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The name of this story I’m going to put at the end, for you wouldn’t know what it means, anyway, until you have heard the story, and so it’s no use looking ahead.
All through the years since Christ was crucified, some people who said they believed in Christ had been terribly treated— persecuted , we call it—because they were Christians. They had been flogged; they had been stoned; they had been torn with iron hooks. They had been roasted and burned to death. Yet, strange as it may seem, in spite of this terrible treatment, more and more people were becoming Christians every day. They believed so strongly in life after death, and they believed that they would be so much happier after death if they died for Christ’s sake, that they seemed even glad to suffer and to be killed. At last the emperor himself put a stop to all these persecutions. This is how it happened.
About the year 300 A.D. Rome had an emperor by the name of Constantine. Constantine was not a Christian. His gods were the old Roman gods. He probably did not put much faith in them, however.
Well, once upon a time Constantine was fighting with an enemy when he dreamed one night that he saw in the sky a flaming cross. Beneath this cross were written the Latin words, In hoc signo vinces . In English this is, “In this sign thou shalt conquer.” Constantine thought this meant that if he carried the Christian cross into battle, he would conquer. He thought it would at least be worthwhile to give the Christian god a trial. So he marked the sign of the cross on the shields carried by his soldiers, and he did win the battle. To celebrate his victory, the Roman Senate built the Arch of Constantine, a triumphal arch with three openings, in the Forum of Rome. After this, Constantine made Christianity a legal religion in the Roman Empire. It is believed that he was baptized just before he died. From that time on, all the Roman emperors who came after Constantine—all except one—were Christians.
Constantine’s mother was named Helena. She became a Christian. Then she gave up her life to Christian works and built churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. It is said that she went to Palestine and found the actual cross on which Christ had been crucified three hundred years before and sent part of it to Rome. When she died she was made a saint. She is now called St. Helena.
Constantine built a church over the spot where St. Peter was supposed to have been crucified. Many years later, this church was torn down so that a much larger and grander church in honor of St. Peter might be built there.
Constantine did not care for Rome. He preferred to live in another city in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. This city was called Byzantium. So he moved from Rome to Byzantium and made that city his capital. Byzantium was called New Rome, and then the name was changed to Constantine’s city. In Greek, the word for city is polis . We see the word used in Annapolis and Indianapolis. Constantine’s City became Constantinopolis, and then shortened to Constantinople.
Hardly had the Roman Empire become Christian before a quarrel arose between those Christians who believed one thing and those who believed another. The chief thing they quarreled about was whether Christ was equal to God the Father or not equal to Him. Constantine called the two disagreeing sides together at a place called Nicaea to settle the question. There the leaders of each side argued the matter hotly. Finally, it was decided that the Christian Church should believe that God the Son and God the Father were equal. Then they agreed to put what they believed in words. This was called a creed, which means believe , and because it was made at Nicaea it was known as the Nicene Creed, which many Christians still say every Sunday.
Before the time of Constantine, there were no weekly holidays in the Roman Empire. Sunday was no different from any other day. People worked or did just the same things on Sunday as they did on other days. Constantine thought Christians should have one day a week for the worship of God— a holy day , or holiday, as we call it—so he made Sunday the Christian day of rest, a holy day such as Saturday is for Jews and Friday is for Muslims.
Although Constantine was head of the Roman Empire, there was another man whom all Christians throughout the world looked to as their spiritual head. This man was the Bishop of Rome. In Latin he was called Papa , which means the same thing in Latin that it does in English, father . So the bishop of Rome was called Papa , and this became pope . St. Peter was supposed to have been the first bishop of Rome. For many centuries the pope was the spiritual ruler of all Christians everywhere, no matter in what country they lived.
As now you know what the name of this story means, I’m putting it here:
In Hoc Signo Vinces