Constantine and christianity

I don't really buy into Prof. Rufus Fears thesis that throughout history, the defining moments are the ones that are created by decisions of single individuals but in the case of Constantine, this really appears to be the case. There were many cult religions like Christianity that were about saving one's soul and praying to one god. In fact, the story of Dionysus, the son of Zeus, is eerily similar to that of Jesus. Dionysus was son of Zeus and born of a mortal mother. He was killed but he resurrected. And his followers consumed his blood in the form of wine in order to be saved. Christians in particular began to be prosecuted in the 1st and 2nd century by the roman empire because this religion proposed freedom of conscience. It was because under Christianity, one only prayed to one god and serving the roman gods was prohibited. As the roman empire was facing problems in the middle east and with the Germanic tribes, Christians served as perfect scapegoats. It was because they were not obeying the roman gods that we are losing all these wars, they said. While this religion was almost extinct, the arrival of Constantine changed all that. During one crucial battle, Constantine had a vision of Christ and that he had been chosen to spread Christianity. He was able to surprisingly defeat his opponent and was inspired by the vision he had. Perhaps he had some political motivations as well for selecting Christianity as a state religion. For Romans, all these different gods led to the same divine path, but for Christians, there was only one right path. And by creating the capital Constantine of the roman empire and making himself head of the church, Constantine had become another apostle of the god. He had become a religious figure as well as a political and military figure. As soon as Christianity became the dominant religion, orthodoxy came in full force and if you were not practicing Christianity the right way, you were sinning. Christianity went from being persecuted to the persecutors.

The Romans would never had imagined that 1000 years later, their greatest contribution to the future societies was not their aqueducts or their laws, but two religions, Christianity and Islam. Perhaps our contribution for the societies 1000 years later would not be our love for democracy or freedom but our worshiping of the idol known as Ronald McDonald whose shrines we had built all over the world.