How did the conversion of Constantine influence Christianity?
It was October, 312. A young general who had the allegiance of all the Roman troops from Britain and Gaul was marching toward Rome to challenge Maxentius, another claimant to the imperial throne. As the story goes, General Constantine looked up and saw a cross of light in the sky. An inscription read, “In this conquer.” The superstitious soldier was already beginning to reject the Roman deities in favor of a single god. His father had worshiped a supreme sun-god. Could this be a favorable omen from that god on the eve of battle? Later, Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream , bearing the same sign, a cross with the top bent over, resembling the Greek letters chi and rho, the first two letters of Christos. The general was instructed to mark this sign on his soldiers’ shields. He did. As promised, Constantine won the battle. It was one of several decisive moments in a quarter century of violent change. If you had left Rome in A.D. 305, to spend twenty years in the desert