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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gsimonel, post: 5245216, member: 82549&quot;]I don&#039;t think there is anything cynical about it. Constantine was a product of his times, and that was the norm. Indeed, the whole point of religious observance was to figure out who the most powerful god was and then appease that god so that he or she would protect you from your enemies and disaster. I think Constantine&#039;s attempts to understand Christianity were sincere, but the reason he wanted to understand it was&nbsp; still basic self-preservation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Keep in mind, too, that Christianity was a very different religion in the early 4th century compared to Christianity today. Most Christians today assume that the religion they follow is the religion brought to us by Jesus (or Paul). Yet many of the most fundamental beliefs of Christianity--the Trinity, the idea of salvation by grace rather than through good works or personal effort--these were all were much later developments and still not widely accepted during Constantine&#039;s time. Most Christians today probably don&#039;t realize that the doctrine of a triune God--&quot;God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost&quot;--never appears in the bible. These are all later, human-developed (divinely inspired, I suppose, if you&#039;re a believer) ideas. Many wars were fought, and many, many people killed, before they became widely accepted.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>There is also a lot of speculation that Helena, his mother, was a Christian and introduced him to Christianity at an early age.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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