Constantine’s Cross

9. How is Emperor Constantine connected with the cross?

⁹ Constantine was the Roman emperor who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. and influenced it to adopt the unscriptural doctrine that Christ was God. He did this to solidify his empire of pagans and apostate Christians. Of him The New Encyclopædia Britannica says: “On the eve of Constantine’s victory over Maxentius in 312, he saw a vision of the ‘heavenly sign’ of the cross, which he believed to be a divine pledge of his triumph.” It also says that thereafter Constantine promoted the veneration of the cross.

10. Why is it not reasonable or Scriptural to believe that God or Christ gave Constantine a “sign” involving a cross?

¹⁰ However, would God give a sign to a pagan leader who was not doing God’s will, and a pagan sign at that?

11. What motivated Constantine to promote the use of the cross?

¹¹ The book Strange Survivals says of Constantine and his cross: “That there was policy in his conduct we can hardly doubt; the symbol he set up gratified the Christians in his army on one side, and the [pagan] Gauls on the other. . . . To the latter it was the token of the favour of their solar deity,” the sun god they worshiped. No, Constantine’s ‘heavenly sign’ had nothing to do with God or Christ but is steeped in paganism.