindo : If kings and emperors had left Buddhism to those people who were really spiritual it would have been much better for real Buddhism. It was after Constantine embraced Christianity that it began to decline. The king of Norway, on whom Longfellow wrote a poem, killed all people who were not Christians Page 48 and thus succeeded in e ...
... and women willingly underwent imprisonment, torture and death in order that Christ's kingdom might come on earth & felicity possess the nations. But the kingdom that came was not Christ's; it was Constantine's, it was Hildebrand's, it was Alexander Borgia's. For another thirteen centuries the message was—what? Has it not been the chief support of fanaticism, falsehood, cruelty and hypocrisy, the purveyor ...
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