SEPT. 13 -- CHURCH, STATE, AND SOCIETY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

Constantine, again:

Constantinople:

Constantine, Helena and the True Cross (later Byzantine icon):

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

Defining "Correct" Faith:  Orthodoxy and Heresy

Leave it to the experts:  Apostolic Authority

The Controversy over the Trinity:  Is God One or Three?

Is the Son equally God, or an inferior created being?

The Stakes:  Where you'll go if you get it wrong

The heretic Arius gets what's coming to him:

"As he approached the place called Constantine's Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected..."

"...a terror arising from the remorse of conscience seized Arius, and with that terror a violent relaxation of the bowels:  he therefore enquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither.  Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded..."

Christianity and Paganism

Pagan Temples:  The Abode of Demons

Idol-Worshippers (depicted in the Dura Synagogue):

Fides Idolatria Conculcat (Faith Stomps on Idolatry):

Pagan Statues "exorcised" by the Sign of the Cross:

Luxor, Egypt:  ancient Pharaonic temple "converted" into church (and later into mosque):

Original Sin: