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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