Posted on 11/12/2006 10:29:21 PM PST by blam
Space impact 'saved Christianity'
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and Christian history?
About the size of a football field: The impact crater left behind
A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to Christianity.
It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official status.
Civil war
In the fourth century AD, the fragmented Roman Empire was being further torn apart by civil war. Constantine and Maxentius were bitterly fighting to be the sole emperor.
Constantine was the son of the western emperor Constantius Chlorus. When he died in 306, his father's troops proclaimed Constantine emperor.
But in Rome, the favourite was Maxentius, son of Constantius' predecessor, Maximian.
With both men claiming the title, a conference was called in AD 308 that resulted in Maxentius being named as senior emperor along with Galerius, his father-in-law. Constantine was to be a Caesar, or junior emperor.
The situation was not a stable one, however, and by 312 the two men were at war.
Constantine overran Italy and faced Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber a few kilometres from Rome. Both knew it would be a decisive battle with Constantine's forces outnumbered.
'Conquer by this'
It was then that something strange happened. Eusebius - one of the Christian Church's early historians - relates the event in his Conversion of Constantine.
"...while he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have been hard to believe had it been related by any other person.
"...about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the Sun, and bearing the inscription 'conquer by this'.
"At this sight he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle."
Spurred on by divine intervention, Constantine's army won the day and he gave homage to the God of the Christians whom he believed had helped him.
This was a time when Christianity was struggling. Support from the most powerful man in the empire allowed the emerging religious movement to flourish.
Like a nuclear blast
But what was the celestial event that converted Constantine and altered the course of history?
Jens Ormo, a Swedish geologist, and colleagues working in Italy believe Constantine witnessed a meteoroid impact.
Drill rig: Sampling the crater
The research team believes it has identified what remains of the impactor's crater.
It is the small, circular Cratere del Sirente in central Italy. It is clearly an impact crater, Ormo says, because its shape fits and it is also surrounded by numerous smaller, secondary craters, gouged out by ejected debris, as expected from impact models.
Radiocarbon dating puts the crater's formation at about the right time to have been witnessed by Constantine and there are magnetic anomalies detected around the secondary craters - possibly due to magnetic fragments from the meteorite.
According to Ormo, it would have struck the Earth with the force of a small nuclear bomb, perhaps a kiloton in yield. It would have looked like a nuclear blast, with a mushroom cloud and shockwaves.
It would have been quite an impressive sight and, if it really was what Constantine saw, could have turned the tide of the conflict.
But what would have happened if this chance event - perhaps as rare as once every few thousand years - had not occurred in Italy at that time?
Maxentius might have won the battle. Roman history would have been different and the struggling Christians might not have received state patronage.
The history of Christianity and the establishment of the popes in Rome might have been very different.
The odds of two meteors entering the atmosphere at significantly different angles at the same time is beyond astronomical...
The 'mushroom cloud' following the meteorite's fiery impact might well have looked like a cross as it rose up - Roman crucifixion crosses didn't always have the spoke rising up the middle, and often were "T" shaped.
Nope. The impact mushroom cloud would have looked exactly like a crucifixion cross - many of which were "T" shaped, unlike the modern version....
Dude, since there were no biplanes around to 'write' in the sky with puffs of smoke, odds are pretty good that the phrase you quoted above is - how shall I put it - something called 'poetic license' on the part of the author....
Interesting article. Let's not forget though, that God is nature, and his miracles thus cannot be "supernatural," by the very definition. It's not so hard to believe that God would use a meteor or two, to send His sign, and it's really cool how he got the meteor to spell out "conquer by this."
So, are you saying that a God that created the Universe could actually cause two metors to fall where he wanted them to at the exact moment to carry out his divine will? Imagine that.... :) /sarc.... I'm with you.
LOL, yeah, poetic license on the part of Constantine and his entire army. Considering that the army marched against odds and conquered, and it appears to have made a very dramatic change in Constanine's life, I'd say the odds are much greater that this wasn't a chance meteor with poetic license but was a true divine intervention complete with Holy Sky Writing.
People like Saul who are on the fast track to religious leadership don't suddenly have Damascas road conversions and become one of the people they are killing, enduring stoning and prison, unless something really happened.
A leader like Constantine doesn't suddenly embrace a new religion like Christianity as a motivational technique when most of his men aren't Christian. No leader would introduce an unpopular religious controversy right before a battle. But when the whole army sees the vision, they can kick butt, and there can be changed lives.
Yes, the sight of a fireball followed by a nuclear-like explosion indeed qualifies as a vision....no need to try to embellish it...
There will never be enough proof to quiet the sceptics. You are shown the proof of a miracle in the sky, and now you ask for proof of the writing in the sky. It's hopeless to persuade those who will not see.
Sorry if that offends you.
You ought to be happy that historical evidence now shows that the Constantine story wasn't made up after the fact, but was indeed based on a true event...
I would argue that Christianity, in it's many forms extent at that time was not necessarily struggling, although historically, they did suffer from some persecution..
What "the most powerful man in the empire" did, was demand that Christian beliefs be consolidated into a religious institution acceptable to the emperor as a state religion..
He provided the early church with political power..
I would further argue that his imprimatur did not "save" Christianity, it may have destroyed it..
Christian beliefs were varied at that time, and many different sects and beliefs existed..
What we ended up with would probably not be recognized as Christianity by the believers of the time, and would likely be considered blasphemy by many..
Today's christianity is the result of a religious committee of "standards and practices"....
Also, who needs biplanes, when you already have airworthy chariots of wheels within wheels (Ezek), flight capable angels, and ultimate power? Not to mention the ability to affect men's senses to cause them to see what you want them to see, like Jesus did right after the resurrection when he was talking to the men about the recent goings on, and he prevented them from recognizing him until he was ready.
No, eventually the mohammedans will claim it's an Islamic holy site and do that for us.
Yes, it's 'just' lightning, 'just' a supernovea, 'just'...
Nothing in this universe is 'just nature'. As Einstein said: there's two ways to look at the universe - either nothing is a miracle; or everything is.
Like this?
He really does love us, and want us to be happy. Lets have a beer!
Face found on Earth ala the Face on Mars... listening to an iPod...
That looks to me like the crater from a large artillery shell.
I don't see teh connection.
It certainly does look like a Meteor impact and apparently did happen many centuries ago. As for the rest of the 'theory', simply amazing what they can deduce from such skimpy evidence.
The larger the rock and/or the faster the velocity, the larger the crater; no one says the rock was the same size each time.
http://www.hartrao.ac.za/other/tswaing/tswaing.html
What Made the Crater?
Drilling in the crater has shown that the rocks forming it have been shocked by an explosion, and are not volcanic in origin. In the explosion that formed the crater the incoming object would have been largely vaporised - there is no large buried object in or under the crater. The absence of such a buried object at the Barringer crater in Arizona caused confusion as to its origins for many years, although in that case traces of the original iron asteroid have been found.
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