Contemporary’s Constantine: Political Manipulation Under the Aegis of Religion
The world has been evolving since the era of ancient Rome yet the importance of both religion and politics have never been detached to one another. Taking a deeper look to this very statue, Constantine (ca A.D. 280– 337), arguably was the Roman emperor who brought up Christianity to the societal surface during his leadership. Here and there you would have probably heard how he successfully Christianised the empire, “moved” the people by faith, and expanding his reign greatly. To this end, the stories of Constantine sometimes are used to defend how religion could dance in the same rhythm with politics and remained remarkable. Inspirational, his people might have thought of him, yet the new archaeological findings said things differently.
The issue that has raised is the fact that today’s archeologists have found out several antithesis of what is commonly believed by the public, they have speculated that there is a big chance that Constantine was not a Christian himself. The new findings showed that even the Arch of Constantine did not show any sign of Christianity as what have been depicted in Raphael’s paintings, rather many of which indicated the sign of Mithraism/Apollo worships. Due to these new findings, some scholars argued that Constantine-as precocious as he was, just using the idea of Christianity to gain the trust of the oppressed believers, subtly sway them bit by bit to help him acquiring his own political interests.
The faces of Jesus, Apollo, whoever that might be were arguably swapped into his, he basically had a gigantic statue made for his face resemblance, to which this fact makes it seem rather far to align to any religion-let alone the Abrahamic.
In today’s political climate, perhaps, it would be a lot easier to recognise such political pilot. Sad to say, even with all the easy-access knowledge to sharpen each individual’s viewpoints in politics, human beings are still being used as a power-gaining tools. People are easily swayed to be indoctrinated against one another, under the name of solidarity. Votes are easily drifted by ruling class and poet’s mesmerising oratory. Some leaders who got sympathy from their sickening religious oratory under the name of solidarity are still standing there today, some of them are watching its own reign eats itself from within.
Religion, religion, religion, they are using such unifying concept for the most revolting acts — dividing brothers and nations.
Whilst separating politics from religions are rather improbable; religion should be unifying, it encouraged peace and not otherwise.
The imagery of Constantine, his depiction of dedication in protecting the spiritual oppressed or even to represent majorities or minorities for his own political gain should have given us the best example what not to see in our leaders.
