Today we talked a bit more about Christianity in the Roman Empire. We discussed what happened after Diocletian's rule and when Constantine came into power. The comparison of how they each treated Christians is very little, and each of their ways of dealing with people who believed in the religion were very different. Diocletian tortured the Christians in brutal ways, often slowing burning them or crucifying hem in public. Constantine, however, took a different approach toward Christianity. It it believed that right before major battle, Constantine tried to pray to the Christian God instead of the Roman gods. The reason for this was to see if the Christian God even existed, and the second reason was that the Oracle kept giving them false information. According to legend, the sign of the cross appeared in the sky, with gold lettering underneath it saying "by this you will conquer". Constantine took this as a sign from the Christian God, and ordered all of this men to paint their shields with the cross on the front. They ended up winning the battle immensely. Constantine then ordered that all Christians stopped being executed.
(sorry this was so late. I had to leave early on Friday and didn't get back home until late Sunday.)
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